The Brutalist: A monumental effort

The Brutalist (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, rape, profanity and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.2.25

This film is impressive in many respects. 

 

Director/co-writer Brady Corbet ambitiously tackles an overwhelming, quite possibly unattainable endeavor much the way this story’s protagonist does.

 

Immigrant architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) has an uphill battle, persuading old-money
movers and shakers that his cutting-edge structure will be an asset to their community.

Alas, Corbet’s reach ultimately exceeds his grasp.

From the very first frame, this film Calls Attention To Itself. Lol Crawley’s cinematographic choice is 70mm VistaVision, a throwback logo and widescreen variant long discarded since its 1950s debut. Sebastian Pardo’s title credits design mimics the shape and style of the Brutalism architectural movement that erupted in Europe and — as in this story — Pennsylvania during that same decade.

 

Further mimicking this Old Hollywood approach, Corbet’s film opens with an overture, then proceeds with a first act — “The Enigma of Arrival” — a 15-minute intermission (with a clock that counts down against a key photograph), followed by a second act — “The Hard Core of Beauty” — and an epilogue.

 

Daniel Blumberg’s wildly eclectic score often clashes — deliberately — with the cacophonous “slabs of noise” from Andy Neil’s sound design. The result is jarring, startling and disorienting, reflecting the central character’s professional, mental and emotional journey.

 

It often feels like this saga is based on actual events, and actual people, but no; aside from acknowledging the post-WWII Brutalism movement itself, Corbet and co-writer Mona Fastvoid’s entirely fictitious story and characters are merely suggested by Brutalist architects Le Corbusier, Paul Rudolph and Ralph Rapson, with a narrative arc that owes much to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, and a soupçon of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

 

László Tóth (Adrien Brody) is introduced in a confusing blur of motion: a Hungarian Holocaust survivor newly arrived in the United States, on a ship laden with fellow immigrants. Tellingly, his first view of the Statue of Liberty is upside-down, and then sideways, as he emerges from the ship’s bowels: a warning that America’s promise of opportunity is skewed.

 

That, coupled with the preceding Goethe quote — “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe themselves free” — promises that László’s subsequent journey will not end happily.

Without Remorse: Without quality

Without Remorse (2021) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated R, for violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.30.21

We’ve not had a high-profile, Tom Clancy-esque espionage thriller since the COVID lockdown began last year, and they’ve been missed.

 

Too bad this one — debuting on Amazon Prime — isn’t more promising.

 

After learning more about CIA agent Robert Ritter's (Jamie Bell, left) duplicity,
John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) gets understandably hot under the collar.

No blame can be assigned star Michael B. Jordan; he’s a solid presence and physically adept action hero, clearly in the mold of Jason Bourne. But that’s actually a problem, because memories of the far superior Bourne films make this one look even worse.

 

It’s not merely that the clumsy, muddled Taylor Sheridan/Will Stapes script has virtually nothing to do with Clancy’s 1993 thriller, beyond swiping its title. Director Stefano Sollima and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot compound the problem by staging many of the melees and action sequences in dark-dark-dark settings, so it’s often difficult to discern good guys from bad guys, and who’s doing what to whom.

 

I’ve always regarded that as a lazy affectation; it’s also irritating.

 

And a shame, because this film does offer solid acting talent and — in fairness to Sheridan and Stapes — reasonably engaging supporting players.

 

Events begin in war-torn Syria, where John Kelly (Jordan) leads a team of Navy SEALs on a covert mission to rescue a captured CIA operative. But the CIA spook calling the shots — Jamie Bell, as Robert Ritter — has been less than candid; to Kelly’s dismay, he realizes they’ve invaded a nest of Russian mercenaries.

 

Later, back in the States, revenge comes swiftly; several members of Kelly’s team are murdered by masked Russian assassins, and he barely escapes with his own life.

 

While he convalesces and re-builds his strength via intense physical therapy, Kelly’s friend and former SEAL team member, Lt. Commander Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith) meets with Ritter and U.S. Secretary of Defense Thomas Clay (Guy Pearce), for what she expects will be a discussion of response options. To her dismay, Ritter insists that nothing be done; the situation now is “tit for tat,” which is where it should be left.

 

Raise your hand, if you think Kelly won’t settle for that.

 

(He doesn’t.)

