The Peanut Butter Falcon: Utterly captivating

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, brief violence and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.23.19

Precious few films deserve to be mentioned alongside Mark Twain’s richly evocative, character-driven prose.

This is one of them.

Determined to take advantage of Rule No. 1 — "Party!" — Zak (Zack Gottsagen, left) and
Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) dip rather too enthusiastically into a jug of moonshine bestowed by
an obliging store owner.

The comparison runs deeper than tone and atmosphere. Writer/directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz deliberately evoke the spirit of Samuel Langhorne Clemens as their endearing, deeply heartwarming tale proceeds. It’s easy to imagine Twain having concocted just such an intimate,  transformational fable, had he settled in the swampy, reed-filled inlets and quiet sandy beaches of North Carolina.

Nilson and Schwartz’s mythical saga has a similar sense of otherworldly timelessness, ingeniously leavened with a dollop of contemporary social consciousness. The script — and precisely crafted dialog — never put a foot wrong.

The result is utterly charming.

Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down Syndrome, chafes in a nursing home for senior citizens in the final stages of life: the only facility willing to accept him, after being abandoned by his original family. Despite an inherent optimism and outward cheerfulness, he’s restless and miserable in an environment clearly not suited to his needs.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), an empathetic volunteer who has tried to be a friend; at the very least, she’s closer to his age than anybody else. Zak appreciates the effort, and promises that she’ll be one of the privileged few invited to his next birthday party.

Zak’s only joy comes from endlessly re-watching an old promotional videotape starring his longtime hero: a professional wrestler dubbed the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). More than anything else, Zak dreams of traveling to Florida, in order to enroll at his idol’s wrestling school.

Elsewhere, personal tragedy has left Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) unable to cope with the world. At the loosest of ends, sleeping rough and incapable (unwilling?) to hold a steady job, he survives solely by stealing the caged catches of other crab fishermen. But that’s a dangerous gamble, when everybody similarly scrambles to stay alive; Tyler runs afoul of rival fishermen Duncan (John Hawkes) and Ratboy (Southern rapper Yelawolf), who threaten to kill him.

Zak, no stranger to escape attempts, finally succeeds one night with some assistance from his roommate, Carl (Bruce Dern, enjoying a late-career Renaissance playing feisty old coots). Alas, the effort leaves him clad solely in briefs. Stumbling barefoot and shirtless in the dark, he finally hides beneath the tarp in a dockside skiff … which happens to belong to Tyler, who has just compounded his problems with a stupid and spiteful act.

Forced to flee by boat into the reedy inlets, with Duncan and Ratboy in vengeful pursuit, Tyler is well away before he discovers the stowaway.

Fury: Much too angry

Fury (2014) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity and relentless battlefield violence and gore
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.17.14

Classic World War II movies, absent the cynicism and despair that later infected so many big-screen depictions of the Vietnam quagmire, laced their stories with honor, chivalry, moral fortitude and an absolute respect for the chain of command.

Frightened and badly out of his depth, Norman (Logan Lerman, left) can't imagine that he'd
be of any use to the Sherman tank team led by Wardaddy (Brad Pitt). But this battle-weary
sergeant knows how to inspire his men, even a callow newcomer like Norman, and soon
the kid is executing Nazi scum with the enthusiasm of a seasoned warrior.

The Nazi enemy may have behaved like vicious, amoral swine, but our stalwart boys worked together with courage and righteousness, guided by the innovative strategies of battlefield stalwarts whose ingenuity helped trump sometimes superior forces.

This classic archetype continued for decades thereafter, building to modern classics such as Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and HBO’s lavish miniseries, Band of Brothers, both of which gained their power from a rich tapestry of characters about whom we cared very, very deeply.

It would appear that this cinematic model has fallen out of favor.

Writer/director David Ayer’s Fury presents the latter days of the European campaign as the equivalent of an inner-city street fight between drug gangs, with the grunts on our side no better than the animals wearing the Nazi cross. The so-called “good guys” in this unpalatable story seem modeled on the thugs who tortured and humiliated Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib; early on, in fact, we’re granted a sequence of American GIs behaving just that badly with a captured German soldier.

