Greedy People: Crime really doesn't pay!

Greedy People (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters and video-on-demand

By Derrick Bang

They don’t come much darker than this one.

 

At first blush, this modern crime noir from director Potsy Ponciroli and writer Mike Vukadinovich looks like it’ll occupy the darkly humorous neighborhood populated by sardonic classics such as Fargo and In Bruges. The occasional dollops of humor are twisted: driven both by a bevy of burlesque characters and a plot that is far more comically convoluted than it initially appears.

 

The story cooked up by Will (Hamish Patel, left) and Terry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), in an
effort to explain a woman's grisly death, doesn't withstand the smell test ... but they
nonetheless stick to it.

Midway through the second act, though, Vukadinovich delivers an unexpected wallop that destroys what’s left of a humorous tone.

People who make films of this nature understand that some boundaries shouldn’t be crossed; call them Thou Shalt Nots. Savvy writers and directors recognize that, no matter how twisted or deplorably their characters behave, it’s wise to avoid Thou Shalt Nots, lest viewers be outraged and alienated past the point of forgiveness.

 

Occasionally, though, really savvy directors and/or writers sometimes take that risk, assuming that their filmmaking chops are solid enough to hold the audience. John Carpenter (in)famously violated a Thou Shalt Not at the beginning of 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13, gambling that he’d maintain a level of suspense that would make the move worthwhile. He won that gamble.

 

And goodness; the entire John Wick film series owes its longevity to a Thou Shalt Not broken in the initial 2014 entry.

 

I’m less persuaded that Ponciroli and Vukadinovich are similarly successful here, although the aforementioned wallop definitely plunges their film into much deeper waters.

 

The time is the present, in the sleepy Northeastern coastal island community of Providence (not to be confused with Rhode Island’s capital city). Rookie policeman Will (Himesh Patel) and his very pregnant wife Paige (Lily James) moved into town just three days earlier; they’re still waist-high in unpacked boxes.

 

Will dutifully reports for work on this, his first day; he’s given a brief rundown by Captain Murphy (Uzo Aduba). We’ve already seen her earlier this same morning, at home, still mourning the loss of a young child. Murphy assigns Will to a week of training with veteran cop Terry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), after which the newcomer will get his own vehicle and beat.

 

Will is an inherently honest family guy who believes in the social stabilization of moral law enforcement. Terry is an opportunistic, foul-mouthed horse’s ass who views police work as an easy path to free coffee and donuts, while rousting and threatening folks for the sheer joy of it. They have nothing in common.

 

Terry acts according to three personal rules, the first of which is, Try Not To Kill Anybody. “It gets messy,” he tells a bewildered Will. 

 

Because, really, who would need killing in a place like Providence?

The Aeronauts: Deflated flight

The Aeronauts (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang

This would have been a suspenseful adventure film in the 1950s or ’60s (allowing for the fact that the special effects technology required to make it, didn’t exist at the time).

Having just left the pomp and circumstance of their departure, scientist James Glaisher
(Eddie Redmayne) marvels at the showboating rowdiness of his aeronaut companion,
Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones).

Unfortunately, styles have changed in the intervening half-century, and director/co-scripter Tom Harper’s relentlessly (ahem) overblown approach feels clumsily retro and needlessly melodramatic. The script, co-written with Jack Thorne, also adds an aura of contrivance: quite unfortunate, as it undercuts the genuine marvel of authentic history.

Although claiming to be “inspired by a true adventure,” this film gives no indication that Eddie Redmayne’s character, James Glaisher, was a genuine 19th century meteorologist, aeronaut and astronomer. That makes his presence alongside Felicity Jones’ fictitious Amelia Wren a bit jarring, even though much of her character is based on earlier 19th century French aeronaut Sophie Blanchard.

(Blanchard died in 1819, when Glaisher was only 10 years old.)

The Aeronauts is set on Sept. 5, 1862, the date of Glaisher’s most famous ascent (actually in the company of fellow British aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell, but Jones’ Amelia Wren apparently is more cinematically pleasing). To a degree, the film takes place in real time, as the flight lasted only a couple of hours; Harper and Thorne maintain tension by intercutting this increasingly perilous action with flashbacks that shape our two lead characters, and the events that prompt their unlikely partnership.

James, a young Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, firmly believes that weather patterns can be predicted: a notion that his older colleagues find patently absurd. James insists that he can prove his theories by taking atmospheric readings at increasingly high altitudes — higher than anybody else has risen — but nobody is willing to bankroll or collaborate in such an endeavor.

Amelia, meanwhile, is a veteran aeronaut emotionally shattered by a previous flight that concluded tragically; she has withdrawn into a reclusive funk and has no intention of leaving the ground again. Her sister Antonia (Phoebe Fox) drags Amelia to a posh Meteorological Society function, where she meets James and — ultimately — is won over by his passion.

How their subsequent alliance secures financial backing is one of many details left irritatingly vague — ballooning is tremendously expensive, particularly when involving a craft of such immense size — although it seems to involve an investor played fleetingly by Robert Glenister (as Ned Chambers).

Yesterday: Got to get it into our lives!

Yesterday (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for fleeting profanity and mildly suggestive content
By Derrick Bang

Richard Curtis isn’t just wildly imaginative; he writes the sharpest flirty and snarky dialog going these days.

Having agreed to meet hyper-aggressive Hollywood agent Debra Hammer (Kate
McKinnon), Jack (Himesh Patel) is overwhelmed by the ambitious plans that she has for
a career he hasn't yet realized is within his grasp.

He’s one of very few modern film scripters who understands precisely how to replicate the rat-a-tat banter that characterized classic Hollywood romantic comedies of the late 1930s and ’40s, while also acknowledging modern touches. He has an uncanny ear for the boisterous chatter of a group dynamic, and — most crucially — he shapes even the most minor throwaway characters with equal care.

Nobody is superfluous in a Curtis screenplay; everybody has a significant part to play. Compare this to what we get from far too many of today’s lazy scripters, who focus exclusively on a given film’s stars, leaving the supporting players hanging uselessly, like clothes on a closet rack.

I hope Great Britain appreciates Curtis as a treasure — much like Hollywood’s Aaron Sorkin — because he certainly deserves such recognition.

(I also find it quite droll that one of Curtis’ most celebrated earlier assignments — given his flair for cunning discourse — was concocting escapades for Rowan Atkinson’s essentially mute Mr. Bean.)

Partnered with the equally astute Danny Boyle in the director’s chair, Curtis and co-writer Jack Barth have spun a truly delectable fantasy out of the irresistible premise that fuels Yesterday:

What if you woke up one morning, and discovered you were the only person on Earth who remembered The Beatles, and their superlative catalog of songs?

What would you do?

But that comes a bit later. Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is introduced as a struggling singer/songwriter in the tiny seaside town of Suffolk: a guy whose enthusiasm and guitar chops can’t quite compensate for mediocre lyrics and an uninspiring, working-class image. He’s just about ready to give it up, despite the fierce devotion and support of childhood best friend and de facto manager Ellie Appleton (Lily James).

Ellie also has been carrying a one-sided torch for 20 years, a blindingly obvious detail that has eluded Jack for the same period. (The notion that anybody could fail to recognize such affection from somebody who looks like Lily James stretches credibility, but we must roll with it.)