The Drop: A masterpiece of tension

The Drop (2014) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for profanity and strong violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.12.14

Getting close to two decades ago, Alec Baldwin starred in an adaptation of Heaven’s Prisoners, second in James Lee Burke’s atmosphere-laden series of Dave Robicheaux novels. The film is just this side of brilliant, with director Phil Joanou and scripters Harley Peyton and Scott Frank unerringly catching the rhythm and cadence of Burke’s prose, while Baldwin delivers what remains one of his best-ever performances as the recovering alcoholic, ex-New Orleans cop struggling to endure as he gets pulled into a particularly seamy investigation.

When Bob (Tom Hardy) reluctantly agrees to take care of the abandoned puppy he found a
few days earlier, Nadia (Noomi Rapace) agrees to help him shop for all the essentials. As
is the case with so many other aspects of Bob's life, he simply has no idea how to assume
this new responsibility.

It remains one of my all-time favorite book-to-film translations, in great part because Joanou, Peyton and Frank get Burke just right.

Despite this, the film was dead on arrival, dumped unloved when its studio of origin went bankrupt. As Baldwin was one of the executive producers, I’ve no doubt he hoped to turn Robicheaux into a franchise. Not in the cards, alas. All these years later, I still imagine What Might Have Been.

Turning a noir crime thriller into a film is tremendously difficult, particularly when dealing with a writer whose poetic prose evokes so many striking images. Many filmmakers have tried; most have failed. Director Steven Soderbergh also got it right, with his handling of Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight. Scott Frank wrote that script, as well.

All of which brings us to The Drop, which joins Heaven’s Prisoners on its lofty perch in my cinematic memory. This is an impeccable noir-story-to-film translation, thanks in great part to the fact that Dennis Lehane adapted it from his own short story, “Animal Rescue” (which, just in passing, would have been a better title for this film, as well).

Lehane apparently liked re-visiting this scenario so much that he expanded the story into a novel, also titled The Drop. But the original story remains readily available via the Internet, and I encourage you to seek it out ... but — promise, now! — only after seeing this film.

Bringing Lehane’s books to the big screen has become something of a cottage franchise; even more impressive is the fact that everybody involved has done such good work. The list is striking: Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and Shutter Island. But this is the first one Lehane scripted himself, which makes it a standout. And he’s a natural, which is no surprise, given his writing chops (also displayed on several scripts for gritty TV shows such as The Wire and Boardwalk Empire).

His hard-edged dialogue sounds just right; we sense its authenticity even though we’re likely unfamiliar with the archetypes populating this story. Not unless we’re born and bred on the mean, cloistered parish streets of a major metropolis (Boston’s Dorchester in the original short story, inexplicably moved to Brooklyn here). These are people we don’t want to know, neighborhoods we don’t want to inhabit after dark. Probably not in the daytime, either.

But film is a collaborative art; many fine scripts have been destroyed after leaving their creators’ hands. Not the case here: Up-and-coming Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam — who earned a Best Foreign Film Oscar nod for 2011’s Bullhead — has done a masterful job with this tense, brooding story. (Isn’t it interesting, just in passing, that some of the best recent adaptations of American noir novels have been helmed by foreign directors?)

Dead Man Down: The dish best served cold

Dead Man Down (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity and considerable violence
By Derrick Bang

As I expected, David Fincher’s American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo completely eclipsed Danish director Niels Arden Oplev’s vastly superior 2009 version in this country ... and let me note, as well, that Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth Salander blew Rooney Mara right off the screen.

Victor (Colin Farrell) thinks that the scarred Beatrice (Noomi Rapace) merely wishes to
go on a date, to forget — for an evening — the despair that has lingered in the wake
of the car accident that left her with such a crippled self-image. In fact, though, Beatrice
has chosen Victor for a very specific reason ... as he's about to learn.

Imagine my delight, then, to see that Oplev and Rapace have reunited for the former’s American film debut, with a riveting crime thriller that offers more of the intense, claustrophobic character interactions that marked their first collaboration.

Dead Man Down also owes much of its narrative snap to a slick script from J.H. Wyman, a writer/director/producer best known for a pair of engaging TV shows: Fringe and the woefully under-appreciated Keen Eddie. Wyman has a knack for provocative concepts, and he certainly delivers that — and more — in this new film.

The setting is contemporary, the locale the seedier underbelly of any American metropolis (filming took place in Philadelphia). Dead Man Down hits the ground running, with a gaggle of hoods summoned by their boss, Alphonse (Terrence Howard). Somebody is playing a nasty game with Alphonse, sending cryptic messages that arrive on the corpses of his men.

The newest oblique missive sends Alphonse and his gang to the lair of a local drug kingpin (Andrew Stewart-Jones, vividly compelling), which prompts a confrontation that doesn’t go at all well; indeed, Alphonse survives solely due to the timely intervention of Victor (Colin Farrell).

This clash doesn’t sit well with regional boss Lon Gordon (Armand Assante), who feels that Alphonse has gotten seriously out of line. A price will need to be paid. Alphonse scarcely registers this warning, obsessed instead with what these damned notes might mean.

