Puzzle: The pieces fit beautifully

Puzzle (2018) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.24.18

Some actors are so accomplished — they slide so wholly into a role, inhabiting even the smallest nuance of personality — that they simply become the character.

Robert (Irrfan Khan), accustomed to puzzle partners who focus on distinct colors, can't
fathom the more instinctive, pattern-recognition method that Agnes (Kelly Macdonald)
prefers.

Kelly Macdonald is just such a talent. She’d captivate even when doing something humdrum, like grocery shopping. Actually, that’s definitely true, since her character here doesmake an emotional symphony out of grocery shopping. Along with pretty much every other scene in director Marc Turtletaub’s clever, delicately assembled little drama.

The Scottish actress hit my radar with her strong supporting performances in 2001’s Gosford Park, the 2003 British miniseries State of Play and the 2005 British TV movie The Girl in the Café. Came to discover that I’d also seen her acting debut years earlier, in 1996’s Trainspotting. Had to go back and re-watch it. She was marvelous then, as well: right out of the gate.

She’s been quite busy ever since, likely well remembered — on this side of the pond — for her edge-of-the-seat supporting turn in 2007’s No Country for Old Men, and her supporting part in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

Astonishingly, Puzzle is her first solid starring role. The 22-year wait has been worthwhile: She doesn’t disappoint.

Agnes (Macdonald) is introduced as she meticulously prepares her home for visitors and a birthday party. We immediately sense, from her air of concentration, that every detail needs to be just so. Turtletaub then cuts to the party in progress: people drinking, laughing, having a good time. Being a bit careless, as guests often are. 

Agnes is the fastidious, detail-oriented sort who gathers discarded glasses and dishes, and scoops dropped appetizers from the floor, before somebody can step on them.

Not until she brings in the beautifully decorated cake, and the crowd launches into a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” do we realize — as they all reach the third line — that it’s her birthday. And she has done all the work.

Agnes lives in Bridgeport, Conn., with her husband Louie (David Denman) and young adult sons Ziggy (Bubba Weiler) and Gabe (Austin Abrams). The latter is forever accompanied by girlfriend Nicki (Liv Hewson), a mildly aggressive Buddhist vegan who seems attached to Gabe like a third arm.

Inferno: Flickers and dies

Inferno (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for action violence, dramatic intensity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

I’ve no idea why this series continues to be popular; each entry is sillier than the one before.

Dan Brown may be able to maintain reader credibility in a lengthy novel — Inferno runs a self-indulgent 609 pages — but director Ron Howard’s film adaptations are no more sensible than the old Perils of Pauline silent movie serial.

A series of arcane, art-related clues eventually lead Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) and
Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) to the fabled "death mask" of Italian poet Dante
Alighieri. But what has this to do with a potential world-wide plague? And do we care?

David Koepp’s screenplay for Inferno reduces the plot to little more than a race-race-race against time, occasionally alleviated when famed university symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) pauses for breath in order to solve another arcane riddle locked within a famed piece of artwork.

On top of which, attempting to make sense of the conspiracy-laden supporting characters is beyond the ability of mere mortals. “Duplicitous” doesn’t begin to cover the crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses in this ludicrous plot, which quickly devolves into a tiresome guessing game.

Lessee ... first they’re all bad guys. Then some of the bad guys become good guys. Oh, wait, no; that one was bad all along. And that one was good. Until turning bad again.

All with poor Langdon caught in the middle.

It quickly becomes impossible to believe — or care about — any of these people. All we can do is wait for the murk to clear, accompanied by tediously complicated explanations, so matters can build to a staggeringly inept climax, and we can go home.

Brown may have sold all this meandering nonsense to his readers — full disclosure prompts acknowledging that I’m not among the faithful — but Koepp can’t begin to distill it into a two-hour film. We can’t help wondering, as loyalties finally become apparent in the third act, why Certain Parties didn’t simply ask for Langdon’s help, rather than concocting such an elaborate means of “forcing” his assistance.

What makes Howard’s Dan Brown adaptations even more exasperating is their insistence on taking such stuff and nonsense so seriously. Robert Langdon’s profession and expertise make him a close cousin to Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones, but director Steven Spielberg wisely turns those chapter-play adventures into larkish thrill rides, with plenty of winking and nudging.

Brown’s style, on the other hand — reproduced here by Howard and Koepp — always collapses under the weight of its own pomposity.

Jurassic World: Dino-might

Jurassic World (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi violence and peril
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.12.15

We never learn.

Which is a good thing ... because, otherwise, where would Hollywood find most of its plotlines?

Having managed one narrow escape after another, our besieged heroes — from left,
Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), Owen (Chris Pratt), Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray
(Ty Simpkins) — wind up trapped in a lab when yet another dino-menace appears out
of nowhere. These poor folks just can't catch a break...

