Thirteen Lives: Absolutely riveting

Thirteen Lives (2022) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.5.22

Lightning does strike twice in the same spot.

 

Back in 1995, with Apollo 13, director Ron Howard achieved the impossible: He generated minute-by-minute, edge-of-the-seat suspense despite the fact that we knew, going in, what the outcome would be.

 

As the Thai Navy SEALs watch dubiously, British Cave Rescue Council divers Rick Stanton
(Viggo Mortensen, foreground left) and John Volanthen (Colin Farrell, foreground right)
begin their attempt to penetrate deep into the cave system, in order to determine if the
missing children are alive.

He has achieved the same with Thirteen Lives.

This was another “The whole world is watching” event, during late June and early July 2018. Social media shared updates in real time; eyes were glued to televised news feeds. Given what eventually went down, a big-screen drama was inevitable.

 

The result — in the hands of Howard and scripters William Nicholson and Don MacPherson — is must-see cinema.

 

(That said, this is not a film for claustrophobes.)

 

On June 23, following a playful afternoon scrimmage, 12 members of the “Wild Boars” Thai soccer team, ages 11 to 16, impulsively decide to visit the popular Tham Luang cave beneath Doi Nang Non, a mountain range bordering Thailand and Myanmar. Their assistant coach (played by James Teeradon Sahajak) insists on chaperoning. 

 

Back in their Chiang Rai province village, the team parents have gathered for one boy’s birthday party. When the team fails to show up on time, amid the drenching rain of an unexpectedly early monsoon, one lad — who opted out of the cave excursion — tells where they all went. As a body, everybody rushes to Tham Luang.

 

They find the boys’ parked bicycles at the cave entrance, but there’s no sign of anybody … and the water level inside the cave is rising rapidly.

 

What happens next ultimately involves roughly 100 government officials, 900 police officers, 2,000 soldiers and more than 10,000 volunteers from 18 countries, all of whom rapidly build what essentially becomes a bustling pop-up city outside the cave.

 

It’s barely organized chaos, but Howard has long excelled at finding the small moments and key individuals amid such bedlam; that’s where gripping drama resides. Nicholson and MacPherson’s script enhances the tension by delivering key dollops of information — such as the cave’s length — in small increments.

 

The film’s first audacious move comes when days pass, and the focus remains on the expanding rescue operation; we get no cut-aways to the boys and their coach, and we wonder: Are they even alive?

 

On top of which, as we learn more about the lengthy cave’s various zones, twists and turns — now mostly flooded — the situation seems dire. Hopeless. Impossible.

Green Book: An inspirational journey

Green Book (2018) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, occasional profanity and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.23.18

Period biographical dramas rarely are this amusing.

Comedies rarely are laden with this much shrewd social commentary.

Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen, left), having promised to write frequent letters to his wife,
is surprised when Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) expresses more than a casual
interest in the process.

Sharply etched characters rarely are portrayed so precisely — so perfectly — by the actors cast to play them.

In a word, Green Book is superb: a thoroughly engaging slice of gentle filmmaking that veers from droll, to instructive, to heartbreaking, to laugh-out-loud hilarious. It’s a richly entertaining, feel-good experience that plays, at times, like a perfect blend of Driving Miss Daisy and The Odd Couple.

But such a simplistic elevator-pitch descriptor does a disservice to director/co-scripter Peter Farrelly’s marvelous road picture, and the two memorable, lovingly depicted characters who actually made this trip together, in the real world.

Talk about your “journey of discovery.” That phrase carries a lot of weight here.

The time is 1962. Bronx-born Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) — who goes by Tony Lip — is an imposing, well-dressed bouncer at New York’s Copacabana Club. Thanks to a facility for calculated charm that blends well with his capacity for rough stuff, Tony has managed to straddle this realm of celebrities and mob honchos, where he’s respected without getting wholly co-opted by the latter.

He’s a classic Damon Runyon archetype who might have stepped out of the era popularized by Guys and Dolls. Tony is far larger than life — literally, as Mortensen gained 30 pounds and an impressive paunch for the role — but still, at the end of each night shift, a devoted family man who returns home to his beloved wife Dolores (Linda Cardellini) and their two young sons.

Their home is the locus for a noisy, extended Italian family that chatters, bickers and fills a room with the boisterous revelry of a 24/7 party. These sidebar relations are deftly and memorably defined: the curmudgeonly father, the smart-ass brother, assorted cousins and spouses. Utter chaos delivered via thick Bronx accents.

When the Copa closes for renovations during the final two months of the year, Tony is left without employment (aside from occasional wagers, details of which are best left discovered as they occur). Potential financial relief arrives with an unusual job offer, as chauffeur for a certain Dr. Don Shirley. Tony dresses up for the interview, expecting a medical office and some sort of world-famous surgeon.

Instead, he’s escorted into a posh private apartment directly above Carnegie Hall, where Dr. Shirley (Mahershala Ali) turns out to be a world-famous concert pianist.

And is African-American.

