Our Kind of Traitor

First Hit:  Really nice build up for first half,  just sustains the intensity through the back half, but ends quite nicely.

My wife mentioned to me that she thought “Our Kind of Traitor” is a lackluster title for a film and I agree.

There are a couple of stories going on in this film:  First we have and see a Perry and Gail (Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts respectively) struggling as a married couple. And second we have a Russian laced espionage thriller. How do these two stories meet? Struggling as a couple, Perry and Gail are on holiday in Morocco to try to bring some romance back into their ten-year relationship.

They are very different people; Perry is a poetic professor at a prestigious university and Gail is a workaholic lawyer who makes a lot of money. In a Moroccan restaurant, Gail gets a work call and has to leave so Perry gets propositioned by a gregarious Russian named Dima (Stellan Skarsgard) to join his party for a drink. Dima takes a liking to Perry and invites him to a late night party followed by an early morning tennis match. Their friendship grows and Dima asks Perry to deliver a thumb drive to MI6 in London when he returns home.

As head money launderer for the Russians, Dima suspects he and his family will be killed soon after a bank deal transpires in London. Gail thinks Perry is not doing a smart thing by going through with the delivery but despite her opinion, he follows through.

The tale heats up after they deliver the thumb drive to MI6 Agent Hector (Damian Lewis) but starts to fall off in intensity as the cat and mouse game begins to drag on. However, in the end, Dima wants to save his family, Perry and Gail may get closer, and Hector wants to put a nail in the coffin of his former boss whom he suspects as selling his soul and being a traitor.

McGregor was perfect because he portrayed the intelligence, compassion and integrity this role required. Watts was wonderful as the smart, quick witted wife while in the end wholly supporting her husband’s actions. Skarsgard was sublime. His intensity, deep boisterous growls, and single-minded objective made him the right man for this role. Lewis was adroitly a great choice as the MI6 agent, who was willing to move outside the box to follow his revenge. Hossein Amini wrote a good screenplay from the John le Carre novel. And despite the strong start and mediocre back half, Susanna White’s direction, in the end, brought the whole thing together rather well.

Overall:  One of the better film versions of a John le Carre story.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

First Hit:  Being skeptical of a remake so soon after the original was assuaged by excellent execution.

Guy Richie might take a lot of lessons from David Fincher. Fincher took the challenge of creating a remake of a less than moderately successful film which had a huge book following within a couple years of the original, and make it really work.

I had anxiety that Noomi Rapace’s version of Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish version would forever taint my being able to enjoy seeing anyone else in this role, but Rooney Mara did an outstanding job. Not necessarily better, slightly different and very effective.

The story was essentially the same, I got through the language issue (Daniel Craig made no attempt to be from Sweden) early on and within 15 minutes I did not notice it.

The scenery was exquisitely shot and provided the audience wonderful framing for the cold hearted story which is told. Craig as Mikael Blomkvist was clearly a strong force in the film and was a different take than the original.

In this version Blomkvist was a stronger more powerful energy. Even though this film was 2 hours and 38 minutes long there was not one wasted frame. Every moment was clearly scripted and directed.

Rooney Mara was outstanding as Lisbeth and her intensity, physicality and intelligence showed through this film like a beacon of light. Craig was superb as Blomkvist. His intensity and intelligence matched Mara’s and therefore they fit well together. Christopher Plummer was perfect as Henrick Vanger. Stellan Skarsgard was sublime as Martin Vanger, the man who hated women and loved control through power over people. Robin Wright as Erika Berger, Blomkvist’s part time lover, friend and business associate was very good in a subtle, yet critical, part. Steven Zaillian did an excellent job of creating the script from Stieg Larsson’s novel. Fincher fired on all cylinders and made this film his. The moment the initial credits rolled, with an old, but updated, Led Zeppelin song in the background, the audience knew they were in for something interesting.

Overall:  This was a very good and successfully developed remake – Kudos to all.

Mamma Mia

First Hit: It was fun and you could tell the actors had fun making it.

I’m not a musical fan, however a friend asked me to go see Mamma Mia and I said "yes".

I saw the play many years ago in London and was amused that ABBA songs were gathered together and made into a play, therefore I had some idea about what I was going to see.

In the film Meryl Streep plays the mom (Donna) who is just barely making it running a beaten down hotel on a Greek island. Her daughter Sophie (played by Amanda Seyfried) is getting married and wants to know who her father is. She finds her mother’s diary and discovers it could be any one of three men and therefore invites them to the wedding without her mother’s knowledge.

The three men are Sam (played by Pierce Brosnan), Bill (played by Stellan Skarsgard), and Harry (played by Colin Firth). Supporting Donna in this quest to put on the wedding are her two friends Tanya (played by Christine Baranski) and Julie (played by Julie Walters).

The overall premise is; can Sophie figure out who her father is prior to the wedding.

As musicals go, I liked many of the ABBA songs when they first came out and I still like some of them today. However, some seem a bit out of place like "Winner Takes it All" because I couldn’t figure out who was the winner. Was Donna singing about herself or Sam (or somebody else ???)? Although many of the actors can sing (especially Steep and Baranski), Bronson gives it a go and, despite his full on efforts, his singing is difficult to listen to. Lastly, it needs to be pointed out, from a chronological point of view, things didn’t quite add up (how can we be in today’s time while Sophie was a mid-early hippy baby and playing a early 20 year old).

Overall: The film was really fun (ABBA songs can be fun) because the actors had fun, but from a film and story point of view, one has to suspend making it work.