The Dark Knight Rises

First Hit:  A real waste of 164 minutes.

The beginning of an action thriller film needs to draw the audience in with intrigue.

This film starts off with lost mediocrity and because the beginning is not set well, the rest of the film fails. Not that there aren’t fun, interesting, and exciting moments, but the slowness and overly complex development of a unexceptional plot was wasteful of my time.

Christian Bale (as Bruce Wayne/Batman) looked bored and grateful that this will be the last time he has to pretend he’s the king of Gotham’s crime fighters. That the film hinted that Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Blake) will become “Robin” in some future encounter was unfortunate. What worked? Anne Hathaway worked.

She played the petty thief Selina and every time she was on the screen, you watched her. She brought humor, intrigue, and something different than the dull overly scripted film that continued to unfold. Michael Cain as Wayne’s manservant Alfred, made an attempt to bring drama and passion to this film, but it was seen as just that; attempting to bring drama to a dying film.

One of the worst ideas in characters was having the evil enemy Bane (played by Tom Hardy), talk through a device covering his mouth which made him sound silly, not menacing. I could go on and on about how unengaged this film was with telling a good story but I won't. 

Frankly, the film was a poor semi-showcase of visual effects and overly dramatic storylines which meant little because the set-up was so piss poor.

Bale, looked and acted bored with the role and film. Gordon-Levitt was reasonably good and brought energy to a dying film. Hathaway was engaging and delightful and the only reason to sit through the bloated story. Cain was wasted in this role although he did try to bring emotion to a heartless film. Hardy’s character was minimalized by the voicing device. There are a whole host of others who were part of this film that didn’t make it any better despite their wholehearted attempts. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan wrote a wasteful overly complex lifeless script. Christopher Nolan directed this and I’ve no idea of what he was trying to give the audience but it felt as though he didn’t care a whole lot.

Overall: Bloated, overly developed and stupidly complex – don’t bother.

The Woman in the Fifth (La femme du Veme)

First Hit:  Confusing and not quite engaging enough to recommend.

This is an odd little film because Tom (played by Ethan Hawke) appears to be perfectly fine as he finds the location of his daughter Chloe (played by Julie Papillon) who is living in Paris with her mom Nathalie (played by Delphine Chuillot).

We quickly learn that there is a restraining order for him to stay away from them both. The police are called and he leaves, gets robbed of all his belongings and finds himself begging for a place to sleep. He gets a job sitting all night letting people into a bunker like building.

As the film rolls along we note that something isn’t right. He meets an older woman Margit (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) who invites him to visit her twice a week at a precise time at her home in the 5th Arrondissement for wild sex.

There is also the romantic pull of a beautiful polish barmaid Ania (played by Joanna Kulig) in the sleazy building he is living in. She wants to have a relationship with him and eventually they connect. But people start dying, Margit doesn’t really exist and the line between reality and fantasy is blurred.

Unfortunately, the way this film unfolds there is really no guiding path on which the audience can relate. In the end, the film is confused and unsatisfying.

Hawke is at times intense, lost, and mediocre in this part. Papillon is cute as the daughter. Chuillot is beautiful and strong in her brief screen moments. Thomas is OK as the illusive seductress. Kulig was the best part of this film. Douglas Kennedy’s book was converted in an unfulfilling way by Pawel Pawlikowski who also directed this unfocussed film.

Overall: Started off well but got lost early and fizzled out altogether.

Savages

First Hit:  Overly done mishmash of drugs, violence and machismo.

Oliver Stone has done a wide assortment of films and many of them have stories based in violence.

This one is another of those violent films of his and it appears he wanted to say something about the word savages. What the point was of this movie didn’t land on me.

I found this film overly acted (by Benicio Del Toro and Salma Hayek to name too examples) while aiming to shock the audience with the type of the uncaring violence we see in the news coming out of Mexico.

My interpretation of the purpose of this film was to see what happens when two friends Ben and Chon (played by Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch respectively), have their shared girlfriend O (played by Blake Lively) is taken from them because they didn't want to do a drug deal. The three of them love their life by making, selling and using their high grade pot.

Chon is an Iraqi war vet and is a cold killer but only has to use his skills occasionally to keep the drug payments flowing to their business. Ben is a botanist and is the creator of their product which exceeds all other pot in the world. He’s kind hearted and does volunteer work throughout the world when he’s not creating a new strain.

