The 9th Life of Louis Drax: Deserves a quick death

The 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

Those who’ve ever wondered about the degree to which a single guiding hand can influence a project, need look no further.

By all indications, young Louis (Aiden Longworth) and his father Peter (Aaron Paul) deeply
love each other. But appearances can be deceiving, and this particular family dynamic
includes quite a few uncomfortable secrets.

This is a textbook example of how a bad director can ruin a film.

Mind you, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Several of the primary actors deliver entirely wrong readings of their characters; the story’s overall tone is completely wrong; and there’s no consistent point of reference for viewers to grasp.

But while multiple individuals can be faulted, it all comes down to the guy in charge, in this case Alexandre Aja. He failed to draw better performances from his cast; he couldn’t maintain a consistent atmosphere; and — most crucially — he clearly didn’t understand the material, and didn’t have the faintest idea how to present it properly.

Because — and this is the sad part — there’s clearly a decent story buried in the wreckage of this film. Actor-turned-scripter Max Minghella took a respectable shot at best-selling British author Liz Jensen’s 2004 thriller, The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, and the results could have been much, much better. But Aja’s crude sensibilities lie in the realm of gory horror such as Piranha 3D and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes; he lacks the sensitivity required for a tale that requires such delicate handling.

In fairness, the premise is challenging. The story is told (mostly) from the point of view of a 9-year-old boy in a hospital coma ward, and Aja spends much of the film immersing us in the ongoing care of coma patients; that’s a tough, depressing sell. It may have been mostly unusual and intriguing in Jensen’s book; confronted with cinematic visuals, it’s heartbreaking ... and difficult to surmount, as the narrative progresses.

But Aja makes his first significant blunder even sooner, during a prologue in which young Louis (Aidan Longworth) matter-of-factly shares his back-story, growing up as an accident-prone kid who — to his parents’ horror — endured all manner of freak calamities during his tender years. This weird flashback montage is off-putting and fairy tale-esque, with cartoonish touches that suggest we’re in for some sort of fantasy: a notion reinforced by the introduction of a grotesque, deep-voiced sea creature who seems to be the boy’s spirit guide.

But this isn’t a fairy tale, or a parable, as eventually becomes clear; it’s a mystery. Sort of. Maybe. Or perhaps it’s a suspense thriller. Aja obviously can’t decide.

Central Intelligence: Very little on display

Central Intelligence (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and generously, for strong profanity, crude humor, fleeting nudity and considerable violence
By Derrick Bang

Personality can trump weak material, and that’s certainly the case here.

Director/co-scripter Rawson Marshall Thurber’s limp spy comedy is nothing to write home about, and the so-called plot — fitfully fleshed out with Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen — is pretty thin gruel, mostly serving as a flimsy template for sight gags and one-liners.

An online data analysis request made by Bob (Dwayne Johnson, right) seems simple
enough, but Calvin's (Kevin Hart) accounting savvy quickly alerts him to strange transaction
details. In another few minutes, he'll know that he should have left well enough alone...

But stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart give the package far more oomph than it deserves. They’re a great Mutt ’n’ Jeff pair, milking considerable humor from their size differential — an entire 12 inches! — and disparate personality quirks. The ever-smiling Johnson is sunshine and light, unflappably carefree even under crazed circumstances; Hart, in turn, is fussy, frantic and eternally put-upon. They play off each other quite well.

Which is a good thing, because they certainly deliver more than the material deserves.

Central Intelligence opens with a cringe-inducing prologue, set 20 years in the past, as high school superstar senior Calvin Joyner — nicknamed The Golden Jet, for all his sports and academic accomplishments — celebrates his graduation with a triumphant pep rally speech before the entire senior class. The event becomes notorious when five bullies burst into the room and toss the gentle but haplessly overweight Robbie Weirdicht, the uncoolest kid in school, onto the gym floor. Butt-naked.

Via the magic of CGI “sweetening,” Hart and Johnson play these younger versions of their characters (the latter’s puffy features, grafted onto an extra’s body, being particularly spooky).

