Secret In Their Eyes

First Hit:  There were some good moments, but it lacked the kind of tenseness to make it interesting.

There are films that do time shifts well and others that do not. This film does not.

When the audience has to work, look for clues, to find out what time period they are in, it takes them out of experiencing the story. This is what happens here, because some of the characters don’t show the 13 year change or difference enough to know what time frame we are in at that moment of the new scene gets presented to the audience. I had to think “what time are they in now?”

The character that was the most difficult was Claire (Nicole Kidman), she was rarely discernable. Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) was, at times, discernible between the two different time periods, and other times I had to look hard at his hair or facial features to figure out where the film was. Jess (played by Julia Roberts), however, was easily discernible between the time periods mostly because her grieving and self-made purgatory created a look that was far different than the earlier time period.

This story is about three people, Ray, Claire and Jess who are attempting to capture and prosecute a man Marzin/Beckwith (Joe Cole) who raped and killed Jess’ daughter Carolyn (Zoe Graham). It is also about obsession. How people get obsessed with people whether they are, friends, infatuations, or object of an investigation.  

Initially the murderer gets off on a technicality but Ray's obsession of finding and trying Marzin, after 13 years of looking, is a good story. When he finds, who he believes is the man, he's convinced the team can put him away this time. The film tells the initial story of Carolyn’s death and the killer getting off, as well as the new road the three take to get Marzin convicted this time around. I did think that Roberts was really good in unglamorous role. The way she wore the pain of the death of her daughter was spot on good.

Kidman was OK, her best part was interviewing Marzin. The sultry, focused, primal nature of her questioning was amazing. Ejiofor was strong however there were too many scenes I didn’t know what time period he was in soon enough – I had to think about it. Kidman was good but besides the interviewing Marzin scene, her role wasn’t dynamic. Dean Norris as Bumpy Willis was the easiest character to know the time span, his role and the makeup did him right. In this role he was very good. Michael Kelly as Reg Siefert was also very good as the antagonistic cop who worked both for and against the main characters during all these years. Billy Ray and Juan Jose Campanella wrote an interesting screenplay but the execution wasn’t quite good enough through Billy Ray’s direction.

Overall:  The story good, the execution was less than good which brought down what could have been a better film.

The Gift

First Hit:  The audience has moments of being shocked and the point of the film, impact of bullying, is well made.

The set-up is that a couple has moved from Chicago to LA. Simon (Jason Bateman) because of a new job opportunity and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) because as a designer she can work from anywhere and that they lost a baby while in Chicago.

The story and script try to have you believe that she’s gets too anxious and may be struggling and as the film moves on, you find out differently. The seed for the story heading a different way from the setup is Gordo (Joel Edgerton) a hold high school buddy of Simons.

There is tension during each interaction and as it builds the actual reasons for the tension become known towards the film’s ending. The misdirection is handled fairly well and the script (by Edgerton) is filled with hanging truths.

Bateman is really good as being the man who wants to take care of his wife and does this a little too strongly. Hall is excellent as portraying a level of dependency to her husband, but also with and empathy and compassion for Gordo to inquire why he is the way he is. Edgerton is really strong as the affected man who continues to deal with the events of his high school days. He carries and expresses the burdens he obtained from his earlier years very well. Edgerton wrote a strong script and did a good job of directing the actors, including himself.

Overall:  I enjoyed suspense created in this film and appreciated the point of the film about bullying even more. 

Before I Go To Sleep

First Hit:  Nicole Kidman was outstanding as a woman who cannot remember one day from the next.

This is not a film that will have a large audience as there is little that is uplifting about the story.

Christine (Kidman) wakes up every day and has no memory of the previous day. She wakes up in a man’s arms, doesn’t know who he is. She goes into the bathroom where there is a wall of pictures showing her and her husband, getting married, kissing, holding each other and they are appropriately labeled. She comes back into the bedroom and her husband Ben (Colin Firth) begins to explain who he is and what has happened to her.

She also is seeing, unbeknownst to Ben, a therapist who calls her every morning and asks her to review a video camera hidden in her closet. She watches the video she has taken of herself over the previous days, which begins her learning process for the day. At the end of each day she has a story, only to forget it by the next morning.

However, is her husband her husband? Is her friend her friend? What was her life before the accident which rendered her with this memory affliction?

