The Duke: Larceny with a twist

The Duke (2020) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and brief sexuality

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.29.22

This is another great one for the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction file.

 

On the very early morning of August 21, 1961, somebody broke into London’s National Gallery and stole Francisco Goya’s painting, “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington.” The carefully calculated crime baffled police, who assumed that the caper must have been masterminded by a professional gang of experienced Italian art thieves.

 

Kempton (Jim Broadbent) promises, after one final attempt, that he'll stop fighting the
BBC over its television license fees. Alas, his wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) isn't
sure that she believes him...

Four years later, the painting was returned by 61-year-old Kempton Bunton, a disabled pensioner who subsequently confessed to the crime.

That was wild enough … but what happened at Bunton’s subsequent trial was so audacious, that it prompted an amendment of British law.

 

Director Roger Michell’s delightful depiction of these astonishing events, a cheeky slice of gentle British whimsy, is fueled by endearing performances from Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, as Kempton and his wife, Dorothy. Michell, cinematographer Mike Eley and editor Kristina Hetherington deliberately emphasize a retro look, atmosphere and pacing, strongly evoking a sense that their film could have been made during the 1960s.

 

Screenwriters Richard Bean and Clive Coleman compress the time frame, but otherwise present the saga pretty much as it actually went down; they were blessed, during production, with hitherto unrevealed details supplied by Bunton’s grandson.

 

Kempton is introduced as a taxi driver and frustrated playwright — his latest opus is a reimagining of the scriptures with Jesus as a woman (!) — who has long been annoyed by the BBC’s television license fee. His sad efforts to stoke public awareness with a home-grown campaign — “Free TV for the OAP (Old Age Pensioners)” — has gone nowhere; he also has been imprisoned several times, for non-payment of the license fee.

 

(Tossed into Durham Prison for two weeks, for refusing to pay a television fee? Seriously?)

 

Not much later, a wealthy American art collector purchases Goya’s painting for £140,000, with the intention of taking it to the United States. Scandalized by the thought of losing this precious artwork, the British government buys it back for the same sum. Kempton becomes outraged, while watching the resulting press conference on (his illegal) TV, grousing the such a sum could have provided free television to thousands of OAPs.

 

Kempton obsesses over the painting — much to Dorothy’s long-suffering dismay — visits it often, and views it as a tangible example of everything wrong with government spending. He learns that the gallery’s sophisticated alarm system is deactivated during early mornings, so the cleaning crew can work; access can be made via a window in an upstairs bathroom.

 

And — hey, presto! — the painting winds up in the Bunton’s Newcastle flat. He and younger son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead) cleverly conceal it by constructing a false back to a bedroom wardrobe.

 

But now what?

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: A cheeky romp

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, sexual candor, violence and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.22.22

Well, color me surprised.

 

Nicolas Cage has been turning out mostly violent stinkers like a man determined to secure a permanent place in the Razzie Hall of Shame: 39 films (!) in the past decade alone — the pandemic didn’t slow him down a jot — and that’s not including the four animated films to which he lent his voice.

 

Although initially wary of collaborating on a movie script with a newbie writer, Nick
(Nicolas Cage, right) finds it hard to resist Javi Gutierrez's (Pedro Pascal) enthusiasm.

Drive Angry, Rage, The Runner, Dog Eat Dog, Army of One, Vengeance, The Humanity Bureau, Between Worlds, Running with the Devil, Prisoners of the Ghostland … the list seems endless. (Honestly, I question whether some of them even achieved cable/satellite/streaming release; they certainly never played in theaters.)

I therefore approached this one with a gimlet eye, particularly since the exploitative advertising campaign gave no reason for optimism.

 

So much for assumptions.

 

Director Tom Gormican’s send-up of Cage — his career, reputation, fan base and constant financial peril — isn’t merely impudently self-referential; this audacious script, co-written by Gormican and Kevin Etten, is the most meta of meta. It’s a cheerfully deranged valentine to the “Cult of Cage,” those touchingly loyal fans — apparently they are legion — willing to forgive even his most deplorable turkeys.

 

This one’s no turkey. It’s actually quite entertaining, and frequently hilarious.

 

We meet Nick Cage (Cage, of course) down on his cinematic luck, desperate for the comeback potential of a film role championed by his perpetually harassed agent, Richard Fink (Neil Patrick Harris). Nick’s personal life is a disaster; his narcissistic megalomania has poisoned his relationships with ex-wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) and teenage daughter Addy (Lily Sheen).

 

Cage is hard to watch, during these early scenes; his effort to upstage Addy’s 16th birthday is particularly cringe-worthy. He’s also prone to arguing with a younger version of himself — think lanky, long-haired, bomber jacket-garbed Cage Mark 1, from the Raising Arizona/Wild at Heart era — who personifies his worst characteristics.