It’s interesting — carrying this observation even further — that this story’s sole act of genuine kindness, of benevolent altruism, is offered by one of those aforementioned Nazi monsters. We could call it dramatic irony, but I’m not willing to give Ayer that much credit.

Three of the five primary characters in this film are one-dimensional brutes granted only a hiccup of actual characterization: superficial affectations implied solely by nicknames such as Gordo, Bible and Coon-Ass.

(Just in passing, I’d love to declare a moratorium on movies with characters who never seem to have real names, but instead are granted stupid monikers better suited to comic book villains. It has become a tiresome and frankly irritating cliché.)

Our other two protagonists, while graced with a bit more presence and personality, aren’t that much more likable ... but we eventually bond with them, to a degree, solely because we’ve gotta care about somebody in this mean-spirited mess.

And “mean-spirited” is this film’s prevailing tone: no surprise, since Ayer is the enraged scripter of nihilistic cop dramas such as Training Day and End of Watch, and earlier this year wrote and directed the offensively deplorable Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, Sabotage. Ayer clearly doesn’t think much of his fellow man, and a little of that contemptuous vitriol goes a long way.

Given this new film’s 134-minute length, that’s a very long way.

The Company You Keep: The guests exceed their talking points

The Company You Keep (2012) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Almost four decades later, Robert Redford continues to flee from The Establishment.

The Company You Keep has some pleasant echoes of 1975’s Three Days of the Condor, particularly during the first act. Granted, this new thriller lacks any sort of spy element, but in both cases Redford’s man on the run must outwit better organized and far more numerous pursuers, while we audience members attempt to solve the twisty mystery that fuels the hunt.

FBI Agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard, left) is quite annoyed by the arrogance displayed
by journalist Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), and even angrier that rookie agent Diana
(Anna Kendrick) apparently allowed her previous relationship with this reporter to
cloud her professional judgment. Somebody's head is about to roll; meanwhile,
long-dormant domestic terrorists continue to elude what Cornelius regards as justice.

The political element is significantly different, however, reflecting a greater maturity on Redford’s part. His CIA researcher in Three Days of the Condor was an undisputed good guy caught in a conspiracy that anticipated the energy crisis: a vividly black-and-white scenario that ultimately made a savior of the great Fourth Estate, and its ability to keep the American public informed about vile doings.

Screenwriter Lem Dobbs’ view of newspaper journalists is a bit more complicated in The Company You Keep, and the political subtext is various shades of gray; indeed, it could be argued that Redford’s character here deserves to be caught and punished. Absolute right and wrong are more difficult to pin down, although confirmed leftists will be cheered by the fact that various good fights still seem worth the effort.

The tone also is agreeable; the shrill preaching that characterized Redford’s previous political drama, 2007’s Lions for Lambs, is largely absent here. Granted, this new film also relies too much on talking heads at times, particularly during a final act that wears out its welcome; some judicious trimming could have made a better-paced drama out of this somewhat self-indulgent 121-minute experience.

That said, it’s hard not to be impressed by the cast Redford assembled (he also directed). You’ll rarely find an ensemble as accomplished as Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Chris Cooper, Stanly Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Brendan Gleeson and Nick Nolte; and tomorrow’s stars are equally well represented by Shia LaBeouf, Brit Marling and Anna Kendrick.

Many of these performers pop up in relatively small roles, which ordinarily might be distracting, or invite an accusation of stunt casting. But everybody perfectly fits their parts, and it’s hard to argue with the results (at least, from an acting standpoint). In that sense, The Company You Keep hearkens back to Hollywood’s golden age, when similarly star-laden casts weren’t all that unusual.

Transformers 3: How 'bout changing into something decent?

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (2011) • View trailer for Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for prolonged action violence, mayhem and destruction, and for occasional profanity and fleeting sensuality
By Derrick Bang


Michael Bay doesn’t make movies; he assembles big-screen video games.

