Destroyer

First Hit: Powerfully acted by Nicole Kidman in a story that teeters on the edge of oblivion at every turn.

After seeing Kidman in this film, I was struck by how amazing she is at morphing from innocent intense, edgy beauty, to a hollowed out, full of anger, women with one thing on her mind, revenge. When we see her becoming an undercover agent, I was reminded of this freckled face beauty in an early film, “Dead Calm.”

The film floats in and out of time. At first, we meet Erin Bell (Kidman) as a depraved, starved, focused angry addicted detective. Then we go back to seventeen years earlier when, as a brave, intense, and attractive police officer being assigned to work undercover with Chris (Sebastian Stan) to reign in a cult-like leader, Silas (Toby Kebbell), who robs banks.

Opening with a depraved Detective Bell walking onto a murder scene; she’s barely able to walk let alone articulate why she’s there. The officers at the scene, probe her, asking why she is there, and what she knows about it. She picks up a $100 bill that’s tainted with purple dye. She looks at a handgun that has been altered to be untraceable and says to the responding officers “I know who killed him.”

Beginning the story this way and Bell’s response lead you to believe, she’s now on a path to find and finish something that started many years earlier, to kill Silas.

Earlier, when Bell and Chris are fully embedded in the gang, they help plan to rob an out of the way bank that is supposed to have millions in their vaults. The film slowly uses these flashbacks to show how Chris and Erin began to care about each other and decisions they made that explain the hollowed, revenge-driven Bell and her goal to find and kill Silas.

At first, I didn’t entirely engage with the use of the flashbacks as used here; however as the film progressed, I found this process exciting and engaging. We learn of Erin’s discovery that she is pregnant. We see her attempting to have a relationship with her angry, rebellious fifteen-year-old daughter Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) who lives with her stepfather.

In her search for Silas, she meets up with Toby (James Jordan), one of the former members of Silas’s gang. Toby has just been released from prison because he’s soon to die from cancer. Attempting to get information from Toby, Bell manually stimulates him to orgasm to get a name and location of another member of Silas’s gang.

Her search has her engaging with Petra (Tatiana Maslany) a former rich girl who falls into Silas’ spell. She bursts into the residence of a wealthy criminal attorney name DiFranco (Bradley Whitford) whom she suspects of laundering money for Silas.

The depraved intensity of Bell to complete her revenge on Silas after years of pain were etched on her face throughout the film. However, I felt the zenith of the superb acting in this film came at the last meeting of Erin and Shelby.

As Bell does her best to tell her daughter, who she barely knows, that she loves her, Shelby parries Bell’s attempts until a moment of realization that her mom is doing her best and does care. Shelby’s facial expressions and subtle movement towards the opening, were profoundly sublime as were Bells. Amazing scene.

Kidman was beyond profoundly amazing. Her ability to show this level of gut-driven intensity for revenge is unparalleled. In this one film we see Kidman as a young vulnerable police woman and as a singularly focused emotionally debt driven hollowed out detective. Stan was terrific as her undercover partner who would do anything for his partner. Pettyjohn was dynamite in this role. I loved her rebellious nature, yet in the last conversation with her mom, watch her subtle movement from disdain to respect and feeling compassion towards her mother. It is one of the most elegant pieces of acting I’ve seen in a long time. Kebbell was reliable as the semi-cult leader. The challenge he created for one of the gang with the pistol was telling of his exercising power over the group. Maslany was excellent as the once rich girl who has lost her way and feels stuck with her role in life. Whitford is perfect as the ego-driven lawyer that has lost his way. Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi wrote a compelling screenplay. Karyn Kusama got extraordinary performances from her cast and crew to create a fascinating story.

Overall: This is not a film of hope, but a movie about living with choices made and doing your best to the right the wrongs.

I, Tonya

First Hit: A very engaging story, supremely well-acted, and one of this years best films.

I loved how this film effectively dances between talking directly to the audience through interview cameras and commenting right at the audience during dramatic scenes, while giving us a straight up film. Breaking the plane between the story and the audience isn’t always done very effectively, but here it is perfect.

Tonya Harding (Margo Robbie) was well known as a rough, scrappy, and physical ice skater in the mid 1980’s through the mid 1990’s. She was raised by her abusive mother LaVona (Allison Janney) who threw her on the ice rink because that is all the seven-year-old Tonya wanted to do.