 

And yes: This display of dual Cages is a deliberate nod to the peculiar twin roles he played in Adaptation. Indeed, identifying all the riffs from Cage’s (better known) earlier films quickly becomes part of the game; some are name-checked, some are film clips being watched by various characters, some are replayed scenes (the one from Leaving Las Vegas being the most obvious).

Yaksha: Ruthless Operations — a taut, fast-paced spy thriller

Yasha: Ruthless Operations (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, for violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

We need to pay more attention to South Korean cinema; their espionage thrillers are much better than anything cranked out by Hollywood lately.

 

Han Ji-hoon (Park Hae-soo, back to camera) gets nothing but scornful dismissal from the
black ops team he has just met: from left, Jae-gyu (Song Jae-lim), Hui-won (Lee El),
Manager Hong (Yang Dong-keun), Jeong-dae (Park Jim-young) and Ji Gang-in
(Sul Kyung-gu)

Director Na Hyun’s Yaksha — with the silly subtitle “Ruthless Operations” added for its U.S. debut — is an excellent example. Calling this sleek, fast-paced romp “stylized” is an understatement; Hyun, editor Kim Sang-beom and their production team blend twisty spycraft, double- and triple-crosses with pulsating action set-pieces that make excellent use of visually dynamic locations.

It’s also fascinating to see an entirely different cultural approach to espionage issues: points of view wholly unlike the usual American take on the Far East.

 

The premise from scripters Ahn Sang-hoon and Na Hyun is irresistible: An idealistic, by-the-book civilian suddenly gets tossed among a ruthless black-ops team accustomed to street justice in pursuit of the greater good. Our naïve protagonist is horrified by the extremes exercised by his new companions, just as they’re thoroughly disgusted by his namby-pamby faith in a broken system.

 

Meanwhile, all concerned are trying to ferret out a mole who’s been compromising Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) operations.

 

Following a brief and violent prologue — the significance of which becomes clear only later — we meet Han Ji-hoon (Park Hae-soo), a buttoned-down prosecutor with Seoul’s Central District Prosecutor’s Office. He’s in the final stages of indicting Lee Chan-young (Choi Won-young), the obviously corrupt chairman of the Sangin Group; the case seems air-tight… 

 

…until a procedural error is revealed.

 

Chairman Lee walks free; Ji-hoon is humiliated. (Choi milks this moment with maximum condescending smarm.)

 

Desperate to regain his professional stature, Ji-hoon accepts an unusual assignment from Yeom Jeong-won (Jin Kyung), director of NIS foreign intelligence activities. She’s troubled by reports coming from a black ops team headed by Ji Gang-in (Sul Kyung-gu) in Shenyang, China; the intel feels … wrong. Fabricated. Too benign to be true.

 

Believing this is just the sort of task for which his skills are best suited, Ji-hoon heads to Shenyang and liaises with Section Manager Hong (Yang Dong-keun). The latter encourages this young upstart to forget the assignment, enjoy the sights for awhile, and then file a neutral report. Incensed, Ji-hoon demands to accompany Gang-in — who prefers the nickname Yaksha — and his team on their next mission.

Father Stu: A partial contender

Father Stu (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and coarse behavior

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.15.22

Faith-based films always run the risk of becoming too sentimental, maudlin and sappy.

 

To her credit, writer/director Rosalind Ross doesn’t fall into that trap here … at least, not until the final act. But even those heart-tugging details are justified by what befell the actual Stuart Long, who endured — and surmounted — a series of setbacks akin to the trials of Job.

 

While trying hard to turn his life around, Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg, foreground) tries
to make amends with his long-estranged father (Mel Gibson), with less than ideal results.

Although deeply steeped in Catholicism, Ross’ adaptation of Long’s life is more redemption saga than crisis of faith … because, as portrayed here, Stu Long (Mark Wahlberg) hasn’t a shred of faith to begin with.

 

This is more the saga of two hard-charging, unrepentant ruffians — father and son — who, initially against their will, are forced to confront and re-evaluate their many shortcomings.

 

Initially, then, Stu and his father Bill (Mel Gibson) have a great time boozing and brawling, showing little regard for fellow man (or woman), while spouting a relentless stream of self-serving, profanity-laden social and theological “observations” that are — in fairness — quite funny at times.

 

Assuming, of course, that one can get past the coarse, egotistical misogyny.

 

The story begins in a working-class Montana community, where Stu is on the last legs of a minor boxing career, which brought in just enough money to keep him and his mother, Kathleen (Jacki Weaver), modestly fed, clothed and sheltered. But the battering has taken its toll, and wrought enough damage to become life-threatening, should he return to the ring.

