The Thursday Murder Club: Totally delightful!

The Thursday Murder Club (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for occasional violent content, fleeting profanity and mild sexual candor

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.14.25

The talent involved here certainly is impressive.

 

Bringing British author Richard Osman’s 2020 debut novel to the big screen was one of the occasional “third rails” of cinema. The book is enormously popular: the UK’s best-selling title of the decade, and translated into 46 languages. Somewhat akin to the challenge of adapting J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Osman’s fans weren’t about to tolerate anything less than reverential.

 

With their new colleague PC Donna de Freitas (Naomi Ackie, center) leading the way,
she and the members of the Thursday Murder Club — from left, Joyce (Celia Imrie),
Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan) and Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) — confront
a rather nasty surprise.

They have nothing to worry about.

Director Chris Columbus and co-scripters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote deftly retained Osman’s essential tone, atmosphere and mildly whimsical, British-dry wit. Of necessity, the labyrinthine twists within the book’s 400 pages have been condensed, with some minor sidebar individuals and distractions left behind, but the core plot and characters are solid.

 

The result is equal parts Agatha Christie and Downton Abbey, with a soupçon of Jane Austen thrown into the mix.

 

On top of which, you simply cannot beat a leading cast that features Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Naomi Ackie. They’re all note-perfect.

 

The setting is the sumptuous Cooper’s Chase retirement village, plunked in the midst of Kent’s (fictitious) seaside village of Fairhaven. The well-to-do residents include Elizabeth Best (Mirren), psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif (Kingsley) and former trade union leader Ron Ritchie (Brosnan), who meet weekly — on Thursdays — to discuss long-dormant cold cases.

 

How they settle on a given case is left somewhat vague, as is Elizabeth’s background; this film deliberately leaves that detail unrevealed until late in the third act. That said, she clearly has “connections” of some sort.

 

The trio quickly is drawn to new resident Joyce Meadowcroft, (Imrie) a retired nurse and compulsive baker, whose facility for lavish cakes immediately endears her to Ron.

 

As the story begins, they decide to investigate the unsolved murder of a young woman named Angela Hughes: a case originally handled by Detective Inspector Penny Gray (Susan Kirkby), now comatose in hospice care, attended constantly by her devoted husband, John (Paul Freeman).

 

Coincidentally, the local police force headed by DCI Chris Hudson (Daniel Mays) has just been augmented by PC Donna De Freitas (Ackie), recently transferred from London. Given that Fairhaven’s police force is “provincial” (read: mostly male), she’s initially relegated to trivial duties. A chance encounter with the Cooper’s Chase quartet prompts a much more interesting collaboration, which in turn grants the retirees access to police intel.

Barbie: Far more than a plastic toy

Barbie (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and needlessly, for suggestive references and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.4.23

This must be one of the most unusual ideas ever pitched to a Hollywood film studio. 

 

I’d love to have been a bug on the wall during that concept meeting.

 

Total catastrophe! Barbie (Margot Robbie, center) is dismayed to discover that her
perfectly arched feet have become flat. Her fellow Barbies — from left, Ana Cruz Kayne,
Sharon Rooney, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef and Emma Mackey — are similarly
horrified.

And yet, defying expectations — of some silly, frilly bit of toy-themed fluff akin to 1986’s My Little Pony — this film is thoughtful, audaciously subversive, and one of the most insightful indictments of gender stereotypes ever unleashed.

It’s also quite funny.

 

And pink. Very, very pink.

 

Director/co-scripter Greta Gerwig — along with writing partner Noah Baumbach — have concocted an immersive “Barbie experience” that playfully honors the iconic Mattel doll’s 64-year legacy, while contrasting her idealized realm with the harsher truths of our real world.

 

Although such progressive thoughts certainly weren’t contemplated when the first Barbie hit store shelves on March 9, 1959 — your choice of blonde or brunette — Mattel soon employed the doll as a subtle means of girl empowerment. Barbie could be anything: a doctor, lawyer or scientist; tennis champ or ace baseball player; astronaut, Supreme Court justice or even president of the United States.

 

(Granted, this was primarily marketing savvy; the actual goal was to make money. But if a little idealism rubbed off along the way, so much the better.)

