Jack Ryan: Ghost War — Insubstantial

Jack Ryan: Ghost War (2026) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five); rated R, for violence and profoanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang 

This seems to be the week for popular streaming shows to spawn feature-length films.

 

I hope the Mandalorian and Grogu are treated with more respect.

 

When a tightly planned operation goes horribly wrong, CIA Deputy Director Greer
(Wendell Pierce, center) must be restrained by MI6 operative Emma Marlow
(Sienna Miller) and veteran CIA agent Jack Ryan (John Krasinski).

Sadly, John Krasinski’s newest Jack Ryan adventure feels like a six-part serial clumsily slashed down to a 105-minute film. Back in the day, I’d have called this a Readers Digest Condensed Movie.

(On a trivial note, the unwisely chosen title evokes memories of 2011’s vastly superior Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.)

 

Director Andrew Bernstein and editor Jason Ballantine’s hyperkinetic pacing amplifies the overall sense of racing to be done with this puppy, a feeling that’s particularly true during the expository, banter-laden initial conversation between “retired” CIA agent Ryan (Krasinski) and CIA Deputy Director James Greer (Wendell Pierce).

 

Honestly, it feels like their chat is being timed by a stopwatch.

 

Three years have passed since the events in Ryan’s fourth-season streaming show, which concluded when he left the CIA for a vaguely defined “civilian job in hedge funds.” His relationship with Dr. Cathy Mueller (Abbie Cornish) is ancient history, and he greets each day jogging along the streets of New York City.

 

Meanwhile, in Dubai, two MI6 agents scramble to crack a computer bank in the upper floor of an unfinished DAMAC tower building. Their goal, under the remote guidance of Nigel Cooke (Douglas Hedge), is to extract evidence of off-books black-ops activity thought to have been shuttered 20 years earlier.

 

Alas, ruthless thugs sent by Liam Crown (Max Beesley) kill them before the information is fully downloaded.

 

(And what, pray tell, is such a sophisticated, unguarded computer bank doing in an otherwise dusty and littered construction site? Well might you ask...)

 

Back in the States, Greer begs a favor of Ryan: Go to Dubai, liaise with Cooke, and collect some intel he’s apparently desperate to share. Ryan reluctantly agrees, and travels with a longtime friend: former CIA colleague-turned-private contractor Mike November (Michael Kelly), quick with a quip, and capable in a pinch.

 

Alas, this “simple” assignment goes south. Cooke is killed, Ryan winds up with nothing but a cigarette pack — and a warning that Greer is “in trouble” — after which he and November are taken into custody by MI6 agent Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller). She’s furious over the way these two Americans have interfered with her surveillance of the situation.

 

The Lost City of Z: Fails to find its rhythm

The Lost City of Z (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, violence, disturbing images, nudity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.21.17

Toward the end of this ambitious historical drama, a key character observes that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.

As Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam, front) guides their boat ever deeper into uncharted
Amazonian waters, his companions — from left, Manley (Edward Ashley), Murray
(Angus Macfadyen) and Costin (Robert Pattinson) — warily watch for unfriendly tribesmen.

Sadly, that’s precisely the case with director/scripter James Gray’s disappointing The Lost City of Z. He’s simply unable to wrap his arms around the enormity of this saga.

The film’s subject, Lt. Col. Percival Harrison Fawcett, certainly deserves to be brought to the attention of modern audiences. The early 20th century British geographer, artillery officer and explorer, most famous for his eight mapping and archaeological expeditions to Brazil’s Amazon region, was fictionalized by no less than Arthur Conan Doyle, in a series of Professor Challenger novels and short stories published between 1912 and ’29.

Much more recently, Fawcett is rumored to have inspired a certain Indiana Jones.

By all accounts, Fawcett took his work more seriously than these pop-culture counterparts, but that’s no excuse for Gray to deliver such a grim, dreary and bloodless depiction of the man’s exploratory career. Charlie Hunnam’s portrayal of Fawcett is withdrawn and stoic; even the man’s moments of triumph feel muted, as if Hunnam can’t figure out how to depict genuine excitement.

His Fawcett simply isn’t very interesting.

This can’t be Hunnam’s fault; he has demonstrated plenty of charisma and thespic talent in projects that range from his lead role in 2002’s Nicholas Nickleby, to his popular Jax Teller in TV’s Sons of Anarchy. The blame for Hunnam’s subdued performance here belongs fully to Gray, who obviously wished Fawcett to be presented in what often seems a trance-like state.

Actually, much of the film feels like a fever dream, thanks in great part to Darius Khondji’s shimmering cinematography and Christopher Spelman’s understated, almost hypnotic orchestral score. Both contribute to the film’s atmosphere of surreal obsession: a Joseph Conrad/Heart of Darkness tone that was captured far better by Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo).

