Jackie: A fascinating character portrait undone by directorial excess

Jackie (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and brief strong violence
By Derrick Bang

A few iconic women have become popular staples in Hollywood dramas; consider the number of actresses, over the years, who’ve portrayed Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe.

Having decided upon a lavish funeral procession that she feels will suitably honor her
late husband, Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) suddenly has last-minute doubts,
which she shares with brother-in-law Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard).

And, more recently, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

Previous Jackies have been played by Blair Brown, Jacqueline Bisset and Katie Holmes, none of whom comes close to the ferocious intensity and shattered vulnerability depicted here by Natalie Portman. Her performance is so painfully raw that, more than once, we feel like uncomfortable voyeurs, intruding on a grief-stricken woman’s privacy during the worst few days of her life.

Portman’s starring role is by far the best part of Jackie, which marks the mainstream American debut of famed Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. His approach is known to be uncompromising, with a grim, take-no-prisoners approach certain to raise eyebrows ... or, in some cases, unapologetically offend.

Many viewers will feel that he has done the latter here.

Noah Oppenheim’s script is unusual, even challenging, in its depiction of Jackie Kennedy during the turbulent few days immediately following her husband’s death: specifically, from the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, to the massive funeral and procession that took place the following Monday morning. The details in between unfold in a blur of flashbacks and cross-cutting, Larraín and Oppenheim deftly conveying the confusion and shock that followed this national tragedy.

Jackie essentially tells her own story via a series of narrative devices: during a lengthy — and at times quite brittle — interview with a never-named journalist (Billy Crudup), who does his best to suss out the “real” Jackie; during a confessional conversation with a priest (John Hurt) just prior to the state funeral; and during anguished conversations with the only two people she trusts, U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard) and White House social secretary Nancy Tuckerman (Greta Gerwig).

These revelatory exchanges are blended further with re-created clips from the TV special A Tour of the White House, with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, hosted by CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood, and broadcast on Feb. 14, 1962: the first-ever First Lady-led, televised tour of the White House — Jackie recently having renovated and restored the mansion — which was seen by 80 million viewers in 50 countries.

The latter sequences — given fuzzy, black-and-white authenticity by cinematographer Stépane Fontaine — show an entirely different Jackie: nervous, stiff, camera shy but determined to share (and justify) the $2 million spent to bring this presidential palace back to its original luster.

It’s also the narrative touch that establishes the film’s theme. Jackie clearly viewed that TV special as emblematic of her legacy as First Lady, just as she obsesses over details — immediately following the President’s assassination — in order to  properly preserve his legacy.

Snowpiercer: Full steam ahead!

Snowpiercer (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, extreme violence and gore, and drug content
By Derrick Bang

South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho came to my attention in early 2007, with the Stateside release of The Host, a taut, eye-popping monster flick that blended savvy political commentary with impressive levels of tension and excitement ... and more than a little dark-dark-dark humor.

Having captured Mason (Tilda Swinton, center) and made her their unwilling guide, Curtis
(Chris Evans, left) makes her lead the way as his desperate band moves from one train
car to the next, never certain of what they'll find beyond each new door.

Ho delivers the same mix with Snowpiercer, with a notable upgrade: While portions of The Host reflected the naturalistic, guerrilla-style filmmaking of a modest budget, this new film is an A-list production all the way. It looks spectacular in every respect, and is further enhanced by a top-quality cast of familiar faces from both American and South Korean cinema.

The grim, cautionary nature of Ho’s storytelling hasn’t diminished; he remains convinced that humanity doesn’t deserve the planetary paradise on which we reside. Give us half a chance, and we’ll screw it up. The horrific creature that wreaked havoc in The Host was spawned by arrogant Americans who polluted South Korea’s Han River with dangerous chemicals; the post-apocalyptic events in Snowpiercer result from our “brilliant” attempt to reverse the effects of global warming.

I’m reminded of the conversations known to have taken place prior to the initial atomic bomb tests in the 1940s — attributed to either or both Edward Teller and J. Robert Oppenheimer, depending on the source — and which explored the possibility that even a single bomb might ignite Earth’s atmosphere via a fusion reaction, and thus destroy the world. Such fears notwithstanding, Those In Charge pulled the switch, and I guess we can conclude that God (and Mother Nature) watched over us that day.

Luck isn’t with us this time. The essential back-story unfolds during a quick montage prologue, as news reports discuss the dispersal of a chemical agent designed to reverse the effects of global warming. We may well imagine a similar cautionary conversation about unintended consequences, but no matter: This switch also is pulled, perhaps just as recklessly, and the results are miraculous. At first.

