Eden: Paradise Lost

Eden (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violence, sexual content, graphic nudity and frequent profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Director Ron Howard — whose résumé leans toward uplifting, can-do dramas such as Apollo 13, Cinderella Man and Rush — seems a very odd choice for this fact-based saga of deplorable, depraved and misanthropic human behavior.

 

Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and longtime companion Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) are
less than thrilled, when they suddenly must share their island with a family of
know-nothing newcomers.

What has been dubbed “The Galapagos Mystery” has fueled numerous documentaries and books, the most recent being author Abbott Kahler’s Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II. The saga has long been well-known across the pond, although this new film likely will arouse interest here in the States.

German physician Friedrich Ritter and his patient-turned-companion, Dore Strauch, were the first “settlers” to arrive on the Galapagos’ Floreana Island in 1929: so chosen since it is one of the few with a (minimal) potable water supply. They spent three contented — if arduous — years as the island’s sole inhabitants. Ritter sent accounts of their lives back to Germany — picked up by occasional passing ships, and then published in newspapers and magazines — and pounded away at an increasingly Nietzschesque manifesto detailing his contempt for mankind.

 

They were joined in 1932 by WWI veteran Heinz Wittmer, his pregnant new wife Margret, and his teenage son Harry, having been inspired by the articles. Although the isolationist Ritter and Strauch likely were annoyed by these “intruders,” they and the Wittmers respected each other’s space.

 

This wary dynamic was completely torpedoed by the next arrivals: Austrian-born Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet, a shameless hedonist accompanied by her two German lovers, Robert Philippson and Rudolf Lorenz, along with an Ecuadorian “worker” named Manuel Borja. Claiming to be a baroness — a title open to historical debate — she systematically bullied and intimidated the others via an insufferably arrogant blend of entitlement, seduction, treachery and a hustler’s talent for exploiting psychological weaknesses.

 

What eventually occurred ... well, that would spoil the story.

 

Howard and co-scripter Noah Pink dumped an intriguing ensemble cast into this combustible brew of jealousy, resentment and worse, although some play their roles better than others. Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby aren’t entirely successful with their German accents, as Ritter and Strauch, although they otherwise slide deftly into the sort of eccentric tics and mannerisms that would be expected of a couple isolated for so long.

 

Law looks appropriately rugged and hardy, and he puts considerable grim intensity into Ritter’s contemptuous denouncements. Kirby’s Strauch is softer, with a fondness for the burro that ferries their heavier goods; she also limps painfully, having embraced this rustic lifestyle in the hope that her multiple sclerosis will go into remission.

 

Law plays Ritter as an obstinate fanatic; Kirby is more nuanced. Strauch tends to walk around barefoot; the first of this film’s many wince-inducing moments comes during the couple’s evening ritual, as Ritter carefully digs parasitic insects out of Strauch’s skin.

 

Ghosted: Rather insubstantial

Ghosted (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong action violence, mild sexuality and brief profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

This certainly is the epitome of “guilty pleasure.”

 

Were it not for the charismatic screen presence of stars Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, director Dexter Fletcher’s action/adventure rom-com would be nothing but a case study in formulaic excess.

 

Pinned down by gunfire in the mountainous region of Pakistan's Khyber Pass, Cole
(Chris Evans) and Sadie (Ana de Armas) are about to endure a fate worse than death.
But fear not: A dilapidated and hilariously colorful bus is about to provide escape (of sorts).

Goodness knows, the dialogue — blame Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers — is beyond eye-rollingly lame. And while the premise has promise, the required suspension of disbelief too frequently hits 11, on a 10-point scale.

 

That said…

 

Evans and de Armas are entertaining together, and the dog-nuts plot builds to an inventive — if highly improbable — climax that deserves points for originality. (It does, however, remind me of the final merry-go-round sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, although I’d be very surprised to learn that Reese et al channeled that.)

 

Events begin in Washington, D.C., where Cole Turner (Evans) manages a booth at a lively farmers’ market, selling produce grown at his family ranch just outside the city. He and traveling art curator Sadie Rhodes (de Armas) meet cute over her intended purchase of a house plant from a neighboring stall.

