September 5: Impressively powerful

September 5 (2024) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.26.25 

Ingenuity under pressure is fascinating.

 

Director Tim Fehlbaum’s fact-based depiction of what occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics — and how those events were broadcast to the entire world — is a suspenseful and riveting docudrama: a true, edge-of-the-seat nail-biter.

 

Members of the ABC News sports team — from left, standing, Jacques Lesgardes
(Zinedine Soualem), Geoff Mason (John Magaro) and Carter Jeffrey (Marcus
Rutherford) — surround translator Marianne Gebhard (Leonie Benesch) as she 
dictates an update from the Munich police radio frequency.

The suspense derives not from the terrorist attack itself — the details of which are well known, and remain seared into history — but the resourceful, behind-the-scenes scrambling by the ABC News sports broadcasting team, which allowed 900 million global viewers to witness this incident, in real time.

The key phrase in that previous sentence is “sports broadcasting team” ... as opposed to seasoned television news journalists. That distinction heightens this story’s drama.

 

Events begin quietly, following coverage of events taking place during Day 10 of the Olympics. Newbie coordinating producer Geoffrey Mason (played by John Magaro) is granted the opportunity to helm the next day’s coverage, thanks to a recommendation by Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), then vice-president of ABC-TV’s Olympic Operations. They both answer to Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), then president of ABC Sports (and later president of ABC News, from 1977 to ’98).

 

World-wide broadcast of the Games has been made possible, for the first time, thanks to new satellite technology.

 

The “thrill of victory and agony of defeat” sporting events aside, these summer Olympics are hugely important for political reasons: the first Games hosted by a German city since Adolf Hitler’s notorious 1936 Berlin travesty. The 1972 invitation was extended, in part, as a means of giving West Germany an opportunity to showcase its reborn democratic virtues.

 

This is tremendously important to the ABC team’s German translator, Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch), who wants the world to see her “new and improved” country.

 

(Unlike the aforementioned individuals, and a few others, Gebhardt is a fictitious character based on a composite of several translators.)

 

Everything goes pear-shaped at 4:30 a.m. September 5, when gun shots are heard from within the Olympic Village. They’re followed quickly by reports on the local police radio frequency — which Gebhardt translates — that armed individuals have invaded the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team.

The Dig: A captivating excavation

The Dig (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for brief sensuality and fleeting partial nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.21

Director Simon Stone’s well-seasoned character drama, available via Netflix, is a thoroughly absorbing slice of old-style British filmmaking: a fascinating, fact-based story inhabited by engaging characters, set in England’s luxuriously verdant countryside.

 

After a harrowing reminder that amateur excavation can be quite dangerous, Edith Pretty
(Carey Mulligan) makes sure that archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) has
suffered no more than a terrible fright.

The countryside in question is Suffolk, the year 1939: just as Britain is battening down the hatches in anticipation of war with Germany. Odd, then, that widowed aristocratic landowner Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) chooses this moment to investigate the large barrows (burial mounds) that dot her 526-acre Sutton Hoo estate (but, well, the actual Pretty did just that).

 

Such mounds were prevalent throughout much of the United Kingdom at this point in time, and it was accepted wisdom that — if they contained anything at all — the contents likely would date back to the Viking era. Edith has no reason to expect otherwise, but even Viking artifacts would be worthy of museum preservation.

 

She hires local archaeologist/excavator Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to investigate; after surveying the various mounds, he settles on a particularly large one. The digging is arduous, painstaking and slow, even with the help of a few estate workers. As the days and weeks pass, with Edith and her adolescent son Robert (Archie Barnes) taking an active interest — and since Basil is living on the estate — he becomes a welcome part of the family.

 

That’s no small thing, since the working-class Basil is akin to a servant himself. But Edith clearly gives no thought to that sort of thing: a deliberate contrast to the way Basil is regarded as “lesser” by his archaeological peers, since he’s self-taught after having left school at age 12.

 

Nothing is quite as condescending as British class snobbery, and Fiennes does a marvelous job of imbuing Basil with quiet dignity and patient resolve, when confronted by it. His deepening bond with Edith and Robert notwithstanding, he also tends toward obsession, ignoring frequent letters from his wife, May (Monica Dolan).

 

Basil becomes convinced that these Sutton Hoo barrows might pre-date the Viking era (eighth to 11th century): in fact, might be Anglo-Saxon (as early as the fifth century). Naturally, his disdainful colleagues dismiss this notion.

 

Then Basil finds some iron rivets. A ship’s iron rivets. (Bear in mind, we’re well inland.) Only figures of immense merit — such as kings — were buried with their ships.

Cinderella: Dreams do come true

Cinderella (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for mild dramatic tension
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.13.15

Doubts notwithstanding — and I had plenty — Disney has done a respectable job, with this live-action update of its own 1950 animated classic.

Ella (Lily James, left), surprised to learn that invitations to the upcoming palace ball will be
extended to every maiden in the realm, wonders how she might escape her stepmother's
clutches, in order to attend. For their part, stepsisters Drisella (Sophie McShera, center)
and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger) immediately vow to win the prince's hand in marriage.

Kenneth Branagh’s presence in the director’s chair certainly helps; it stands to reason that the Irish Renaissance man who brought Shakespearean regality to 2011’s Thor could grant (let’s be candid) a fairy-tale trifle with the same degree of dramatic heft.

In lesser hands, Thor could have sunk beneath the weight of its laughably pompous dialogue and overwrought premise ... but no, Branagh gave it class. He does the same here, with this fresh interpretation of Cinderella.

To be sure, he had able assistance, starting with a solid script from writer/director Chris Weitz, still best known for his 2002 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. Weitz’s take on Cinderella is a little bit Grimm (as in Brothers) and a little bit Disney, with a soupçon of modern feminist sparkle. The resulting narrative is appropriately cheerful, poignant, bleak and swooningly romantic, as needs must.

With respect to the latter, wait until you catch Cinderella’s arrival at the Prince’s ball: Rarely has a character been afforded so splendid an entrance, and rarely has a director milked a scene with such unapologetic oomph.

Which brings us to this film’s young star: Lily James, who makes a flawless Cinderella. She’s eminently believable as an unassuming country lass, albeit one who’s well-read and possesses the perceptive wit of a Jane Austen heroine. At the same time, James “cleans up” marvelously, when a bit of Fairy Godmothering transforms ash-begrimed Cinder-Ella into a breathtaking vision who transfixes all in her presence.

James has a natural ingenuousness that Branagh employs to full effect: the sort of sweet sincerity that Christopher Reeve brought to Superman, when he spoke of fighting for “truth, justice and the American way.” Nobody laughed when Reeve delivered that iconic line; well, nobody laughs here either, when James’ Ella — recalling a promise made years back, to her mother — resolutely insists on facing the world with “courage ... and kindness.”

Pronounced just like that, with a slight pause between the two attributes. Again, the sort of statement that, if delivered even the slightest bit wrong, would prompt snickers from our oh-so-sophisticated 21st century audiences.

Trust me: No laughter erupted during Monday evening’s preview screening (at least, not at that particular moment). Indeed, the audience lapped it up. It would appear that Disney’s current run of “princess power” has yet to subside.