 

Thus — following a hilarious prologue that lampoons the opening sequence in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — we meet pert, perky “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), as she wakens to enjoy another in an impossibly long line of perfect days.

 

Identically perfect days.

 

She rises, greets the Barbies in adjacent dream houses, showers beneath invisible water, enjoys breakfast while drinking invisible milk, and opens her magic wardrobe to get her outfit for the day: a bit of spin, and poof, it’s on her body. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is as amazing and colorfully inventive as Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. (Who knew pink came in so many shades?)

 

Since Barbie’s dream house has no stairs, and is open at the front, she merely steps off the edge and floats to the ground below. (Newton’s laws don’t exist in Barbie Land, nor does wind, gravity or anything else that might interfere with this realm’s pink perfection.)

 

The Duke: Larceny with a twist

The Duke (2020) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and brief sexuality

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.29.22

This is another great one for the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction file.

 

On the very early morning of August 21, 1961, somebody broke into London’s National Gallery and stole Francisco Goya’s painting, “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington.” The carefully calculated crime baffled police, who assumed that the caper must have been masterminded by a professional gang of experienced Italian art thieves.

 

Kempton (Jim Broadbent) promises, after one final attempt, that he'll stop fighting the
BBC over its television license fees. Alas, his wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) isn't
sure that she believes him...

Four years later, the painting was returned by 61-year-old Kempton Bunton, a disabled pensioner who subsequently confessed to the crime.

That was wild enough … but what happened at Bunton’s subsequent trial was so audacious, that it prompted an amendment of British law.

 

Director Roger Michell’s delightful depiction of these astonishing events, a cheeky slice of gentle British whimsy, is fueled by endearing performances from Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, as Kempton and his wife, Dorothy. Michell, cinematographer Mike Eley and editor Kristina Hetherington deliberately emphasize a retro look, atmosphere and pacing, strongly evoking a sense that their film could have been made during the 1960s.

 

Screenwriters Richard Bean and Clive Coleman compress the time frame, but otherwise present the saga pretty much as it actually went down; they were blessed, during production, with hitherto unrevealed details supplied by Bunton’s grandson.

 

Kempton is introduced as a taxi driver and frustrated playwright — his latest opus is a reimagining of the scriptures with Jesus as a woman (!) — who has long been annoyed by the BBC’s television license fee. His sad efforts to stoke public awareness with a home-grown campaign — “Free TV for the OAP (Old Age Pensioners)” — has gone nowhere; he also has been imprisoned several times, for non-payment of the license fee.

 

(Tossed into Durham Prison for two weeks, for refusing to pay a television fee? Seriously?)

 

Not much later, a wealthy American art collector purchases Goya’s painting for £140,000, with the intention of taking it to the United States. Scandalized by the thought of losing this precious artwork, the British government buys it back for the same sum. Kempton becomes outraged, while watching the resulting press conference on (his illegal) TV, grousing the such a sum could have provided free television to thousands of OAPs.

 

Kempton obsesses over the painting — much to Dorothy’s long-suffering dismay — visits it often, and views it as a tangible example of everything wrong with government spending. He learns that the gallery’s sophisticated alarm system is deactivated during early mornings, so the cleaning crew can work; access can be made via a window in an upstairs bathroom.

 

And — hey, presto! — the painting winds up in the Bunton’s Newcastle flat. He and younger son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead) cleverly conceal it by constructing a false back to a bedroom wardrobe.

 

But now what?

F9, The Fast Saga: Blown head gasket

F9 (2021) • View trailer

1.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for relentless violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.21

Despite his popular presence in this series’ previous five entries, I note that Dwayne Johnson chose not return for this one.

 

Smart move.

 

No matter how much absurd punishment his car takes, Dom (Vin Diesel) always
manages to retain control. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) counts on it.

And despite the otherwise welcome return of director Justin Lin — who helmed installments three through six — this newest Fast & Furious entry is yet another example of dumb, tedious, wretched excess (as also was the case with 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw). The idiotic script cobbled together by Lin and his co-writers — Daniel Casey and Alfredo Botello — overwhelms its one smart move with an increasingly ridiculous series of action sequences.

