The Laundromat

First Hit: Confusing in presentation and often meandering away from the point, this movie fails in presenting how shell companies work to launder money and how this wrongdoing is hidden from governments.

This film attempts to teach and engage the audience about the art of laundering money through a story of tragedy, charts and graphs, and humorous vignettes. It fails on all three fronts.

Jurgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramon Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) are two flamboyant law partners based in Panama City who run a set of bogus insurance and reinsurance companies. These insurance companies scam others by taking their money, hide it, change documentation, and then legally never payout against the claims. They also have set up schemes of shell companies where money is hidden and moved around so that taxes are never paid on the money.

The human life stories they use include Ellen and Joe Martin (Meryl Streep and James Cromwell, respectively) who are in retirement and decide to go on a lake tour boat. The boat capsizes because of a rogue wave, and Joe dies along with several others. Ellen, as one of the survivors, expects a class action financial settlement from the tour boat company’s insurance company.

However, Ellen’s lawyer (Larry Clarke) discovers that the insurance company used by the boat tour company had sold the policy to someone else and that the timing issue means the boat company wasn’t insured.

The film spends a little time with the boat owner, Captain Paris (Robert Patrick), as he discovers from his employee Matthew Quirk (David Schwimmer) that he’d gotten a deal on the insurance, and that’s why he selected this company. The payments were going to a shell company (postal box) on Nevis Island in the Caribbean that is run by Malchus Irvin Boncamper (Jeffrey Wright).

Ellen, who is mad as hell, traces the payment scheme and goes to Nevis, hoping to recover a settlement and discovers that the address is only a postal box.

The film stupidly adds in stuff about how Boncamper has two families, one on Nevis and one in Miami. And he gets caught in this charade while being arrested in Miami by the federal government.

The story also adds in other drama about a wealthy man, from Africa, living in the US having an affair with his daughter’s college friend. Getting caught by the daughter, he bribes her to not tell her mother by giving her a company that’s supposedly is worth $20M. Because of a previous indiscretion that his wife knew about, this man had also given his wife a company. Angry at the bribe and tired of his shenanigans, the wife and daughter head to Panama City to visit Mossack and Fonseca and cash in their stock.

Of course, they discover that their companies are fake shell organizations, and the stock is worth nothing because the husband has transferred all the funds to his own companies.

There are ill-timed and confusing graphics thrown into the mix, and there are additional maudlin scenes of Ellen with her daughter and grandchildren in Las Vegas where Ellen and Joe had met. The whole Las Vegas segue could have been left out as it added little to the story.

This film suffers significantly from the beginning moments with Mossack and Fonseca in contrived scenes with them talking to the camera and attempting to explain financial schemes in horrible accents that make it even more muddled.

Streep is wasted and horribly underused in this story. Oldman is horrible. I’ve no idea of what he was attempting to represent because one moment he’s sitting in a beach chair and the next he’s pretending to be a lawyer using a perverse accent. Banderas was slightly better than Oldman, but not much. Wright was okay as the elusive representative of a fake insurance company. Schwimmer was OK as the relative and employee of the tour boat company that had looked to save them money on insurance premiums. There are nearly forty other actors playing roles in this story, but because the story is confusingly contrived, no one character is developed. Scott Z. Burns wrote a disastrous screenplay. Steven directed this, and it would have been interesting to better understand what was in his head. I was thrown from one ill-conceived scene to another while being interrupted with graphic explanations with poorly articulated voiceovers.

Overall: I learned little to nothing about shell companies and tax avoidance because the stories thrown up on the screen were poorly conceived.

The Goldfinch

First Hit: In general, I liked it despite the slow pacing and the occasional, awkward movement between time.

Occasionally while watching this film, I thought of how this might have been a problematic adaptation from the novel. Because of the strengths and weaknesses of each medium, I make it a point to not read many fiction books.

Theo Decker (Oakes Fegley as the younger and Ansel Elgort and the older Theo), was traumatized early in life because as he and his mother toured a New York City museum, a bomb went off, killing his mother.

