News of the World: Deserves banner headlines

News of the World (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, occasional profanity, disturbing images and dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.20

Paul Greengrass always makes thoughtful, emotionally engaging films, whether crowd-pleasing thrillers — three entries in the Jason Bourne series — or ripped-from-the-headlines dramas, such as Bloody Sunday, United 93 and 22 July.

 

Having been stopped on the road by a gang of questionable intent, Jefferson Kidd
(Tom Hanks) and his young companion (Helena Zengel) are "escorted" into the
nearby community of Durand, their fate most definitely uncertain.

His newest, based on poet/author Paulette Jiles’ 2016 novel of the same title, is a bit of both … due to current events that weren’t as obvious when she wrote her book.

 

News of the World — opening today in operational movie theaters — is set in early 1870, in the untamed and dangerous border between South Texas and Indian territory. Although the Civil War is five years gone, the nation remains bitterly divided; that’s particularly true in this state. Texas has yet to be readmitted to the Union, having refused thus far to ratify the 13th amendment banning slavery.

 

Patrols of Union soldiers maintain an uneasy peace in towns, and on the roads linking them; their presence is just as likely to inflame tension, as prevent it. Half of the population passionately fought for a vision of the country that was defeated; it’s unclear whether America — as a unified entity — can heal itself. Information itself is suspect, depending on its source.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks), a veteran of three wars, leads a peripatetic life within this environment. He travels from town to town, armed with newspapers and broadsheets, and draws crowds as a non-fiction storyteller who shares the news of presidents and queens, glorious feuds, devastating catastrophes and gripping incidents involving individual people.

 

He’s no Charles Dickens, with a thunderous and well-acted performance; he hunches over and squints through a magnifying glass while reading the tiny print aloud. But his delivery is no less captivating, thanks to Hanks’ warmth and sincerity; Kidd has a dignified bearing that grants him authority. People hang on his words, and he fills the house at 10 cents a head, thereby earning a meager but reliable living.

 

He’s wary and careful, when on the road with his humble wagon; roving bands of Union soldiers aren’t necessarily any safer than thieves and cutthroats.

 

One day he chances upon a frightened 10-year-old girl (Helena Zengel). Papers recovered from her demolished wagon — her adult companion having been lynched, due to his skin color — reveal that she’s Johanna Leonberger, whose family was killed six years earlier by the Kiowa tribe, who then raised her as one of their own. She’s now being returned to her biological aunt and uncle against her will, after her Kiowa home was burned by the soldiers who “rescued” her. In effect, she has been kidnapped twice.

 

Kidd hasn’t the faintest idea what to do with her. He tries first to enlist official Union aid; when that fails, he attempts to temporarily leave the girl in the care of friends in the nearest town. But she’s wild, speaks only Kiowa, and is hostile to this “civilized” world she never has experienced. Kidd ultimately decides to deliver her himself, to where the law insists she belongs.

 

Ford V Ferrari: Turbo-charged!

Ford V Ferrari (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.15.19

Christian Bale never ceases to amaze.

His performances are “all in” to a degree most actors couldn’t even contemplate, let alone accomplish. Nor is it merely the surface gimmick of his extreme weight losses and gains; Bale never appears to be “acting.” He simply becomesthat person, whether an industrial worker fearing for his sanity (The Machinist); a former boxer turned crack addict (The Fighter); or an ex-neurologist-turned-stock market savant suffering from Asperger syndrome (The Big Short).

Having made yet another series of adjustments, driver/engineer Ken Miles (Christian Bale,
left) prepares to test-drive their high-performance vehicle again, while designer
Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) waits apprehensively.

Or, in this case, feisty English sports car racing engineer and driver Ken Miles. Five minutes into this film, Bale ceases to exist. He is this guy. The mannerisms, posture, short temper and pugnacious attitude are wholly unlike any other character he has played, during a career that began when he was 12. 