 

This is the film’s worst exchange of so-called flirty banter, and — coming so soon — it bodes ill for whatever follows. But hang in there; things do improve. A bit.

 

Lamentable first impressions lead to a whirlwind day together, after which Sadie departs on her next assignment. Cole, assuming that “magic” has entered his life, texts her during the next several days: at first romantically, then curiously, and finally much too aggressively. All to no avail; Sadie ignores — “ghosts” — him completely.

 

Cole’s subsequent agitation proves quite amusing to his father (Tate Donovan), mother (Amy Sedaris) and particularly younger sister Mattie (Lizze Broadway), who warns him against such “stalkerish” behavior. But Cole doesn’t see it that way, and circumstances give him the means to find Sadie. 

 

He forever misplaces things, and long ago put little trackers on crucial personal items, all of which can be located via his Smart phone. Sadie accidentally departed with his allergy inhaler, which places her — Cole is surprised to learn — in London. 

 

“Go after her!” Mom and Dad insist. “Are you kidding?” Mattie, the voice of reason, objects.

 

Cole nonetheless decides that this would be the Ultimate Grand Romantic Gesture. And so he flies to London.

 

But when he traces his tracker to somewhere on or beneath the Tower Bridge, he’s unexpectedly attacked by three goons, chloroformed, and wakens in the sinister lair of a giggling torturer — Tim Blake Nelson, deliberately overplaying the role — who believes that Cole is a legendary CIA operative code-named “The Taxman,” and has information about a mysterious whatzit known as “Aztec.” Because, well, Cole was in the wrong place at the right time.

 

The Gray Man: Colorfully overblown

The Gray Man (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense violence and action, and some profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.29.22

Given the often exaggerated genre we’re dealing with, this film trundles along reasonably well … until most of downtown Prague — and its entire police force — are blown to bits during the dog-nuts second act (apparently without sparking an international incident).

 

With scores of gun-toting thugs laying waste to downtown Prague while trying to kill him,
Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) is about to make clever use of a passing tram.

In their obvious efforts to kick-start a new franchise, scripters Joe Russo, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have retained very little of Mark Greaney’s 2009 espionage thriller (first in a series of 11 books thus far). Russo and co-director Anthony Russo have uncorked a fast-paced loner-against-the-world saga which — despite becoming increasingly preposterous — ticks all the boxes for folks seeking mindless thrills.

And, in fairness, we get a solid set of (quasi) good guys, victims in peril, and some very very bad guys.

 

During a brief prologue set 18 years in the past, Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is rescued from a lengthy prison sentence by upper-echelon CIA handler Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton).

 

“What’s the catch?” Gentry asks.

 

“You come work for us,” Fitzroy replies.

 

Turns out Gentry has mad assassin skills, but — as the first action sequence reveals, once we bounce back to the present day — also possesses a strong desire to avoid collateral civilian damage. Gentry has become a highly valued member of Fitzroy’s dark-ops “Sierra” program, his identity submerged beneath the code-name Sierra Six, or simply Six: aka the Gray Man.

 

Unfortunately, Fitzroy was pushed into retirement a few years back, his place taken by the ruthlessly ambitious Agency Group Chief Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page, suitably condescending), who lacks his predecessor’s scruples. Worse yet — for reasons not immediately revealed — he has no use for the Sierra program, and is busily “cleaning house” in a lethal manner.

 

This doesn’t sit well with Deputy Group Chief Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick), who regards her boss as reckless and arrogant. She spends the entire film barking objections at his heels, to the point of turning into a tiresome nag. It’s not a well-crafted role, and Henwick brings nothing to the party.

 

When Six accidentally gains possession of intel that would destroy Carmichael’s career, the latter hires charming, kill-crazy psychopath Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to terminate the final link in the Sierra chain.

 

Hansen, who torments his targets for sport, is introduced while torturing some poor schlub; we therefore know he’s Not A Nice Guy.

