The Best of Enemies

First Hit: I loved the story and the concept behind the story, but at times, the movie languished with its 133-minute running time.

Civil rights, the rights of all people, are a continuing subject in our country. This is shameful, shocking, and sadly mind-numbing to me. As Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) said in the film, “when any of us get cut, we all bleed the same red blood.” Or, at another time she says, “same God made you, made me.” This is the whole point of the film.

Atwater is an activist in her community of Durham, North Carolina. She fights city hall to help the causes of black people in her community. She’s brave and outspoken.

At the beginning of the film, she’s fighting for the rights of people who are renting from a landlord that wants to raise rents or kick people out of his buildings because they are black and want him fix the problems in his units. Some of the issues are no hot water, toilets that don’t work, and electrical issues which mean his renters are struggling to survive in their homes. She’s fighting the slumlord and the whole white part of town that seems to support him to fix the issues in the the homes.

When the black only school burns down, the black community wants her to take the lead to fix the problem of educating their children, and she’s up for it. She and the black community want the children of that school, including her daughter, to go to a white only school – in other words – she wants, what the US government says she’s entitled to, school integration.

To fight against this move, the white city council asks their local KKK President and Exalted Cyclops, C.P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell), to lead the charge against the integration.

The film spends time with both characters learning more about who they are and what they believe. We learn that Atwater clearly has a belief of what is right and she fights for what she thinks. She does this with angry outbursts, persistence, and fortitude. She also has a soft tender side which the film shows as well.

Ellis is shown leading his KKK Chapter at meetings and at the gun target practice range promising to uphold the charter of the KKK. He is married to Mary (Anne Heche) and has four children. One of the boys lives in a psychiatric hospital because of, what appears to be, autism. C.P.’s scenes of tenderness towards this son are lovely, and it shows that he does have a heart. Mary, however, does not hold C.P.’s racial views, but they somehow are able to make their marriage work, and I think it is because she knows the deeper C.P.

As the battle of whether the black children will attend the white schools grows, the city of Durham decides to bring in Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay) to lead a two-week charrette mediation program to appease the court-ordered school desegregation decree and to come up with a community answer about school integration.

Much of the film and at times, too much, is spent wading through the two weeks of the charrette in a high-level glossy way. Occasionally there is pointed discussion between Riddick, Ellis, and Atwater and we can see how they are slowly beginning to listen to each other.

The worst aspect of the community is when the film shows radicals from the KKK attempting to influence the outcome of the vote through intimidation.

Of course, this film wouldn’t have been made if the vote wasn’t favorable for integration, and the suspense is good enough to wait for. But the part that sickened me was the back stories of how the city council led by Carvie Oldham (Bruce McGill) believe that bending the rules and breaking the law, it is for the betterment of the whole.

Besides the beautiful gas station scene at the end of the film, it was such a nice touch to have short clips of the real Atwater, Riddick, and Ellis during the credits – make sure you see this part.

Henson was excellent as Atwater. She clearly provided the kind of intent and sense needed for the role. Some of her looks at Ellis were slightly overdone, but nothing that came across detrimental to the part. Rockwell is making a name for himself as being the guy on the wrong side of right and easing his character to the right side of freedom. As in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing. Missouri,” he faces and is the opposition to a tough woman but ends up becoming friends with them. Ceesay is terrific as the mediator for the charette. McGill was perfectly southern and arrogant to the plight of anyone but himself. Heche has a small but powerful role in this film as Ellis’ wife. Her clarity of purpose and her visit with Atwater was perfect. Robin Bissell wrote and directed this film. The best part was making this story come alive, but it felt long, and some judicious snipping would have helped.

Overall: The lesson is still alive today, we need to stop seeing people as different, we are one.

Hotel Mumbai

First Hit: It was interesting enough from a historical perspective but didn’t engage because it was a predictable and a known story.

When this attack happened, India was caught off guard. The real-life consequences of not having the type of policing or counterterrorism task force required to deal with the this coordinated assault was that it caused at least 174 deaths.