Iron Man 3: Ol' Shell-head triumphs again

Iron Man 3 (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence, and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.3.13

Most people eventually develop the wisdom to learn this lesson: Never poke the bear.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark is quick-witted, ferociously smart and impressively resourceful ... but he also seems to view arrogance and recklessness as virtues. As we’ve seen in this series’ first two installments, such behavior inevitably gets him into trouble.

Stuck in small-town Nowheresville, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) sadly regards the
remnants of his Iron Man outfit, and wonders how he'll handle repairs in a community
that has nothing more than a big-box hardware store. Ah, but Tony is a clever genius,
donchaknow, and he's bound to figure something out. Besides, he's just made a
new young friend (currently off-camera, sent to fetch a tuna sandwich).

As is the case this time.

Giving his home address to a scary terrorist, and then challenging the maniac to do his worst?

Definitely not something Tony could mention when filing the subsequent insurance claims.

But it sets up a rollicking retribution storyline courtesy of director/co-scripter Shane Black, who hasn’t lost the touch he established so well back in 1987, with his debut screenplay for Lethal Weapon. Black clearly understands the formula that has worked so well for the Iron Man franchise: plenty of action, laced with equal opportunities for Downey to get his snark on.

When it comes to cracking wise in the face of serious adversity, Downey’s Tony Stark could give James Bond lessons in well-timed one-liners. Veteran comic book fans may show up for the landscape-shattering punch-outs, but Downey’s the glue that holds these films together.

He persuasively conveys the impatience and frustration of a genius scientist whose ideas come more rapidly than he can act upon them. Downey can weave a tapestry of emotional conflict from a simple sigh of exasperation. He’s the ultimate obsessive/compulsive, and for that reason he’s an improbably endearing character: seriously flawed emotionally, and desperately in need of a keeper.

Too frequently, in times of stress, he turns to his A-I helpmate Jarvis — voiced with mellifluous irony by Paul Bettany — rather than Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow), the woman who loves him. And puts up with him. (No small thing.)

Three films into this series, Downey and Paltrow positively bubble with playful erotic tension. They’re one of very few on-screen couples able to honor the deft rat-a-tat banter that hearkens all the way back to William Powell and Myrna Loy, in the 1930s and ’40s Thin Man series. In a word, Downey and Paltrow are fun together, even as we wonder if his self-centered attitude finally has gone too far for her to endure.

Let’s hope that never happens. And while this film does put poor Pepper through seriously unpleasant plot contrivances, romantic doubt isn’t even a blip on the radar.

Indeed, the core of this storyline — Black shares scripting credit with Drew Pearce — involves Tony’s realization that he must always protect the one thing that’s dearest to him. With his back to the wall, with all the chips down, he’s surprised to discover that the choice is obvious: Pepper means far more than all the gadgets his unparalleled wealth can allow him to build.

It must be said, however, that this film gets a bit egregious with respect to Tony’s wealth. He doesn’t just have more money than God; he has more money than God’s banker.

But that’s getting ahead of things.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: No chance of that!

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) • View trailer for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
1.5 stars. Rating: R, for violence and terror, much of the latter directed at a little girl
By Derrick Bang


To fall back on an indictment that I use with depressing frequency these days, this film boasts a classic example of the so-called idiot plot: The story lurches forward from one improbable event to the next only because each and every character behaves like a complete idiot at all times.

Nobody believes Sally (Bailee Madison) when she insists that evil little pixies
have invaded her huge home. She therefore takes a picture of one — attagirl! —
but then loses her "proof" when one of the critters snatches it away ... at which
point the foolish child turns stupid again, and chases it into a darkened library,
where she can be attacked by dozens of them. You'd think the girl would have
smartened up by this point...

The only saving grace — although this creates an entirely different set of problems — is that our cast of characters is so ludicrously, unnaturally limited, that we need not assume the entire human race has been force-fed dopey pills. It's just these five people.

It's simply impossible to sympathize with characters who are so bone-stupid.

Consider: Your handyman stumbles out of the darkened, obviously sinister basement of your ancient, isolated Rhode Island mansion; he's cut, slashed and bleeding in dozens of places, sharp blades still literally hanging from his body ... with no indication of what or who injured him, or how many attackers were involved.

And you ignore this? Mark it down as an "accident"?

