The Map that Leads to You: Ultimately preposterous

The Map that Leads to You (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, partial nudity and brief profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.1.25

Seasoned travelers possessing a healthy dose of caution and self-preservation will have a hard time with this film’s first act, during which the story’s three young American college graduates foolishly abandon carefully established plans in favor of hooking up with random hunky guys.

 

Despite postponing her return to New York by two weeks, to work on her deepening
relationship with Jack (KJ Apa), Heather (Madelyn Cline) cannot get him to be
entirely candid about himself.

I mean, what could go wrong, eh?

Heather (Madelyn Cline) is the meticulous organizer: keeper of the itinerary, and the de facto mother hen who ensures they make all their necessary connections. Connie (Sofia Wylie) is laid back and goes with the flow. Amy (Madison Thompson), reeling from a recent break-up, is a reckless idiot who forever runs late.

 

One does wonder how they’ve managed to remain friends, as they approach the final few days of a European vacation that began in Amsterdam and — when we meet them — concludes with a few days in Barcelona. 

 

Their dynamic undoubtedly is better established in Joseph Monniger’s 2017 novel, upon which this film is based; the Leslie Bohem/Vera Herbert screenplay gets off to a rushed and clumsy start. (In fairness, the trio’s strong bond is depicted better, as the story proceeds.)

 

Even so, the early meet-cute between Heather and Jack (KJ Apa) is genuinely sweet, during an overnight train to Barcelona, as they bond over identical copies of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

 

Texas-born Heather has organized this gal-pal getaway before she begins a banking career in New York City. She takes comfort in plans and predictability, likely in response to having been abandoned by her mother when 10 years old.

 

Jack charms his way into their group, bringing good friend Raef (Orlando Norman) into the mix; the latter clicks with Connie. An eye-rollingly lunatic misadventure follows, after which the story settles into its anticipated focus on Heather and Jack. He’s following in the footsteps of a European tour journal meticulously written and illustrated by his long-gone great-grandfather Russell, who embraced a free-spirited existence after barely surviving his World War II service.

 

That’s a captivating notion, and director Lasse Hallström frequently blends the live action with glimpses of Russell’s sketches, and narrated passages from the journal.

 

Jack emulates his great-grandfather’s come-what-may approach to each day, resisting Heather’s initially surprised — and soon probing — questions about his refusal to think about the future. He prefers “being present” in each moment. His affable smile and laid-back charisma notwithstanding, Jack is evasive to the point of unease. 

The Secret: Dare to Dream — Rather overstuffed

The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.14.20

I’m always wary of films that open in the celestial heavens, somewhere above Earth, and slowly swoop down through clouds to finally hover above the intended setting; it’s invariably a cue that the filmmakers want us to think what follows will be Significant.

Even for somebody (apparently) accustomed to doing good deeds for total strangers,
Bray's (Josh Lucas) ongoing willingness to help Miranda (Katie Holmes) begins to feel
a bit strange ... as if he has some ulterior motive. (Surprise: He does.)

Instead, what we usually get is cloying, affected and ponderously melodramatic: guaranteed to induce skeptical raised eyebrows and long-suffering sighs.

Director Andy Tennant’s handling of The Secret: Dare to Dream — available via Apple TV and other streaming platforms — skirts the ragged edge of such syrupy twaddle; there’s a definitely sense that we’ve been dumped into an excessively mawkish Nicholas Sparks novel. Happily, this film is saved by warmly earnest performances from Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas … even if the latter gets stuck with some wincingly corny dialogue.

Widowed single mother Miranda Wells (Holmes) works as a manager/food buyer for a family-friendly New Orleans restaurant run by Tucker (Jerry O’Connell), who clearly loves her. Alas, Miranda’s competence on the job isn’t matched by similar care given to her personal life, which is in shambles. She’s short of cash and forever late with bills; she dropped her dental insurance and now can’t afford to get a necessary root canal; and the roof leaks in her crumbling home, also badly in need of countless other minor repairs.

She endures this with the resignation of one who, to quote Marilyn Monroe, always winds up with the fuzzy end of the lollypop. Miranda is one of those people who, if she didn’t have bad luck, would have no luck at all.

She has three doting children, who nonetheless are a bit of a handful. Adolescent Greg (Aidan Pierce Brennan) shares his late father’s fascination with building gadgets; young Bess (Chloe Lee) really, really, really wants a pony. Teenage Missy (Sarah Hoffmeister) pouts constantly, knowing that her upcoming 16th birthday party will be ruined by a more popular girl hosting a party on the same day.

Enter amiable Bray Johnson (Lucas) who drives into town on a mission: to deliver the contents of a large manila envelope to Miranda, a woman he’s never met. Fate arranges a spontaneous introduction, when she accidentally rear-ends his truck while (naturally) driving carelessly. Amazingly, he isn’t angry; the front of her car took the sole damage, which he graciously offers to repair. She accepts; he follows her home.