 

Deep Water: Rather murky

Deep Water (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual content, nudity, profanity and violence

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang

British director Adrian Lyne hit pop-culture gold with 1983’s Flashdance and 1987’s Fatal Attraction. Although his subsequent films were uneven — Jacob’s Ladder, Indecent Proposal, Lolita — they certainly generated interest and controversy, further cementing his status as a purveyor of erotic thrillers.

 

Despite having long tolerated her nymphomaniacal tendencies, Vic (Ben Affleck) warns
Melinda (Ana de Armas) that she has become too brazen and reckless.

Lyne rebounded with 2002’s Unfaithful, which brought a well-deserved Oscar nomination to Diane Lane, for her nuanced role as a cheating wife who comes to her senses a bit too late.

Then Lyne dropped off the map. For two full decades.

 

He has returned in form with this similarly salacious handling of Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel, adapted fairly faithfully — to a point — by scripters Zach Helm and Sam Levinson.

 

I’m surprised Lyne waited so long to dip into Highsmith; they’re made for each other. Her morality-bending stories dig deep into the psychological quirks of stone-cold psychopaths; the most famous examples are the methodical impersonator in The Talented Mr. Ripley (and four sequel novels), and the murder-trading playboy in Strangers on a Train. Both were made into superb films.

 

Lyne’s Deep Water is a long way from superb, but it certainly grabs one’s attention, due mostly to the earthy, sexually charged performance by Ana de Armas. This is breathtaking, fearless, all-in acting; she oozes carnal intensity with every breath, word and gesture.

 

To casual observers, Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda Van Allen (de Armas) are a content, picture-perfect couple living an affluent life made possible by the extreme wealth he earned as a microchip inventor. Now retired, he publishes a quarterly arts magazine, rides about town on his mountain bike, raises snails as a hobby (!), and is totally besotted with their 6-year-old daughter, Trixie (the utterly adorable Grace Jenkins, in an impressive feature debut).

 

But Vic and Melinda’s marriage actually is one of uneasy convenience: He tolerates her endless string of lovers, as long as she doesn’t break up their family.

 

Unfortunately, her indiscreet, narcissistic behavior — and an insistence being the center of attention — has made their friends uneasy. They’re also concerned about Vic, particularly because he seems oddly unfazed: even when Melinda — inevitably poured into one of costume designer Heidi Bivens’ barely-there dresses — flirts shamelessly with some guy at the many cocktail parties enjoyed by everybody in their social circle. (Ah, how the other half lives…)

 

Affleck plays this role well; he excels at quietly stoic characters who nonetheless have something bottled up inside. Indeed, there’s a bit more than resignation and mild-mannered apathy in Vic’s gaze, when he watches, from an upper-story window, as Melinda drapes herself onto her next likely conquest.

 

(You’ll detect more than a few echoes of the similar role Affleck played in 2014’s Gone Girl, albeit with different plot twists.)

No Time to Die: A gilt-edged Bond

No Time to Die (2021) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence, disturbing images and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters (where it belongs!)

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.08.21

It’s bloody well about time.

 

Back in 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was jeered by critics and the public because a) George Lazenby wasn’t Sean Connery; and b) the script had the audacity to present a James Bond with genuine feelings for the woman with whom he’d fallen in love.

 

While James Bond (Daniel Craig, left) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) nervously
wait, Q (Ben Whishaw) struggles to crack the security on a computer network that may
reveal crucial information about the mysterious "Heracles" project.

History has validated what some of us knew all along: Lazenby held his own just fine, and those very story elements — the injection of authentic emotion — cemented its status as one of the all-time best Bonds.

Over the course of Daniel Craig’s five-film arc, his Bond has been defined by loss: the loss of Vesper, in Casino Royale, and M, in Skyfall; and the dismissal of his profession, in Spectre. He has endured along the way, battered and bruised, becoming as recognizably human as one could hope for, in such an action franchise.

