Finally Dawn: It can't come quickly enough

Finally Dawn (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Not rated, but equivalent to a mild R, for debauched behavior and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other video-on-demand options

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.27.25 

Italian writer/director Saverio Costanzo’s period drama is a wickedly uneasy character piece, until the story’s key character succumbs — in the third act — to a regrettable case of The Stupids.

 

Bad enough that Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci, far left) is in over her head at this lavish
party; what she doesn't realize is that her companions — from left, Josephine (Lily James),
Sean (Joe Keery) and Rufus (Willem Dafoe) — may not have her best interests at heart.

That aside, the acting is solid throughout, and this piece also is an affectionate nod to Italy’s post-World War II filmmaking period, when Rome became know as “Hollywood on the Tiber.” The city attracted many international productions — particularly from the United States — to its famed Cinecittà studios.

Costanzo opens on a grim, black-and-white sequence toward the end of the war. This 5-minute prologue turns out to be a film, The Sacrifice, being watched in a crowded movie theater by two sisters — vivacious, gorgeous Iris (Sofia Panizzi) and younger, mousy Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci) — and their mother Elvira (Carmen Pommella). After the film concludes, they debate the merits of lush Hollywood artifice as opposed to Italian cinema’s then-rising neorealism.

 

Everybody agrees about the allure of the film’s Italian star, Alida Valli (Alba Rohrwacher) and her American co-star, Sean Lockwood (Joe Keery).

 

As the trio departs the theater, they’re intercepted by a smarmy talent scout seeking extras for a sword-and-sandal epic current being filmed at Cinecittà; drawn by Iris’ allure, he insists that she try out. Elvira and her husband Rinaldo (Enzo Casertano) give their permission, and the two young women duly present themselves at the studio the following day, with Mimosa acting as chaperone after their mother is left at the gate.

 

As a sidebar, Elvira and Rinaldo apparently expect Iris to marry well, given her good looks and personality, whereas they’ve “arranged” for Mimosa to wed a working-class policeman. (We meet him briefly. It’s a fate worse than death.)

 

Iris nails the audition, despite being asked to remove her sweater; the more prim Mimosa balks at that request and thus is dismissed. While subsequently searching for her sister, Mimosa wanders the lot. She first stumbles into a screening room, where studio execs watch footage for a news documentary about the recent discovery of a dead aspiring young actress, Wilma Montesi, on the Capocotta beach adjacent to a lavish estate owned by Ugo Montagna, who had hosted a party the previous evening.

 

(Costanzo is referencing the actual murder of 21-year-old Montesi, which places this film’s events in 1953.)

Nosferatu: It sucks

Nosferatu (2024) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence, graphic nudity and sexual content

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Watching paint dry would be preferable to enduring this turgid, overcooked slog.

 

In fairness, writer/director Robert Eggers gets points for atmosphere. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke definitely maximizes the eerie settings concocted by production designer Craig Lathrop. (That said, much of the film is too damn dark.)

 

Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) and Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) eventually
realize that particularly drastic measures will be required, if they're to have any chance
of defeating the vampire in their midst.

Alas, these opulently sinister backdrops are ill-served by a somnambulant cast that appears to wade through thick glue at all times, delivering lines with breathy pauses in between each word ... particularly true in the case of the title monster, who wheezes through every labored syllable, like he’s battling the world’s worst chest cold.

That affectation undoubtedly was intended to sound scary, but Eggers misses “scary” by a Carpathian mile.

 

His film has an intriguing legacy. 1922’s Nosferatu was plagiarized from Bram Stoker’s Dracula; director F.W. Murnau and scripter Henrik Galeen stole the plot and characters, changing names and relocating the story to their native Germany, in order to evade copyright issues. The ploy didn’t work; Stoker’s heirs sued, and the court ruled that all copies of the film be destroyed.

 

They missed a few, and Murnau’s film now is deservedly hailed as an early silent masterpiece that birthed the horror genre; the appearance of star Max Schreck’s Count Orlok also established a template for vampire makeup. 

 

Aside from the numerous legitimate adaptations of Stoker’s novel during the subsequent century, Nosferatu was remade by director Werner Herzog in 1979, with Klaus Kinski as the title vampire. Francis Ford Coppola’s handling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in 1992, also tipped a fang to Murnau.

