Top Gun: Maverick — Top thrills

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action, and some strong language

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.27.22

When all the cylinders fire properly, it’s hard to beat a star-driven action melodrama.

 

Although this rip-roaring sequel to 1986’s Top Gun has been shaped to Tom Cruise’s outsized personality, there’s no denying the resulting entertainment value. This is classic Hollywood filmmaking: larger-than-life characters with just enough individuality to distinguish one from the next; a couple shades of interpersonal angst — and conflict — to touch the heartstrings; and all manner of heroic derring-do.

 

When his hot-shot students contemptuously snicker over Maverick's (Tom Cruise)
calm insistense that they still have a lot to learn, it doesn't take long for this "old guy"
to prove who really has the right stuff.

I’m generally concerned when the opening credits cite as many as five writers — in this case, Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie — but this isn’t a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Their story is cleverly structured into three distinct acts, each with specific goals and relationship arcs that blend with the high-octane fighter jet action.

Director Joseph Kosinski and editor Eddie Hamilton keep a steady hand on the throttle, and their tension-fueled ride never lets up.

 

Granted, this is one of those silly stories where everybody is known by colorful monikers, rather than their actual names. Ya gotta just roll with that.

 

In a refreshing nod to real time, more than three decades have passed since Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) established himself as one of the Navy’s top aviators. He has continued to push the envelope as a brave — and somewhat reckless — test pilot, nimbly dodging an advancement in rank that would ground him.

 

“It’s not what I am,” he admits, at one point. “It’s who I am.”

 

Each time a fresh act of insubordination has threatened to get him kicked out of the Navy, Maverick has been rescued by former nemesis-turned-wingman Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), now a 4-star admiral with the clout to protect his longtime friend.

 

But even Iceman may not be able to save Maverick from the high-tech progress that includes robotic and remote-controlled fighter jets that won’t require flesh-and-blood pilots. 

 

“The future is coming,” barks Rear Adm. Chester “Hammer” Cain (Ed Harris, in a fleeting cameo), “and you’re not in it.”

 

Nonsense, Maverick replies. A mission’s success always will come down to the split-second reflexes of the pilot on the scene.

 

As if to test this belief, Maverick abruptly is sent back to “Top Gun” school, where he liaises with Adm. Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm) and Adm. Solomon “Warlock” Bates (Charles Parnell). Assuming he’s about to get a mission, Maverick is chastened to learn that he’ll be teaching a dozen much younger Top Gun graduates: the elite “best of the best.” 

Montana Story: An unhurried, thoughtful study of grief

Montana Story (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Trauma and disappointment drive us apart.

 

If we’re lucky, the nagging desire for closure might prompt a reunion.

 

Cal (Owen Teague) thinks that bringing an elderly, arthritic horse to upstate New York
is a crazy idea, but his half-sister Erin (Haley Lu Richardson) is adamant: She wants
the horse to accompany her back home.

Writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel — working from a story by Mike Spreter — must be intimately acquainted with emotional pain. This quietly contemplative character drama is an unhurried, thoughtful study of grief, regret and — at times — barely repressed rage.

The often wrenching angst is driven by nuanced performances from Owen Teague and Haley Lu Richardson, as estranged half-siblings brought together as morose, somewhat reluctant witnesses to a crucial passing. The tone is relentlessly somber, the pacing just this side of glacial (likely too slow, for some viewers.)

 

The story begins as twentysomething Cal (Teague) returns to the family home and ranch in the big-sky landscape of Montana’s Paradise Valley. He has been summoned by tragedy: A stroke has rendered his father comatose and dependent upon life support and the patient attention of a full-time caregiver (Gilbert Owuor, as Ace).

 

The homecoming is far from comfortable, and Cal never comes close to rushing to his father’s bedside; he’s perfect content to leave ministration in the hands of Ace, a Kenyan immigrant who — no doubt a veteran of such vigils — likely is familiar with prickly family dynamics. Ace isn’t the slightest bit judgmental; Owuor radiates kindness, sympathy and understanding.

 

Cal is easily distracted by the mountain of mortgage debt and creditors’ statements that have long been ignored (nor does this surprise him). There’s also the matter of Mr. T, an arthritic, 25-year-old black stallion kept in the barn and cared for by Native American housekeeper Valentina (Kimberly Guerrero) and her adult son Joey (Asivak Koostachin), once a childhood friend of Erin and Cal’s.

 

The multi-ethnic casting is deliberate. We get a sense that Cal’s father’s many sins — unspoken and mostly unacknowledged, until the third act — include racism, and that Cal may have inherited enough of this tendency to be instinctively uncomfortable in Ace and Valentina’s presence … while simultaneously struggling against such knee-jerk behavior, in an effort to be a better, fair-minded person.

 

All of this remains unspoken; we infer and deduce such details, and likely back-story, via Teague’s thoughtful, richly layered acting. This is one of those cases where viewers’ likely unfamiliarity with his previous work — some may recognize him from the recent TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand — is an advantage, because it allows Teague to more easily become Cal. It’s not merely a performance; we recognize that this could be somebody living next door.