Victor hasn’t much of a life outside his duties as protective gunsel, although he has bonded with fellow hood Darcy (Dominic Cooper), an ambitious fellow looking to work his way up the gangland ladder. After hours, Victor eats makeshift meals in a minimally furnished, upper-level apartment in a complex that might be one scant step up from slum projects. He occasionally spots an attractive young woman on the balcony of a similar apartment in the adjacent tower.

This time, however, their eyes lock. She tentatively wiggles her fingers in an almost-wave. After a lengthy pause, he does the same.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows — Nothing elementary about this sequel!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and rather generously, for intense action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.16.11

Mention Sherlock Holmes, Prof. James Moriarty and Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls in the same breath, and even the most casual fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed consulting detective will have certain expectations.

With certain death via gunfire and even cannon fire hurrying their flight, Holmes
(Robert Downey Jr., center) and Watson (Jude Law) try to lead Simza (Noomi
Rapace) to the safety of a dense forest, as trees, shrubs and even rocks
explode around them.

Director Guy Ritchie delivers on those expectations, albeit in a roundabout, cheeky and visually exhilarating manner. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is much more audaciously stylized than its 2009 predecessor, which is to say it’s a throwback to the gleefully demented Ritchie who brought us 2000’s Snatch.

This outing with the analytical super-sleuth feels more like an unholy mash-up of Quentin Tarantino and classic Jackie Chan movies, with just enough vintage Holmes — I’m thinking Basil Rathbone’s era — to satisfy Baker Street Irregulars wanting to hear at least some of Doyle’s immortal prose.

Indeed, it’s difficult to repress a shiver of delight when, after Holmes’ unsatisfying face-to-face encounter with Moriarty (Jared Harris) — and the elliptical conversation it contains — the detective eyes his demonic counterpart and says, with the utmost solemnity Robert Downey Jr. can bring to bear, “If I were assured of the former, I would cheerfully accept the latter.”

And if that line doesn’t resonate, then hie thee hence to the nearest copy of Doyle’s “The Final Problem,” in order to best appreciate the phrase’s pregnant implications.

But that suspensefully charged meeting comes well into Ritchie’s film, by which point we’ve already had a great deal of fun.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opens with an extended prologue that reunites Holmes (Downey) with the larcenous Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams, also returning from the first film), the only woman whose intellect ever impressed the master detective. Adler has fallen in with ill-advised companions; one nasty skirmish later, Holmes possesses a bit more information regarding the criminal mastermind pulling the strings connected to a series of recent calamities.

London — indeed, the entire Western European continent — has been plagued with a series of bombings and other acts of sedition, reflexively blamed on vaguely defined “anarchists” supposedly hoping to topple governments. But Holmes suspects a more sinister plot behind these various attacks, and believes that everything can be traced to a brilliant mathematics professor whose reputation is so spotless that he counts the British prime minister among his closest confidants.

Absent physical evidence, Moriarty can’t be touched ... and, certain as he is, Holmes lacks proof.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: Not Much Sting

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2010) • View trailer for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity and smarmy content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.5.10

Continuity of vision may not be essential when adapting a rigorously interlaced series of books to the big screen … but it’s certainly desirable.

The guiding hands of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh obviously contributed to the richly textured success of all three Lord of the Rings films. And who but Francis Ford Coppola could have interwoven the two timelines of Godfather Part II so seamlessly into its predecessor?

Although accused of murder and facing the possibility of renewed
imprisonment in a psychiatric ward, Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) refuses
to compromise the image that has served her so well ... and struts
into the courtroom in full punk regalia.

Vexingly, the Swedish film adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Girl Who books, although made almost concurrently, are scripted by three different writers and directed by two different individuals. Daniel Alfredson, who helmed the middle installment, has returned for the final chapter in the trilogy.

I don’t understand this revolving-door approach; surely a savvy producer should have recognized the value of artistic continuity. After all, those same guiding hands were smart enough to hang onto Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist – both still in top form, as the emotionally damaged Lisbeth Salander and her hard-charging journalistic champion, Mikael Blomkvist – so why not take similar care behind the scenes?

The unhappy result of such scattershot filmmaking is the realization, now that the trilogy has concluded with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, that Alfredson simply isn’t right for this material. His handling of this film is even less viscerally involving than the previous entry, and Ulf Ryberg’s screenplay is a discouraging disappointment: an overly talky thriller that might have been fine with a different set of characters, but not these characters, darn it!

In fairness, Larsson’s third novel is partly to blame; the author obviously suffered from a (not unreasonable) desire to wrap up his saga with exhaustive detail. But here, again, we perceive the value of more talented hands: Director Niels Arden Oplev and screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg brilliantly condensed Larsson’s dense prose while making the first film, wisely concentrating on developing suspense and the character interplay between Lisbeth and Mikael, while downplaying Larsson’s tendency to over-write. (Let’s face it: The second hundred pages or so of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are a truly tedious slog.)