 

The smart move: Granting main man Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) a race track-hued origin story involving his tempestuous relationship with a hitherto unrevealed younger brother. Poor, put-upon Dom always gets the lion’s share of angst in these flicks, and Diesel excels at displays of anguish that slowly morph into tightly bottled fury, and then explode into uncontrolled rage.

 

Unfortunately, such moments of actual humanity are few and far between, overwhelmed by the efforts of visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang’s team. Nothing feels the slightest bit real in the resulting vehicular and mano a mano mayhem, which too frequently looks blatantly, howlingly fake. 

 

The nadir? The point at which this cacophonous mess goes way, way beyond jumping the shark? The point at which even Tuesday evening’s eager theater audience succumbed to disgusted jeers?

 

The moment when a 1984 Pontiac Fiero gets blasted into space — with two of our heroes aboard, in vintage, duct-taped bathysphere suits — courtesy of rocket boosters.

 

This waste of celluloid — which clocks in at a butt-numbing, self-indulgent 145 minutes — isn’t a film, it’s a clanging pinball machine. With about that much emotional impact.

 

So:

 

Ongoing mega-villainess Cipher (Charlize Theron), finally captured by CIA mastermind Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), manages an improbable escape with the assistance of flamboyant aspiring autocrat Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen). These events occur elsewhere, while we eavesdrop on Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Dom, living a quiet life off-grid while raising the latter’s young son, Little Brian (distinguished from “big” Brian, referencing the character played by the late Paul Walker).

 

The One and Only Ivan: A noble hero

The One and Only Ivan (2020) • View trailer 

3.5 stars. Rated PG, for mild dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.4.20 

Break out the Kleenex; you’ll be snuffling before this gentle little fable concludes its first act.

 

Which is not to say that The One and Only Ivan, debuting on Disney+, is an unrelenting tear-jerker; far from it. But by replicating the “gimmick” from Katherine Applegate’s Newbery Medal-winning 2012 children’s novel — in which the title character, a silverback gorilla, narrates his own story — scripter Mike White puts us squarely into this intelligent creature’s heart and soul.

 

Under the watchful eye of Bob, a stray dog and best bud, Ivan reluctantly
agrees to baby elephant Ruby's request that he tell her a story.

I’ve not been a fan of the increasingly convincing CGI talking animals in recent Disney films — particularly when they burst into song — because their speaking ability destroys the otherwise astonishing accuracy with which such critters are created. But it works here, because it is essential that we understand what motivates this saga’s star: what he imagines and yearns for, and how he reacts to the environment, people and other animals in his orbit.

 

Right from the start, it’s easy to embrace the fact that we’re sharing Ivan’s thoughts … which was, of course, the point of Applegate’s book. Considerable credit also goes to Sam Rockwell, who voices Ivan so sensitively; and director Thea Sharrock, who plays us like a fiddle. Let us not forget that Sharrock helmed 2016’s Me Before You, which had folks sobbing in the aisles.

 

Needless to say, this film — as was the case with Applegate’s book — also is a quietly powerful statement in our ongoing reassessment of wild animals in captivity. Indeed, the fact that this story is set in a circus, of sorts, feels uncomfortable. But it’s a period piece, faithful to the 1980s setting; more to the point, Sharrock and White don’t preach. 

 

Viewers have no trouble drawing the proper conclusions.

 

Events take place at the Exit 8 Big Top Shopping Mall and Video Arcade, which for years has boasted a “little top” circus. (Filming took place in Lakeland, Fla., although the script deliberately avoids specificity; this could be any indoor mall, in any city or state.) Ivan, the 400-lb. star, is joined by Stella (voiced by Angelina Jolie), an aging African elephant, and a small assortment of other critters.

 

The tiny circus was founded years earlier by Mack (Bryan Cranston), as a means to accommodate and earn a living with Ivan, who was rescued as a baby but quickly outgrew his initial suburban home. The two have long shared a special relationship.

 

In the tradition of such stories, Ivan, Stella and the other animals converse avidly with each other, but never with humans. It’s a testament to both Cranston and CGI wizardry, that we recognize the Mack/Ivan bond via silent expressions, forehead touches and other tiny — but powerful — shared gestures.

 

Hobbs & Shaw: Dumb & dumber

Hobbs & Shaw (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for relentless cartoon violence and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.2.19

Too loud, too preposterous, and too bloody long.