Downton Abbey: A New Era — A carefully calculated crowd-pleaser

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

This certainly is the epitome of “comfort cinema.”

 

As this ensemble cast has expanded since the series 2010 debut, writer/creator Julian Fellowes has done an impressive job of granting every new character ample individuality, exposure and melodramatic plot points. We’ve lost only two major players, over time — Matthew and Sybil Crawley (Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay) — while adding several dozen more.

 

After sound engineer Stubbins (Alex McQueen, in headphones) orders total silence from
everybody else, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) tries hard to match her spoken dialogue
to the silent images being projected on a screen.

Goodness, it takes several minutes, during this sequel’s title credits montage, just to run through the entire cast list.

Not that this is any sort of problem. Fellowes knows his audience, just as all the players have grown comfortable with their roles. Spending another two hours with these characters is like enjoying an evening with beloved friends and relatives.

 

This film’s subtitle — “A New Era” — is both apt and a bit misleading. On the one hand, it does signify both a pop-culture shift (about which, more in a moment) and a change in fortune for both the Crawley family and a few of their “downstairs” servants. Yet the rise of such working-class individuals, and the accelerating decline of the aristocracy — which played such a key role in the TV series’ final season — is largely ignored here, even though we’ve moved forward another year, to 1928.

 

Indeed, this film concludes on a note that suggests nothing has changed in this respect, as if the real-world’s socio-political clock had ceased to move forward. Granted, that prompts a cheerful, audience-pleasing tableau, if this is to be our final glimpse of these characters — assuming Fellowes isn’t persuaded to do yet another film — but it’s a bit of a cheat.

 

Not that fans will care a whit.

 

The story begins as Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the Earl of Grantham’s widowed son-in-law, marries Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton): a celebration that makes good on the previous film’s swooningly romantic finale. This is the “upstairs” answer to the earlier, humbler but equally romantic wedding of adorably impertinent assistant cook Daisy (Sophie McShera) and footman Andy (Michael Fox), now living in the tenancy home of her father-in-law, Mr. Mason (Paul Copley).

 

Two unexpected events land simultaneously. The British Lion Film Studio expresses interest in shooting its next silent costume drama, The Gambler, at Downton Abbey — a notion that horrifies the Earl, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville), and retired butler Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) — and the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) learns that she has been bequeathed a villa in the south of France, in the will of the recently deceased Marquis de Montmirail. 

 

The latter prompts all manner of raised eyebrows, but Violet refuses to provide any explanation; she tartly refers only to her “mysterious past” (a line delivered with Smith’s typically arch smugness).

Operation Mincemeat: Very well done

Operation Mincemeat (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief war violence, disturbing images and brief profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.20.22

World War II has long gifted cinema with a wealth of heroic, unusual and downright astonishing stories … but none is more bizarre or audacious than this one.

 

Having been fully briefed about the necessary parameters, North London coroner
Bentley Purchase (Paul Ritter, center) pulls out a cadaver that might suit the requirements
of Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth, far right) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen).

In early 1943, the Allies desperately sought a means to break the Nazi stranglehold on mainland Europe, but the only feasible route appeared to be invading Sicily and then pushing northward. Unfortunately, this lone option was tooobvious; Hitler also recognized it as the likely approach, and was fully prepared to thwart such an effort with the full might of the German army. The loss of Allied lives would have been incalculable.

 

A few years earlier, Lt. Cmdr. Ian Fleming — then assigned to Rear Adm. James Godfrey, head of British naval intelligence — had drafted what came to be known as the “Trout Memo.” (Yes, that Ian Fleming. Seriously.)

 

The memo — “Trout,” as in hoping to fool the Nazis hook, line and sinker — contained 54 suggested schemes designed to deceive the Axis Powers. Item 28 was a macabre ploy that Fleming lifted from 1937’s The Milliner’s Hat Mystery, one of several Inspector Richardson mysteries by British author Basil Thomson.

 

So, consider: A now-obscure novelist gives British naval intelligence the idea for a daring act of real-world espionage duplicity, as proposed by an officer — Fleming — who would go on to create the world’s best-known fictitious secret agent.

 

No surprise, then, that this legendary bit of WWII lore would appeal to director John Madden, who similarly played with the historical line between real and make-believe, in 1998’s Shakespeare in Love. Michelle Ashford’s engaging script is adapted from Ben Macintyre’s meticulously researched 2010 nonfiction bestseller of the same title.

 

The resulting film is fascinating. Ashford has done an impressive job of condensing the many key details, without losing track of the saga’s complexity … and while adding a few fictitious embellishments for dramatic intensity. (I’d argue they were unnecessary, but opinions might differ.)

 

The key players here are barrister-turned-naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth); Royal Air Force flight lieutenant-turned-MI5 counter-intelligence agent Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen); Godfrey (Jason Isaacs), who oversaw what eventually developed into “Operation Mincemeat”; MI5 clerk Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), who played a key role in the scheme; and MI5 head secretary Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton), whose talent for credible love letters also proved crucial.

