Angel Has Fallen

First Hit: Highly implausible, slightly boring at times, but there were a couple of touching scenes.

The film begins with Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) moving through rooms in a building shooting and being shot at. It looks and feels real. Then he gets captured, and we discover it is a training exercise at Wade Jennings’ (Danny Huston) new combat training facility.

Wade and Mike talk, and we learn that they are old combat friends. Their lives’ have diverged with Wade setting up this large facility hoping to obtain government contracts to train people and participate in wars for the USA. Mike is a Secret Service Agent, married, with a young daughter, and in line to become a Director.

Mike is shown taking pills to alleviate headaches and other body pains, a result from his past work. As a long-standing Secret Service Agent, he works closely with President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), and during a fishing excursion, the President and all the Secret Service Agents are attacked by a fleet of tiny drones.

The drones kill everyone except Mike and The President because they dive into the water. The audience knows who sent the drones, and it takes very little time for the audience to figure out who is behind the perpetrator’s scheme.

The film attempts to make this story interesting by having the FBI determine that Mike set up the presidential assassination, so they are after him. Having been rescued with the President after the attempt, they lock him up, but of course he escapes their custody. However, relying on this worn storyline, and knowing this isn’t true, there is no suspense in this film, and it now must rely solely on the action being good enough to keep the audience engaged.

For me, it didn’t. It was too predictable, not very inventive, and the film felt like it was trying to be good, but it didn’t flow smoothly or interestingly.

The best parts were when Mike found and engaged with his long-lost father, Clay (Nick Nolte). Clay is a very crusty Vietnam veteran living entirely off the grid deep in a forest area of Virginia. When Wade’s agents, who are looking to kill Mike, come to assassinate them on Clay’s land, Clay’s skills as a mercenary are a hoot to watch in action.

Teaming up, Clay and Mike head out from Clay’s cabin and try to find out who’s behind the assassination attempt and to save The President because someone clearly wants him dead.

When Clay shows up at Mike’s home and surprises his wife Leah (Piper Perabo), the scene is both touching and funny.

Everyone knows how the film ends, and although The President spends most of the time in a coma, his last two scenes, one with Mike and one with his Vice President Kirby (Tim Blake Nelson) make up for some of the film’s failings.

Butler was satisfactory in this role as Banning. Given the prognosis from doctors about his physical condition, I sincerely doubt that he would have been able to live through the action he was involved in. But that is movie life, they set up the impossible, but he succeeds. Nolte was a hoot. The Butler remark that he could be mistaken for the Unabomber was perfect. Nolte does a superlative crusty mean. Perabo had a small role, but her sincerity and nature were terrific. The film might be better served if she were more integral to the story. Freeman was his calm intelligent self and always makes a good president, or God. Huston was excellent as the “lion” who wanted to live a life of a lion and fight to the end. Nelson as VP was too easy to see through, from the get-go. Robert Mark Kamen and Matt Cook wrote the screenplay. The issue with it is that it used worn-out ideas in an old concept. There was nothing refreshingly new here except using small drones, in a swarm, to make an assassination attempt. Ric Roman Waugh has a mediocre script to work with, but many scenes seemed to take too long and had little value.

Overall: Just wasn’t exciting enough to keep me engaged.

Stan & Ollie

First Hit: This is an outstanding, beautiful, love story about how two men spent their lives together making audiences laugh.

Like a married couple, Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) spent years of their lives together. In that time together, their bond of respect and friendship developed while on the road doing shows and making films making people laugh.

This film begins with the men doing a scene for a movie in their heyday. They are kibitzing in a trailer talking about the number of marriages Oliver had, all the money he had to give to these ex-wives, and his love for the ponies. The scene they shoot is one of their favorite dance routines, and it is a sight to behold.

