Sicario: Day of the Soldado

First Hit: With a reflection towards today’s boarder issues and cartels, this film also shows us a side of our government that could also exist.

Our government manipulates groups of people to change the course of events to suit themselves.

In this movie, we have the government wanting to start a war between Mexican drug cartels so that it disrupts the flow of people coming into the United States. They want to do this, because their belief is that a terrorist bombing explosion in a Kansas City grocery store was done by Islamic radicals that came through the Mexican border. They believe the cartels are transporting these radicals across the borders.

To create this disruption, our Secretary of Defense James Riley (Matthew Modine) brings on Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) CIA Special Activities Division agent, to figure out how to start a war between two cartels. By doing so he hopes to disrupt the inflow of terrorists across the Mexican border. He says the way to do this is to kidnap one of the cartels children and have the evidence point to the kidnapping by a rival cartel. Once Riley decides to go with this plan, he assigns Cynthia Foards (Catherine Keener) to manage the operation.

Graver brings on Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) who has a grudge against Carlos Reyes one of the cartels' leaders because they killed his family. Besides being motivated, Garver tells Alejandro he’s got free reign to do what he needs to make this operation happen.

The subplot is about a young boy Miguel Hernandez (Elijah Rodriguez) who is lured by money to become a coyote and take people across the border. Because he lives in the U.S. he can easily go across the border as needed to pick up his cargo of immigrants and take them across the river to the U.S. side.

When Alejandro and Graver kidnaps Isabel Reyes(Isabella Moner), they try to bring her back into Mexico. However, the Mexican police get involved, start a gun fight with the CIA, and try to get the girl back by killing the CIA operatives in convoy. The whole mission goes sour.

Riley and Foards find out that most of the bombers were born U.S. Citizens and not from over the border. This and with the convoy attack, Riley tells Graver to “clean it all up,” meaning kill the girl and Alejandro who escaped the Mexican Police assault. However, Alejandro has some integrity, is in possession of the girl, and decides he’s going to help the girl and himself stay alive and figure out a way out of the mess they're in.

The action is intense in this film and there is humility and kind humanity. As for the latter, there is a sweet sequence when Alejandro meets up with Angel (Bruno Bichir), a deaf man, finds a way to communicate with him, and asks him to help both him and the girl.

Brolin is strong in this CIA role. He carries the right amount of commanding surety in his character. Modine is excellent as Secretary of Defense. Keener was OK as the mission’s commander. Del Toro was excellent as the assassin with a heart. Moner was a revelation in this role. She showed wisdom far deeper than her age and perfect for the role. Rodriguez was very good as the brooding young man trying to find his way through his life. Bichir was wonderful as the deaf man who helps Alejandro and Reyes. Taylor Sheridan wrote a strong script that bordered on being too complicated for the required action. Stefano Sollima did a wonderful job of directing the action in this film.

Overall: I liked the relatedness to today’s border issues along with the movie's dramatization of the ugly truth that our government is not above throwing people away to cover their mistakes.

Get Out

First Hit:  I enjoyed it because it was both odd and interestingly good.

The very first scene before the initial credits, the audience watches a young black man Andrew (Lakeith Stanfield) who is looking lost while walking on a sidewalk in a dark suburban neighborhood when a white car pulls up next to him. He decides that it’s best that he leaves the area but gets mugged and stuffed into the car’s trunk. The way this scene is shot, the scared - this is not my neighborhood - feeling, the resulting fight, the stiffness of the body and the way it’s stuffed into the trunk is effective and encompases and the set up for the entire film.

Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), who is black, is a photographer and is dating a white suburban girl named Rose Armitage (Allison Williams). She decides to take him to her home. When he asks her, "do they know I'm black?", she seems surprised and says her family isn’t racist and that there no need to tell them ahead of time.

Arriving, there is an initial openness and friendliness that supports her story about her family, but the black man, Walter (Marcus Henderson), working in the yard, and the black woman, Georgina (Betty Gabriel), working in the house seem off, not quite right. Chris takes note of this and during a conversation with Rose’s dad Dean (Bradley Whitford) things seem even more off center. Then at dinner Chris meets the Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones), and he makes even more odd comments about his physical characteristics that make him feel like a specimen.

Then he spends time with the Rose’s mother Missy (Catherine Keener) who is a psychologist that specializes in hypnotism. She puts him under without him knowing it and while under the guise to help him quit smoking, the audience knows there's more going on.

These events are followed the next day by a party with really odd guests that have Andrew reappearing as a zombie like friend of an older white woman. This slow buildup transitions to a rather bizarre story that has Chris reaching out to his friend Rod (Lil Rel Howery) who is a TSA agent, is talkative and curious type person. At first you think his thoughts and feedback are hyperbole but he might be onto something.

This whole thing leads to an interesting storyline that is entertaining, spooky, and fun to watch.

Kaluuya does an effective job in this role. His ability to cry while in a supposedly hypnotic state and talking about his mother’s death was wonderful. His curiosity and using his intuitive antenna to figure out what is going on was superb. Williams was wonderful and fully believable as both someone who cared about Chris and also the supported the family mission to alter lives to their best interest. Henderson and Gabriel were especially effective in their zombie like roles. Stanfield was wonderful as both the scared guy walking through the neighborhood and then as zombie arm candy. Howery was fantastic as someone who believed in himself and effectively leveraged his bizarre role of the guy who becomes the hero. Keener was strong as the psychologist mother who controlled people’s behavior though hypnosis. Whitford was clearly effective as the pleasing probing dad. Jones was excellent as the twisted brother. Jordan Peele had a clear interesting vision through his script and did a wonderful job of executing this vision as Director.