This isn’t a movie; it’s a pinball machine, with two-legged combatants randomly rolling around an obstacle-laden playing field, savagely bumping into each other for no particular reason.

With the fate of the entire planet resting on their shoulders, Shaw (Jason Statham, driving)
and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) get ready for a rather improbable lassoing stunt.

The so-called director of this mess, David Leitch, graduated from stuntman to stunt coordinator over the course of two decades; succumbing to delusions of grandeur, he turned director for Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and this sorta-kinda entry in the Fast and Furious franchise.

All three films have the same thing in common: They’re soulless, live-action cartoons operating under the delusion that relentless mayhem compensates for a complete lack of plot and characterization.

It doesn’t.

Bravura action scenes work best when they’re an explosive surprise amid a story that has built tension, drama and emotional gravitas. (Consider the Matt Damon Bourne films as excellent examples.)

Leitch’s approach is akin to a diet of nothing but ice cream. No matter how much we enjoy such dessert as the delicious conclusion to a savory meal, being force-fed nothing but ice cream for 135 butt-numbing minutes — the length of this cinematic travesty — isn’t merely tedious; it becomes acutely painful.

In fairness, Leitch can’t take the sole blame; this misbegotten script comes from Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce, who deserve some sort of chutzpah award for having been paid for this utter absence of anything resembling an actual story. The 135-minute result actually is rather impressive, for its vacuousness.

Dwayne Johnson’s whup-ass and Jason Statham’s martial-arts beatdowns have been lots of fun in the past, and — goodness knows — both have starred in their share of brain-dead clunkers (Skyscraper and The Meg, respectively, in the recent past). In many cases, the two action stars have skated by via droll ’tude and sheer force of incandescent personality; they’re usually a lot of fun to watch.

That said, I suspect Hobbs & Shaw will task the patience of even their most ardent fans.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms: Far from balletic

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.2.18

This isn’t your grandfather’s Nutcracker.

Actually, I’m not sure what to call it.

Having just learned that she's princess of the magical Four Realms, Clara (Mackenzie
Foy, left) is gowned in suitable fashion by Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley), while one of
the palace soldiers guards them attentively.

This Frankenstein’s Monster is a cynical, coldly calculated commodity that lards the gentle Marius Petipa/Lev Ivanov/Tchaikovsky ballet with bits and bobs from Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia, wraps the content-heavy mess with a ribbon of mild steampunk, and — for good measure — adds Harry Potter’s owl as a bow.

Only Disney could concoct such a clumsy, lumbering mess of a movie, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to enhance the corporate brand via ancillary merchandising.

Along with the opportunity to further entice little girls with a new “Disney princess.”

Mind you, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms certainly looks spectacular. The traditional Disney logo — Sleeping Beauty’s castle — appears on the screen; then the camera swoops past its spires and takes us on a breathtaking, owl’s-view ride above and through Victorian-era London, all in a single magnificent tracking shot, until we reach the Stahlbaum residence, home of Clara (Mackenzie Foy), Louise (Ellie Bamber), young Fritz (Tom Sweet) and their father (Matthew Macfadyen).

It’s a dizzying, captivating tour-de-force opening by cinematographer Linus Sandgren, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, and visual effects maestros Max Wood and Marc Weigert.

Things get even more dazzling when the Stahlbaum family joins the cream of London society at the annual Christmas Eve ball, held in the even more opulent palatial estate of Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman). He’s an eccentric, well-traveled entrepreneur and inventor, who also happens to be Clara’s godfather. She shares his talent for tinkering and fabrication: a gift revealed earlier, in the Stahlbaum attic, where she dazzles Fritz with a complicated, Rube Goldberg-esque mousetrap that (briefly) captures an actual mouse.

But Clara is troubled and saddened: This is the first Christmas without her mother, Marie, who — in the rather harsh Disney tradition — is dead before this story takes place. Consumed by her own grief, Clara fails to register her father’s similarly forlorn bearing (a mood that Macfadyen conveys with a persuasive subtlety the rest of this film lacks).

