Detroit

First Hit:  Extremely powerful film about racial injustice in the city of Detroit in 1967.

Kathryn Bigelow has a history of taking on difficult powerful subjects and bringing them to life. She is a master director. Her filmography continues to get stronger and stronger. From her Blue Steel and Point Break days to The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty and now, Detroit.

I feel fortunate that, once again, in the matter of a few short weeks I’ve been able to see films where the focus is the story and not particular characters. And what makes this film even better is that although it takes place in 1967 it reflects the targeting of blacks today by law enforcement.

To do this Bigelow seamlessly incorporates actual 1967 film footage and stills into her vision of this story. We follow several black characters who end up being innocently targeted by law enforcement for being at a particular place, at a particular time, and because of the color of their skin.

The script was developed from court transcripts and proceedings, interviews of some survivors and an honest interpretation by the writer. The focus is the murder of three black men and the beatings of seven other black men and two white women by the Detroit Police Department and tacitly condoned by US National Guard. This incident took place at the Algiers Motel, in Detroit during the 12th Street Riots. They victims had gone to the hotel to hide out and stay off the streets because there was a curfew and people couldn’t get home.

One of the guests at the motel shoots a toy pistol, which is mistaken by the police and National Guard as sniper fire. In rushing the motel’s building the police drag these motel guests down to the bottom floor and begin interrogating them to discover where the gun was and who shot the gun. Despite killing the person who shot the never found toy gun, the police used extreme tactics to scare the other guests. They systematically pulled people into rooms threatening to shoot them if they didn't have answers to their questions. They also mercilessly beat each person.

In doing so, they killed another two. For hours they continued to beat each of the suspects to get them to talk. Finally, the police decided they need to leave. To cover their tracks, they threaten each of the remaining suspects, that if they were ever to speak of this event again, they will die.

Eventually, this event and the officers are brought to trial and the all-white jury exonerates the three guilty police officers. Sound familiar?

John Boyega (as Dismukes) is amazing as the black private security officer that attempts to be the peacemaker and mediator between the cops and guests. Boyega is great at hinting, what appears to be, regret that he didn’t do more to help his fellow brothers. Will Poulter (as Officer Krauss) did a wonderful job being everyone’s nightmare. It was not an enviable role but as the racist officer he made the hate real. Algee Smith and Jacob Latimore (as friends and bandmates Larry and Fred respectively) were fantastic as their dreams were taken from them that night. Hannah Murray and Kaitlyn Dever (as Julie and Karen respectively were the beaten white women) were wonderful. They really made their roles standout with honesty. Anthony Mackie as Greene the Vietnam vet who got caught up in the motel was perfect. Mark Boal wrote a fantastic Oscar worthy script. Bigelow, as I previously said, is clearly one of the strongest directors of our time. Her clarity of vision and storytelling is amazing.

Overall:  I recall reading and seeing television news stories about these events when they happened, but only until I saw this film, did I understand the horror.

Dunkirk

First Hit: An amazing film that focuses on the event not the actors or their characters.

Easily the best overall film of this year mainly because the vision is true and clear. Not many films make the story the highlight and focus. Mostly films have a character or two that engage the audience into the story. Here the characters are a subset of the story. This doesn’t take away from the actors or acting, but it lays the responsibility of how good this film is on the writer, editor, sound team, music, cinematography, and director.

Christopher Nolen did an amazing job of creating and giving his vision life on the big screen. This is the true story of how 800 boats, most of them small personal pleasure and fishing boats from England, crossed the English Channel to save over 338,000 allied soldiers consisting of British, French, Canadian and Belgium men who were trapped by German soldiers.

Nearly 400,000 soldiers were backed-up to the English Channel, trapped into a corner at Dunkirk, France. German planes bombed the English ships, including hospital ships taking the wounded away from the shoreline. Boats were also torpedoed and sunk. The British Government determined that sending in more large ships and planes to assist these trapped troops would only result in more losses of people and hardware.

The call went out to boat owners in England to sail to Dunkirk and save as many men as possible. Their low water draft meant they could also get closer to shore.

The film follows a couple of the English pilots in their Spitfires as they sacrificed themselves to knock German plains from the sky. It follows a couple of soldiers as they try to find their way to a boat to take them to freedom, alive. It gives the viewer glimpses of British command thinking through Commander Bolton. And it follows a man and his sons in their small boat attempting to save as many as possible. The line shown in the previews and used in the film, “there’s no turning away from this…” was poignantly perfect.