The traumatization of this event is carried throughout the film by the actors and how they respond to what is going on around them. Both the young and adult Theos are almost zombie-like at times, looking blankly at the people talking to them and responding with little emotion. What Theo uses, as a child and adult, is The Goldfinch painting he had taken during the bombing. This painting was his mother’s favorite, and it is the one thing he has left to remind himself of her and their time together.

Theo’s father Larry (Owen Wilson) is not in the young boy’s life because he drank too much and was a mean alcoholic. Because his father is not around and he’s got nowhere to go, the State puts him in the home of the Barbour’s (Boyd Gaines and Nicole Kidman). Mr. Barbour is gregarious while Mrs. Barbour is thoughtful, quiet, pragmatic, and reserved. The audience is presented scenes where we see how she is slowly becoming very fond of Theo and his relationship with her young son Andy.

Of the Barbour’s children, Andy (Ryan Foust) and Kitsey (Carly Connors as the young Kitsey and Willa Fitzgerald as the older Kitsey) are open to having Theo as part of the family. The oldest boy, Platt (Jack DiFalco and Luke Kleintank), however is a bit of a brat in his early scenes but comes to show his heart later in the film.

When the bomb exploded, Theo was standing next to Pippa (Aimee Laurence and Ashleigh Cummings) and her uncle, her primary caretaker. Pippa’s uncle was killed just as Theo’s mother was, and this circumstance creates a connection that runs deep. It was Pippa’s uncle, just before he died, that told Theo to take the Goldfinch painting after the bombing. He also gave Theo a ring and told him to deliver it to Hobie. Pippa and her uncle lived with the uncle’s antique store business partner Hobie (Jeffrey Wright).  

Just as the Barbour’s were thinking of adopting Theo, Larry shows up and takes him to where he’s now living, Las Vegas. Taking him out of this safe environment and all the way to Las Vegas to live adds to Theo’s trauma. The scene when Xandra (Sarah Paulson), Larry’s partner, gives Theo a valium for this anxious plane ride to Vegas, tells a lot about the situation Theo is headed.

In Vegas, he meets another outcast student Boris (Finn Wolfhard and Aneurin Barnard). Boris is originally Ukrainian, is without a mother, and has lived all over the world because his father is a mining engineer who is also a mean drunk and gets booted out of all the jobs he takes on. They both live in a housing tract where 95% of all the houses are empty because of foreclosures, and the whole tract was built in a remote area. This is emblematic of their lives, loners together, and in the middle of nowhere.

After Larry tries and fails to get money out of Theo’s educational trust to pay off gambling debts, he gets drunk and dies in an auto accident. Quickly seeing that life with Xandra will be hell, he runs out of the house, gets on a bus,  and heads back to New York City and ends up living with Hobie.

At this point during the film, we’ve seen various clips of the bombing some of them through the dreams that Theo continues to have even through adulthood. This is where the film spends most of the time from here on out.

As an adult, Theo continues hold the wrapped-up painting as solace over the loss of his mother and often, he does this while being on drugs.

Yes, there are a lot of pieces in this story, but they all are important as the film winds into the last 40 minutes. Pippa, Hobie, Kitsey, Platt, Mrs. Barbour, and especially Boris all have significant moments as Theo finally comes to grips with his life and the actions he took as a young boy and later as a grown man.