His characters don’t even have the depth of those found in 1960s Saturday morning cartoon shows. An average episode of Scooby-Doo generated more suspense and emotional impact.

After climbing a high-rise office building in order to get a better shot at a
complex beam-generator thingie, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and his soldier buddies
find their plan derailed when a nasty, coiling Decepticon pushes over the
entire top half of the building. Boy, the good guys just can't catch a break!

His Transformers series makes the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise look like high art.

Bay, obviously operating under the assumption that more is more, clutters his action scenes with so much stuff that it’s impossible to focus on any single person or set of characters. Impossible to separate our heroes from half a dozen nameless hangers-on who have such wafer-thin character depth that they’d vanish, if turned sideways.

A typical Michael Bay good guy is introduced simply by striking a macho pose and growling something unintelligible. Rarely do we get names or even one-note distinguishing references (the fat one, the nasty one, etc.). We’re apparently supposed to be impressed simply because cinematographer Amir M. Mokri properly centers the guy in the frame. Then this gung-ho warrior joins other similarly anonymous combatants, and we wonder: Are we supposed to care about any of these guys?

Apparently not, since Ehren Kruger’s so-called script doesn’t bother with character depth, emotional resonance or sensible narrative structure. It’s just one big battle scene after another, most involving the destruction of as much real estate as possible. (Say farewell to the entire city of Chicago.) At close to three hours, it all becomes numbing: more endurance test than vicarious thrill ride.

I keep reminding myself that Kruger had us gnawing fingernails with his slick 1999 big-screen scripting debut, Arlington Road. Now, that was a nifty flick. Heck, I even liked his script for 2000’s Reindeer Games: not as good by a long shot, but still a slickly paced B-thriller.

But then Kruger sold his soul and got sucked into the increasingly tedious American remakes of Japan’s Ring horror entries, after which he was scooped up by Bay for the Transformers series. I guess we shouldn’t expect much from a big-screen franchise stitched together from a line of toys, but still; wouldn’t a little effort be warranted?

Thirteen people — 13! — are credited as producers on this mess, from Bay and Steven Spielberg (two of the four executive producers) to “3D producer” Michelle McGonagle. Golly, with all those producers, you’d sure think they’d ... well ... produce something.

Wall Street 2: 'Money' Talks

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (2010) • View trailer for Wall Street 2
Four stars (out of five) • Rated PG-13 for brief profanity and dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.23.10

Asked by a scorpion to give it a ride across a lake, a frog wisely hesitated, reasonably concerned that the predator would sting it. 

"Why would I do that?" the scorpion replied. "I'll be on your back; if I sting you, I'd drown."

This sounded logical to the frog, which therefore allowed the scorpion onto its back. But sure enough, halfway across the lake, the scorpion stung the frog. 

"Why?" the frog gasped, as painful black waves of death closed in. "Now we'll both die!"

"It's my nature..." the scorpion answered. 

Jacob (Shia LaBeouf) fails to recognize that his
relationship with fiancee Winnie (Carey Mulligan) will
be severely threatened by his dealings with her
estranged father, particularly when he starts seeing
the man -- the infamous Gordon Gekko -- behind
her back.

I've always wondered, given writer/director Oliver Stone's left-leaning, populist politics, if he regretted having created the character of Gordon Gekko, so brilliantly played by Michael Douglas in 1987's Wall Street. 

Because while Gekko was designed as the villain we were intended to loathe, Douglas did his job too well; the fictitious financial shark made his malignant behavior charming, and became the admired role model for white-collar hooligans who went on a two-decade binge of Wall Street shenanigans that led, inevitably, to the economic crisis that afflicts us to this day. 

Given the opportunity to redress the catastrophe that he helped create — in his cinematic world — would Gekko mend his ways? 

Or would he remain true to his nature? 

Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen: Monster mash

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) • View trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for smutty dialogue and relentless action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.09
Buy DVD: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen • Buy Blu-Ray: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Two-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray]


While certainly no classic of American cinema, 2007's Transformers at least took itself fairly seriously ... or as seriously as any movie about two warring factions of shape-changing extraterrestrial robots could take itself.

The just-released Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, in stark contrast, injects so much numbnuts slapstick — devolves to such a clumsy, desperate parody of itself — that the result is neither exciting nor funny. To put it in the story's own terms, it's neither battle-bot nor muscle car.

Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) spend a lot of time in this film
running ... running from giant robots, running from explosions, running from
each other. One hopes they were paid by the mile, because they sure don't earn
their paychecks with any sort of acting talent.

Frankly, this film is a mess ... and, at a stultifying 149 minutes, a very long mess.

Back in the day, every time Universal Pictures wanted to squeeze one more entry out of a sagging monster franchise, Abbott and Costello would put a comedy stake through the undead remnants: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, and so forth.

Well, this flick feels like Transformers Meets the Three Stooges.

Bad enough that the utterly incomprehensible script — blame Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, although I've no doubt countless uncredited hands helped spoil this soup — stitches together unrelated scenes and half-baked sci-fi clichés so poorly, that the resulting film feels cobbled together from at least half a dozen disparate projects.

Bad enough that these same writers also inject the smarmy humor and coarse dialogue that also plagued the first film in this series, apparently in an effort to secure the more marketable PG-13 rating, and to please the arrested adolescent males who represent the target audience.

I mean, really, aren't scenes of humping dogs — eventually followed by a scene of a little robot humping Megan Fox's leg — the stuff of bad Will Ferrell comedies? This is the height of humor?

What's truly lamentable, though — and what really turns this flick into a brain-paralyzing endurance test — is that director Michael Bay and his editors (no fewer than four of them!) have done sloppy work. The continuity between scenes frequently is absent, as often is the case with the continuity within scenes. Characters shown to be sitting suddenly are standing when the camera angle shifts; characters hiding from bad robots in this spot suddenly are running away from that spot when camera two takes over.

Worse yet, the very soul and essence of the Transformers universe has been subverted by the tiresome insistence on gag humor. Suddenly Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and all the other noble robots have been saddled with comic cut-up robots that spout one-liners as if they're auditioning for a Saturday Night Live stand-up routine.

Eagle Eye: Flying blind

Eagle Eye (2008) • View trailer for Eagle Eye
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for brief profanity and relentless, vicious violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.26.08
Buy DVD: Eagle Eye • Buy Blu-Ray: Eagle Eye [Blu-ray]

This one requires a serious suspension of disbelief.

All momentum, very little logic and even less common sense, Eagle Eye is one long chase scene occasionally interrupted by reluctant dollops of exposition. It's pure 21st century Hollywood escapism: frantic, noisy and obsessed far more with the destruction of as much real estate as possible, rather than trifling details such as character development.

Rachel (Michelle Monaghan, left) and Jerry (Shia LaBeouf) can't imagine how
they'll get a mysterious suitcause — with contents that shouldn't be taken onto
a plane — through airport security. Little do they realize that assistance will
come from a very hidden ally...

It is, therefore, a serious comedown for director D.J. Caruso, who previously teamed with star Shia LaBeouf for the clever and well-plotted thriller Disturbia. That film took its time and allowed us to bond with its young protagonists, while also setting up some unsettling what's-he-really-doing tension with the mysterious guy who lived next door; by the time we hit the exciting third act, we genuinely cared about out heroes.

Not so with any of the stick figures in Eagle Eye, all of whom have less substance than off-market tissue paper. The only character liable to win our hearts and minds is young Sam Holloman (Cameron Boyce), and that's solely because he's an incredibly cute little guy. We like him for the same reason that we're instinctively drawn to puppies and kittens.

Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf), a serial slacker with no intention of embracing the career path proposed by his parents, has aimlessly traveled the world and kept himself going with odd jobs. His current address is a low-rent apartment in Chicago, his current paycheck earned as a counter clerk at a local copy shop.