 

Eggers’ new film borrows from all of the above, while focusing mostly on Murnau’s setting and characters. Eggers also employs shadows, often of a menacing hand, just as Murnau did. And, as befits our modern era, this film more explicitly emphasizes the lurid sexual eroticism that fuels much of the vampire mythos.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: A double-barreled delight

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, somewhat generously, for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language and suggestive material

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.1.24

Jimmy Webb must be tickled by the fact that somebody successfully concocted a plot point to the nonsensical lyrics he wrote for “MacArthur Park.”

 

When the escalating supernatural chaos subsides for a bit, Lydia (Winona Ryder, right)
and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) enjoy a bonding moment while looking at an
old photo album.

That’s merely one of several hilarious musical moments in director Tim Burton’s whacked-out revival of everybody’s favorite undead demon, played once again with throaty impudence by Michael Keaton.

All the familiar elements are once again in play, from the orchestral drum-beat of Danny Elfman’s title theme, to cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’ disorienting opening montage, which eerily blurs the line between bucolic, small-town community and a tabletop miniature of same.

 

Burton and his writers — Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith — have enhanced the ookiness and playful gore, while also adding a degree of danger. The first film may have been all in good (if zany) fun, but this one has a genuinely menacing undertone.

 

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) has parlayed her earlier experiences into an enormously successful media career, as a professional ghost-chaser. Her manager, Rory (Justin Theroux), is an insufferably snooty fashion plate who fancies himself the trendiest and most sensitive guy on the planet. He’s also in love with Lydia, which — to say the least — seems an odd pairing.

 

The unexpected death of Lydia’s father (played by Jeffrey Jones, in the first film) prompts her return to the long-shuttered family home in bucolic Winter River. She’s joined by her mother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), and  moody, rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, immediately recognized from television’s Wednesday). The girl is all but estranged from her mother, and with good reason, having been essentially ignored while Lydia focused on her flourishing career.

 

Astrid has an additional, quite understandably reason for her sullen melancholy; her father — Lydia’s husband — long ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As a result, Astrid now has lost both beloved father figures.

 

On top of which, as a dedicated activist and environmentalist, the pragmatic girl doesn’t believe in ghosts. (She’s in for a surprise...)

 

Meanwhile, in Afterlife Central, way down below, the balefully malevolent Delores (Monica Bellucci) reassembles herself, after having been chopped into bits centuries earlier: easily the most grotesquely ghastly sequence Burton ever concocted. Turns out she was Beetlejuice’s lover, way back in the day, until their unhealthy relationship hit an, um, unfortunate snag.

 

Now that she’s back, and possessed of über-creepy soul-sucking powers, she’s determined to pay Beetlejuice back in kind ... and woe to those who get in her way.

 

Nightmare Alley: Not worth a visit

Nightmare Alley (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong, bloody violence, sexual content, nudity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.17.21

Mid-20th century touring carnivals, by their very nature, seem … well … sordid.

 

Squalid. Uneasily unpleasant, as if something nasty is happening in the tent around the corner.

 

Although Molly (Rooney Mara) is instinctively wary around charismatic carnival newcomer
Stan (Bradley Cooper), his charm and aw-shucks persistence eventually wear her down.
Which isn't good news...

No surprise, such an environment proved alluring to director Guillermo del Toro.

Nightmare Alley began life as a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham (who, rather disturbingly, in 1962 committed suicide — via sleeping pills — in the same hotel room where he had written the first draft). Dashing Hollywood star Tyrone Power, looking for something meatier than the romantic and adventure roles for which he had become famous, persuaded 20th Century Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck to buy the rights for him.

 

The resulting film was rushed into production and hit theaters the following year; alas, nobody wanted to see Power play such a morally tainted character, and the movie also endured considerable bad publicity — and moral outrage — due to the story’s squalid elements (quite strong, for the time).

 

History has been much kinder; it’s now regarded as one of the era’s finest film noir entries … a reputation del Toro’s remake hasn’t a chance of attaining.

 

Granted, this new adaptation looks terrific; production designer Tamara Deverell and cinematographer Dan Lausten persuasively establish the late Depression era, down to the grime and foulness; and an atmosphere of impending dread hovers over the carnival setting like a shroud.