 

The Takedown: Take it back

The Takedown (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated TV-MA, for violence, gore, profanity and graphic nudity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.13.22

It’s comforting to know that French buddy cop dramedies can be every bit as silly and preposterous, as many of those made here in the States.

 

Having learned that a vicious killer works for a mysterious protection agency known as
Securitec, our unlikely heroes — from left, François (Laurent Lafitte), Alice (Izïa
Higelin) and Ousmane (Omar Sy) — debate their next move.

(That said, I’d hate to think director Louis Leterrier and writer Stéphane Kazandijian crafted this flashy nonsense with American audiences in mind.)

To the degree that it succeeds at all, The Takedown is a textbook case of star charisma over thin material. Omar Sy, recently seen in the far superior TV miniseries Lupin, lights up the screen here as Ousmane Diakité, a reckless, take-charge detective in Paris’ Police Criminal Division.

 

Even when spouting the most wincingly awful one-liners — Kazandijian feeds him plenty of those — Sy’s broad grin, mischievous gaze and loping, well-toned physique make him utterly irresistible.

 

The same cannot be said of Laurent Lafitte’s portrayal of François Monge, an insufferably narcissistic and condescending detective in the Judicial District. François is the epitome of an arrested adolescent: childish, petulant, arrogant, determined to have the last word, and convinced that he’s the smartest person in the room (to the aghast disbelief of everybody else in the room).

 

Ousmane and François once were partners in the Criminal Division; indeed, this film is a sequel to 2012’s equally clumsy On the Other Side of the Tracks. (One wonders about that lengthy gap; I suspect this new film is prompted mostly by Sy’s rapid rise to fame during the previous decade.)

 

Following a ludicrous perp collar that takes place during a cage boxing match, and establishes Ousmane’s tendency toward bull-headed brawling, he’s summoned to the scene of a rather grisly crime: the severed upper half of a male body, jammed between two cars of a passenger train. This discovery is made by François, who is at the station by chance.

 

Their reunion is prickly. Ousmane, now a captain, outranks François, a lieutenant who has repeatedly failed the captain’s exam, and been denied his frequent requests for transfer. No doubt remembering that his former friend is more liability than colleague, Ousmane would prefer to politely wave farewell … particularly when they learn that the victim’s lower half has been found alongside the tracks in a small town in Southeastern France.

 

Ah, but François isn’t about to put up with that.

 

(How many dozens — scores! — of times, have we seen the subsequent sequence? “You’re not coming, and that’s final,” intones Person A to Person B, after which we smash-cut to the two of them traveling side by side, a resigned expression on Person A’s face. Leterrier and Kazandijian do nothing to make it fresh here.)

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Sheer insanity

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for frightening images, occasional profanity, and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.6.22

Magic-laden stories can be problematic.

 

Rules must be established, or else conflict becomes pointless. J.K. Rowling was quite careful, in her Harry Potter books, to ensure well-established strengths and weaknesses on both sides; evil occasionally triumphed, sometimes resulting in the death of beloved characters. Suspense and emotional involvement were maintained throughout the series.

 

On the run from an opponent who can't be stopped by anything, our heroes — from
left, America (Xochitl Gomez), Wong (Benedict Wong) and Doctor Strange
(Benedict Cumberbatch) — pause to consider their next move.

Sloppy writers, on the other hand, simply make up stuff as a given moment demands; the result becomes random and pointless. If our hero suddenly can summon “the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth” — to quote an oft-used spell in the classic 1960s Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Doctor Strange comic book stories — to reverse an incantation cast upon him, well, where’s the suspense in that?

Michael Waldron, sad to say, is a sloppy writer.

 

We should’ve expected as much, given his involvement as creator, executive producer and occasional writer of television’s Loki miniseries, which — despite a promising start — quickly devolved into utter incomprehensibility. The final few episodes were the worst example of random, kitchen-sink scripting I’ve seen in years.

 

Waldron’s approach to this Doctor Strange sequel is no different, and he repeatedly succumbs to the sloppy cliché that is the death of narrative tension: Every character is only as strong, or weak, as s/he needs to be, in order to triumph — or fail — at a given moment. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ad infinitum.

 

This builds to an utterly ludicrous deus ex machina moment during the climax: the equivalent of Dorothy suddenly being told that she always had the means to return to Kansas. I mean, seriously?

 

So:

 

Events begin quietly, as Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) attends the wedding of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), a former lover who — wisely — chose a different path. The ceremony is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a massive, one-eyed octopoid galumphing through New York’s streets, in tentacled pursuit of America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez).

 

(For those who haven’t kept up with their comic books, Chavez debuted in 2011, as an alternative universe Marvel character.)

 

The creature is defeated by Strange and his “sorcerer supreme” mentor, Wong (Benedict Wong), after which they pepper America with the obvious who/what/why questions. Turns out she has the power to create star-shaped holes in reality, which grant access to other realities in the multiverse (something Strange helped Peter Parker mess with, in the most recent Spider-Man entry).