The Girl Who Played with Fire: Smoldering

The Girl Who Played with Fire (2010) • View trailer for The Girl Who Played with Fire
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity, nudity, rape and strong sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.6.10
Buy DVD: The Girl Who Played With Fire • Buy Blu-Ray: The Girl Who Played with Fire [Blu-ray]

The characters are no longer as provocatively fresh, and we've learned that Stieg Larsson's plots can be extremely nasty. 

But familiarity certainly doesn't breed contempt. Noomi Rapace's Lisbeth Salander remains one of cinema's truly great characters, and parts of The Girl Who Played with Fire are just as tense as what went down in this film's predecessor. 

Having gotten to know Lisbeth Salander quite intimately
during the events depicted in the previous film,
investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael
Nyqvist, right) refuses to believe that she could be guilty
of the three murders with which she has been charged.
Alas, investigating detective Jan Bublanski (Johan Kylen)
doesn't share Mikael's faith in the absent Lisbeth, whose
location remains unknown. To make matters worse,
Bublanski resents Mikael's tendency to embarrass the
police ... which leaves our crusading reporter to do his
own sleuthing. (Would we have it any other way?)

Perhaps even more suspenseful, since we now know that Larsson doesn't pull his punches. If no single scene in this film generates the sickening horror of Salander's rape in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it ain't for lack of effort. Bad things happen to good people here. 

That said, replacement director Daniel Alfredson simply doesn't have the snap that Niels Arden Oplev brought to the first film. Alfredson's approach is more routine, less galvanic; he doesn't exactly dilute the twisty plot or intriguing characters, but he also doesn't bring much to the party. 

Were she not so emotionally damaged and oddly vulnerable, Rapace's character could be regarded as less mortal and more iconic: a pierced, black-garbed avenging angel placed on Earth hunt down "men who hate women," as crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist, also returning) perceives her. 

The beauty of Rapace's performance, though, is the intriguing balance between human frailty and adrenaline-fueled hatred. Salander is such a tiny little thing — one wonders how she's able to handle a huge motorcycle, in one scene — that first-time acquaintances can be forgiven their assumption of weakness. But Rapace makes us believe that rage and ferocious skill trump size, particularly when she sets her mouth grimly and we watch, with both satisfaction and horror, as all humanity and compassion drain from her dark eyes. 

Aside from some quick scenes that establish the sex-traffickers who hover malignantly throughout this story, Fire begins somewhat quietly, allowing us to get a better sense of the relationships between Blomkvist, Salander and various side characters that were given short shrift in the first film. Larsson's books are dense, to say the least; while the screenwriters — Jonas Frykberg here, Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg on Tattoo — have done an impressive job of compression while retaining all the crucial bits, one can lament the missing subtleties. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Fiery thriller

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2010) • View trailer for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
4.5 stars (out of five). Rating: Unrated, but comparable to an R for violence, nudity, profanity, rape and strong sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.10
Buy DVD: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo • Buy Blu-Ray: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [Blu-ray]

The late Stieg Larsson's U.S. fans have been salivating over the prospect of seeing his debut novel on the big screen, ever since the American translation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hit our shores in September 2008.

The wait has been worthwhile. Director Niels Arden Oplev has delivered a taut, intelligent and thoroughly absorbing adaptation of Larsson's intriguing and quite nasty thriller. Kudos, as well, go to screenwriters Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel, who've done a masterful job of transforming Larsson's dense novel (480 pages!) into a 152-minute film that never, ever flags.

After realizing that their quarters have been searched in their absence -- thanks
to the perfect recall she has for the location of every object in the room --
Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) drags Mikael (Michael Nyqvist) outside, where they
discover the tell-tale scratches of forced entry. Perversely, Lisbeth regards this
as good news: The bad guys are getting nervous...

Although the literary world has given us a wealth of gripping thrillers and mystery novels during the past several decades, the genre has been woefully under-represented on American movie screens ... that is to say, in a manner that does justice to the original books. Hollywood adaptations of such stories are invariably superficial and additionally compromised by the reflexive need for the high-power wattage of movie stars, and their presence always wrecks the gritty integrity of the source novel.

We've had to rely on foreign filmmakers for adaptations that are true to the atmosphere of the written word. Roman Polanski's current handling of Robert Harris' The Ghost Writer is a marvelous drama: grim fiction by way of familiar real-world newspaper headlines. And I still have very fond memories of French director/scripter Guillaume Canet's sensational 2006 adaptation of Harlan Coben's Tell No One, without question one of the best mystery thrillers ever brought to the big screen.

Even French director Bernard Tavernier's 2009 interpretation of James Lee Burke's In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead — shortened to In the Electric Mist when filmed — is an intriguing effort, despite its flaws. How can one not appreciate the perfect casting of Tommy Lee Jones as Burke's world-weary Dave Robicheaux?

To this list we must add Oplev's adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, highlighted by another example of perfect casting: Noomi Rapace's utterly mesmerizing performance as the damaged and deliciously complex title character, Lisbeth Salander.

You won't quickly forget her. Which is as it should be.