That said, Bale’s Ken Miles is by no means defined solely by his truculence; the scenes he shares with Caitriona Balfe and Noah Jupe — also excellent, as Miles’ wife Mollie and their young son Peter — depict a kinder, gentler and loving man wholly at odds with the automotive genius who suffers fools not at all, let alone gladly.

(For the record, Bale dropped 70 pounds to play Miles, after having plumped up for Dick Cheney, in Vice.)

The notion that Bale has yet to win a Best Actor Oscar defies comprehension.

His sublime performance is far from the only high point in Ford V Ferrari, director James Mangold’s consistently absorbing, fascinating and suspenseful depiction of the American automobile company’s hare-brained, mid-1960s decision to challenge Italy’s boutique car-maker in the annual 24-hour Le Mans endurance race. Despite a running time of 152 minutes, Mangold’s film is never less than compelling … and the racing sequences are breathtaking. 

Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael and a trio of editors — Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker and Dirk Westervelt — deserve considerable applause. Sound designer Jay Wilkinson deserves an Academy Award.

Kudos, as well, to scripters Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller, for bravely tackling the corporate back-story and hijinks that led to this automotive clash. The narrative execution is never less than enthralling, to the same degree that 1976’s All the President’s Men turned plodding investigative journalism into a gripping suspense thriller.

Nor do the writers fill time with the soapy relationship melodrama relied upon by 1969’s Winning and 1971’s Le Mans. This film is cars, cars and nothing but cars … and that’s not a bad thing. If you’re not a racing fan prior to seeing Ford V Ferrari, you certainly will be 152 minutes later.

Mud: An earthy, heartfelt character saga

Mud (2012) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for violence, sexual candor, profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Gentle coming-of-age sagas seem an endangered species of late, all but forgotten as studios scramble to spend gazillions on fantasy epics and star-laden comedies.

Ellis (Tye Sheridan, left), his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) and their new
acquaintance Mud (Matthew McConaughey) check their tree's upper branches, trying
to decide whether they'll be strong enough to help a daft scheme succeed. But this
unlikely engineering challenge is the least of Mud's problems; he's wanted by both the
police and a gang of vicious bounty hunters.

That’s a shame, because intimate character dramas delivery some of our strongest movie memories. We’re often touched most deeply by the way we see ourselves in others, particularly during a well-told tale that depicts a familiar struggle for understanding.

Love fuels the action in Mud, a quiet, thoughtful little drama from indie filmmaker Jeff Nichols, who deserves mainstream acclaim for this, his third project (following 2007’s Shotgun Stories and 2011’s Take Shelter). Nichols’ strongest gift is the ability to place us within the world inhabited by his characters, in this case the rapidly vanishing houseboat culture of Arkansas’ Delta region.

Although 14-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) attend school in the nearby small town — a moribund community characterized by scrap yards, and where hanging out at the Piggly Wiggly is the height of local action — their lives are ruled by the Mississippi River. Ellis and his father (Ray McKinnon, as Senior) spend every morning selling fresh fish to local markets and restaurants; the orphaned Neckbone similarly helps his uncle (Michael Shannon, as Galen) dive for oysters.

At other times, the boys make their own entertainment. The story begins as they head to an island on the Mississippi, where Neckbone has found an amazing thing: a boat suspended high in a tree, a remnant of an extreme flood at some point in the past. Despite its precarious appearance, the boat is wedged quite tightly, and thus appears to be the perfect kid-oriented fort.

Unfortunately, this opinion is shared by Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a gritty, unkempt but personable drifter who already is using the boat as a hideout. The instinctively wary Neckbone doesn’t trust this stranger, but Ellis — more sensitive and trusting — allows curiosity to blossom into interest.

Despite the gun jammed into Mud’s hip pocket.

That notwithstanding, Mud does seem harmless, at least to the boys, and Ellis agrees to bring back some food. The mutual bonding is tentative but deepens quickly during subsequent visits, although Mud remains evasive about the reason for his presence on the island. That changes when Ellis and his mother (Sarah Paulson) chance upon a police roadblock during a routine drive, and learn that Mud is wanted for murder.