Everyone who played a character in this film is to be lauded. Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Lee Armstrong, James Bloor, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Hardy, and Kenneth Branagh, just to name a few, were fantastic in each of their respective roles. The music by Hans Zimmer was astounding. The sound effects and its use was spot on perfect. Hoyte Van Hoytema created a sublime view as director of photography. As I previously noted Christopher Nolen’s script and direction was clearly top-notch. This film is his crowning achievement thus far.

Overall:  As of July 2017, clearly best film of the year.

The Zookeeper's Wife

First Hit:  Very well made and crafted film that tells a compelling story. This story is impactful because of its significance in WWII. As Warsaw falls to Nazi Germany the Warsaw Zoo, being managed by Antonina and Jan Zabinski (Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh respectively) comes under the control of Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl) who was head of Berlin’s Zoo. However, now he’s under Hitler’s spell of supremacy.

The early scenes are set up to show just how much Antonina loves her animals. Later on we learn why she’s drawn to the animals and it solidifies the early part of the film. This is great direction of a strong script. The reaffirming of the story as it moves along.

Another time I thought this film did this well was when Jan and Antonina were lying in bed, and he subtly indicates that Antonina must really work her friendship with Heck to make their lives and the lives they want to save, easier. What is interesting is that I interpreted this to mean that she was given a level of freedom to use her sexuality. Antonina hears this as well, but when Heck washes her hands and Jan sees this, he gets really angry and she doesn’t understand why, she thought she was supposed to do this. This is great and interesting filmmaking.

The story is that after the Germans took and killed all their zoo animals for meat, Jan and Antonina started hiding young Jewish children and some adults in the basement area (some cages) below their home. They would then connect these people with others who were getting them out of the country or into other safe houses.

Jan would pick them up in trucks collecting food garbage from the ghetto Jewish area of the city, tuck people under the garbage and bring them into their home, feed them, supply them with legal paper forgeries and send them on their way. One day Jan sees two German soldiers sexually attack a young girl named Urszula (Shira Haas), so he gathers her up and takes her back to his house. She is in shock and with gentle kindness is slowly brought out of her shock by a rabbit, painting and other young children who are hiding out.

The story evolves to shortly after the war and with this ending, there is some happiness and of course sadness. The amazing thing is that they saved over 300 Jews from being shipped  to a concentration camp and their probable death.

Chastain was superb. She captured vulnerability, strength, and persistence. Her ability to hold and be Antonina’ heart was wonderful. Heldenbergh was amazing. His ability to be tough, yet have the kind of compassion he shows in this role is amazing. Bruhl was very strong in an unenviable role. He clearly carried the appropriate level of following orders. Haas was sublime. She was so strong and believable in this role that I couldn’t image it being done any better. Her evolution from shock to engaged with others was perfect. Val Maloku as Jan and Antonina’s son was excellent. The scene when Heck questions him in the kitchen was amazing. Angela Workman wrote an incredible screenplay from the true story by Diane Ackerman. Niki Caro did an amazing job of directing this film and telling this story.

Overall:  Seeing the trailers, I didn’t really expect to like this film, however, I was deeply touched by the story and the way it was delivered.

Land of Mind (Under Sandet)

First Hit:  An excellent, amazingly strong and difficult story to watch.

The Germans planted more than 2,000,000 mines on Denmark beaches in anticipation of an Allied landing. Upon the ending of the war, the Danish were given about 2,000 German, mostly young teen-age prisoners to find and diffuse these mines. Given the atrocities of the Germans, there is no love lost between these two countries or the people.

The first scene is a setup to this point because we see Sgt. Carl Rasmussen (Roland Moller) watching German prisoners walk down a Danish road, when he spies one carrying a Danish flag. He gets up out of his jeep and beats this man mercilessly. Any of the other prisoners eyeballing him doing this, get beat as well.

A short time later he’s assigned about 16 of these young inexperienced boys to manually find, dig up, and defuse 45,000 mines on a section of beach. They are told, if they do this they will get to go home.

The film goes to long lengths to show the high level of animosity the Dane’s have for these Germans. The Germans ruined their country and the Danes expect them to fix what they can before they leave or get killed, either outcome is OK with the Danes.

As they start clearing the beach, there are accidents and mines go off and people hurt. For me, the most difficult part of watching this film was waiting for the inevitable to happen. There were times I held my hand up to my eyes in anticipation of an explosion. However, the filmmaker and director didn’t use the tried and tested “third” time for the accident, which added to the intensity of the film.

At some point, Rasmussen begins to care about these innocent young boys and goes out to find them food. He develops and respectful friendship with Sebastian Schumann (Louis Hoffmann) who is enterprising, resourceful, and a natural born leader of these German youth. One of the more difficult parts for Rasmussen is the man he works for, Lieutenant Ebbe (Mikkel Folsgaard), who wants Rasmussen to be very hard line and mean to these young German men they depend on to defuse the mines.