Despite Gray’s passive depiction of Fawcett, at least we learn something about the man, and what drives him ... although it could be argued that our knowledge mostly springs from what we observe during his interactions with his progressive wife, Nina, played with spunk and effervescence by Sienna Miller. She gives the film some desperately needed emotional vigor.

Live by Night: Not very lively

Live by Night (2016) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for strong violence, profanity and occasional sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Dennis Lehane’s Live By Night is a huge, Prohibition-era crime epic that deservedly won the 2013 Edgar Award for novel of the year, its 432 pages charting mobster Joe Coughlin’s rise to power from Boston to Florida, and ultimately to Cuba.

Filmmaker Ben Affleck’s big-screen adaptation is a maddeningly pale shadow of the book.

Shortly after arriving in Florida's Ybor City, Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck, center) and his
right-hand man Dion (Chris Messina, left) pay a "courtesy call" on Chief of Police Figgis
(Chris Cooper), who patiently explains what he is — and isn't — willing to turn a
blind eye to.

Affleck clearly bit off more than he could chew, aggressively assuming the roles of not only director and star, but also co-producer and — here’s the problem — screenwriter. His approach to Lehane’s sprawling novel is a series of disconnected sequences linked by voice-over narration: a clumsy abridgment that too frequently feels as if we’re being told the story, rather than experiencing it.

The result plays like 128 minutes of random chunks from a 10-hour miniseries (and, it should be noted, Lehane’s novel probably deserved that sort of long-form treatment). The tragic consequence: Affleck has made Lehane’s enthralling narrative boring.

The story’s moral focus concerns the corruptible power of evil, and whether a larcenous but essentially kind-hearted individual can remain “good” among companions who respect only ruthless behavior. It’s a venerable character arc that dates back to early Hollywood crime dramas, interpreted by scores of film stars ... most of whom did so far more persuasively.

Nuanced acting never has been Affleck’s strong suit, and his character’s handling of what should be a series of soul-deadening, increasingly agonized choices too frequently looks like bland, unsmiling indifference.

Coughlin is this story’s hero — or, more accurately, anti-hero — and we’re clearly intended to feel for the guy. We don’t.

Indeed, Affleck — as director and scripter — makes a fatal mistake: Coughlin is by no means the most interesting character in this story ... but he should be. While it was smart to populate the film with a host of powerful, scene-stealing co-stars, Affleck’s performance pales by comparison.

Burnt: Overly scorched

Burnt (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

We’re supposed to root for this guy — and it shouldn’t be difficult; we are, after all, talking about Bradley Cooper — but his character is too damn mean.

Dragged against her will into joining Adam (Bradley Cooper) in the kitchen of his
restaurant-to-be, Helene (Sienna Miller) almost immediately is the target of a belittling
tirade by her new boss. Which she tolerates, thereby losing all of our respect for her.

Redemption stories get their juice from the intensity of atonement: The deeper the downward spiral, the more we cheer the dogged climb back to salvation and forgiveness.

That said, this story’s protagonist is such a temper tantrum-throwing bully — such a relentless prick — that viewers likely will write him off as unworthy, long before he tries to get his act together. Scripters Steven Knight and Michael Kalesniko give him too many unpalatable virtues, and — as directed by John Wells — Cooper obligingly delivers too many thoroughly persuasive rages.

Matters probably aren’t helped by the fact that this story takes place in the world of London and Paris’ haute cuisine restaurants, where screaming enfant terrible chefs browbeat their staffs into delivering the perfect artistic touch to dishes with portions so small they wouldn’t satisfy a mouse, which then are served to über-rich snots who smack their lips and roll their eyes over imagined sensory marvels.

We live in a post-Gordon Ramsey world, where — rather weirdly — boorish behavior by celebrity chefs has come to be synonymous with gastronomic perfection. I ain’t buyin’ it. Frankly, this film’s most interesting moments come during the occasional montages that find our hero (?) exploring food carts, back-alley stalls, bodegas, street markets and even fast-food restaurants, while searching for intriguing spices, sauces or seasonings.

Once back in his high-end kitchen, applying said discoveries to laughably over-decorated menu items ... not so much.

But maybe I’m just not enough of a foodie.

All that said...

We meet Adam Jones (Cooper) at an oyster shack in New Orleans, where he has spent the past few years doing self-prescribed penance for previous bad behavior. His path to spiritual salvation: the shucking of one million oysters, a task he has recorded meticulously in a pocket notebook. He reaches this goal as the story begins, and then he’s off to Paris, scene of his previous extremely bad behavior.

American Sniper: Well-focused drama

American Sniper (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong and disturbing war violence, and frequent profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.16.15

What price a man’s soul?

Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper is the thoughtful study of Texas-born good ol’ boy Chris Kyle, who, sparked by a flash of patriotism, impulsively abandoned an amiably deadbeat lifestyle to train as a Navy SEAL. And not just any SEAL, as it turned out, but a deadly accurate sharpshooter eventually credited with 160 confirmed kills (out of 255 probables) during his service in the Iraqi war.

With Goat-Winston (Kyle Gallner, background) keeping an eye on the surrounding
buildings, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) peers through the scope of his sniper rifle and
wonders what to do about the young woman and little boy who have just emerged from
a street-level doorway. Are they harmless ... or should they be taken out?

Eastwood — 84 years young, and still going strong — hasn’t helmed many straight biographies during his lengthy career; we can point to Bird and J. Edgar, along with White Hunter, Black Heart, the latter a thinly veiled account of director John Huston’s off-camera activities while making The African Queen.

Despite working with different scripters, each of these films focused on the emotional and spiritual toll exacted by a man’s career and lifestyle. It could be argued that Eastwood’s magnum opus, in this regard, is the wholly fictional Unforgiven, particularly when protagonist Bill Munny observes, “It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.”

Scripter Jason Hall emphasizes this notion throughout American Sniper, drawing heavily from the 2012 autobiography that Kyle wrote, assisted by Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. It’s a helluva story on numerous levels, starting with the fact that individuals really can make a massive difference, even within the military chain of command. Kyle couldn’t possibly know how many scores (hundreds?) of American soldiers he saved, during his career as — you have to love this eyebrow-lifting accolade — the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history.

And yet, on the surface, Bradley Cooper’s understated performance as Kyle eschews such celebrity; the man repeatedly insists that he abides by the simple ethos of God, country and family, and always in that order. On top of which, his responsibility as a childhood guardian to younger brother Jeff instilled the importance of looking after one’s own, and — later, on the battlefield — never leaving a man behind.

But Cooper’s work here is deceptive, as is the layering that Eastwood encourages from his star. At first blush, Kyle seems superficial and bland: determined solely to do a good job on behalf of his fellow soldiers, and seemingly unmoved by the consequences of his actions. But that’s a lie, of course, as becomes increasingly obvious during the course of a military career that runs from 1999 through 2009.

Foxcatcher: Men behaving badly

Foxcatcher (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, drug use and violence
By Derrick Bang

The über-rich haven’t been this creepy since 1990’s Reversal of Fortune.

And that was based on a true story, as well.

John Du Pont (Steve Carell, left) knows precisely how to inspire the impressionable Mark
Schultz (Channing Tatum), and for a time the weathy older man seems well-meaning, if
a bit daft. But this relationship dynamic is about to turn very, very uncomfortable.

Foxcatcher is director Bennett Miller’s highly unsettling account of wealthy heir John du Pont’s bewildering (to the outside world) decision to position himself as head coach, trainer and sponsor of the U.S. wrestling team hoping to qualify for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. This scheme is granted public legitimacy when brothers Mark and Dave Schultz are dragged into du Pont’s ludicrous, vanity-laden quest, accelerating an already uncomfortable sibling dynamic that becomes increasingly toxic.

Disaster is inevitable; the only question is what form the crisis will take.

Miller excels at getting the best from his casts, and he’s noted for guiding actors to Oscar nominations — and wins — in compelling, character-driven slices of history. Both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener earned well-deserved nominations for Capote; Hoffman went home with the prize. Brad Pitt never looked better than he was in Moneyball, and Miller worked a modern miracle by orchestrating goofball Jonah Hill’s transformation into a serious actor.

But it’s equally important to note that Miller surrounds himself with some of Hollywood’s most skilled writers, who also earned Academy Award nominations (respectively) for their work on Capote and Moneyball. I’ve absolutely no doubt that E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman will garner similar praise for their insidiously subtle, squirm-inducing depiction of what emerged as the late 1980s’ most bizarre sports scandal.

But it’s hard to detect the fine-tuned screenplay right away, because of the almost scary degree to which this film’s three stars inhabit their respective roles. They’re all excellent, crossing that threshold where we often forget the actor playing the part, and wholly accept that we’ve somehow been transported back in time, and granted a window on the activities of these actual people.

Dave and younger brother Mark Schultz were heroes at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, both taking gold medals in different weight classes of men’s freestyle wrestling; they also took world golds at, respectively, Kiev (1983) and Budapest (1985).

They’re played here by Mark Ruffalo (almost unrecognizable) and Channing Tatum. The film’s narrative catches them during the early build-up to Seoul, and their circumstances couldn’t be more different. As often is the case with siblings, their personalities are wholly distinct. Dave radiates calm, confidence and authority; Mark, although idolizing his older brother, chafes at being in his shadow.