Defiance

First Hit: This film is about a great WW II story but as filmed it didn’t work very well and left me unsatisfied.

The story is about three Jewish brothers, the Bielskis who saved a hundred plus Jews from execution by the Germans.

The film begins with the brother’s parents being found dead because they were Jews and the cooperative cruelty of the local police and German soldiers. The brothers take to the woods in Belarus to hide. They know these woods like the back of their hands and it is here they are joined by other Jews escaping the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

The older two brothers Tuvia and Zus (played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber respectively) have a falling out about how they are responding to their predicament. Zus wants to fight the Germans and ends up joining a group of Russian soldiers while Tuvia wants to hide, live and protect the 100 + people who are with him in the woods. In the end Tuvia’s group has to flee their woodland home as they are discovered and attacked by German planes.

When the Russian soldiers start to retreat, Zus makes a decision to stick it out and continue the fight. In the climactic scene the brothers are together again fighting as they defeat a German patrol, then they march off into the woods together, again.

There are a number of large and small dramatic scenes between the brothers and between others in the group but it didn’t create a really engaging story and I don’t know if the problem was the story, script, execution, or direction.

Both Craig and Schreiber have a strong screen presence and when they are on screen they easily become the focus. Their acting was strong as was the acting by others in smaller parts. A lot of the film was shot in the woods which could have been part of the problem with the film. Although to do this story it had to be shot in the woods and it reminded me of films shot mostly in and underwater. Films in water lose a level of intensity because the action and drama becomes dissipated by limitations of the environment the actors are working in.

Overall: This film was a letdown and although interesting it wasn’t compelling.

Revolutionary Road

First Hit: A wonderful film about the roles we play, the dreams we have and our attempts to live them.

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio play April and Frank a married couple living in the suburbs in the 1950s.

The crux of the film is that they both feel trapped in their current life and they want a change. Because of how they met, there is an initial underlying belief that they both view change and how one lives their life the same way. However, when it really comes down initiating and living the change, their beliefs are very different and when this fact raises its head; their relationship starts to fall apart.

Kate plays April and a strong powerful woman stuck in a time when women weren’t supposed to be strong and powerful. She wants to live life more fully and not the life of a housewife stuck in a jail called their suburban home on Revolutionary Road.

Leonardo plays Frank as a man willing to sacrifice his life to work for a company his father work in. He does this so that he can have this nice suburban home with two kids and an incredible wife. It is a role he feels safe with but unhappy in.

Frank hates his job and it is going nowhere. Scenes in the office with his co-workers and scenes at the train station with hoards of men, all looking the same, walking from the train to work are priceless. April convinces Frank they can live their dream if he willing to leave the country. Frank is up for the idea until he gets offered a promotion with more money. April sees her life and dream slipping further away which is complicated by a pregnancy.

This is film about being trapped and what do people do about it.

Sam Mendes directed this wonderful, direct, beautiful, poignant look at a 1950s couple riding on the razors edge of living their truth or a role. Just as he did in American Beauty, another one of my favorite films, Mendes gets powerful and startling performances out of his actors. And the visualizations are mostly spot on. The only hit on that is that the fluorescent light fixtures in one of the hallway scenes were fixtures from the 1990s. I loved the “four-holer” Buick Frank drove because it was just like the one we had growing up. Winslet in just two short months has appeared in films where she has given two incredible performances. Although this film is about both of them and their relationship, it is Kate that carries the power in this film. She is amazing in how she changes her character through this film. DiCaprio is very good in this film. To me this is his best ever acting performance. He uses his natural youthfulness and glibness to full advantage here. Another great performance in this film is by Michael Shannon the son of the real estate agent who sold them the home on Revolutionary Road. He visits them from a mental hospital. The great thing about his scenes is that he takes them over and delivers ringing truths about April and Frank’s predicament.

Overall: An outstanding and beautifully executed film about life, despair, and change.

Bride Wars

First Hit: The biting one liners and attacks kept this film alive.

Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway play Liv and Emma respectively. They are two lifelong friends who dream of marrying at The Plaza hotel in New York.

Liv is a high powered lawyer and the film has scenes showing her being in command and in control of situations. She is shown as always getting what she wants. Emma, on the other hand, is a teacher at school and is often helping out others to the detriment of her own wants and needs.

They both have boyfriends with Liv really wanting her boyfriend to propose to her. Emma’s boyfriend surprisingly proposes to her while sitting on the couch eating Chinese food.

The proposal is cute and well done. Not to be outdone Liv forces a proposal from her boyfriend at his office in front of his fellow workers and although he was planning on doing it later that evening it comes off quite well. Because of some poor planning, both their weddings are scheduled on the same day in the Plaza Hotel which causes them to not be each other bride’s maids.

This escalates into sabotage of each other wedding with some pretty dirty tricks.

This is a very light hearted film with little overall value or lessons to learn. Both Hudson and Hathaway are fine in their roles and the sharp barbs and antics keeps the film well paced.

Overall: It is lighthearted and the barbs and antics keep it watchable.

Doubt

First Hit: This is a very well acted film about a very sensitive subject and because we are left with doubt, it is aptly named.

Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams are extremely gifted actors and in this film you see, watch and know why. They embody the characters they are playing.

Hoffman as Father Flynn is being accused of inappropriate physical sexual contact with one of the students in the school associated with this Catholic Bronx church. The accuser is the school principal Sister Aloysius Beauvier (played by Streep).

Sister Aloysius is a stern strong willed taskmaster and makes it a point to terrify the students into her view of how they need to act in the school. She has some suspicions regarding Father Flynn but when Sister James (played by Adams) tells her of a couple of incidents she noticed regarding Father Flynn and Donald Muller a young vulnerable black boy she begins her relentless campaign to get him out of the school.

When Father Flynn explains the incidents they are perfectly plausible but Sister Aloysius doesn’t believe him. This story becomes one of wills and the strength of wills because there is no evidence and the film gives you not one bit of additional clarification. There is no evidence.

The acting by Amy Adams as the innocent Sister James adds to her ever increasing list of strong performances. Regardless of the genre, she is a very capable strong actress. Hoffman is outstanding as Father Flynn. You believe he is Father Flynn. And Streep, continues to show her power as an actress that becomes the character, taking on yet another accent, and making a believer of me.

Overall: A very interesting film of introspection, faith, tolerance, and doubt.

Valkyrie

First Hit: This is an interesting story and it could have been made into a more interesting film.

Tom Cruise is one of those actors where his own personality and public persona often overrides his ability to play a role and act within a character.

In this film he plays Colonel Claus van Stauffenberg a German soldier who believes that Hitler is off track and needs to be removed from power.

But no matter how Cruise acts, I’m watching Tom Cruise pretending to be someone else (see my review of Doubt to note the difference). Early in the film his group of soldiers is attacked and, in this attack, Stauffenberg loses most of one arm, some fingers from his other remaining hand and one of his eyes. He gets shipped to Berlin and hooks up with others who feel that Hitler needs to be replaced.

Through his intense single-mindedness (this is how Cruise acts in all his films) he crafts the plan to assassinate Hitler.

One of the best parts of the film is when he is ordered to give the Heil Hitler salute and he thrusts is partial arm out of his uniform sleeve and shouts “Heil Hitler”.

One of the unnerving things about this film is that all of the lead actors have a different accent. Granted having actors speak English allows the film to have a wider audience but here we have Germans portrayed by Americans, English and German actors all speaking their version of English and none of the accents match. Odd at first and then I just quit letting it bother me.

Overall: The story was very interesting and one I didn’t know anything about, but I couldn’t help but think with a different director and set of actors it might have been a much better film.