Ah, but Marie has bequeathed a special gift to Clara this Christmas Eve: an ornate, locked metal egg accompanied by a note that reads “Everything you need is inside.” But the egg requires a golden key that Clara does not possess; she hopes that her godfather will know how to open it. Instead, Drosselmeyer speaks in benevolent riddles and sends her along a ribboned trail to find his gift to her.

At which point, after following the ribbon through his garden hedge labyrinth, and the similar maze of upstairs hallways in his oddly, ever-expanding upstairs wings, she emerges from the hollowed trunk of a massive felled tree in a snow-covered landscape.

Whereupon I turned to Constant Companion and muttered, “C.S. Lewis, here we come.”

The Fate of the Furious: Over-revved

The Fate of the Furious (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and generously, for relentless, excessive violence and destruction, and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.14.17

Well, here’s a reason not to get a car with computer-controlled ignition and navigational systems.

Dismayed by the realization that their buddy Dominic has gone rogue, the rest of the
gang — from left, roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), Little Nobody
(Scott Eastwood), Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and
Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) — ponders the next move.

You just never know when an evil megalomaniac bent on world domination might hack the vehicle, to crash it — and hundreds of others — into a Russian ambassador’s armor-plated limousine, in order to steal a suitcase containing the launch codes for all of his country’s nuclear missiles.

(Hey. It could happen.)

Although there’s some vicarious delight to be experienced from this and the many other big-ticket sequences in director F. Gary Gray’s newest installment in this franchise, The Fate of the Furious is a textbook example of wretched excess: too little substance, too much spectacle.

Way too much. At 136 minutes, this gas-guzzling behemoth is at least one spectacular action set-piece too long. Probably the final one, which races on and on and on.

Something important also has been lost, since this series debuted in 2001. Back then, the stunt driving was awesome, the gear-shifting thrills delivering plenty of accelerated excitement. But the newer films — and particularly this one — make it difficult to admire the efforts of stunt director Spiro Razatos.

It’s patently obvious that all the vehicular skirmishes have been sweetened (or perhaps fabricated entirely) by CGI wizards. The spectacle feels no more real than the outer space battles in the Star Wars franchise. Granted, the result remains suspenseful ... but it’s a lot more fun to be impressed by golly-gee-wow stunt drivers, than by a gaggle of artists hunched over computer keyboards.

The adrenaline-laden thrill has been lost.

As has some of this series’ humanity. As several characters in this new film repeatedly remind us, the most important thing — the only important thing — is family. That means characters interacting with each other, at something beyond a superficial level. The banter may be droll in Chris Morgan’s script, but Gray too frequently cuts away from potential emotion, in order to showcase yet another vehicular chase or smack-down fist fight.

The one exception is poor Dominic (Dom) Toretto, who gets put through the wringer this time. To the credit of star Vin Diesel, we definitely feel the guy’s anguish; even within his limited acting range, he’s adept at quiet despair and seething, barely repressed fury.

Collateral Beauty: Only mildly appealing

Collateral Beauty (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for thematic elements and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Overt sentimentality is a tough sell in this cynical era, so director David Frankel is to be congratulated: For the most part, his film manages to be sincerely poignant, without sliding too much into eye-rolling schmaltz.

While trying to finish a quiet, isolated dinner, Howard (Will Smith) is surprised — and
quickly annoyed — to be confronted by the personification of Love (Keira Knightley),
unaware that she's actually an actress hired to deceive him.

Allan Loeb’s original script is an audacious blend of It’s a Wonderful Life and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, reconfigured for modern times. That’s risky for all sorts of reasons, most notably because “borrowing” from such beloved classics invites comparisons that make most such endeavors fall short. Whether this update succeeds will be up to each viewer’s tolerance for Frank Capra-style melodrama (known as “Capra-corn,” back in the day).

This also is an unusual effort from a writer best known for slapstick moron comedies such as The Switch, The Dilemma and (God help us) Here Comes the Boom. But Loeb apparently has a more serious side, and he wrestles with some fairly weighty concepts here. It’s easy to see why the result piqued the interest of star Will Smith, who has demonstrated a fondness for holiday-timed melodramas such as The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds.

Smith is very good at morose angst; he suffers persuasively, radiating anguish with an intensity that can be painful to watch. We definitely feel for the guy, in such storylines, and — as a given narrative progresses — we become invested in his search for salvation, closure, relief or whatever else seems just beyond his reach.

