The Old Man & The Gun

First Hit: Once again Robert Redford shows why he’s one of the best in this, his swan song.

In 1994 I was standing at the United Airline's counter verifying my seat assignment. To my left was the First-Class counter and there was a gentleman standing there being served. We both left our respective customer service agents at the same time and ended up walking down the concourse together. I looked over at him and said, “where are you headed?” He smiled and said “Salt Lake City, you?” “Same” I said.

I mentioned that I was doing some work for the State of Utah and that I loved the beauty of the state. “Yeah, he said, it’s beautiful county.”

We continued walking towards our plane, but I couldn’t help but notice most of the people walking towards us were smiling and pointing at us. It was mostly women that were doing the pointing and nudging, with smiles on their faces, the person they were walking with.

I looked over at him and he looked back smiling when I said, “they must be looking at you, because I’ve never been looked at while walking in an airport." Then, as the smile creeped across his face, I said, “oh my, my mother is going to really be excited when I tell her I walked down the airport concourse with Robert Redford.” He laughed and said, “I get that a lot.”

Despite his outstanding performances as an actor, he’s never won an Oscar for acting and was nominated once for The Sting. I can tell you, that his performance as The Man in All Is Lost, is beyond amazing. He’s the only actor and the whole film is shot on a sailboat that is in distress. If you’ve never seen it, do so to watch this enigma of a man show you how to capture the whole screen all the time.

In The Old Man & The Gun, it’s been reported that this is his last film as an actor. And, as Forrest Tucker, Redford moved through this story like silk. As a lifetime bank robber he knows no other life. He’s been caught 16 previous times and escaped prison each time only to go back to the only profession that makes him happy.

We watch him rob banks by himself and with two partners, Teddy (Danny Glover) and Waller (Tom Waits). Hoping to catch the “Over the Hill Gang,” as the newspapers call them, is Police Detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck).

When Forrest robs a bank, he’s kind, thoughtful, and only shows the gun to the manager or teller. He waltzes in and out, no muss no fuss. He's a gentleman at all things.

During the initial robbery, he stops during his getaway to help Jewel (Sissy Spacek) who is stranded because her truck is stranded. What the audience knows it is also a away to take the heat off himself because the cops who are chasing him—drive right past.

He likes Jewel and they began to see each other and this story line provides the film much needed grounding.

Redford as Tucker is wonderful. He fits the enigmatic way Forrest goes through his life and I can see why Redford was attracted to this character. Spacek is fantastic. She’s so grounded and fully meets Redford’s character with grace. Affleck was strong as the determined detective that also has a heart to understand Tucker. Glover and Waits were great in their small but pivotal roles. Tika Sumpter as Affleck’s wife, Maureen, was sublime. I loved how she supported Hunt. David Lowery wrote and directed a wonderful story giving Redford a wonderful platform to say goodbye.

Overall: This was a joyous romp through Forrest Tucker’s life as a robber.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

First Hit: The film could have been interesting; however the execution was poorly conceived and didn't live up to its own imagination.

 Heath Ledger was the star in this film but he died before he could complete it.

In this movie Heath plays Tony a conning trickster of sorts and is first introduced into this film by being rescued from under a bridge where he is hanging by his neck. How did he survive? He had a small metal flute placed in his throat to keep his windpipe from being crushed.

The people who find him hanging under the bridge and rescue him are Valentina (played by Lily Cole), Anton (played by Andrew Garfield) and Percy (played by Verne Troyer). This group of people is traveling in an ancient looking old rickety two story wood wagon drawn by two horses with a wizened old Doctor Parnassus (played by Christopher Plummer). 

Hundreds of years earlier, this wise old Doctor sold his soul to the devil (played by Tom Waits) so that he could marry the woman of his dreams. She died having their child Valentina. What did Parnassus wager with the devil when he sold his soul? His daughter would be turned over to the devil on her 16th birthday if he hadn't converted a particular number of souls.

With her 16th birthday just a couple days away, Parnassus makes a new deal with the devil. If he can save 5 souls before midnight on the eve of his daughter’s birthday he can keep his daughter.

To save souls Parnassus has a mirror people can walk through and when he is concentrating, the moment people walk through the mirror, their imagination becomes their reality.

They become in touch with their true soul and with this new information come back out of the mirror to lead a saved life.

Tony is a con man, and an expert at conning women into going into the mirror, and with four of the five souls saved everyone thinks the girl will be saved from the devil. However the show goes bad when a bunch of Russians in the audience recognize Tony as the guy who stole their money (which was the reason why he was hanging by his neck under the bridge).

To escape, Tony goes into the mirror three times and each time, because Ledger was dead before they shot this part of the film, a new actor plays him.

The actors playing Tony in the Imaginarium are Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Each does their impression, of sorts, of how Ledger would have been in the Imaginarium but none of them pull it off. Each time one of the new actors looks at a reflection of himself, they give a quizzical stare as if to say, so this is what I (Ledger) look like in my imagination?

Anyway, the film by this time has long since lost its way and is severely handicapped by the convoluted story and back stories which are presented to try to make the film make sense.

I would have rather seen “The Dark Knight” as Ledger’s last film because this one didn’t do him justice. Actors Cole, Garfield and Troyer are interesting and amusing from time to time but the story doesn't have any breathing room because it was always trying to fill in information the audience needs to know to make the next scene make sense. I thought Waits was an interesting choice as the devil because he has a gleam in his slit eyes which make him a likely devil. Plummer plays a good drunk but there is nothing extraordinary about his performance as this wizened old soul that use to keep the world working because he and his disciples kept the story going (yes, more back story). Depp, Law and Farrell did their best but there was little in their version of Ledger which matched up or tied back to Ledger outside of obvious character lines. There wasn't a feeling that these three actors were a continuum of Ledger's character. Charles McKeown and Terry Gilliam wrote this script while Gilliam directed it. Together they didn't seem that they had a clear idea of how to tell this story in a way that it sparked imagination; and wasn't this the point?

Overall: The film is overly convoluted and lacking in imagination. As much as I wanted to get into it because some of the Imaginarium sequences were fun and interestingly filmed, I felt like I needed to say goodbye and good riddance.