Overall:  This was a slightly different twist on horror through control of people

Cyrus

First Hit: Disturbing, insightful, funny and well-acted film which surprised me.

I’m not a Jonah Hill fan; however as Cyrus he is dead-on perfect. He plays a character who is disturbed, overly protected by his mother Molly (played by Marisa Tomei), intelligent, and very shielding of his relationship with his mother.

However, the film is really a vehicle for John C. Reilly to display both his comedic and dramatic talents. John (played by Reilly) is lost after his divorce 7 years ago. His ex-wife Jamie (played by Catherine Keener) is getting married but spends a lot of time trying to get John better adjusted because he is floundering. She makes him go to a party where he makes some funny and very awkward attempts to make conversation with some of the guests.

Then he meets Molly who sees him and accepts him immediately. They spend the evening together and eventually he meets her son Cyrus who pretends to like him, but really is plotting to get him out of the house. There is nothing hidden from the audience but it doesn’t matter the characters are strong enough to make it work.

Reilly is very good as the lonely guy who thinks of himself as Shrek with no hope of meeting someone as amazing as Molly. He is able to show a multitude of feelings and expressions without it being forced. He is natural in this role. Tomei is wonderful. Seeing her in a role reminded me about how good she is and why I like seeing her in films. Hill, as I stated before, is very good in this role and embodies Cyrus, a boy/man who is lost but talented and intelligent.

Overall: I liked this film and thought that writers and directors Mark and Jay Duplass created a wonderful, thoughtful and insightful film.

Synecdoche, New York

First Hit: This was a very odd and different type film which makes an attempt to answer the big question: What am I doing here? But it was too long and was overly complicated and lost its zip somewhere in the middle.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard a local theater director who attempts to do something different; in this case he casts his version of “Death of a Salesman” with only young people.

His wife Adele Lack (played by Catherine Keener) is a painter who paints portraits very small (one inch) canvases. Their relationship is strained from not communicating. She heads off to Germany with their daughter to do a show and doesn’t return.

Caden wins a MacArthur Grant and decides to stage a play that is meaningful to him. He rents out a building that appears larger than a blimp hangar and starts to cast people as people in his life. To make this more real to him he builds a smaller replica of New York and the buildings which house the people in his life inside the hanger.

From here the film begins to lose its track, focus and bogs down in too much detail and replayed scenes. But the irony is that this is Caden’s problem anyway and eventually casts someone to play himself directing this ensemble while he is directing the ensemble. Sound odd?

It is but there are valid points made throughout this film, including how much time people spend waiting for the right thing to come along so that they can begin their lives instead of living it.

Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed this film and Hoffman is about the only actor I can think of who could make this film work at all. The cast is huge and pits some of our best actors in some different, odd, and challenging roles.

Overall: It is a long film, more than two hours, and requires patience and an open mind to sit through. Although I wouldn’t see it again, I’m glad I did.

What Just Happened

First Hit: What made this film likeable was that it put forth a version of Hollywood, and how it works, from a producers point view. And although the producer is on a down slope, watching him maintain a level and illusion of power is stressful and funny in a dehumanizing way.

Robert De Niro plays Ben a producer who at one point in time was powerful in the Hollywood Studio world. The film begins with a pre-test of his latest film by a young wacky avant-garde director.

The film that is being previewed stars Sean Penn who likes the edgy and horrible ending. Because he is tied to the film it is getting a preview at Cannes. The pre-test reviews and data say this film isn’t any good and the studio head wants to pull it from Cannes unless the director re-cuts it. The ending simply makes the film unwatchable.

The meeting with studio head (played by Catherine Keener) where Ben and the director (played by Michael Wincott) must hear how the studio wants the film changed brings out the best in these three characters. Robin Wright Penn plays Kelly the second of Ben’s ex-wives.

Ben still has feelings for Kelly (played by Robin Wright Penn) the second of his ex-wives. So he still tries to see her outside of their “breakup therapy”. The first ex-wife, with whom he has a daughter named Zoe, is getting $30,000 a month. That along with the two children he has with Kelly means he has a lot of pressure to keep making films and good ones because there is a lot of money owed each month.

Additionally, each of his wives lives in a really nice home while he is living is a very modest apartment. He is very nervous because his next film is about to be cancelled by the studio because the talent, Bruce Willis playing himself, is being rebellious. Bruce is supposed to play a romantic lead in this film but he doesn’t want to shave his huge beard and is challenging the studio.

The studio says “no way” to the beard and, therefore, is threatening to cancel the film because they don’t think that an overweight bearded Bruce in a romantic lead can be sold to the public.

The scene of with Ben, the studio reps, and Bruce’s agent waiting for Bruce to walk out of his trailer with or without beard is priceless.

De Niro is better in this film than he was with Pacino in “Righteous Kill” (reviewed earlier). It is clear he knows the character and the script. Willis is great as Bruce. Robin Wright Penn is good as conflicted ex-wife that still has some feelings for her emotionally detached ex. Barry Levinson directs this with an even hand and his knowledge of both the business and his directing craft make this film work.

Overall: I enjoyed the premise. It does transcend Hollywood because there are millions of businessmen who also have huge obligations and bend and BS their way through situations just to make others happy and the situation work. In the end we sometimes end up in mediocrity.