In November of 2008, ten members of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group executed a coordinated attack on Hindus in twelve locations throughout Mumbai, the financial center of India. The attack lasted four days. This film shows brief scenes of the shootings from some of the other locations, however the main target was The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is a five-star hotel where the guest is king, and this is where most of scenes are filmed.

The terrorists are coaxed on, and being guided by, a voice on the phone through the headsets worn by the men. He encourages them to kill anyone they see without mercy. However, he’s also looking for these men to take western prisoners for “negotiating purposes.” The audience knows there won’t be real negotiations and the captured will die.

Among the captured are David (Armie Hammer) who is married to Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi). The are traveling with their young baby who’s being taken care of by their nanny, Sally (Tilda Cobham-Hervey).

The film makes an emphatic point of the ruthlessness of the machine gun armed terrorists by having them coldly shoot anyone they see. They attempt kill anyone who moves, except for the few they want to capture and hold to gain additional publicity because they are prominent or wealthy figures.

One of the captured is Vasili (Jason Isaacs) who is a former Russian special forces specialist. His redeeming scene is when he ferociously bites the achilleas of one of the terrorists.

However, the main star of this film is Arjun (Dev Patel) who works in the hotel as a waiter. He’s a Sikh which comes into play later in the story. He and the head chef Oberol (Anupam Kher) attempt to save some of the hotel’s guest from being killed by hiding them in a exclusive room with only one public way in. The story is about how these people were saved.

Overall, Patel was good in this role. One outstanding scene was the way he explained his Sikh hair covering to one of the concerned and ill-informed guests. Kher was excellent as the Head Chef in holding to his belief that the hotel’s “guests are god.” Hammer was good as the American who was married to a Muslim woman. His desire to protect his family was spot on. Boniadi was wonderful as Hammer’s wife. When she starts saying prayers in front of the terrorists, it becomes very tense — one of the best scenes in the film. Cobham-Hervey was outstanding as the nanny. She felt very genuine in her desire to protect the child from harm. Isaacs was very good as the overindulgent selfish Russian operative who finally does something for someone else. The entire cadre of actors playing the terrorists did a sublime job of making sure they were cold hearted and unrelenting in their role of killing people for a golden ticket to heaven. John Collee and Anthony Maras wrote a interesting script. Maras directed this film which included actual scenes from the actual attack.

Overall: I wasn’t as captured or engaged as I thought I might be.

The Mustang

First Hit: The acting was excellent and what still stays with me was deep breathing of the horse and Roman as they dealt with their caged circumstances — powerful.

The opening shots of the wild horses running the plains of the United States was a perfect set-up for this story.

Then, helicopters drop into the frame to herd the horses into a pen where some will be “broken” and sold at auction. Thinking about how these beautiful animals are taken from their habitat and used by others is both heartbreaking and hopeful.

Hopeful; in that, some of the horses are captured and trained by prisoners to be horses that will be fed and used to help society. The prisoners benefit as well.

Heartbreaking; in that the US Government thins these herds because of what happens to land and other livestock when a hundred thousand horses are left free to run the ground as they wish. Nothing likes its freedom taken away.

One of the captured horses is locked in a single wood sided stall, and he continually bangs against the walls — he wants out of his pen. He’s a wild one.

Caging a man is much the same, it can be both cruel and helpful. In this case, Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts) has been in prison for twelve years. He’s quiet, and his anger at society and himself is palpable throughout the film. He is like a walking volcano.

His opening scenes are with a prison psychologist who is asking him questions. He says nothing as he’s being asked his preferences. The psychologist asks him a few questions about how and why he’s been in solitary, and he mumbles, “I’m not good with people.”

At one point, she touches an emotional button, and he springs up in anger. His temper quick, decisive and filled with rage. The focus of his disposition is made clear to the audience.

This completes the setup of this film’s story, two wild beings caged, stewing and expressing their angst and anger at the drop of a hat.