Kidman is very believable. I am constantly amazed as how she can take these odd, sometimes dark, and brooding parts and bring them to life in a way that is so engaging. Firth is almost perfect as the guy who shows, remorse, anger, and darkness while being human. Rowan Joffe wrote and directed this film. From a dialogue point of view there were moments of crisp beauty and other times it seem to drag a little. However, the direction was very strong. He got a lot out of the actors, while creating a feeling of brooding darkness with both the sets in the house as well as outside (rarely sunny and the in nondescript home).

Overall:  Strong acting with a difficult non-uplifting subject ended as a good with a limited audience film.

Gone Girl

First Hit:  This was like watching two different films – the first section, a long ~2 hour segment was fascinating, the last part was a very different film and not as interesting although more pointed.

I’m really not sure why this story was created this way.

In the first two hours the audience watches Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) squirm to try to prove his innocence of killing his missing wife. Affleck is perfect at giving the sense that he’s innocent as well as guilty all at the same time. His enigmatic personality is well used in this role because as soon as you believe he’s innocent then he does something that makes you wonder.

When the film moves to show Amy Dunne’s (Rosamund Pike) story it adds to the film greatly. However, as this section moves forward, there is a point about 2 hours into the film where I think it takes a turn too far to the left. As we watch Amy’s escape plan fail, it gets to the point where her sickness is pushed more into physicality of action.

It is at this point that her actions with Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris) where the second film begins. From here I was reeling from the change of view and pace of the film. And although I found the new story interesting, it was so much more upfront and in your face than the previous two hours.

Affleck is absolutely amazing as his ability to be enigmatic and be two sides of the story as required by the character. He was perfect for this part. Pike was absolutely beyond amazing. She was sublime in her ability to pull off the character she was supposed to be. She was amazingly calculated, vulnerable, steal skinned, and intellectually manipulative. Tyler Perry as lawyer Tanner Bolt was really a fun and good part of the film. Carrie Coon as Margo Dunne (Nick’s twin sister) was very good. Harris was also strong in his role. Kim Dickens and the lead detective was also very good. Gillian Flynn wrote an interesting screenplay from her own novel, however the story at the end was either too jolting or miss-directed. David Fincher directed this film and as separate parts these films were well directed, but as a single film, it was more difficult to watch the two pieces made into one film.

Overall:  For the most part this film was very good but be jarred as I was, I think the transition could have been better.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

First Hit:  Neeson is really good in an OK film.

Even when he’s given a poorly conceived script, Liam Neeson brings the quality of any film up. Take the last film I saw him in, “Non-Stop”, it was truly a mediocre script, but he made it better.

Here he does the same, although this script is better and overall it's a much better film than “Non-Stop”. As a former police officer who accidentally kills a young girl in a shootout after he’d been drinking, he gives up the drink and law enforcement. When we are re-introduced to Matt Scudder (Neeson’s character), we see he's a changed man, he does AA meetings and does unlicensed PI work on the side.

The story begins when he’s asked to find the killers of a drug dealer’s wife even though the husband paid the kidnappers $400,000 in ransom money. Will he take the job? Yes. At times the scenes of NYC are stunningly shot.

The grit, yet livability of the spaces and streets are true to form and add to the film’s story-line and feel. Scudder meets TJ (Astro) a homeless sickle cell stricken young man who ends up becoming an “associate” that helps him find and apprehend the culprits. Ray and Albert (David Harbour and Adam David Thompson respectively) are two really sick guys that kidnap, kill and maim their young female victims. Their mode is to hit on drug dealers who will have lots of cash on hand, have meaningful women in their lives, and ask for and get a ransom.

However they are sick guys who also just want to maim beautiful women, and paying the ransom won’t return them to their loved ones. I found myself wondering more about the interaction between these two guys because they were sick and odd. This could have been explored more along with their fixation with deviant sexual practices (thrill killing) and the cutting up women.

This edge in the film hung there like a huge weight.

Neeson as is his way, kept the film edgy and believable. Astro was great as the young man wanting to be a part of something and matter in some way. The interactions with Neeson were great. Harbour and Thompson were both perfectly sick in their actions and the way they interacted with each other. Scott Frank both wrote and directed this film.

Overall:  Aspects of this film were strong yet I felt something missing and maybe it was knowing more about the kidnappers.