Chappaquiddick

First Hit: We all knew how despicable Ted Kennedy’s actions were, this film just puts pictures to it.

When the headlines came out that “Teddy” (Jason Clarke) had driven off a bridge with Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) in the car and he survived while she drowned, the nation was shocked. As the story came out that Ted did not report this accident well into the next day, Ted became despicable and his and the Kennedy family's credibility sank to a new low.

This film shows the privileged way that Ted acted based on his being a Kennedy. Ted’s father Joseph (Bruce Dern) ran the Kennedy family with a iron crooked fist. His team of people who were on-call to protect the Kennedy name only exaggerated the privileged arrogant family ways.

Recalling the original news in the newspaper and seeing film footage of Teddy wearing a neck brace to gain sympathy was horrible then and even worse in this film. His manipulation of his Chief of Staff Joseph Gargan (Ed Helms) was painful to watch.

From a film point of view, using true accounts and the documents from the inquest, what is presented appears to be a fair reenactment of this tragic event.

Much is said about the horrific events of his older brother’s untimely deaths, two through assassination, and how Joe Kennedy expected the remaining son to carry on the family legacy. All Teddy wanted was his father’s love and respect for who he was.

Does Teddy make up for his lack of integrity around this and other events? That’s a judgment call and even though he was called “The Lion of the Senate,” this film does little to shed light on his career. It is a film about his doing nothing for Mary Jo as she slowly suffocated and drowned in an upside-down car.

Clarke was OK as Teddy. I didn’t think he showed enough of the “lion” within him but maybe the “lion” came later in life. He did a great job of being arrogant and childlike in his decision making. Mara was very good. Unfortunately, she’s not in the film a long time, but her Mary Jo stays with you during the remaining part of the film. Dern was excellent as a handicapped and old Joe Kennedy. His looks of disdain towards Teddy were perfect. Helms was excellent as Teddy’s right hand man who finally couldn’t take being Ted’s slave and foil and therefore left. Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan wrote a good script that seemed to capture the time and the feeling of crime. John Curran directed this film.

Overall: This film only validated my feelings about Teddy as a guy spending his life trying to make amends for being an unthoughtful arrogant man from an influential family.

Stone

First Hit: The characters seem so tightly wound around the axle at the beginning that my anticipation of what would happen was not met.

The opening scene has a young married man controlling his wife by hanging their baby outside a two story window and saying if you leave me I’ll drop him.

Then we move to this man Jack (played by Robert De Niro) as a nearly retired prison parole officer who interviews and speaks with prisoners determining whether they should get parole or not.

Enter Stone (played by Edward Norton) who wants out, doesn’t give a shit, and obsessed with his own story being the truth. Stone uses his hardness and mental strength to control people. Stone is married to Lucetta (played by Milla Jovovich) who wants her husband out of prison, but also sleeps with other men and controls things around her with her sexy beauty.

This film is uneven and I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense. At times it is about the seductive qualities of a beautiful woman, at other times it tries to use the power of being deeply touched spiritually, at other times it is about whom is the most articulate.

As you would have expected from the beginning, Jack gets controlled by a beautiful woman and Stone’s relentless drive.

De Niro is not overly engaging in this film and his actions with Lucetta weren’t well planned by the writer and director. It seemed clunky. Norton pulls some accent/dialog usage which has him being incongruent with the intelligence in his eyes; it like he was too smart for the role. Jovovich is beautiful and she is fully engaging when she is on the screen. She plays an excellent seductress and carries the intelligence in her eyes saying she knew what she was doing the whole time and that no one controls her. Angus MacLachlan wrote this and there are moments of interesting dialogue between Norton and De Niro. John Curran directed this and I’m not sure he was clear about what he wanted from each one of the characters or they (the actors) ran the show.

Overall: A mediocre film not worthy of the actors in it.