In a few key respects, Jurassic World is an honorable sequel to the sensational 1993 film that Steven Spielberg made from Michael Crichton’s riveting, way-clever novel ... not to mention Spielberg’s almost-as-good 1997 follow-up, adapted from Crichton’s own sequel. (Equal credit also goes to scripter David Koepp, who worked on both films.)

We’ll just sorta pretend that the series’ third entry, in 2001, never happened.

Which also seems to be the attitude adopted by this new film’s director, Colin Trevorrow, and his three co-writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Derek Connelly. Jurassic World does acknowledge the first two films with several nice nods toward those who sculpted this franchise so superbly. Even Michael Giacchino’s exhilarating score references key John Williams themes from the two Spielberg movies.

Visual effects supervisors Tim Alexander and Glen McIntosh also do phenomenal work, further enhancing the “you are there” verisimilitude that made the first film such a jaw-dropping wonder. It’s no imaginative stretch at all, to accept these various beasties as living, breathing ... and highly dangerous.

Trevorrow and editor Kevin Stitt concoct a hell-for-leather third act, with each suspenseful encounter and/or chase building to an even better one. Additionally, the script is laden with perceptive social commentary, taking some well-deserved jabs at our jaded 21st sensibilities, while reminding us anew that — to paraphrase a droll 1970s TV commercial — it’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature.

Sounds great, right?

Well ... not entirely.

Despite its many virtues, Jurassic World is marred by an abundance of unpleasant, mean-spirited and just plain stupid characters who spend the entire film behaving like complete idiots. On top of which, Trevorrow seems to have coached everybody to play at hyper-melodramatic, back row/third balcony opera house levels.

That’s frankly surprising, since Trevorrow’s sole previous credit is 2012’s droll Safety Not Guaranteed, a little sci-fi mystery that gets its oomph from being so deliciously coy, subtle and quiet.

So why switch gears here? Did Trevorrow worry that his human players had to compete with their dino co-stars, when it came to chewing up the scenery?

Whatever the reason, it’s hard to like or admire most of these characters, including the few whom we’re definitely supposed to root for. Brainless behavior demands the opposite; I’d have been perfectly content to watch a few more become dino-chow.

The Lunchbox: A wonderful meal

The Lunchbox (2013) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated PG, for no useful reason, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang

Movie buffs live for this moment: the thrill of discovery, striking when you least expect it.

The Lunchbox, an impressively accomplished feature debut for writer/director Ritesh Batra, is a bittersweet romantic charmer: by turns droll, sensitive and achingly poignant. And although we’re thoroughly absorbed by the core story involving two lonely people, Batra also delivers a perceptive analysis of big-city Mumbai, as it struggles at a cultural crossroads sparked by the age-old clash between tradition and progress.

On top of which, we get some astute social commentary on the nature of love, the sad fate of those who settle, and the possibly greater emotional rewards for those who defy expectations and, well, take an impulsive plunge.

Not bad, for a 104-minute film that spends almost all of its time with just three characters.

Batra’s narrative also is a cinematic valentine to the grand tradition of epistolary novels, ranging from classics such as Fanny Hill and Dracula, to more modern examples such as The Color Purple and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Indeed, I frequently was reminded of Helene Hanff’s marvelous 1970 book, 84, Charing Cross Road, for reasons that I can’t specify without spoiling some of the delights to be found in Batra’s film.

And, finally, mention must be made of the wholly immersive performances from the excellent cast, starting with veteran Indian actor Irrfan Khan, who seems everywhere these days. Aside from a busy schedule in his native country, American audiences will recognize him from Slumdog Millionaire and The Amazing Spider-Man; he also was the best part of Ang Lee’s film adaptation of Lifeof Pi, as the adult Pi Patel.

He stars here as Saajan Fernandes, a government accountant who has toiled for 35 years in an employee- and paper-strewn office that could, in different hands, be the subject of biting satire. But Batra’s touch is resolutely serious, his approach matter-of-fact. We’ve absolutely no doubt that scores of such offices exist throughout Mumbai, equally staffed (stuffed?) with quiet men who juggle facts and figures, struggling with pencil, ink and hand calculators, nary a computer to be seen.

Saajan is weeks from retirement, and therefore saddled with the responsibility of training his excitable young replacement: Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), about whom, more in a moment.

Batra’s plot is driven by his story’s fourth primary “character,” the astonishing Mumbai tradition orchestrated daily by the dabbawallahs, a community of roughly 5,000 deliverymen who ferry between 175,000 and 200,000 hot meals from the kitchens of housewives to the offices of their husbands. The numbers are staggering, the process nothing short of amazing, as these lunches cross the city via bicycle, bus and train ... even during monsoons.

The positions are hereditary, dating back some 130 years, and even more impressive for the fact that almost all dabbawallahs are illiterate. The meals reach their proper destinations via a complex code of colors and symbols: a system that even led to a flattering 2010 study by the Harvard Business School ... a point of pride mentioned by one dabbawallah, at a key moment in this story.