He stars here as Howard, a charismatic New York advertising executive with a flair for inspiring both clients and staff. We meet him giving a warm pep talk to the employees of his successful firm: a moment enjoyed equally by his longtime business partners — and friends — Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet) and Simon (Michael Peña).

But that was then. Flash-forward a few years later, as the story actually begins, and personal tragedy — the death of his young daughter — has reduced Howard to a disheveled, morose and perpetually silent shadow of his former self. He shows up to work each day solely to build elaborate domino mazes, ultimately knocking down each creation, then starting another. The business, left without its captain, has been sliding into oblivion.

Whit, Claire and Simon don’t know what to do. Every means of engaging Howard has been ignored or rebuffed, and — because he owns controlling shares of their company — they can’t even act on a friendly takeover offer. (We assume it’s friendly. Loeb’s script is a bit sketchy on certain important details: a failing that becomes more noticeable as the story proceeds.)

Eye in the Sky: A riveting real-world thriller

Eye in the Sky (2015) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for dramatic intensity, profanity and violent images
By Derrick Bang

Guy Hibbert’s thoughtful screenplay has the unsettling intensity of an immaculately crafted stage play.

Helen Mirren, as Col. Katherine Powell

Indeed, I can see this being a great play, even though its primary characters are spread out across the globe. An imaginative director could handle that detail, much the way Gavin Hood has choreographed this big-screen drama with such authoritative snap.

Eye in the Sky is a taut, up-to-the-minute geo-political thriller that belongs in the company of 1960s Cold War classics such as Fail Safe and Seven Days in May, and more recent efforts such as Thirteen Days and Munich. At its core, Hibbert’s script — which he wrote back in 2008, making it even more cutting-edge — is a study of actions and consequences: to what degree, if any, a desired end justifies the means to obtain it.

Hibbert’s approach is what makes the result so riveting: This is a “process thriller” very much in the mold of 2011’s Margin Call. That film gave us a talking-heads glimpse of the primary players at a Wall Street investment firm who, during the course of 24 hours, watch helplessly as their own previous actions precipitate the 2008 meltdown. You’d think such back-room financial commentary and analysis would be boring, but that was far from the case; the excellent cast brought compelling tension to every aspect of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s script.

As Margin Call was to the 2008 economic crisis, Eye in the Sky is to digital-age drone warfare.

British Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), waking early one morning at her cozy home in Sussex, assumes her decidedly un-cozy duties at a nearby military base. This is likely to be a crucial day: She has been tracking, for six years, a particularly notorious British citizen-turned-terrorist — a radicalized young woman — who is expected to attend a meeting at an Al-Shabaab safe house in a bustling Nairobi neighborhood.

As a bonus, this target is expected to be in the company of at least one other terrorist ranked high on the British/American “most wanted” list.

The developing situation is being monitored from the sky by a surveillance drone piloted by American soldiers at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, and at ground level by Nairobi anti-terrorist personnel. Facial recognition identification, if such an opportunity arises, will be confirmed by an American military analyst stationed in Hawaii. All are in constant contact with Powell.

She, in turn, passes this intel along to her commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (Alan Rickman, in his final performance), who is spending the day in a London conference room, where he shares these same details with upper-echelon British government overseers. The intention, at every moment, is to follow protocol and chain of command, while adhering to legal justification.

All these players are assembled to monitor a pre-approved “capture mission” that will be coordinated by the Nairobi ground troops. Powell, in charge of the operation, waits only for verification that her targets have arrived.

Trumbo: The writer as triumphant gadfly

Trumbo(2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and coarse sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.4.15

You have to love ironic serendipity.

When Trumbo was scripted, and then green-lighted for production, and then filmed — with much of its dialog lifted directly from legendary Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s actual speeches and testimony, and delivered so superbly by star Bryan Cranston — nobody could have anticipated that this impeccably mounted and rigorously authentic drama would be released just as our country is poised to repeat the same ghastly mistake made with Japanese American citizens during World War II, and the so-called “Communist sympathizers” who were blacklisted during the 1950s.