Calvin resurrects some of poor Robbie’s dignity with an act of generosity: a benevolent gesture destined to have unexpected consequences.

Flash-forward to the present day. Calvin (Hart), despite all those long-ago “most likely to succeed” accolades, has become a drone accountant stuck on the middle rung of the corporate ladder, garnering zero respect from colleagues (Ryan Hansen’s Steve being a particularly obnoxious example). On the possible side, Calvin did marry high school sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet), and they’re clearly made for each other.

Trouble is, Calvin’s career dissatisfaction has magnified into marital tension.

Then, out of the blue, Calvin gets a Facebook “friend request” from somebody named Bob Stone. Intimidated by the Facebook culture into accepting, Calvin gets an immediate “let’s go for a beer” offer from said fellow. To Calvin’s astonishment, it turns out that “Bob Stone” (Johnson, now in all his buff glory) actually is a new and improved Robbie. All he did, Bob explains, is work out six hours a day, every day, for the past 20 years. Heck, he insists, anybody could do that.

Superbly toned bod notwithstanding, Bob still is hopeless uncool, decked out in a fanny pack, and sporting a T-shirt with a My Little Pony unicorn. Worse yet, his favorite film still is 16 Candles, and his clumsy efforts at “bro talk” generally land with a thud.

And yes, watching the towering Johnson wallow contentedly in geeky affectations is just as funny as it sounds.

Eye in the Sky: A riveting real-world thriller

Eye in the Sky (2015) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for dramatic intensity, profanity and violent images
By Derrick Bang

Guy Hibbert’s thoughtful screenplay has the unsettling intensity of an immaculately crafted stage play.

Helen Mirren, as Col. Katherine Powell

Indeed, I can see this being a great play, even though its primary characters are spread out across the globe. An imaginative director could handle that detail, much the way Gavin Hood has choreographed this big-screen drama with such authoritative snap.

Eye in the Sky is a taut, up-to-the-minute geo-political thriller that belongs in the company of 1960s Cold War classics such as Fail Safe and Seven Days in May, and more recent efforts such as Thirteen Days and Munich. At its core, Hibbert’s script — which he wrote back in 2008, making it even more cutting-edge — is a study of actions and consequences: to what degree, if any, a desired end justifies the means to obtain it.

Hibbert’s approach is what makes the result so riveting: This is a “process thriller” very much in the mold of 2011’s Margin Call. That film gave us a talking-heads glimpse of the primary players at a Wall Street investment firm who, during the course of 24 hours, watch helplessly as their own previous actions precipitate the 2008 meltdown. You’d think such back-room financial commentary and analysis would be boring, but that was far from the case; the excellent cast brought compelling tension to every aspect of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s script.

As Margin Call was to the 2008 economic crisis, Eye in the Sky is to digital-age drone warfare.

British Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), waking early one morning at her cozy home in Sussex, assumes her decidedly un-cozy duties at a nearby military base. This is likely to be a crucial day: She has been tracking, for six years, a particularly notorious British citizen-turned-terrorist — a radicalized young woman — who is expected to attend a meeting at an Al-Shabaab safe house in a bustling Nairobi neighborhood.

As a bonus, this target is expected to be in the company of at least one other terrorist ranked high on the British/American “most wanted” list.

The developing situation is being monitored from the sky by a surveillance drone piloted by American soldiers at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, and at ground level by Nairobi anti-terrorist personnel. Facial recognition identification, if such an opportunity arises, will be confirmed by an American military analyst stationed in Hawaii. All are in constant contact with Powell.

She, in turn, passes this intel along to her commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (Alan Rickman, in his final performance), who is spending the day in a London conference room, where he shares these same details with upper-echelon British government overseers. The intention, at every moment, is to follow protocol and chain of command, while adhering to legal justification.

All these players are assembled to monitor a pre-approved “capture mission” that will be coordinated by the Nairobi ground troops. Powell, in charge of the operation, waits only for verification that her targets have arrived.