How will these two meet each other and help each other is the journey this film takes you. To improve the story along, the prison has Myles (Bruce Dern) as the crusty, well-worn guy who helps prisoners train the horses. His demeanor tells you he’s in-charge from assigning what horse goes with what prisoner and whether a particular horse or prisoner is in the program. No one questions his authority over the program nor his understanding of the relationship between horse and man.

Roman gets the roughest assignment to help train the wildest of horses.

The scenes with Roman and the horse in the corral together are priceless. They are horrifying at some level and beyond sweet at other times. Through this experience, the audience begins to learn the depth of Roman’s pain and anger.

But the scene when a group of select prisoners talk about how quick they went from their anger to the crime puts them in prison is not only powerful but puts things into perspective.

We are grateful to learn what Roman did to get himself into prison during one of the visits from his pregnant daughter Martha (Gideon Alden). The pain both Roman and Martha have are poignantly expressed.

There are so many powerful scenes in this film that I could not point to anyone that makes this an excellent movie. However, when Myles gives Roman a hint as to how to save his wild horse, I was moved deeply. The unspoken caring was palpable.

Schoenaerts was amazing. His ability to carry his volcanic anger around in his eyes, face, and body was outstanding. Dern was phenomenally perfect. He carried his scenes with perfected aplomb. Jason Mitchell as Henry a fellow prisoner who really helps Roman find a way to communicate with his horse was excellent. Adlon as Roman’s daughter was beautiful. Her wanting to protect herself from and also love her father was well done. Connie Britton as the psychologist was excellent. Her strength during Roman’s outburst was sublime. Brock Norman Brock and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre wrote a moving and pointed script. Clermont-Tonnerre’s direction was fantastic in how she captured the feel of prison life with a slight dash of hope. The ending scene was tear evoking. In the credits, I liked that they had real prisoners and the horses they trained showing on the screen.

Overall: This is a beautiful story about one way to help men come to grips with their past actions and find a new way to grow.

The Hummingbird Project

First Hit: Jessie Eisenberg brings intensity to his roles, and in this film it adds to an already time driven story about speed.

Vincent Zaleski (Eisenberg) is a Wall Street trader. He’s focused on high frequency trading. Response times of the systems he works on is paramount.

He works for Eva Torres (Salma Hayek) who is relentless and ruthless. Her opening scenes makes this point. It is in these scenes, we get to also know Vincent’s brother Anton (Alexander Skarsgard) who is a coding and engineering genius.

Anton and two others work for Eva in the capacity of trying to reduce the response times of getting and sending trading quotes. Each of the three have separate projects including microwave transmissions which seems to have in insurmountable problem.

Vincent and Anton are convinced that if they can run optic fiber cable from the centralized data center in Kansas to their office in New York, then will be able to realize an advantage by getting quotes milliseconds before other traders and thereby getting an advantage. The goal is to get the data 1 millisecond faster than anyone else. That millisecond is equal to one flap of a hummingbird’s wing (hence the title).

The cost of drilling a completely straight hole ten feet underground from Kansas to New York is expensive, but with the right investor, one who sees the advantage, they could make hundreds of millions of dollars each year for a couple of years when their technology advantage would become obsolete.

Convinced of the possibilities, Vincent finds Bryan Taylor (Frank Schorpion) who’s known to make risky investments. After persuading Taylor to finance the project, Vincent and Anton quit working for Eva. In a ranting scene when they tell her, she vows to retaliate.

To help them drill this straight, twelve-hundred-mile tube ten feet underground, they hire Mark Vega (Michael Mando) who is a genius in his own right. His stories about the places he’s drilled are fascinating.

The rest of the film is about the trials and tribulations of this project, Vincent’s discovery that he’s very ill, Anton’s amazing focus, and Anton’s wife’s patience.