He's brought back to the disapproving atmosphere of his family home by a senseless vehicular accident that killed his identical twin, Ethan, an Air Force public relations officer and pride of the family. After the funeral and a bitter confrontation with his father (William Sadler) — a truly clumsy, trite and utterly unbelievable exchange between LaBeouf and Sadler — Jerry returns home and finds that his bank account is $750,000 richer ... and that his apartment is stuffed with do-it-yourself terrorist supplies.

His cell phone rings; a woman's voice instructs him to leave the apartment, or he'll be arrested in 30 seconds. Jerry fails to leave, and is promptly — and none too gently — arrested by FBI agents. Supervisor Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton) conducts the subsequent interview, which of course goes nowhere; Jerry doesn't know anything. (Or does he, we begin to wonder, at this stage.)

Meanwhile...

Overly stressed single mom Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is even more jittery than usual, due to 8-year-old Sam's first big trip away from home: a train journey to Washington, D.C., where he'll play trumpet with his school band, as the kids perform at the Kennedy Center.

That evening, after a particularly emotional farewell — punctuated by the brief arrival of her deadbeat ex- husband, another useless character we never see again (detect a pattern here?) — Rachel receives a similar phone call from what we recognize is the same woman. Rachel is ordered to find a particular vehicle and drive it to a pre-determined spot, with the warning that failure to comply will result in her son's death by train derailment.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Magic Kingdom

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) • View trailer
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and a few grody death scenes
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.23.08
Buy DVD: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull • Buy Blu-Ray: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [Blu-ray]

Two decades have passed since 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but if it really took this long for George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford to be satisfied with the script for Indy's long-awaited fourth film adventure, the gestation time has been well-spent.

After breaking free from their captors, Mutt (Shia LaBeouf, left), Indy (Harrison
Ford) and Marion (Karen Allen) commandeer a truck and crash through the
Peruvian jungle, determined to catch up to the Soviet villains who've abducted
a friend and a priceless relic that supposedly has extraordinary powers.

David Koepp's screenplay is all things to all people: It properly respects the fans and acknowledges Indy's roots while examining — and gently spoofing — the character through an entirely fresh set of (youthful) eyes. That aside, one also must be impressed by a script that covers everything from atomic bomb test sites and the 1950s communist witch hunt to Area 51, Peru's Nazca lines and Erich von Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods."

Toss in a marvelously fiendish villain with an unstoppable man-mountain sidekick, and the result is a welcome return to the light-hearted, thrill-a-minute exploits found in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ... absent the many mistakes that so badly compromised the original trilogy's middle entry, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

So, the heck with those who may have worried that Indy — and Harrison Ford — were past their prime; when Lucas and Spielberg are at the top of their game, as they are here, movie lovers are in great hands.

I suspect even today's jaded, "show me" teens will be impressed by several sequences.

After an eyeblink credits sequence that makes droll sport of the Paramount studio logo, the story kicks into gear as a kidnapped Indy (Ford) and new sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) are dragged to a setting that can't help making fans smile: the never-officially titled "warehouse" where the Ark of the Covenant was placed for storage, at the conclusion of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The year is 1957, and a new set of Soviet enemies — led by the icy-cold Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) — wants one carefully crated item from this massive storage facility.

At the end of Raiders, we only got a glimpse of this warehouse's labyrinthine interior. This time around, Koepp and Spielberg take us inside and stage the first action sequence within its walls.

What can I say? It's fan-geek heaven.

Although he survives this first skirmish, Indy isn't able to prevent Spalko from escaping with the coveted item. This creates problems back at Marshall College, where FBI agents — annoyed by the way Indy "helped" Soviet spies infiltrate a U.S. military base — question our hero's loyalty and order him removed from his teaching position. Longtime friend and colleague Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) resigns in protest, but it does no good: Indy has lost his ability to teach, the one thing he loves best.

The only solution: to find Spalko, recover the missing whatzis and clear his name.

Mere child's play, for the whip-wielding hero who makes all his moves to John Williams' stirring orchestral fanfares.