Until the entire planet is plunged into a lethal ice age, destroying all life.

But this catastrophic result wasn’t instantaneous; time allowed a microcosm of humanity to be saved on board a sleek, lengthy train originally designed as the ultimate, self-contained vacation vehicle for rich tourists wanting to circumnavigate the globe. Now transformed into a futuristic Noah’s Ark, there’s just one problem: Seventeen years have passed, and there’s still no safe place to “land.”

The train races around the world, its nickname derived from the pointed “snout” and high-tech engines and gyroscopic computers that allow it to blast through the frequent snowdrifts and frozen ice that block the track.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Whac-A-Mole

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, and too harshly, for brief violence, occasional profanity and eyeblink nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.6.12


If your theater of choice offers the faux “classified dossier” of notes, characters and background information on this film, I strongly suggest you grab a copy.

You’ll need it.

Better still, arrive at least 10 minutes early, so you’ll have plenty of time to study the bloody thing.

Never underestimate the value of an employee who has been recently sacked:
Smiley (Gary Oldman, right) questions former MI6 duty officer Jerry Westerby
(Stephen Graham), while Smiley's younger associate, Peter Guillam (Benedict
Cumberbatch) watches the master at work. The issue at hand: Did a field
operative actually send a message during a crucial operation, or was that a lie?

Although scripters Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan have done an impressive job of condensing John Le Carré’s massive, genre-breaking spy novel, the drawback is a sense of having been dropped smack into the middle of an extremely complicated story.

O’Connor, Straughan and director Tomas Alfredson simply assume that we’ll be able to pick up what we need to know, concerning roughly a dozen characters, as the film progresses. This already difficult task is further complicated by a raft of flashbacks, often arriving without warning; heck, we don’t even learn that this is 1973, until a ways into the unfolding plot.

Nor is that all; we’re also expected to understand British Cold War politics and immediately grasp the internecine squabbling that infects the upper-echelon members of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, reasonably well known by spy buffs as MI6, but here always code-named “the Circus.”

Ah, yes: That’s another thing. This story is rife with jargon, and not simply the terms and code names given field agents or their operations. You’ll need to grasp the purposes of lamplighters, scalphunters, wranglers and shoemakers, suss the distinction between mothers and debs, and understand the differing responsibilities of ferrets, housekeepers and janitors.

Mind you, I eat this stuff up, and O’Connor and Straughan work hard to make things clear in context. But much as I enjoyed the Machiavellian maneuvering among the characters played by this sublimely talented cast, this is a film that only die-hard Anglophiles could love ... and even they would be well advised to have read Le Carré’s book first.

More than anything else, Alfredson captures the grim atmosphere of despair that permeates Le Carré’s novel: the bleak misery of a working environment where trust is a fickle commodity at best, and loyalty often is for sale to the highest bidder. The people at the Circus can’t have normal relationships; by definition, they always worry about motivation and deception.

Establishing this unsettling, unstable mood is what Alfredson does best, as he demonstrated so well with the intriguingly inverted “vampire dynamics” of Let the Right One In (the Swedish version). We’re uneasy at all times, worried that our central character — veteran agent George Smiley, played with thoughtful precision by Gary Oldman — will make a fatal mistake while pursuing the clandestine assignment with which he has been charged.

And “fatal” covers a lot of territory, as well. In this world, disgrace and dishonor are far worse than mere death.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army -- A bit tarnished

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) • View trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and considerable action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.08
Buy DVD: Hellboy II: The Golden Army • Buy Blu-Ray: Hellboy II: The Golden Army [Blu-ray]


Back when he made 2004's Hellboy, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro was a star on the rise, known primarily in this country for an obscure (but quite imaginative) 1997 horror flick, Mimic, and 2002's stylish but otherwise forgettable second entry in Wesley Snipes' Blade series.

And you think you're having a bad day? Our misfit heroes — from left,
protoplasmic mystic Johann Krauss, aquatic empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones),
reformed demon Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and pyrokinetic Liz Sherman (Selma
Blair) — reluctantly prepare for a last stand against 4,900 massive robot
warriors of death.

Arthouse patrons also had some exposure to del Toro, thanks to 2001's wonderfully moody ghosts-in-an-orphanage saga, The Devil's Backbone.

What a difference four years makes.