 

The performances are uniformly strong, and the characters are riveting, with most of them displaying various shades of corruption. It’s also nice to see del Toro and co-scripter Kim Morgan retain Gresham’s grim conclusion. (The 1947 version “softened” the ending, which is that film’s sole flaw.)

 

Alas, del Toro’s pacing is lethargic and ponderous to a degree that ruins everything.

 

The Los Angeles Times recently ran an article titled “Are movies too long?,” and this one’s a poster child for a resounding yes. The 1947 version knew when to get off the stage; it’s a just-right 111 minutes. Del Toro’s remake is a butt-numbing 150 minutes, with nothing to show for such expansion. Indeed, the additional length actually works against the story’s atmosphere and suspense.

 

That’s a shame, because all concerned otherwise do their best, and the classic elements are in place. Every true noirrequires a louse; a very, very, very bad gal; a second, usually trusting and naïve woman whose virtue will be compromised; and assorted sidebar characters of dubious moral quality.

Motherless Brooklyn: The Big Apple's rotten core

Motherless Brooklyn (2019) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.1.19

Fans of Jonathan Lethem’s award-winning 1999 crime fiction novel will be quite surprised by what director/scripter Edward Norton has done with it.

The spider and the fly: Thoroughly irritated by the persistent investigation mounted by
private detective Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton, right), rapacious New York City developer
Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) demands a face-to-face, hoping to make an offer his
pipsqueak tormentor dare not refuse.

Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, although contemporary to its late 20th century arrival, has the attitude, atmosphere and plot stylings of 1940s and ’50s pulp detective thrillers. Revering that style as a jumping-off point, Norton has retained the primary character — and very little else — while bouncing him back to 1957, and dropping him into an entirely new story that blends fact, fiction and noir sensibilities in a manner we’ve not seen since 1974’s Chinatown.

In a word, the result is mesmerizing.

Chinatown scripter Robert Towne ingeniously employed a “simple” gumshoe case to illuminate the real-world corruption and power-mongering behind Los Angeles’ bureaucratic theft of Owens River water, as ruthlessly orchestrated by civil engineer William Mulholland (fictionalized by John Huston’s Noah Cross). 

Norton, in turn, dumps Lethem’s intriguing protagonist into the clandestine, Tammany Hall-style empire ruled by the even more powerful Robert Moses, the mid-20th century developer/builder who — by manipulating politicians behind the scenes — ruthlessly transformed New York City into his vision of a metropolis. It’s a fascinating slice of history, which Norton cleverly blends with the character that he also plays in this thoroughly absorbing drama … but it has absolutely nothing to do with Lethem’s novel.

The film opens at a sprint: Lionel Essrog (Norton) and colleague Gilbert Coney (Ethan Suplee), both operatives of a small-time detective agency run by Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), accompany their boss when he arranges a meeting with shadowy figures left unspecified. The acutely perceptive Lionel knows that Frank is up to something, and likely something dangerous; this hunch proves accurate in the worst possible way, when Minna winds up dead.

Frank was more than merely a boss to Lionel; he also was mentor, friend and protector. Indeed, all four agency operatives — including Tony (Bobby Cannavale) and Danny (Dallas Roberts) — emerged from the same Catholic orphanage, back in the day, where Minna became their father-figure. 

His murder therefore hits Lionel quite hard, particularly since he is far from “normal.” Lionel is obsessive/compulsive and also suffers from an uncontrollable tendency to erupt in nonsense speech: often punning, rhyming and “clanging” against what somebody else has just said. He’s constantly forced to apologize for the “glass in the brain” that prompts such spontaneous outbursts; we recognize this as Tourette Syndrome, a designation not at all familiar to the characters in this re-imagined 1950s version of Lethem’s novel.

Aquaman: Waterlogged

Aquaman (2018) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for considerable sci-fi action and violence, and occasional profanity.
By Derrick Bang

This film has serious issues with tone and balance.

Far too much of director James Wan’s narrative — he shares writing chores with Will Beall, Geoff Johns and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick — sags beneath the weight of overly florid, Shakespearean-style dialog that most cast members lack the gravitas to pull off.