The cinematography of this film is extraordinary. The pacing, growth and changes in all the characters is fantastic. The beautiful starkness of the Danish coastline was remarkable as the setting. The questions this film creates are perfect. Questions like, is it better to befriend the Germans to get the job done better? Or is it better to treat them like slaves and dirt to support their anger? There are interesting questions brought up by this film and I enjoyed having them dance through my mind as I watched this strong well-done film.

Moller was perfect and captivating as the Sgt. in charge of these lost youth. Folsgaard was perfect as the young, arrogant and single-minded Lieutenant. Hoffmann was sublime as the young German soldier who was a natural born leader. Laura Bo as Karen, the local woman whose farm they worked near, was wonderful. Her anger towards the Germans was perfect as was her gratefulness for them saving her daughter. All of the German soldier cast were perfect, especially Emil and Oskar Belton as twins Ernst and Werner Lessner who embodied both trust and angst in their path moving forward. Martin Zandvliet wrote and directed this film with a perfect eye and feel for the time and the internal struggles for all the characters.

Overall:  This was one of the best films I’ve seen in the past year. It deserved its 2016 nomination for Best Foreign Film.

The Founder

First Hit:  Michael Keaton makes a very interesting story fantastic.

The Founder is about Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) and how he built the fast-food empire McDonalds.

There are numerous reasons for me to be engaged with this film. One of them being my own franchising experience. In the mid-late 1970’s I worked for Century 21 International Inc. which was then in its franchising heyday. At that time they also became a public company. More recently I was Chief Operations Officer for Bar Method International, Inc. which among its businesses franchised Bar Method exercise studios throughout the United States and Canada.

With this background, it is safe to say I know something about the trials and tribulations of franchising. This film is amazing at highlighting many of the difficulties of franchising and how quality control of the product is key. One of the questions this film points out is: Do "investor owned" franchises work? This film tells that story and more.

The film begins with Kroc out on the road trying to sell mixers. We learn during the film, he has a history of trying to sell all sorts of products and ideas. He's a somewhat haunted man chasing success. To help him, he listens to records on persistence and positive thinking while on the road selling these state of the art five spindle milk shake mixers. He drives from carhop restaurant to carhop restaurant hoping to make a sale. His wife Ethel (Laura Dern) appears to be quasi-supportive and would like a more stable life, be seen as higher up in their social standing, and go to the country club for dinner more often. She appears lonely and does her best to keep their household together.

One day a he calls his office and learns that some hamburger stand in California bought five of his mixers. He’s astounded and doesn’t believe it. He calls and gets Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman) on the phone who says, “yes”, the order is incorrect, he didn’t order enough, he’ll take eight mixers. So instead of going home he drives from Illinois to California to meet the guy who wants eight of his mixers.

Upon arriving he’s shocked to find long lines in front of the order window, thinking it will take forever to get his food, he finds out that the line goes fast, he orders and gets his food within 30 seconds. Sitting down on a bench, he takes a bite, loves what he tastes and notices that everyone is loving the burger, fries and soft drink they bought.

After Dick and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald give him a tour of their restaurant operation, he is struck by lightning. He wants in. He wants to be a part of this amazing food delivery service. Serving a limited controlled menu that is prepared the same way every time served within 30 seconds from when the customer orders and pays.

He works out a deal to open franchises under very strict guidelines as indicated in the contract they all sign. Trying to open McDonalds franchises proves to be a test in courage to make sure they meet the strict guidelines. It is through this process that he discovers the right type of person needed to be a successful franchisee, meets his future wife Joan (Linda Cardellini), and what it takes to make money in the franchising business. The rest of the film is about how this journey begins and how he, Ray Kroc, becomes “The Founder” of McDonalds.

Keaton is absolutely amazing as Ray Kroc. He’s wired, fired and inspired. Above all he's persistent in his actions which leads to his achieving his wants and dreams. Offerman is sublime as Dick McDonald. His intellect, ability to create processes that work, and stubbornness are perfect for someone who wanted to protect and perfect his creation. Lynch is very good as the more emotional and feeling based brother. He’s there to support his brothers ideas. Dern has a minimal role which has little range and is very subdued. Cardellini is wonderful as Kroc’s second wife Joan and her character is a perfect match for Ray. Robert D. Siegel wrote an amazing script that did enough research to know what it takes to create products and processes capable of being franchised. John Lee Handcock did an outstanding job of taking the story and letting Keaton act out the story.

Overall:  This was great acting in a wonderful script about something most everyone in the world has experienced, McDonalds restaurant.