Fegley was fantastic as young Theo. His ability to be both lost and present was excellent. Elgort was perfect as the continuation of Theo into adulthood. He was able to seamlessly give me the sense that he was the older version of the young Theo. Wolfhard and Barnard were outstanding as the young and old Boris, respectively. The loyalty he showed and willingness to fix the problem he caused Theo was perfectly portrayed. Kidman was excellent as Mrs. Barbour especially as the older Mrs. Barbour when her softness and love showed through so delicately. Wilson was true to his character and enjoyable as the man trying to make his way through gambling. Wright was sublime as Hobie the antique craftsman. When he turns to Theo, after Theo had taken busses all the way from Las Vegas to NYC with a dog, and says, you both can stay as long as you want, I was deeply touched. Laurence and Cummings were wonderful as Pippa young and old respectively. When she tells Theo that if one of them fell, the other would not be able to save either of them, it was heartbreakingly sincere. Foust was superb as Theo’s close friend and companion. Peter Straughan wrote a strong script from the novel by Donna Tartt. John Crowley did an excellent job of making this complex novel and story come alive on the screen. This was a complicated story to film, but, for me it was worth it.

Overall: Unless the audience member is ready to let this introspective story unfold within themselves, then they could become frustrated with this film.

Broken City

First Hit:  Disjointed in telling the story, OK acting, and in the end, not enough to make it worthwhile.

Try as I might, I didn’t see enough in the opening credits nor in the video tape review to make me believe that Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) did something wrong or so wrong that the commissioner Carl Fairbanks (Jeffrey Wright) and Mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe) tell him he must retire.

I guess I missed something and this part is important to the believability of the story. However, the film supports this premise, of the wrongdoing, by indicating that Taggart was a hop-head and drank too much during his time as a undercover cop.

The killing in question is of a young man who supposedly killed Natalie Barrow's (Natalie Martinez) sister. For his support, Natalie and her family embrace Taggart which includes Natalie living with him as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Mayor Hostetler runs the city of New York with an iron fist and with corruption based decisions. It’s done because this is the way cities work, or so they say. Anyway Taggart wants to make things right.

Wahlberg was good enough; it was the film’s story telling that let him down. Crowe was OK but it didn’t work for me. Wright was dark and puzzling in his role because you never really got that he cared about anything but holding on to his job. Martinez was OK as a minor character. Alona Tal (as Katy Bradshaw) as Taggart’s secretary was delightful and the best thing about the film. Catherine Zeta-Jones was OK as the disenchanted wife of Mayor Hostetler. Brian Tucker wrote a tired and uninteresting script. Allen Hughes directed this very forgetful film.

Overall: Wouldn’t recommend paying to see this film.

Source Code

First Hit: I liked it because it required me to think and made me wonder if it was possible.

What the film lacked was a strong, clear, and viable explanation for the ability to program one person into another person’s body to replay events that have already happened.

In a 1993 film called “Brainstorm” scientists were able to record someone’s experiences onto a form of video tape. Then a completely different person could put on a specifically designed headset, play back this recorded experience and the wearer would have the same experience that was recorded.

This bit of new technology seemed plausible because the film took some time to explain how it worked to the audience. In "Source Code" the ball is dropped here by either the actor playing Dr. Rutledge (played by Jeffrey Wright), the scientist who invents this “Source Code” phenomenon, or by poor scripting. What I think I heard was; that when a human dies there is a 8 minute segment of experiences still active in the brain (like RAM) and if tapped into (through the use of electrodes and “Source Code”) within a short period of time after their death, another person, who is compatible in physical characteristics, can experience the dead person’s last 8 minutes.

The interesting thing is that they are only renting the body, because the person who is being sent in is the conscious one. OK, I tried and I’ll think about it some more but I think it goes something like that. In this film Captain Colter Stevens (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), a helicopter pilot only being brain alive, wakes up on a train.

Christina Warren (played by Michelle Monaghan) is sitting across from him and talking to him. He is perplexed about what she is saying. He's thinking; who are you? Why am I on this train? He's asking these questions because his last memory is being a helicopter pilot on a mission in Afghanistan. He’s feeling nauseous goes to the bathroom and looks in the mirror only to find the body and face he's looking at isn’t his; it's somebody else’s.

Confused he makes his way back to the train car with Christina and then a bomb goes off and he is blown up with everyone else on the train. He wakes up in a small metal capsule, which I took as being the helicopter wreckage he died in (this is his last known living experience).