According to the film, LaVona hit Tonya, once threw a knife at her, but most egregiously never showed any empathy, love or caring towards Tonya. All she kept harping on was that she spent all her waitressing money on Tonya’s skating. She was so cold and mean that Tonya grew up knowing nothing about what a supportive, caring, or loving relationship might even look like.

What kept Tonya going through life was her ability to skate and skate well. She was the first woman to ever land a triple axel (3.5 spins in the air landing backwards on the outside edge of the skate) in a competition as well as completing two triple axels in a single competition. As a competitor, she was heads above everyone else in technical merit, scoring the first perfect 6.0 in the U.S. Championships. However, her hard scrabble background was reflected in her presentation scores. Because she was less graceful than physical and had poorly created handmade costumes, these scores were always low. Lastly, she also suffered from asthma which, at times inhibited her ability to skate with inner ease.

The worst and defining moment of her career was when her husband, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), helped to plan a physical attack on Tonya’s chief skating friend and rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). The actual attack by Shane Stant (Ricky Russert) on Kerrigan’s knee was set into motion by Gillooly’s closest friend Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). This attack was to give Tonya an advantage at the U.S. Championships and Olympics.

The film used faux, current day and after the fact, interviews of Tonya, Jeff, Shawn, and LaVona to set up certain sequences and sections of this story. The ice skating scenes were well done and effective in showing Tonya’s skating style. Having remembered watching these performances back when they actually happened, they conjured up the direct memories effectively.

Robbie was exquisite as the hard scrabble, poorly educated, and socially inept Tonya. Robbie did some of the skating scenes, and her ability to own Tonya’s physical presence while channeling her inner struggles was what made this work. Janney was beyond amazing as the uncaring emotionless LaVona. She was almost scary and her sitting in the faux interviews with the bird picking at her ear was inspired. Stan as the poorly educated and impulsive Gillooly, whose name became a verb for knee beating, was excellent. Watching him smolder, ready to burst into anger, reflected his inability to help Tonya. Hauser was perfect as the self-promoting dolt who was proud that he made history by hurting Kerrigan. His insistence that he was in international spy and agent was excellent. Julianne Nicholson as Tonya’s skating teacher and trainer, Diane Rawlinson, was excellent. Her slightly distanced engaged caring in working with Tonya and LaVona when Tonya was young and later, as an Olympian, was wonderful. Steven Rogers wrote an excellent screenplay. Craig Gillespie’s direction was spot on perfect. The vision came alive on the screen and I was fully engaged from the beginning.

Overall:  This was truly a fun, empathetic, and engaging story and film about Tonya Harding.

Captain America: Civil War

First Hit:  I was shocked that people applauded at the end of this film because the story was too fabricated and forced to make it interesting.

I like a good superhero film every once in a while. However, because they make money for the studios, storylines are created to put more of the heroes together.

It isn’t enough to have a group of Avengers focus on a single enemy, here the script writers and producers decided to have them pitted against one another. This, of course, will boost viewership, however I do not think it helps the brand in the long run. This action mirrors short term profits are more important than long term gain and integrity.

The best acting done in this film is by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Iron Man. The rest of the superheroes have their moments and it is obvious that the film is set up this way. Each of them gets to display their “super powers”.

The one exception to all of this is the introduction of Spiderman/Peter Parker (Tom Holland). His character is funny due to his newness to his spidey powers and his youthful attitude. The film does try to explore the importance of friendship through the relationship and actions of Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Their lifelong friendship is tested here.

Also friendship is overtly tested between Iron Man and Captain America. Then there is the issue of government control of The Avengers and their response to issues in the world. This is brought up  because innocent people have been killed through their heroic involvement. Both of these subjects are feebly addressed by the story.

Downey Jr. was the best of the group of actors mostly because he had a fair amount of introspective and intelligent dialogue. Evans is only OK, but I cannot tell if it is only because of the role, script, or Evans own acting abilities. Holland is fun and is the most amusing character. Stan is good as the stoic semi-enemy of The Avengers and the general public. Daniel Bruhl (as the real enemy Zemo) is good enough to pull off being the real antagonist. Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, and Frank Grillo are only OK as the superheroes that are pitted against each other because their roles are minimized. Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely wrote this, let’s make money, script that doesn’t fully address the friendship and government control questions and minimizes the skills of this extensive cast. Anthony and Joe Russo’s co-direction is evident because of the scattered way this film interprets the screenplay and use of this fine cast.

Overall:  This was a film I didn’t need to see.