Elena (Hayek) is the leader of a Mexican drug cartel that wants Ben and Chon’s (names reminded me of Cheech and Chong – bad choice of names) product. Elena's enforcer is Lado (played by Del Toro). The film, which early on depicts beheadings and later on with lots of uncaring machismo violence, has no real point except we get to see Ben and Chon get their girl back after Elena kidnaps her to force a deal with the weed makers. For some acting relief, Stone has John Travolta as Dennis the dirty Federal Drug Agent.

Lively is pretty and, at times, plays an effective stupid girl who is a full blown pothead. Johnson is supposed to be the smart cool one and at times he’s OK in this role. Kitsch holds his role as non-caring enforcer well enough. Del Toro is overly slimy in his portrayal of an enforcer. Hayek is wasted in her role as an accidental drug cartel leader. Travolta made the most of his role and screen time. Shane Salerno, Don Winslow and Oliver Stone wrote this poorly constructed script with some stupid lines like “went all Henry the 8th on them”. Stone looks like he found a way to imbibe himself in drugs and violence once again.

Overall:  I enjoyed seeing my old playground town of Laguna Beach, but everything else was wasted – just like how the main characters spent most of their time.

Headhunters (Hodejegerne)

First Hit:  A complicated action filled thriller which ends with the lesson of telling the truth and trusting love.

We start with a voice over by Roger Brown (played by Aksel Hennie) talking about the importance of stealing art from homes and that it has to be done in 10 minutes while leaving no trace of his DNA.

This segues to him talking about his height (5 ft. 9 inches) as being a detriment to holding on to his 6 ft tall exceedingly beautiful wife Diana (Synnove Macody Lund). He believes she is staying because of the expensive gifts he gives her.

To pump up his ego he has a side relationship with Lotte (Julie R. Olgaard) whom he cares little about. Diana is opening an art gallery which is ironic because her husband steals art as a way to give his wife the money to open the gallery.

His day job is as a headhunter and his current recruiting assignment is for a Norwegian tech company. He has unorthodox recruiting methods including tricking his recruits that they must guess what he is thinking and what to be thinking. He’s looking for creativeness and quick intelligence.

At the opening of his wife’s gallery he meets Hote Inc's. former CEO Clas Greve (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who states he’s moving to Norway because his Aunt left him a home with a Ruben painting. The repartee between Clas and Roger both at the gallery and at their follow-up lunch is a precursor to the full action part of the film.

It is here that the film takes a new turn and heads into obsessive action. The complexity and convolutedness of the action is almost funny at times but the director lassos the complex action keeping the audience believing the story.

Hennie is great as the man with two lives. He learns the hard way that the truth and love are can be real despite his own view of the world. Lund is extraordinarily beautiful and grounding to Hennie as the film moves towards its interesting end. Olgaard is strong in a very small part. Coster-Waldau is fantastic as the guy who has a military background, is a business leader, and is focused on getting what he wants. Lars Gudmestad and Ulf Ryberg wrote an exciting script. Morten Tyldum directed this wild action film with enough control to make it engaging and believable.

Overall: This is a very good film and action is always on the edge of unbelievable.

The Raven

First Hit:  At times tedious and slow, other times engaged and watchable.

This film had some possibilities but I’d be hard pressed to understand why it didn’t work when looked at as a whole film.

This story is basically about someone who decides to make real the stories of Edgar Allan Poe (played by John Cusack) as a way to get Poe to kill himself. This person determines that the way to do this is to hold Poe’s girlfriend Emily (played by Alice Eve) hostage.

Emily’s father Captain Hamilton (played by Brendan Gleeson) dislikes Poe because Poe is usually drunk and has little inspiration to write more great stories. He’s against Poe but there is little story line to give this some credence.

I didn’t see the chemistry or connection between Poe and Emily. Detective Fields (played by Luke Evans) is the guy investigating the crimes modeled after Poe’s stories but he allows Captain Hamilton to push him around too much. As this point the movie meanders, but it was nice to see aspects of Poe’s tales shown on the screen.

Cusack is intelligent enough to carry off being Poe. Eve was OK but I never saw much of a real connection with Poe to make it work that they would die for each other. Gleeson is righteously arrogant enough to carry off his role as protective father. Evans is good as the detective but there is little to validate his credentials as head detective. Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare wrote the script which meandered at the beginning and tightened up in the end. James McTeigue directed this film. At times it seemed under control and with clear direction while at other times I was fully disengaged as I waited for the next relevant scene.

Overall:  Despite Cusack’s intelligent portrayal of Poe, this film didn’t have enough to make it very good.