Having burrowed deep beneath the Sahara Desert, to discover the remnants of a long-
lost undersea kingdom, Arthur (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard) activate a device
that will provide the next clue to the whereabouts of the fabled Lost Trident of Atlan.

And which is compromised further by the mildly earthy comments tossed off by star Jason Momoa. Mind you, he’s good with a quip, and Wan apparently felt that such contrasting elocution styles would be amusing. Instead, it’s merely awkward.

Then there’s the matter of villains. A superhero is only as good — as interesting — as his adversaries, and Momoa’s Aquaman has two. By far the more stylish, and far more dangerous, is a high-tech pirate known as Manta, played with savage malevolence by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. He’s a baddie to be reckoned with: a rage machine who radiates danger and has serious issues with our hero.

But Manta is relegated to B-villain status: an afterthought who isn’t much of a problem, and ultimately becomes a joke.

Which is ironic, because the true joke is Patrick Wilson’s laughably awful handling of the alpha villain: Aquaman’s half-brother Orm, would-be despotic ruler of all the undersea kingdoms. Wilson is atrociously out of his depth — pun intended — and radiates about as much menace as damp Kleenex. He looks and sounds like a whiny little boy who’s about to have his toys taken away.

This film collapses every time Wilson speaks a line, or faces off against the far more formidable Momoa.

I’m guessing Wan brought Wilson along for the ride, because the two of them have worked together on a bunch of nasty little horror flicks (the Insidious and Conjuring series, The Nun). Which points further to Wan’s poor judgment.

Aquaman also suffers from excess been there/done that: the inevitable result of too many superhero films piling atop each other. The regal look and sound of Atlantis, with its massive statuary and guarded “approach bridge” — and its position as one of seven mythic undersea kingdoms — are blatant echoes of Thor’s Asgard and its neighboring eight realms.

Aquaman’s mano a mano duels with Orm, over control of the Atlantean throne, are straight out of the Black Panther playbook … where, rest assured, the clashes were handled far better, and carried much greater emotional weight.

Murder on the Orient Express: A misdemeanor offense

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for brief violence and mild dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Many actors long to play Hamlet.

Others look forward to taking a crack at Hercule Poirot.

When an avalanche delays the London-bound Orient Express, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth
Branagh) is in the perfect position to solve a heinous murder ... because the killer still
must be somewhere on the train.

Kenneth Branagh is a marvelous Poirot. He nails Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian private detective: from the meticulous OCD tendencies — stroking his perfectly coifed mustache, sizing up the comparative height of his twin breakfast soft-boiled eggs — to the narrowed gaze and waspish tone that indicate crime scene analysis undertaken by his “little grey cells.”

Branagh definitely deserves placement alongside David Suchet and Albert Finney, as cinema’s greatest Poirots.

Alas, the same cannot be said for the vehicle in which Branagh’s Poirot inhabits. Screenwriter Michael Green’s attempt to turn Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express “relevant” for modern viewers makes a shambles of her ingeniously plotted 1934 novel. His adaptation commits the cardinal sin of telegraphing the twist so early, that he gives away the game before we’re even halfway through the film.

Green was an odd choice for this assignment. He’s into excess and exploitation: a sci-fi/horror guy whose credits include Green Lantern, Logan, Alien: Covenant and television’s Gotham and American Gods. He obviously lacks the subtlety and sly British wit required of a Christie mystery, which demands the touch of somebody like Peter Morgan (The Queen, television’s The Crown) or Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey and his own marvelous Christie pastiche, 2001’s Gosford Park).

Green struggles mightily to transform this story into an action-oriented adventure akin to director Guy Ritchie’s recent re-boots of Sherlock Holmes, and it simply doesn’t work. Murder on the Orient Express is a mostly tranquil drawing-room mystery ... except that it takes place aboard a train.

Branagh also directs, and succumbs overmuch to long tracking shots and other visual flourishes, which further diminish the story at hand. One sequence, inexplicably shot from above the characters’ heads as they enter a train compartment, is incredibly distracting.

Branagh seems to love the camera trickery made possible by contemporary CGI effects, and misses no opportunity for stunning vistas of the eponymous train, as it navigates the mountainous regions from Here to There: undeniably gorgeous, as is Haris Zambarloukos’ cinematography ... but rather beside the point.

