Glass Onion: Layers of delight

Glass Onion (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong language, violence, sexual candor and drug content

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.30.22

Rian Johnson reminded me how much I miss well-crafted murder mysteries.

 

Consider a few classics: Sleuth, The Last of Sheila, Deathtrap, Gosford Park and The Usual Suspects. Each is a blend of twisty plotting and mildly snarky attitude.

 

Tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton, center) and several of his guests — from
left, Claire (Kathryn Hahn), Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.) and
Birdie (Kate Hudson) — are quite surprised by the identity of their gathering's
newest arrival.

The writer/director garnered well-deserved admiration for 2019’s Knives Out, which — among its many other delights — gave star Daniel Craig an opportunity to craft a memorable character far removed from a certain shaken-not-stirred secret agent.

We all wondered, when Craig’s second outing as sharp-eyed sleuth Benoit Blanc neared arrival, if Johnson could pull it off a second time. So many filmmakers have run afoul of the sophomore curse.

 

Well, not this one.

 

Glass Onion is just as clever — and engaging — as its predecessor. Although driven by a tantalizing whodunit and whydunit, those features almost take second place to the fact that this film is pure fun. At a time when numerous recent releases have run far too long in the hands of self-indulgent directors, this one earns its 139 minutes. Goodness, I wanted it to keep going.

 

Johnson’s fondness for the genre is obvious, and his new film is a loving — and cheekily updated — riff on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

 

The story begins as identical, elaborately carved wooden boxes are delivered to scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), Connecticut Gov. Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and macho streaming celebrity Duke Cody (Dave Bautista). Editor Bob Ducsay’s sleek split-screen montage reflects the fact that these are (of course!) large puzzle boxes, which the quartet ultimately solves via phone collaboration.

 

Inside: an invitation to a murder mystery weekend hosted by longtime friend and tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton), at his private island in Greece. His estate’s stand-out feature: a massive, glass-enclosed conservatory shaped like an onion.

 

Elsewhere, the recipient of a fifth box extracts her invitation via hilarious old-school methodology. (Whatever works, right?) She turns out to be Cassandra “Andi” Brand (Janelle Monáe), co-founder and former CEO of Bron’s tech company Alpha, unfairly ousted — not long ago — via some acrimonious legal maneuvering.

 

Everybody — most particularly Bron — is astonished when Blanc turns up, identical invitation in hand. The detective, unswervingly polite to the core, is embarrassed by having unwittingly crashed the party; Bron sets him at ease. After all, the cunningly conceived weekend will be far more successful if he’s able to outfox the world-famous Benoit Blanc.

The Many Saints of Newark: Far from celestial

The Many Saints of Newark (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: HBO Max and movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

I’ve never before seen a bait-and-switch movie.

 

Fans approaching this film anticipating the origin and molding of Tony Soprano — a quite reasonable expectation, given the way The Many Saints of Newark has been marketed — are certain to be disappointed.

 

When his father returns home after a four-year prison stretch, teenage Tony
(Michael Gandolfini, left) — uncertain what to say or do — must be encouraged by
his "uncle" Dickie (Alessandro Nivola) to go with his heart.

This is, instead, a years-long study of a slowly building turf war between New Jersey’s Italian Mafiosi — which, yes, includes numerous individuals who will, in time, become the running characters on the six-season HBO series — and competitors spawned by the rising Black power movement. The young Tony Soprano is, at best, a very minor character in these events … and, more crucially, the David Chase/Lawrence Konner script gives absolutely no indication of what will trigger the kid’s eventual rise to power.

I’ll take that a step further: As clumsily played by Michael Gandolfini — the late James Gandolfini’s son, in a bit of stunt casting that bespeaks sentimentality rather than common sense — there’s no way this pasty, sullen, self-centered mope ever could become the adult Tony Soprano that we loved and loathed. Fuhgeddaboudit.

 

What we’re left with, instead, is a mildly absorbing, Godfather-esque crime saga centered on the complex private and professional relationships between the Soprano and Moltisanti families. Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) is the Al Pacino-esque central character who, during his more rational moments, attempts to maintain unity while tending to his end of the “family business.”

 

Sadly, Dickie — very well played by Nivola — is prone to explosive bursts of temper, with dire results.

 

This saga is occasionally narrated — in a cheeky bit of storytelling — by Michael Imperioli’s Christopher Moltisanti, speaking from beyond the grave. (We recall, from the series, that Tony Soprano ultimately killed him.) Christopher therefore establishes the groundwork for a chronicle that begins before he was born.

 

Unfortunately, it quickly becomes obvious that writers Chase and Konner have laid out far more than this single two-hour film can resolve, with any degree of satisfaction. Too many sidebar events get short shrift, or no shrift at all; this overly ambitious narrative screams for the long-form episodic treatment enjoyed by the HBO series.

 

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the Italians share the stage with Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), a childhood friend of Dickie’s who now — on his behalf — oversees the numbers racket in the Central Ward, Newark’s predominantly Black neighborhood. Odom’s performance is thoughtful and multi-layered; Harold is intelligent, ambitious and angered by the circumstance of skin color that thwarts a desire for his own piece of the action.

 

Frankly, Harold deserves his own separate movie.

One Night in Miami: Compelling revisionist history

One Night in Miami (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.15.21

On Feb. 25, 1964 — on the eve of the name change that would prove so controversial — Cassius Clay became the world boxing champion after an upset victory over Sonny Liston, during a bout at Florida’s Miami Convention Center.

 

Basking in the euphoria of an historic sports upset by Cassius Clay (Eli Goree, second
from left), he and his friends — from left, Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Malcolm X
(Kingsley Ben-Adir) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) — are about to debate how best
to "market" such an outcome.

Following the match, Clay returned to his room at the Hampton House Hotel, where he spent a quiet evening with friends Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown … under the watchful eye of Nation of Islam security. Nobody knows what they talked about — at least, not to any great degree — but playwright Kemp Powers became obsessed by the notion of what could have been discussed by that amazing quartet, at that seminal moment during the nascent Civil Rights movement.

 

The result was 2013’s One Night in Miami, a 90-minute one-act play that Powers has just adapted into a film — available via Amazon Prime — helmed with capable assurance by actress-turned-director Regina King (an impressive feature film debut). 

 

It’s a fascinating “what if” scenario. And even if hindsight has allowed Powers to shade the content of this encounter, the issues discussed certainly would have been just as relevant then, as they are today (sadly).

 

Making a movie from a play, particularly one of this claustrophobic nature, always involves the challenge of “opening up” the action, so that we don’t feel we’re merely watching a filmed stage performance. Powers and King get around this with some brief prologues that cleverly — and wincingly — blend Black oppression with failure.

 

Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), despite possessing more than two dozen Top 40 hits by this point in his career, flops miserably before a white Copacabana audience that radiates contempt. Clay (Eli Goree), facing Henry Cooper in June 1963, is knocked to the mat. (The astonished look on Goree’s face is an early indication of the almost eerie way he channels the once-and-future Muhammad Ali.)

 

Brown (Aldis Hodge), just beginning to transition from NFL fame to an acting career — having just wrapped his co-starring debut in 1964’s Rio Conchos — drops in on a family friend (Beau Bridges) at a Georgia plantation. What initially seems a congenial visit between equals who like and admire each other, takes a sharp left turn with a line from Bridges — delivered so blandly, so matter-of-factly — that we’re left breathless.

 

The subsequent shift to Clay’s victory over Liston therefore is even more triumphant, with Cooke, Brown and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) cheering in the audience. When they return to the hotel room, it’s with different intentions; Cooke and Brown hope to party, while the abstinent Malcolm X has something more important in mind.