Packed tightly into a movie theater filled with eager patrons, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston)
and his wife, Cleo (Diane Lane), await the film's all-important credits.

One of whom — Trumbo — is the subject of director Jay Roach’s heartfelt and thoroughly mesmerizing film.

Mesmerizing for two reasons: because of scripter John McNamara’s skillful adaptation of veteran journalist Bruce Cook’s 1976 biography, written with Trumbo’s full cooperation; and because of Cranston’s richly nuanced portrayal of the feisty novelist, screenwriter and social agitator.

No question: Trumbo was a character, and Cranston captures the famed scribe’s numerous eccentricities, righteous indignation and insufferable idealism. Trumbo fought the good fight, and lived to talk about it; his thorn-in-the-side persistence — assisted, at just the right moment, by a few Hollywood heavyweights — helped break the blacklist, and put an end to the ultimately ineffectual scare-mongering tactics that emanated from the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Roach and McNamara re-create this shameful bit of American history with the same darkly droll tinge of humor with which Trumbo peppered both his casual conversation and his screenplays. Actually, that’s an misstatement; Trumbo’s conversation rarely was casual, and Cranston gleefully chews into McNamara’s dialog — and Trumbo’s own words — with the enthusiasm of a hyena tearing at a carcass.

We’ve been down this road before, notably with 1976’s The Front — made with numerous individuals, both in front of and behind the camera, who had been smeared by the blacklist — 1991’s Guilty by Suspicion and 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck.

The latter was highlighted by David Strathairn’s eerily authentic portrayal of broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Cranston takes a slightly different approach with Trumbo, nailing the man’s behavior and wonderfully rich verbal vitriol, without really trying to imitate him. As easily observed in the period photos and news clips that appear during the closing credits, Cranston doesn’t really look much like Trumbo.

By my, he sure sounds and acts like him.

Woman in Gold: Engaging art world saga

Woman in Gold (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Director Simon Curtis’ absorbing, ripped-from-the-headlines drama could be considered the All the President’s Men of the art world.

During a visit to Austria, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her young friend and colleague,
Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), make a point of visiting Vienna's Belvedere Gallery,
where the painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer has been displayed since just after
World War II. The question is whether it deserves to remain there...

Much the way that 1976 classic made journalistic investigation so fascinating, scripter Alexi Kaye Campbell breathes intrigue and tension into what — in the real world — unfolded as an extended, research-heavy, David vs. Goliath courtroom battle. Campbell has the advantage of the considerable tension surrounding the saga’s Holocaust origins; the result, while sometimes sliding into clichéd melodrama, builds to a suspenseful finale.

On one side of the dispute: octogenarian Jewish refugee Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her callow, almost laughably inexperienced attorney, Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds).

On the other side: the entire country of Austria, personified by condescending museum owners and Ministry of Culture officials.

The situation at issue: actual ownership of five paintings by Austrian master Gustav Klimt, most notably his legendary Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a work iconic enough to be recognized even by people who know nothing about art.

As it happens, Adele Bloch-Bauer was Maria Altmann’s aunt ... and therein lies the tale.

Curtis and Campbell divide their narrative between the late 1930s, leading up to and immediately following Hitler’s annexation of Austria; and the late 1990s, beginning with a stack of letters found by Maria, in the twilight of her comfortable years in California, following the death of her beloved sister. The letters’ contents raise intriguing questions, prompting Maria to seek advice from Randy, a budding attorney and the grandson of a family friend.

Randy initially wants nothing to do with what he perceives is a ludicrous, hopeless case; he’s much too busy trying to fit in at the prestigious legal firm where he has just been hired by the authoritative senior partner (Charles Dance, in a brief but suitably intimidating role). But Maria, imperious in her own right, plays the “Jewish heritage” card ... and, before he quite realizes what has happened, Randy is hooked.

An exploratory visit to Austria hardens his interest, after he and Maria are rebuffed by the aforementioned cultural officials. Despite the restitution law passed by Austria’s Green Party in 1998, they discover — with the assistance of Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl) — that this supposed display of “justice” is little more than a PR ploy, which the country’s nationalists have no intention of applying to any truly revered artworks.

And nothing is more revered than Klimt’s masterpiece, regarded, as Czernin explains, as “Austria’s Mona Lisa.”