The story takes place in 1934. Green opens the film with a droll prologue that hasn’t a thing to do with Christie, but nonetheless deftly establishes everything we need to know about Poirot. A last-minute change of plans interrupts an intended vacation in Istanbul, and prompts him to board the lavish Orient Express en route to London via Italy, Switzerland and France.

The Great Wall: Great fun!

The Great Wall (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fantasy action violence
By Derrick Bang

According to report, this film cost $150 million.

Rarely will you see money spent so well. Every dollar is visible on the screen.

As a monstrous assault threatens to overwhelm the Great Wall's resident army, Lin Mae
(Jing Tian) and her most trusted warriors — from left, William Garin (Matt Damon),
Strategist Wang (Andy Lau) and an Imperial Guard soldier (Cheney Chen) — lead a
small unit in a stealth mission, hoping to out-flank the creatures.

Mayes C. Rubeo’s costumes alone probably stretched the budget to the limit. If she doesn’t win the 2017 Academy Award for costume design, there is no justice.

The Great Wall is one of the fabled “cast of thousands” sagas that we’ve not seen for decades. Director Zhang Yimou’s period adventure is a stylish, rip-snortin’ thrill ride that hits the ground running and never lets up: an exciting and thoroughly entertaining blend of Aliens and 1964’s Zulu, with the athletic grace of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

It is, and well deserves to be called, a true epic. And we also don’t get those very often, these days.

Granted, the deliberate inclusion of Western actors — apparently essential, to court the all-important American market — is a bit of an eyebrow-lifter. Placing Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal in 12th century China, with little more than a token explanation of how their characters could have gotten there, is quite contrived; no surprise that this film’s six (!) credited scripters didn’t try hard to explain it.

But once beyond that hiccup, the story zips right along; Zhang paces and choreographs the complex action sequences with the authority of a master conductor. That’s no surprise, coming from the director who similarly entertained us with Hero and House of Flying Daggers, along with equally compelling “straight” dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern and The Flowers of War.

Even the establishing tableaus are breathtaking, as cinematographers Stuart Dryburth and Xiaoding Zhao traverse the expanse of John Myhre’s production design. We’ve not seen world-building on this scale since Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

That comparison is apt for another reason, since Damon’s amazing bow-and-arrow skills can’t help evoking fond memories of Orlando Bloom’s Legolas.

The story begins with a prologue of sorts, as William Garin (Damon) and his quintet of battle-scarred mercenaries attempt to outrun a much larger desert tribe. Our mercenary heroes (?) have come to Northern China in search of a fabled “black powder” that is capable of making great weapons.

They successfully escape, camping down for what they hope will be a restful night. But they’re suddenly attacked by an unseen something that quickly eviscerates all but William and Pero Tovar (Pascal). William manages to hack a limb off the beast, which then plunges to its doom down a deep canyon. But the severed claw is terrifying in its own right: huge, reptilian and unlike anything they’ve ever seen.

John Wick: Should be snuffed out

John Wick (2014) • View trailer 
No stars (turkey). Rated R, for relentlessly strong, bloody and gory violence, profanity and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

Vile, reprehensible trash.

Ineptly scripted, badly directed and atrociously acted by the name “star” — Keanu Reeves — who, as one of this tawdry turkey’s executive producers, likely is the only reason it got made in the first place.

Having reached this point in his vengeance-fueled crusade, Wick (Keanu Reeves) hasn't
killed anybody for at least 5 seconds ... so it must be time to shoot another nameless
thug in the face. Wick does that a lot, to rapidly diminishing returns.

The fact that Reeves keeps getting assignments remains a source of amazement; he can’t emote a lick. Indeed, he makes Clint Eastwood look like Laurence Olivier. Reeves lucked into two popular genre franchises awhile back, Speed and the Matrix trilogy, which granted the illusion of A-list credibility.

But everything else he has touched in the past 20 years has bombed, in most cases with ample cause. Really, now ... have you even heard of Hard Ball, Ellie Parker, Thumbsucker, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Generation Um... or Man of Tai Chi, let alone had the opportunity to actually watch them? Could anything have been worse that his laughably pathetic efforts at romantic leads, in A Walk in the Clouds or the ill-advised remake of Sweet November?

Is it perhaps time to wonder how much better both Speed and the Matrix movies might have been, with a better lead actor?

