Sharper: A cut above

Sharper (2023) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning Feb. 17) Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.10.23 

This one has style to burn.

 

Director Benjamin Caron definitely knows his way around atmosphere, and Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka’s deliciously crafty script is as sleek as the elegant outfits that costume designer Melissa Toth has draped onto the primary characters.

 

After a charming first encounter, Tom (Justice Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton)
become inseparable. But what's really going on?

I hate saying anything about the plot, because the fun comes from the discovery — as events proceed — that very little is what it seems. This is a grifter saga, very much in the vein of The Sting, American Hustle and The Brothers Bloom (the latter an overlooked early entry from Rian Johnson, who brought us Knives Out; do look for it).

And yet Sharper — great double-entendre title, that — doesn’t feel like a grifter movie … at least not initially.

 

Gatewood and Tanaka’s narrative is divided into distinct acts, the first of which unfolds like a meet-cute love story (and Caron stages it that way).

 

Manhattan Bookstore owner Tom (Justice Smith) can’t help being intrigued by customer Sandra (Briana Middleton), when she browses and then requests a specific title. Their conversation is mildly flirty until it gets awkward, when her credit card is declined. Tom makes a magnanimous gesture; she gets embarrassed, and that might have been that.

 

But she turns out to be honest, which touches him. Several weeks pass, during which they become an item. Middleton’s Sandra sparkles with warmth and kindness; Smith is equally fine as the aw-shucks, somewhat naïve Tom.

 

Then things take … and intriguing turn.

 

We next meet Max (Sebastian Stan). He’s suave, smooth and sophisticated: a thoroughly accomplished con artist. He undertakes a long-term project, with a very specific goal in mind. He’s alternately patient and merciless, rewarding small successes and applying punishment when necessary.

 

Stan is the epitome of cool: often dressed in black, radiating a degree of mystery heightened by a slightly mocking gaze and insincere smile.

 

The narrative cuts to a new chapter. Madeline (Julianne Moore) has become cozy with über-billionaire Richard Hobbes (John Lithgow). Here, at last, Gatewood and Tanaka reveal some of their hole cards; Madeline’s relationship feels artificial. Moore’s bearing is calculated, her smile — when Richard isn’t looking — quite predatory. Whatever else is going on, Madeline’s affection for him isn’t genuine.

Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom — 'Sauring' adventure

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for relentless action violence and all manner of dino rage
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.22.18

This film is a cautionary tale that hearkens back to the immortal line from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, which has been paraphrased — in movies, TV shows and other books — many times since:

With a particularly nasty Indoraptor loose in her family's private Cretaceous museum,
young Maisie (Isabella Sermon, far right) hopes that Owen (Chris Pratt) and
Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) can keep her alive.

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge.”

Its function as a klaxon-blaring environmental warning aside, this fifth installment in the Jurassic series also is a rip-snortin’ rollercoaster ride. Director J.A. Bayona and editor Bernat Vilaplana maintain an impressive level of intense, edge-of-the-seat suspense for two full hours. Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow’s script is cleverly structured into three distinct acts, each laden with distinct goals, challenges and dangerous pitfalls.

At the same time, a thoroughly unsettling message percolates beneath the surface, until finally blossoming — nay, exploding — during the climax.

That’s a problem. The care with which Connolly and Trevorrow have built their plot suddenly sags beneath the weight of too much extraneous exposition during the final 15 minutes: one genuine surprise, a failure to resolve, and a lingering catastrophe that has been foretold by Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm (and it’s very nice to see him again).

We’re left with enough open-ended material to fuel two or three more films ... which, frankly, is quite irritating.

Up to that point, however, Fallen Kingdom is a lot of fun, in great part because Bayona, Connolly and Trevorrow wisely follow — and often reference — many of the ingredients that made Steven Spielberg’s 1993 handling of Michael Crichton’s original novel so thoroughly absorbing.

Stalwart heroes: check. Well-meaning scientists with their ideals shattered: check. Greedy corporate villains: check. One (and only one) comic-relief character: check. A child in peril: check.

Plenty of unexpected jump-attacks by swiftly moving dinosaurs: Check-check-check.

Paper Towns: Things aren't as they seem

Paper Towns (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for mild profanity, partial nudity and teen sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.24.15

Today’s teens continue to live in great times, with respect to movies that speak to their experiences.

When Margo (Cara Delevingne) entices Quentin (Nat Wolff) to help her during a late-night
bit of "payback," their first stop is a big-box store, where he grows increasingly nervous
over the unusual items that get tossed into the shopping basket.

Best of all, we’re getting solid, respectful adaptations of existing books, graced with thoughtful, multi-faceted storylines by authors who understand the importance of plot logic, character development and — wait for it — subtlety.

As opposed to, say, this week’s other high-profile release: the bombastic, über-dumb Pixels.

Paper Towns comes from the pen of best-selling teen-lit author John Green, whose most recent novel, The Fault in Our Stars, brightened movie screens last summer. Paper Towns is an earlier work; it’s also a quieter, mildly sneaky narrative that builds to a somewhat unexpected conclusion ... albeit one that feels just right, in hindsight.

The sensitive, finely tuned screenplay comes from Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who certainly know the territory; aside from having scripted The Fault in Our Stars last year, in 2013 they also delivered a poignant adaptation of Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now.

Paper Towns is cut from different cloth, most visibly because it doesn’t concern emotional damaged or terminally ill characters. The teens populating this Florida suburb are reasonably ordinary, and in a way that’s the crux of the narrative: None of us wishes an ordinary life, particularly not as a teen. We all hope for something extravagant: or, in the words of our protagonist, the “one miracle” to which he figures everybody is entitled.

In the case of adolescent Quentin “Q” Jacobsen (Josiah Cerio), living in the outskirts of Orlando, his miracle arrives when Margo Roth Spiegelman (Hannah Alligood) and her family move into the house across the street. Just like that, Quentin is smitten. Proximity turns them into bike-to-school buddies, but Quentin soon discovers that Margo is a wild child, whose adventurous nature eventually exceeds his comfort zone.

She’s ... disappointed. She doesn’t exactly say or do anything, but young Alligood’s gaze reflects gentle censure, perhaps even betrayal.

Flash-forward to the present day, toward the end of everybody’s senior year in high school. Quentin (now Nat Wolff) and Margo (Cara Delevingne) have drifted apart, become all but strangers. She has cultivated a semi-scandalous reputation, replete with wild stories passed within the school corridors.