Captain Fantastic: A thoughtful modern parable

Captain Fantastic (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and occasional chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.22.16

Cannes winners can be obtuse, maddeningly weird and deadly dull; this is, after all, the film festival that bestowed a Palme d’Or upon 2011’s execrable Tree of Life.

Ben (Viggo Mortensen, center) and four of his children — from left, Bo (George MacKay),
Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton, partly obscured), Vespyr (Annalise Basso) and Kielyr
(Samantha Isler) — gather their most recent homemade craft goods, in anticipation of
a routine visit to the nearest trading post.

On the other hand, other entries are quirky, imaginative and unexpectedly endearing, as is the case with Captain Fantastic, which took this year’s Un Certain Regard Directing Prize and was nominated for the overall Un Certain Regard Award.

Matt Ross is best known as a busy television actor with ongoing roles in eccentric shows such as American Horror Story and Silicon Valley; he occasionally moonlights as a filmmaker. His big-screen feature debut — 2012’s 28 Hotel Rooms — didn’t amount to much, but Captain Fantastic is guaranteed to change his career. Ross’ sensitively calculated script is matched by his delicate direction; he’s also blessed with an ensemble cast that rises to this quite unusual occasion.

I never cease to be amazed, having spent so much time studying our century-old film medium, by the continuing emergence of fresh stories told in captivating ways. “Captain Fantastic” is unconventional and challenging, to be sure; but it’s also poignant, shrewdly perceptive and a subtly critical statement of our times. That’s a lot of subtext for an idiosyncratic little indie, but Ross pulls it off.

Mostly because, at its core, this also is a story of the love and loyalty that bonds a family: something everybody can relate to.

Our introduction to Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his six children is unexpected, to say the least: all seven of them mud-smeared, in order to blend into forest foliage while stalking a deer. It’s a bloody rite of passage for eldest son Bo (George MacKay), who brings down the creature with a knife. Ross doesn’t shy from the gore.

Neither do any of Bo’s siblings, down to youngsters Zaja (Shree Crooks) and Nai (Charlie Shotwell), who revel equally in this feral ritual. The carcass is taken home, skinned and dressed by 15-year-old twins Vespyr and Kielyr (Annalise Basso and Samantha Isler). Everybody washes up and tackles assigned chores, later assembling for rigorous calisthenics and a grueling run through the woods.

Later, after night has fallen, they gather around a crackling fire, quietly reading weighty books on science (Jared Diamond) and philosophy (Noam Chomsky), or challenging fiction such as George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Somehow sensing when his children have had enough, Ben teases a quiet song on his guitar; Bo joins him. Twelve-year-old Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) displays a rebellious streak by inserting an aggressive drum beat; there’s a breathless moment, as his siblings wait to see how their father will handle this intrusion, but Ben smiles and modifies his own playing to follow the beat. The others, relieved, laugh and dance as the family makes music together.

The Road: Futile journey

The Road (2009) • View trailer for The Road
Two stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, torture, cannibalism, nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.27.09
Buy DVD: The Road • Buy Blu-Ray: The Road [Blu-ray]

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a story for folks who felt that his No Country for Old Men was too cheerful and uplifting.

Director John Hillcoat's film adaptation is designed for viewers seeking a reason to return home and slit their wrists.

The man (Viggo Mortensen) and his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) must keep
a wary eye on their surroundings while traveling by day; encounters with other
human beings are likely to be deadly ... or worse.

I cannot, in good conscience, imagine any set of circumstances that would prompt me to recommend this movie. To anybody.

Granted, McCarthy's harrowing novel took the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for literature; the author's mesmerizing prose — and much richer characterizations — are spellbinding in their intensity. Although driven by a ghastly premise and heartbreaking plot, McCarthy is too skilled a writer — too adept a wordsmith — for his book to be ignored, should one pick it up.

But that doesn't make the experience worthwhile.

I've long been a fan of Dan Simmons' works, which as yet haven't been adapted to the large or small screen. Simmons is well known in the fantasy and sci-fi community, where his long and dense books are deservedly celebrated. I eagerly anticipated diving into The Terror, one of his recent historical novels, which blends chilling fantasy with the fact-based account of a doomed 19th century attempt to find the mythical ocean passage just below the North Pole.

Simmons' blend of gripping prose and meticulous research made the 992-page book a compelling read. But the story's conclusion proved so infuriating that I deeply resented what I now regard as utterly wasted time. I wanted — still want, nearly a year later — those many, many hours of my life back.

Viewers of Hillcoat's adaptation of The Road are apt to feel the same way, and it's only 113 minutes long.

Readers who were able to extract weighty philosophical issues and great moral truths from McCarthy's novel won't find them in this unrelentingly bleak and soul-deadening film adaptation. McCarthy's view of mankind never has been that optimistic to begin with, and his indictment of human behavior is particularly stern in The Road.

Screenwriter Joe Penhall gets that much right, but he overlooks the essential inner musings that McCarthy employed to make his primary characters at least somewhat palatable. Penhall and Hillcoat have done nothing but prove that some books simply defy visual translation; The Road cannot work as a movie, because the form demands that it become no more than an interminably depressing trivialization of its source.