 

It’s certainly no accident, mere minutes into this new epic, when Hans Zimmer’s score injects an echo of “We Have All the Time in the World,” the poignant anthem from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. One has to smile.

 

Indeed, No Time to Die is laden with similar echoes of the past: from a title credits sequence that opens with the colored polka dots employed in the credits of Dr. No, to Vic Flick’s unmistakable heavy guitar twang — elsewhere in this film’s score — in John Barry’s classic arrangement of “The James Bond Theme.”

 

The impressively ambitious script — by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and director Cary Joji Fukunaga — even works in a hitherto-untapped bit of Ian Fleming: Dr. Guntram Shatterhand’s “Garden of Death,” from the novel You Only Live Twice.

 

But that comes later. No Time to Die — a much harsher affair than most Bonds — opens on a flashback involving a terrified adolescent girl and a kabuki-masked assassin. The encounter proceeds in several surprising directions, concluding as a shuddery memory for Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), emerging from the sea as an astute Bond notices her uneasy mood.

 

They’re enjoying the carefree life chosen when they walked away from Bond’s career, at the previous film’s conclusion. But despite their mutual devotion, these are two people with secrets; we know Bond’s, from previous adventures, and we’re about to discover Madeleine’s.

 

It proves … complicated.

 

But that, too, comes later. We’re first blown away by the longest pre-credits sequence in the entire series, which climaxes with an audacious car chase through the tight corners and narrow, labyrinthine streets of Matera, in Southern Italy. Although plenty more action is yet to come, this opener is the film’s most audacious, edge-of-the-seat sequence.

Knives Out: A cutting romp

Knives Out (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for brief violence, profanity, sexual candor and drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.6.19

I haven’t had this much fun since 2001’s Gosford Park.

From the opening scene — as two large dogs charge ominously across the grounds of a massive secluded estate, accompanied by an unsettling warble of violins from soundtrack composer Nathan Johnson — we’re obviously in good hands.

While Marta (Ana de Armas) watches uncomfortably, private investigator Benoit Blanc
(Daniel Craig) puzzles his way through one of the many inconsistencies in the
"suicide" that he increasingly believes was staged.

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is a droll, clever riff on classic, Agatha Christie-style drawing room murder mysteries. It’s not quite a spoof — the plot is powered by a devilishly twisty whodunit — but one nonetheless senses that all concerned had a great time in the process.

The top-flight cast is headed by Daniel Craig, resolutely solemn as debonair Benoit Blanc, a Southern-friend private investigator who channels Christie’s Hercule Poirot by way of Colonel Sanders. (Once again, British actors are surprisingly convincing with their Deep South accents.) Craig almost never cracks a smile — it wouldn’t suit Benoit’s character — but the more gravely earnest he remains, the funnier the performance.

And Benoit certainly has a puzzler for his little gray cells.

As the film opens, world-famous and wealthy mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) has been dead for a week, his passing written off as suicide: not an unusual a call, given that he was found with the knife that slashed his throat, his fingerprints all over the handle.

As far as local cops Lt. Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) are concerned, the case is closed. They’re therefore baffled when Benoit shows up, claiming to have been hired to investigate the “suspicious circumstances” of Harlan’s death; the gumshoe requests re-interviews with the entire Thrombey clan.

At first blush, they seem united in genuine grief … but after even minimal probing, they turn out to be quite the collection of grasping, spiteful, self-centered, back-biting misfits.

Blade Runner 2049: Future imperfect

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, nudity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.6.17

I suppose we should be grateful that things haven’t deteriorated nearly as much as the original Blade Runner suggested ... given that it was set in 2019.

That said, the film’s envisaged weather anomalies no longer seem as unlikely.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Kay (Ryan Gosling), pausing for a quick meal,
little realizes that he's about to be approached by a trio of seductive "doxies"
interested solely in the photographs that he has been studying.

It’s also amusing to recall that Ridley Scott’s magnum opus was a critical and audience bomb upon release in 1982: wholly bewildering to viewers who couldn’t wrap their brains around retro sci-fi noir, and who were disturbed by the notion of Han Solo/Indiana Jones playing such a morally conflicted character.

