The Mountain Between Us

First Hit: Although a predictable story, it was touchingly well acted.

The story is relatively simple. Two strangers with very specific needs hire a private plane to fly them from Boise, ID to Denver, CO because their Denver flight has been cancelled, and there are no other flights that will get them to their destinations on time. Ben Bass (Idris Elba) is a surgeon and is expected in Baltimore the next day to perform surgery on a 10-year old boy. Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) is a news photographer who needs to head east because she’s getting married the next day. They are both motivated.

Hiring Walter (Beau Bridges) a veteran pilot, they get in his small plane, and without a flight plan, head out over Rocky Mountains towards Denver. Walter has a heart attack and during his struggle the plane crashes. Walter dies, Alex breaks a leg but is alive and Ben has some cracked ribs and bumps and bruises. Walter’s dog, who came along for the ride, also survives the crash.

They hang out in the partial fuselage that remains hoping to be seen in the mountain snow, but as commercial planes fly thousands of feet above them, they have an argument about what to do. Alex is a chance taker and wants to climb out of the mountains, while Ben is conservative in thought and action and he wants to stay at the plane. Neither of them believe they are going to make it out alive.

One morning, she heads out hobbling along through the deep snow with a temporary splint on her left leg. The dog goes with her. Ben stays back at the plane but decides to catch up with Alex and, reconciling their different views, decide to make an attempt to get out together.

Because they are so different, this story is excellent to have the characters learn about each other in their own ways. Ben is quiet and doesn’t want to talk about his personal life while Alex shares about herself and spends energy coxing more feelings out of Ben.

The excellent script, photography and acting allowed the audience to feel how cold they were, the pain of their injuries, the sadness of almost dying, and their developing relationship. We feel their focus on staying alive and getting down the mountain. We participate in what they go through together and their hopelessness.

Winslet is very good as the adventuring photographer who takes risks. We could sense her adventurous spirit. Elba was excellent as the conservative acting surgeon. His slow unfolding and sharing of his life in the film was wonderful. Bridges was wonderful in his short lived role. J. Mills Goodloe and Chris Weitz co-wrote an excellent screenplay which captured a slow developing caring of the characters. Hany Abu-Assad directed these two gifted actors with clear intention. They were strangers when they started and were both from very different worlds, and Hany elicited a slow revealing of these actors to the audience and to each other.

Overall: Although it had a predictable ending, the meat of story of how they worked together to get themselves down the mountain was worth watching.

The Descendants

First Hit: Very good acting, especially by George Clooney, but the link to the title is weak.

The Descendants are his relatives and the history of Matt King’s (played by George Clooney) family in Hawaii.

King is a lawyer and sole trustee for the family’s estate, which over the years has been broken apart. There is one huge parcel left and the family members (cousins, nieces, and others) are tossed as to what to do with this property. Some want it preserved and others want it sold for development.

Selling it has the benefit of making almost everyone rich even though most of them were rich enough but squandered their money already. However, storyline is not what this film is about.

What this film is about is how a man navigates a path through making major decisions honorably and all within a 1 month period of time. During the negotiations for the possible sale of this land King’s wife Elizabeth (played by Patricia Hastie) is in the hospital in a coma from a boating accident.

Matt and his wife had lost their path together and therefore there is regret. Their older daughter Alexandra (played by Shailene Woodley) is in a$35K a year school for girls that have drug problems and are in emotional trouble.

Their younger daughter Scottie (played by Amara Miller) has wild ideas and is difficult to handle. The story isn’t about “The Descendants”, it is about dealing with the real estate transaction and his extended family, his wife dying, discovering his wife was having an affair prior to the boating accident, his older daughter and how to help her on her path of discovery to a fuller life, and his younger daughter and how to bring her up.

Clooney is at the top of his game. His subtle expressions of pain, confusion, anger and sadness are top notch. Woodley is wonderful as the older daughter. The intensity and deep pain of catching her mom in an affair and having to share this with her father was extraordinary. Miller as the younger daughter brought the right level of cuteness and abandon required for the role. Nick Krause as Sid and Alexandra’s friend was perfect as the smart and smart-alecky boy who pushed the film along in a unique way. Beau Bridges as Matt’s cousin Hugh who wants the sale to happen was great to see again. Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon wrote a strong screen play that wasn’t afraid to accurately bring up strong situations (like Sid’s laughing at an old persons lost memory). However I’m wondering what the film would have been like without the real estate sale. It seemed like an also ran of the plot but also an odd focal point. Payne also directed this film and he got great performances out of all the characters.

Overall:  This was an actor’s film and they were up to the challenge.

Max Payne

First Hit: This film was a mix of comic book and video like video acting with a made up sense of something otherworldly.

Although it was nice to see Beau Bridges in a film again, this pleasure (along with his part) wasn’t enough to make this movie worthwhile.

What is the story here? We slowly figure out that Mark Wahlberg (playing Max Payne) is sitting in cop purgatory because it is the only way he can work on trying to figure out who killed his wife and child. Well maybe that was the reason or plot, who knows.

There is also a mystery drug involved that allows people to feel strong and invincible but it only works for some people. There are also weird flying people/spirits who are more like shadow people that only can be seen by people who take the drug but it doesn’t agree with them.

And there is a lady who is head of a corporation who somehow is in-charge of stuff but isn’t. Bridges plays the head of security for the corporation but seems to have more authority than head of security would normally get. What do these discordant sentences mean? Not much but it is reflective of the film.

This film is a mess. There is very little plot line stringing this story together and overall spending time trying to make it work in my mind made me bored. Wahlberg is sinking fast because the last two films I’ve seen him in he is either overacting or plodding along trying to make something interesting when there is nothing that makes the story compelling.

Overall: Although there were 14 – 17 year old young people in the theater who ooohed and ahhhed, I don’t get how films like this make so much money. It was a waste of film, special effects, and Beau Bridges time. The one redeeming value is that on a hot day the cool theater made the wait for the film to end worthwhile.