Stan, on the other hand, was always working, writing, and thinking of gags for the duo to use in their films or stage act. As they enter the set to shoot a scene, Stan wants Oliver and himself to start their own production company because they do all the work and manager-producer Hal Roach (Danny Huston) and the film company is making all the money. Stan can get out of his contract, but Oliver cannot. They split up.

We see a brief scene where Oliver does a movie (“the elephant film”) with someone else.

The film then shifts to sixteen years later, and they are in their sixties. Their old movies still show in theaters, but few people see them, and they receive no royalties for their work. They both need money and Stan, who has never stopped working, is attempting to get financing together for a Laurel & Hardy film version of Robin Hood. To help them finance the film and to demonstrate their draw, they decide to tour England, Ireland, and Scotland to drum up interest. The hope is that the possible financier will see them in a London show.

The tour starts slowly, and they play tiny second-rate houses, stay in second-rate hotels, and the crowds are small. However, the people who do come to the shows, love them. Harry Landon (Richard Cant), their tour organizer decide they have to do some promotional newsreels. So, the film shows them promoting their shows and all of a sudden, the theaters are packed and their playing in front of audiences of 2,000.

When they reach London their respective wives, Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Kitaeva Laurel (Nina Arlanda) show up to see the big show in one of London’s most prominent theaters.

Lucille and Ida are a hoot together and separately as they are very different people and care about their husbands differently. However, the tour has been tough on both, especially Oliver. His weight challenges his heart, and his ability to move has been difficult. Then the underlying animosity, because Oliver did a film without Stan, comes out in a public argument.

Oliver has a mild heart attack and decides to retire. Stan tries to go on with a British replacement, but he cannot, it’s not Oliver, his partner, friend, and original cohort.

As the film winds up, Stan and Oliver do one more show and do their dance routine, it is sublime and brought such joy to my heart watching them.

Reilly was amazing. His expressions and ability to be Oliver Hardy was beyond anything I thought he could do. I was transported to 1957 as a little boy laughing out loud watching Laurel and Hardy on our black and white television. Coogan was equally fantastic as Stan Laurel. His routines, the one with the egg, were sublime. Arlanda and Henderson, Laurel and Hardy’s respective wives, were hilarious. I loved watching them snipe at each other and then, when watching their husbands’ last show, holding hands. Huston was superb as Hal Roach as was Cant in his role. Jeff Pope wrote a divine script. Jon S. Baird took this script and these amazing actors and made superb, finely crafted film.

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film and would watch it again.

Big Eyes

First Hit:  Captured the era in a great way and was effective in telling this story.

Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) painted the “Big Eye” paintings that captured the hearts of many. The question is would the paintings have been so well known, distributed, and sold if it weren’t for her husband?

Probably not, however Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz) also took credit for painting his wife’s paintings. Walter wanted to be a painter but his skill was in selling. And because he could sell his wife’s work, he also wanted to feed his ego and take credit for painting them as well. Why Margaret agreed to this deception wasn’t explored very deeply.

Although the story was interesting, noteworthy, and gave credence to the power of owning one’s own power, what I liked about the film, were the cars, dress, and representation of the 1950’s and early 1960’s. The brightness and newness of the time after WWII was palatable. To me the defining scene about the time period was early when Margaret and daughter Jane (young Jane – Delaney Raye) escape in the green Ford and head out across the country. The roadside signs, the car and other cars on the road was representative and magical of the time.

Adams was very good as Margaret. She really embodied the time and spirit of a woman wanting to own her power in a societal time where it was felt that men ruled the roost. Waltz was delightfully deceitful, charming and snarky. I loved the courtroom scenes where he ranted, raved and showed that he struggled to paint anything. Both Raye and Madeleine Arthur were wonderful as Margaret’s child Jane. Danny Huston as the reporter Dick Nolan, from which this story is told, was very good as well. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski wrote this dialogue rich script. Tim Burton, as expected, focused on the cinematography, rather than creating interest in the characters.

Overall:  Although I really liked the story, there was something missing from it to make it memorable.