Funny, how things can change. Blade Runner now is regarded as one of the all-time great sci-fi classics, praised for the same distinctive vision and thoughtful narrative complexity that originally baffled folks. Scott has tweaked and re-edited the film more times than I can remember, fine-tuning it to match his original vision (which was compromised by unwelcome eleventh-hour editing, prior to release).

While his film didn’t necessarily beg for a sequel, the setting and core premise certainly invite fresh examination. Few filmmakers are better equipped to do so than director Denis Villeneuve, who helmed last year’s marvelously meditative Arrival, and co-writer Hampton Fancher, who helped adapt Philip K. Dick’s source novel into the first film. Fancher is assisted this time by co-scripter Michael Green, and they’ve definitely retained the brooding atmosphere that makes the setting so compelling.

The setting’s persuasively chilling authenticity, in turn, comes courtesy of production designer Dennis Gassner and visual effects supervisor John Nelson, carrying forward the arresting tableaus designed for the first film by Douglas Trumbull and David Dryer. No other word suffices: This new film looks amazing.

And very, very unsettling.

The story is again based in Los Angeles, although the narrative expands to include the entire state. Every square inch of land in Central California has been covered by massive hydroponic facilities necessitated by a climate shift — nothing but furious rain, dust and snow storms — that has destroyed any semblance of a natural growing season. Such enhanced output also is required to feed an expanding population with an exponentially huge homeless faction: The disenfranchised no longer camp out merely on sidewalks; they also squat in apartment corridors, jeering at those fortunate enough to have their own residences.

Advertising has run even further amok, further amplified by a salacious element that suggests the complete absence of spiritual content. There’s a sense of society’s very fabric coming unstitched, with order barely maintained by officers working for the immense police department building that looms above all else.

Well ... almost all else.

Hands of Stone: Packs a punch

Hands of Stone (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity, sexual content and strong sports violence
By Derrick Bang

Some sports champions, talent notwithstanding, make themselves very difficult to admire.

Ryan Lochte immediately comes to mind. And Dennis Rodman. And, sadly, more than a few others.

Although Roberto Durán (Edgar Ramírez, right) would rather charge into the ring and
bludgeon his opponent into submission, veteran trainer Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro)
cautions patience, and emphasizes the need for strategy.

Writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Hands of Stone profiles another such individual: Roberto Durán, widely acknowledged as one of the world’s all-time greatest boxers. As Jakubowicz’s script suggests, Durán’s skills in the ring couldn’t entirely offset an aggressive, unpleasantly confrontational personality that resulted from a chip on his shoulder the size of Pennsylvania.

Certainly he had cause, growing up in Panama in the 1950s and early ’60s, at a time when U.S./Panamanian tensions over ownership of the Canal Zone resulted in rioting, military intervention and nasty international squabbling. Abandoned by his father — an American marine who had an affair with a local girl — and essentially raised on the streets, Durán couldn’t help hating the Americans whom he perceived as thuggish invaders.

All of which makes his eventual alliance with legendary American trainer Ray Arcel even more fascinating.

Jakubowicz’s film is an engaging sports drama anchored by two strong starring performances. The narrative is fairly predictable — insofar as anything about Durán was predictable — and Jakubowicz’s handling is solid, if unremarkable. The fight choreography, however, is stunning. Paula Fairfield’s sound design is particularly effective; rarely have cinematic punches been staged so persuasively, or sounded so brutal.

On a much lighter note, we can’t help smiling over the serendipitous casting. Robert De Niro has come full circle: After winning an Academy Award for his portrayal of boxer Jake La Motta, in 1981’s Raging Bull, he’ll very likely garner an Oscar nod for this performance as Arcel.

Jakubowicz cleverly sets up a bit of parallel structure between Durán (Edgar Ramírez) and Arcel, since both men had to overcome dangerous challenges. Durán’s mere survival during childhood was a major accomplishment, along with the luck that propelled him into a talented neighborhood trainer’s hands.