The over-the-top scenes of Eva threatening the two men, especially Anton were engaging to watch. When they hire Ophelia Troller (Ayisha Issa) to figure out how to drill through government land in the Appalachian Mountains, it gets even more complex and interesting.

However, one of my favorite scenes is when Anton is drilling a hole in a file cabinet and his amazingly patient wife comes in and tells him to quiet down. I loved this interaction and the whole scene.

Ultimately, there has to be a race, and Eva hires someone who thinks he can figure out the microwave solution that will be faster and less expensive. The race is on.

Eisenberg was intensely perfect for this role. His fast-talking drive and focus fit this role. His action and reaction to hearing about his cancer was thoughtful. Skarsgard was outstanding as Vincent’s savant like programmer engineer brother. I thought he nailed the role. Hayek was sublimely vicious. She was strong in portraying the win at all costs attitude of the leader of a high frequency trading company. Schorpion was strong as the risky investor. Issa was amazing as the woman who could get them through the mountain. Mando was outstanding as the project manager for the whole project. He was extremely effective in making me believe he knew what he was doing. Kim Nguyen wrote and directed this film. I thought the script was strong and the acting excellent. However, somewhere along the way it became a little tedious and maybe that is because of the intense energy brought by the roles and actors was so overbearing.

Overall: This was a good film and might have been more engaging if they’d taken the time to demonstrate more clearly the advantage of a 1 millisecond advantage in high frequency trading.

Gloria Bell

First Hit: I thought the concept was interesting, but it fell a little flat on the screen.

This story is about a middle age woman who has two grown kids, has been divorced for 12 years, and her flirtation with another romance.

Gloria (Julianne Moore) works for an insurance firm as an adjuster. Her favorite pastime is dancing at a local club. The club she goes to is filled with people her age (40 – 60) who are also looking for a good time and possibly a hook-up. Gloria drinks and dances her evenings away. She meets nice gentlemen, but there isn’t any spark and it doesn’t seem to matter.

I never got the feeling that she wanted to get involved in a relationship, and to fill the spaces of time in her life she tries to get more involved in her grown children’s lives. They are slightly open to her intrusions.

Anne (Caren Pistorius), her daughter is a yoga teacher who is engaged to a big wave surfer. She loves her mom, but she’s a young woman who wants to create distance from her mom, despite loving her, to dive into her own life. Her son Jeremy (Michael Cera), is raising his daughter alone as his wife is off “finding herself.” Gloria tries to be helpful and Jeremy tells her to back off because he wants to show her that he’s got everything covered, his way.

One night, while dancing, Gloria meets Arnold (John Turturro). He’s recently divorced and wants to be in a relationship. In fact, his hunger for a relationship is almost too telegraphed.

Gloria and Arnold hit it off. However, the sticking point is that his daughters and his ex-wife keep calling him because they are dependent on him for everything. Although his daughters are grown, he’s expected to pay for everything and solve every problem. The phone ringing in each scene with him is a moment in abject disgust and suffering for him, Gloria and the audience.

Despite their powerful physical intimacy, the calls, his insecurity around her family, and his dependence on being a savior for his girls, give this film it’s saddest and troubling moments.

My favorite scene in the film is when Gloria shoots paintballs at Arnold and his house. A very freeing moment for Gloria.

Moore is very good at portraying what she wants, her vulnerabilities, and what makes her happy. One of those things that makes her happy is singing in the car with complete abandon. These moments are priceless if you are a car singer. Pistorius is very good as the daughter that wants to follow her own dream and not have to live up to mom’s expectations. Cera, likewise, is strong in his portrayal of living up to the father he wants to be and do it his way. Turturro is excellent as the guilt and caretaker man who is caught between his love for Gloria and providing for his family’s needs. Brad Garrett is good as Gloria’s ex-husband. Alison Johnson Boher and Sebastian Lelio wrote a tepid screenplay that had more possibilities. However, it is a difficult subject to film. Lelio directed this film and many of the scenes were captured nicely.

Overall: Although at times tedious there are moments of laughter.