Consider: Our 8-year-old heroine, although admittedly a little girl, is a modern little girl who seems to have all her faculties. She nonetheless displays the intelligence and self-preservational skills of a turnip, forever crawling into and under places that are clearly dangerous. Spooky voices call to her from a nasty, carefully sealed grate in that same malevolent basement ... so what does she do? She opens the grate.

She does not deserve to survive this story; none of these characters does. They don't earn that privilege.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro — the accomplished horror impresario who wrote and directed Mimic and Pan's Labyrinth, and who produced The Orphanage — has claimed that 1973's made-for-TV flick, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, is the scariest movie he ever saw on the small screen. It has some juice, I'll acknowledge; director John Newland had oodles of experience with TV-size chills in programs such as One Step Beyond, Thriller and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But stars Kim Darby and Jim Hutton weren't really right for the material, and I doubt the film would raise gooseflesh among modern viewers.

But if del Toro retains such fond memories, well and good; that should have made him the perfect choice to script a modern remake.

I can't imagine what went wrong. Everything about this script — credited to del Toro and Matthew Robbins — is contrived, ill-conceived, sloppy or just plain daft.

No exchange of dialogue between "loving couple" Alex (Guy Pearce) and Kim (Katie Holmes) sounds authentic; every conversation, whether trivial or agitated, rings false. They also share zero chemistry.

Alex professes to be a loving father to 8-year-old Sally (Bailee Madison), a claim hardly validated by any of his detached behavior. And despite obviously disapproving of his ex-wife's tendency to medicate their daughter on the advice of pill-pushing shrinks, when Sally finally wises up and reacts with appropriate levels of stark terror to what is happening in this story, Alex blandly accepts a new psychiatrist's suggestion to shove more drugs into the poor girl. Is this supposed to be tough love?

Traitor: Issues of faith

Traitor (2008) • View trailer for Traitor
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, brief profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.29.08
Buy DVD: Traitor • Buy Blu-Ray: Traitor [Blu-ray]


Espionage thrillers have become quite distressing.

Heinous terrorist acts aren't really all that new; all the way back in 1977, the film adaptation of Thomas Harris' Black Sunday was a nail- biting race to derail a plan to detonate an explosives-laden blimp hovering over the annual Super Bowl game.

The quietly honorable Samir Horn (Don Cheadle, left) has trouble explaining
his point of view, let alone his behavior, to a shadowy CIA contractor (Jeff
Daniels) who tends to favor ruthless "solutions" to any perceived problem.

Even so, the landscape has changed in these uneasy early years of the 21st century. Whereas previous fictitious plots — suggested, as they often were, by real-world events — generally involved lone crackpots, single assassins or at worst a small group of dedicated killers, today's politically charged action flicks often focus upon the legions of religiously brainwashed Islamic fanatics who've replaced skinheads and covert Nazis as the reflexive villains of choice.

And, let's face it, a plot to have 50 bomb-toting true believers detonate their explosives — while riding 50 buses filled with average folks taking random journeys across the great American heartland — feels a little too possible to be dismissed as sheer screenwriter's fantasy.

But writer/director Jeffrey Nachmanoff's Traitor takes awhile to get that far. In the meanwhile, we're given a fascinating character study of a former U.S. special-ops agent gone rogue: a man given quite persuasive substance thanks to another of star Don Cheadle's immaculately layered performances.

To say that Samir Horn (Cheadle) is complex would be the gravest of understatements; although devout enough to carefully unroll a carpet and pray even when in prison, Samir is introduced while on a mission in Yemen, as he supplies explosives to Islamic terrorists quite prepared to use them. And not just the explosives themselves, but the knowledge required to design foolproof bombs.

"I can prevent you from blowing yourselves up," he explains, somewhat mordantly adding, "unintentionally, anyway."

The quip does not go over well with Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui), an Islamic "patriot" who doesn't trust Samir for a second. His suspicions seem well-founded when their meeting is interrupted by local soldiers — the good guys — assisted by visiting counter-terrorism FBI agents Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) and Max Archer (Neal McDonough).

As it happens, Clayton and Archer have been trailing Samir for quite some time; Clayton believes their quarry opportunistic but not a radical ... in other words, somebody who could be "turned" toward U.S. interests. Samir surprises them; even the threat of an almost certain death in a Yemeni prison does not bring a flicker to the almost sadly analytical gaze he turns on Clayton.

If anything, the offer seems to insult him, and further harden the as-yet-undisclosed resolve that dictates his actions.