Today, deservedly riding the enormous success of Pan's Labyrinth, del Toro has used his enhanced prestige to rebound with — no, not another adult chiller in the mold of his Academy Award darling — a second crack at one of his favorite comic book characters.

Yep, Hellboy is back, in Hellboy II: The Golden Army ... but as far as del Toro's career is concerned, this sequel is a backwards step.

I don't fault the intent: Unlike too many stuffy Americans, del Toro is an unapologetic pop culture junkie, and that's commendable. (Del Toro's movie and comic book collection has grown so huge that he had to purchase a second house just to store it.)

And, like some of the more talented writers and artists toiling in the comic book medium these days, del Toro understands that these four-color adventures can be tailored for older audiences. I just wish del Toro had matched this new film's rich, imaginative and eye-popping visuals with a similarly strong and engaging script.

Granted, comic book writer/artist Mike Mignola's Hellboy — Mignola co-wrote this film's script with del Toro — remains a singularly fascinating protagonist.

Actually a demon spawned in hell and brought to Earth as an infant by WWII-era Nazis seeking any means to defeat the Allies — honestly, you gotta love this character's backstory — Hellboy was rescued by the good guys and raised to protect mankind from the occasional paranormal assault or underworld invasion.

His efforts remain under the radar, thanks to the belief by his government "handlers" that ordinary folks might have trouble getting cuddly with a horned red creature sporting a tail, a (literally) sledgehammer right hand and a snarky attitude ... even if he does adore kittens.

By necessity, then, Hellboy's good deed-doing has remained clandestine, as the head bad-ass for the top-top-secret Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, where he's joined by several other misfit agents. All are "chaperoned" by long-suffering government wonk Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor, always a hoot as a fussy bureaucrat).

Think Men in Black, but with a so-ugly-he's-cute hero instead of handsome fellas in three-piece suits.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Magic Kingdom

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) • View trailer
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for action violence and a few grody death scenes
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.23.08
Buy DVD: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull • Buy Blu-Ray: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [Blu-ray]

Two decades have passed since 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but if it really took this long for George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford to be satisfied with the script for Indy's long-awaited fourth film adventure, the gestation time has been well-spent.

After breaking free from their captors, Mutt (Shia LaBeouf, left), Indy (Harrison
Ford) and Marion (Karen Allen) commandeer a truck and crash through the
Peruvian jungle, determined to catch up to the Soviet villains who've abducted
a friend and a priceless relic that supposedly has extraordinary powers.

David Koepp's screenplay is all things to all people: It properly respects the fans and acknowledges Indy's roots while examining — and gently spoofing — the character through an entirely fresh set of (youthful) eyes. That aside, one also must be impressed by a script that covers everything from atomic bomb test sites and the 1950s communist witch hunt to Area 51, Peru's Nazca lines and Erich von Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods."

Toss in a marvelously fiendish villain with an unstoppable man-mountain sidekick, and the result is a welcome return to the light-hearted, thrill-a-minute exploits found in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ... absent the many mistakes that so badly compromised the original trilogy's middle entry, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

So, the heck with those who may have worried that Indy — and Harrison Ford — were past their prime; when Lucas and Spielberg are at the top of their game, as they are here, movie lovers are in great hands.

I suspect even today's jaded, "show me" teens will be impressed by several sequences.

After an eyeblink credits sequence that makes droll sport of the Paramount studio logo, the story kicks into gear as a kidnapped Indy (Ford) and new sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) are dragged to a setting that can't help making fans smile: the never-officially titled "warehouse" where the Ark of the Covenant was placed for storage, at the conclusion of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The year is 1957, and a new set of Soviet enemies — led by the icy-cold Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) — wants one carefully crated item from this massive storage facility.

At the end of Raiders, we only got a glimpse of this warehouse's labyrinthine interior. This time around, Koepp and Spielberg take us inside and stage the first action sequence within its walls.

What can I say? It's fan-geek heaven.

Although he survives this first skirmish, Indy isn't able to prevent Spalko from escaping with the coveted item. This creates problems back at Marshall College, where FBI agents — annoyed by the way Indy "helped" Soviet spies infiltrate a U.S. military base — question our hero's loyalty and order him removed from his teaching position. Longtime friend and colleague Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) resigns in protest, but it does no good: Indy has lost his ability to teach, the one thing he loves best.

The only solution: to find Spalko, recover the missing whatzis and clear his name.

Mere child's play, for the whip-wielding hero who makes all his moves to John Williams' stirring orchestral fanfares.