Captain Colleen Goodwin (played by Vera Farmiga) appears on a small video screen in front of him asking him what he learned. “Did you find the bomb?” “Did you find the bomber?” Stevens answers negatively and starts asking about what is going on. Who is in charge? What happened? Coldly Goodwin tells him he’s got to find the bomb and bomber quickly so that other lives will be saved. She turns to an assistant and tells him to recharge and bingo, Stevens is back on the same train at the same time with the same sequence of events. He sets his timer on his watch for 8 minutes and begins to try to do the job Goodwin told him to do.

He gets blown up again and again until he finds the bomb and then starts to make caring connections with Christina (who calls him by Sean Fentress - the name of the guy whose body he’s replacing). Each time the train blows up he goes back to his capsule as Stevens. He questions Goodwin and Dr. Rutledge attempting to find out more about how he is able to be in another place and time than what he knows was his last memory as Stevens. Goodwin tries to tell him more and Wright, who comes off as arrogant and self-serving, tries to explain his invention.

In the end, Stevens does complete the mission, Goodwin gives Stevens his wish, and people are saved.

Gyllenhaal is very good at giving us both an intelligent dutiful officer doing his duty as well as having compassion for Warren and others on the train and wanting to resolve an issue with his father. Monaghan is beautifully engaging and provides just the right amount of willingness and openness to understand what is going on. Farmiga is really good as the duty constrained officer who is working for an arrogant but bright boss. Wright played an either poorly written character or he poorly acted the character and I don’t know which. But this was the weakest part of the film. Ben Ripley wrote the script and I’m not sure if he did a good job and the explanation was poorly acted or if it was just one part of the script that was poorly written. However, the rest of the script was great. Duncan Jones did a great job of engaging the audience, getting Gyllenhaal to slowly realize what was going on and to make this film compelling about the possibility of being yourself in someone else’s body.

Overall: I enjoyed this film and although I’m not sure the logic hung together well with the given explanations; overall it was well done and interesting.

W.

First Hit: This could have been more hard hitting on the worst ever president to have lived in the White House during my lifetime. However, it did have some interesting and shining poignant moments.

With my own personal dislike of our President George W. Bush, I was hoping for something more devastating.

With that aside, W. seemed, at times, a fair representation of some of The President’s frustration of growing up the son of a powerful politico and his gullibility to listen to some of the people he surrounded himself with.

The film intersperses the years leading up to his decision to invade Iraq including snippets of his college hell raising days, his quitting numerous jobs, his less than honest and stellar military service, his meeting of Laura (played by Elizabeth Banks), and other events; most of them being seen as failures by his father.

Oliver Stone, the director, surrounds The President (played by Josh Brolin) with strong actors playing the parts of the cabinet. Richard Dreyfuss plays Dick Cheney, Scott Glenn plays Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones, plays Karl Rove, Thandie Newton plays Condoleezza Rice and Jeffrey Wright plays General Colin Powell. There are numerous characters in this film but the interchange between the aforementioned was the most interesting to me. Rove acted as a puppet master, Cheney was the bully, Rumsfeld was off the wall, Rice was silly and meaningless, and Powell as someone reluctant to go against the hard edge bully. Bush comes off as believing he actually knew something but because God wanted him to be President he is simply “The Decider”.

Brolin does an excellent job of capturing many of The President’s mannerisms and ways of speaking. Dreyfus “gets” Cheney and links the public views with the behind the scenes reality of him. Jones captures Rove well and as the non-assuming puppet master and intellectual. Newton plays Rice as a twit which is far different than the public Rice we’re given. Wright plays Powell with less assurance than the public Powell. Stone doesn’t go over the top like he has in other films but I would have like more understanding of how The President got his calling and how he felt he was doing God’s work.

Overall: This was a really good film although not a great film. I enjoyed watching it and it brought together many salient aspects as to why The President acts the way he does. In some ways it left me with the feeling that maybe each President needs to go through a psychological profile before he can serve the country; W. would have failed the profile.