Reeves never offers anything beyond a grim scowl apparently intended to convey a wealth of emotion. Far from it; he simply seems smug and contemptuous ... and not necessarily within the parameters of the part he’s playing. It looks, sounds and feels more like a deliberate absence of acting: a smirky sense of superiority, as if he’s delighted to once again make a pot of money for doing no work whatsoever.

I’m not sure which would be worse: that Reeves knows he has scant talent, and keeps trying to fool us into believing otherwise ... or that he truly has no talent at all, but has failed to recognize as much. Still. All these years later.

He also needs to wash his hair more often. And get a better style to begin with.

Sadly, when it comes to no-talent behavior, Reeves has plenty of company in this revolting excuse for a revenge thriller. John Wick is “directed” — and I employ the term in the loosest possible sense — by David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, both of whom have impressively long Hollywood résumés ... as stunt and action coordinators.

Leitch and Stahelski apparently believed that they had learned something, operating under the guidance of other directors for the past two decades.

They believed incorrectly.

A Most Wanted Man: Superb espionage drama

A Most Wanted Man (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.25.14

John Le Carré continues to write gripping espionage thrillers, and he has the added bonus of seeing many of them translated intelligently to the big screen.

A Most Wanted Man is no exception.

Having brought naive young lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams) into custody against
her will, German intelligence agent Gunther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman) patiently —
oh, so patiently — explains the folly of her recent behavior, in an effort to get her to reveal
information about the young man she believes needs her help.

This compelling adaptation is helmed by Dutch director Anton Corbijn, who first came to our attention back in 2010 with his disappointing handling of The American, an adaptation of Martin Booth’s A Very Private Gentleman. In fairness, that film’s failure had more to do with its dull, dreary script and a miscast George Clooney’s soulless performance, along with the fact that it was difficult to sympathize with a career assassin possessing few redeeming qualities.

Corbijn obviously learned a lot from that experience, because A Most Wanted Man boasts everything that his previous thriller lacked. For starters, le Carré’s riveting plot is ripped from contemporary headlines and fueled by the moral dilemma that troubles all progressive Western countries: Can we justify subverting established law in the pursuit of terrorists who refuse to “play fair”?

Le Carré’s densely complex novel has been compressed ingeniously by scripter Andrew Bovell, who deftly stripped away an entire set of supporting players (the British) in order to amplify the German setting and characters, primarily the veteran black-ops surveillance agent who has become the heart of this narrative.

That would be Gunther Bachmann, played to ferocious perfection by Philip Seymour Hoffman: the last film he completed before his tragic and untimely death.

To say that Hoffman’s performance is mesmerizing would be gross understatement; the man owns the screen, and this film. The forever disheveled Bachmann is a study in contrasts: a beady-eyed, chain-smoking, whisky-drinking fox who flouts established authority and couldn’t care less about currying favor, and yet possesses investigative skills that cannot be dismissed, even by colleagues and superiors who loathe him.

Hoffman has for quite some time transcended the artifice of performance; he’s one of very few film actors who doesn’t merely “play” a part, but instead fully inhabits the role of moment. That’s particularly true here, where we quickly cease to see Hoffman and instead watch, fascinated, as Gunther Bachmann embraces the sacred trust placed in his hands: to make the world a safer place.

That’s a key line: Watch Hoffman’s body language, and his expression, when he is given the opportunity to toss it back at the individual who first says it to him. Rarely will you see such an impeccably crafted blend of amusement, irony and barely controlled fury.

The Fault in Our Stars: Close to faultless

The Fault in Our Stars (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and perhaps too harshly, for thematic elements, chaste sexuality and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Every generation embraces at least one swooningly poignant saga of star-crossed lovers, which, as a result of massive ticket sales, becomes a media sensation that generates all sorts of commentary, analysis and — the inevitable backlash — scornful snickering.

During one of her rare bouts of utter despair, Hazel (Shailene Woodley) admits that she
has come to regard her childhood back yard playset as quite pathetic, a sentiment with
which Gus (Ansel Elgort) heartily agrees.

The adulation isn’t hard to understand; we’re hard-wired for this sort of stuff. Have been since 16th century audiences crowded the stalls to see performances of Romeo and Juliet. And probably long before that.