 

On impulse, without a scintilla of performance experience — and to the dismay of his mother — Stu heads to Los Angeles, with dreams of Hollywood stardom dancing in his eyes. This also happens to be where the long-estranged Bill landed, although Stu has no intention of looking up his old man. At least, not initially.

 

Casting calls go nowhere; Stu winds up working in a supermarket meat department. One day he chances to spot Carmen (Teresa Ruiz), a Catholic Sunday school teacher who easily — even curtly — rebuffs his efforts at bad-boy charm. Not one to take a hint, and determined to win her over, the longtime agnostic begins attending her church.

 

But it won’t be anywhere near that easy. Aside from having to navigate her rigid Catholic chastity, Stu has to deal with her equally strict parents, along with the church’s priest, Father Garcia (Carlos Leal). The latter hasn’t the faintest idea how to cope with this interloper, and Stu’s first clumsy attempt at confession becomes a profanity-laden failure.

 

Despite Stu’s smug appeal — Wahlberg never has been short on charisma — it’s difficult to like the guy thus far. His churchgoing is superficial and self-serving, as befits Stu’s inherent nature; we can’t help feeling he just wants to score with Carmen … after which, what?

Ambulance: Dead on arrival

Ambulance (2022) • View trailer

No stars (TURKEY). Rated R, for intense violence, bloody images and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.8.22

This may be the most annoying movie ever made.

 

It’s certainly one of the worst.

 

With his get-rich-quick bank heist gone south, deranged psychopath Danny Sharp
(Jake Gyllenhaal, left) screams at the pursuing police vehicles to "Stay back!",
while his adopted brother Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) tries to keep their speeding
ambulance on the road.

Director Michael Bay has cornered the market on high-octane junk — witness his ever-more pathetic string of noisy, soulless Transformer epics, not to mention 2019’s similarly wretched 6 Underground — but this one plumbs hitherto untapped depths of awfulness.

The English language, graced with such a vast and colorful collection of adjectives and adverbs, is insufficient to adequately explain just how deplorable this film is. (But I shall try.)

 

Chris Fedak’s bone-stupid, so-called script hasn’t a shred of credibility, and his dialogue is as limp as a dead banana. The one-dimensional acting ranges from ludicrously stoic — notably Garret Dillahunt’s somnambulant, I’ve-wandered-in-from-another-movie portrayal of LAPD tactical SIS Capt. Monroe — to over-the-top, foaming-at-the-mouth derangement (Jake Gyllenhaal, take a bow for a performance so bad, you’re guaranteed a Razzzie Award).

 

Cinematographer Roberto De Angelis relies heavily on swooping, swooshing, barrel-roll, upside-down, skyscraper-hugging drone shots guaranteed to send unprepared viewers into motion-sickness shock: all assembled and cut at hyperspeed by a team of editors — Doug Brandt, Pietro Scalia and Calvin Wimmer — who obviously laced their morning coffee with meth.

 

Note to Mr. Bay: The mere fact that you can do something with drone cameras, doesn’t mean you should. And the result sure as hell isn’t anything approaching art or craft. 

 

Not even 10 minutes into this barrage of wretched excess, I was fighting vertigo and nausea.

 

The “story,” such as it is.

 

Decorated military veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), at wit’s end trying to navigate insurance restrictions, can’t get clearance for the expensive surgery required to fix his wife’s unspecified medical condition. (Of course it’s unspecified; otherwise, Fedak would have had to do actual research.)

 

Will therefore — unwisely — seeks a loan from his motor-mouthed career criminal brother, Danny (Gyllenhaal). Instead, Will gets roped into joining a motley, heavy caliber-toting crew on a “perfectly planned” heist to steal $32 million from a nearby bank.

 

Elsewhere, we meet plucky ambulance EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza González), who can “keep anybody alive for 20 minutes, but can’t keep a partner.” She trades flirty, tone-deaf banter with newly assigned colleague Scott (Colin Woodell).

 

Elsewhere, we meet patrol officer Mark (Cedric Sanders), who encourages his rookie partner Zach (Jackson White) to try for a date with a cute teller at — wouldn’t you just know it — the same bank Danny’s crew is about to hit.

 

All the Old Knives: Quite dull

All the Old Knives (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, sexuality, nudity and violence

Available via: Movie theaters and Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Way back in the day, as his TV series The Outer Limits was becoming too expensive, creator/producer Leslie Stevens coined the phrase “bottle show” for a budget-saving episode that minimized cast members, sets, shooting schedules and effects.