As for the snickering, well, sometimes it’s warranted. (See the 1970 adaptation of Erich Segal’s Love Story. Or the book itself, for that matter.)

A very fine line separates artistic success from the sort of puerile, overly histrionic treacle found in TV soap operas. We therefore ask that our melancholy melodramas be intelligent, populated by perceptive characters whose actions resonate with our real-world experiences and expectations, and which — in the case of films — are made by talented actors who respect the material, scripters with an understanding of subtlety, and directors who refrain from artificially enhancing the emotional intensity. With stuff like too many tight close-ups.

I’m therefore happy to report that director Josh Boone’s adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars conducts itself quite honorably. The book’s many, many fans will be delighted to hear key chunks of dialogue and exposition lifted directly from the page, and in a few cases scripters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have improved the story’s overall flow: some judicious nips and tucks here, a couple of droll laugh lines inserted there. (Films are much better than books, when it comes to verbal zingers.)

Mostly, though, this film gets its momentum and emotional heft from star Shailene Woodley’s expressive and heartbreaking performance as 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster, a girl who handles her cancer death-sentence with the sort disarming candor, mocking wit and stubborn strength that we’d hope to call upon, under similar circumstances.

In a word, Woodley is a revelation.

A performance starts with the overall appearance, and Woodley looks right, with the sallow, waxy pallor — the aura of illness — that results from a terminal disease. More significantly, though, she projects brittleness and fragility, as if she might shatter from abrupt contact, or simply collapse as her skeletal frame betrays her.

Green’s book persuasively depicts Hazel’s constant battle for breath, her body badly compromised by the papillary thyroid cancer that spawned — in her own words, as lifted from Green’s text — an impressive and long-settled satellite colony in her lungs. Woodley conveys this gasping struggle for oxygen just as convincingly, her gritty, determined gaze never quite concealing the despair that bubbles behind her eyes.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Grandly chaotic

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.21.14

This one’s hard to categorize.

On the one hand, and perhaps most visibly, Wes Anderson’s newest opus is a madcap farce populated by eccentric and oddly polite characters who hearken back to those found within West London’s famed Ealing Studios comedies, during the late 1940s and early ’50s.

With the police hot on their heels, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes, left) and his faithful
junior lobby boy, Zero (Tony Revolori), frantically try to figure out where to hide a
priceless Renaissance painting that they have, ah, liberated.

On the other hand, it’s a droll send-up of Agatha Christie mysteries, with suspicious butlers, nosy maids and assorted other shady and avaricious characters, all of them anxious about the contents of a will that keeps throwing up codicils, riders, supplements, postscripts and assorted other appendices, possibly even superseded by the second copy of a second will.

On the third hand, it’s an affectionate ode to an era of more civilized behavior, when traveling strangers regaled each other with fascinating tall tales while enjoying a sumptuous meal; and when courting lovers exchanged passionate letters.

Then, too, there’s an affectionate nod to Inception, with its nested narratives.

And, last but certainly not least, however we choose to define this unapologetically zany melodrama, it most certainly could have come only from the eccentric imagination of director Wes Anderson ... and perhaps that’s the only explanation that matters.

Anderson’s films take place within a fanciful universe of his creation: one slightly off-center from our own, with occasionally familiar cultural landmarks that merely add to the gently bizarre atmosphere, laced with characters who deliver crucial soliloquies and peculiar non-sequitors with equal aplomb, and always with resolutely straight faces.

No character ever laughs at something said by another; at best, the speaker might get a raised eyebrow that Signifies A Great Deal.

In short, Anderson’s films are strange. Very strange, and definitely an acquired taste. I generally swing toward admiration, but not always; his previous outing, Moonrise Kingdom, is a thorough delight ... but I almost couldn’t make it through The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

This one falls somewhere in between, leaning more heavily toward the wacky delights of Moonrise Kingdom. Anderson has concocted the script with co-conspirator Hugo Guinness, claiming inspiration from pre-code 1930s Hollywood comedies and the stories and memoirs of Viennese author Stefan Zweig (!).

Avid film fans with a fondness for old-style filmmaking technique likely will have a ball. Mainstream viewers who casually wander into the theater will be convinced, after only 15 minutes, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

And, to be fair, they won’t be wrong.