 

It begins as an intimate meal, but no: Celia (Thandiwe Newton) knows that she's
actually being interrogated by former lover Henry (Chris Pine), regarding long-ago
events that could leave her continued survival in doubt.

He wrote and directed “Controlled Experiment”: the first known case of a deliberate bottle show, and one that indeed rescued his series from financial peril.

Bottle shows subsequently became ubiquitous, with prominent — and often popular — examples on series as diverse as Star Trek, The X-Files, Friends, Mad About You, Breaking Bad and Grey’s Anatomy.

 

When the pandemic closed down conventional filmmaking for well over a year, innovative directors responded with the cinematic equivalent of bottle shows; examples have been trickling into theaters and streaming services during the past few months.

 

Some, like The Outfit, made ingenious use of such limitations.

 

All the Old Knives, sadly, succumbs to every possible pitfall awaiting such a shoot.

 

Olen Steinhauer’s 2015 novel may have been another popular entry in his oeuvre of best-selling espionage thrillers, but its adaptation here by director Janus Metz is the very definition of boring: slow, dull, overcooked and seemingly interminable. The “bottle” restraints are obvious: incessantly repeated flashbacks, relentlessly tight two-shots during sluggish exchanges between stars Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton, and ludicrously empty sets.

 

(A posh Carmel restaurant, with nobody else in it during an entire afternoon and evening? Puh-leaze.)

 

The story is pure John Le Carré territory: the eight-years-later search for a mole who compromised a critical operation in the CIA’s Austrian field office, with catastrophic results. 

 

The year is 2020. Ilyas Shushani (Orli Shuka), a long-hunted terrorist, finally has been captured, and — just before he dies (we know not how or why, which seems odd) — he shares a juicy nugget of information that reaches the CIA’s Vienna section chief, Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne). He assigns veteran field agent Henry Pelham (Pine) to investigate all staff members who monitored a horrific attack on Flight 127, grounded by terrorists at the Vienna Airport back in January 2012, when everybody aboard ultimately was killed.

 

Although half a dozen people were intimately involved with the unfolding 24-hour crisis — including one who committed suicide just a few months later, which seems very suspicious — Henry focuses on only two (a decision undoubtedly prompted by bottle shoot limitations, rather than anything remotely approaching logic or common sense).

 

They are second-in-command Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce), retired and living in London; and fellow operative Celia Harrison (Newton), retired and living in Carmel with her family.

 

And, small detail: Henry and Celia were lovers, back in 2012.

 

Which seems an insane breach of protocol, but — as Henry assures Wallinger — “I’ll know if she lies.”

 

Whatever. 

Better Nate than Ever: Broadway dreams

Better Nate Than Ever (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.1.22

A film that opens with George Benson’s “On Broadway” definitely gets off to a good start.

 

And yes: For the most part, writer/director Tim Federle’s endearing teen fantasy achieves its modest goals. This is a fairy tale for young theater nerds, and while the first act is a bit ragged, the story — and its talented title character — easily win us over in time.

 

At low ebb, with everything apparently going wrong, Nate (Rueby Wood, center in green)
stumbles across a busking band that happens to be playing — what else? —
"On Broadway."

That said, the relentless “Disneyfication” is quite distracting. This appears to be a world dominated on stage and screen solely by other Disney efforts, which is rather boorish. The Mouse House may desire world domination, but they could be more diplomatic along the way.

 

Anyway…

 

Thirteen-year-old Nate Foster (Rueby Wood, in an energetic film debut), a small-town kid, has long nurtured massive Broadway dreams; alas, nobody else shares his view of his own talent. His parents are quietly tolerant; older brother Anthony (Joshua Bassett) is horrified to discover that Nate attends school wearing — gasp, shudder — lip gloss.

 

The story opens on what Nate assumes will be his big day, with the newly posted school play cast list granting him the starring role in a musical about Abraham Lincoln. Instead, to his horror, he’s relegated to an ensemble part.

 

As a tree.

 

Disappointed beyond words, he’s all but immune to the comforting words of best friend Libby (Aria Brooks), who counsels patience and calls him out at the slightest whiff of a bad attitude. 

 

Ah, but Libby also has Big News. A hot-shot New York director is mounting a Broadway musical adaptation of the 2002 animated film Lilo & Stitch (ahem), and has announced an open casting call for the mischievous, blue-furred title character. Better still, this will take place on the same upcoming weekend when Nate’s parents will treat themselves to a spa experience … and therefore won’t be home to monitor their sons’ activities.

 

Libby has it all worked out (well, mostly). They’ll claim sleepovers with their respective parents, then hop a red-eye bus for the long trip to Manhattan. Once at the casting studio, everything will fall into place … right?

 

Well, no. Predictably.