(I know what you’re thinking, and you have a point. How many “stranger danger” scenarios like this have we seen? But this isn’t that sort of film, so you gotta just roll with it. However ludicrously unlikely it seems.)

Ford V Ferrari: Turbo-charged!

Ford V Ferrari (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.15.19

Christian Bale never ceases to amaze.

His performances are “all in” to a degree most actors couldn’t even contemplate, let alone accomplish. Nor is it merely the surface gimmick of his extreme weight losses and gains; Bale never appears to be “acting.” He simply becomesthat person, whether an industrial worker fearing for his sanity (The Machinist); a former boxer turned crack addict (The Fighter); or an ex-neurologist-turned-stock market savant suffering from Asperger syndrome (The Big Short).

Having made yet another series of adjustments, driver/engineer Ken Miles (Christian Bale,
left) prepares to test-drive their high-performance vehicle again, while designer
Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) waits apprehensively.

Or, in this case, feisty English sports car racing engineer and driver Ken Miles. Five minutes into this film, Bale ceases to exist. He is this guy. The mannerisms, posture, short temper and pugnacious attitude are wholly unlike any other character he has played, during a career that began when he was 12. 

That said, Bale’s Ken Miles is by no means defined solely by his truculence; the scenes he shares with Caitriona Balfe and Noah Jupe — also excellent, as Miles’ wife Mollie and their young son Peter — depict a kinder, gentler and loving man wholly at odds with the automotive genius who suffers fools not at all, let alone gladly.

(For the record, Bale dropped 70 pounds to play Miles, after having plumped up for Dick Cheney, in Vice.)

The notion that Bale has yet to win a Best Actor Oscar defies comprehension.

His sublime performance is far from the only high point in Ford V Ferrari, director James Mangold’s consistently absorbing, fascinating and suspenseful depiction of the American automobile company’s hare-brained, mid-1960s decision to challenge Italy’s boutique car-maker in the annual 24-hour Le Mans endurance race. Despite a running time of 152 minutes, Mangold’s film is never less than compelling … and the racing sequences are breathtaking. 

Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael and a trio of editors — Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker and Dirk Westervelt — deserve considerable applause. Sound designer Jay Wilkinson deserves an Academy Award.

Kudos, as well, to scripters Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller, for bravely tackling the corporate back-story and hijinks that led to this automotive clash. The narrative execution is never less than enthralling, to the same degree that 1976’s All the President’s Men turned plodding investigative journalism into a gripping suspense thriller.

Nor do the writers fill time with the soapy relationship melodrama relied upon by 1969’s Winning and 1971’s Le Mans. This film is cars, cars and nothing but cars … and that’s not a bad thing. If you’re not a racing fan prior to seeing Ford V Ferrari, you certainly will be 152 minutes later.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Sloppy defense

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) • View trailer for The Lincoln Lawyer
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, violence and sexual content
By Derrick Bang 


Matthew McConaughey is perfectly cast as novelist Michael Connelly’s cocky defense attorney, Mick Haller, and John Romano’s screenplay is impressively faithful to the novel of the same title.

No surprise there. Connelly’s engaging book — the sort of page-turning pot-boiler one loves to have while flying across the country — reads like a film script.

Although the charges against Beverly Hills playboy Louis Roulet (Ryan
Phillippe, right) are grim, resourceful defense attorney Mick Haller (Matthew
McConaughey) has several tricks up his sleeve. But even Haller is destined to
be surprised, as this case spins off in a few unpredictable directions.

Unfortunately, director Brad Furman does the project no favors. His bombastic, exploitative approach adds an air of overwrought cheesiness to these proceedings, and he too frequently allows his characters to stand and declaim in the manner of first-year drama students. As a result, McConaughey’s performance is wildly uneven: gritty and persuasive at one moment, laughably over the top at other times.

And Furman may be the first director to encourage or tolerate sloppy work from the usually exceptional William H. Macy.

Not that we should be surprised. Pedigree always tells, and Furman’s only previous big-screen credit is 2007’s trashy armored car heist flick, The Take: reasonably diverting as a junky, made-for-cable quickie, but nothing to write home about. And while The Lincoln Lawyer, as a property, certainly represents a step up for Furman, he doesn’t rise to the occasion. I kept wishing Connelly had been able to hold out for a better director.

Casting is another problem. The first major chunk of Connelly’s novel is a classic mystery, with respect to who did what to whom, before this information is revealed and Haller subsequently winds up with a whole new set of problems. Alas, that tantalizing puzzle is blown practically from the moment we meet all the major players in this movie, because the actor in question couldn’t look more guilty if he wore a sign around his neck. To a degree, that’s because this actor always looks like a smug, arrogant bastard ... but, again, Furman could have tried harder to conceal the obvious.

Haller is introduced while plying his trade in his “office,” which happens to be the back seat of his Lincoln Continental sedan, invariably driven by streetwise colleague Earl (Laurence Mason, appropriately cool). Connelly’s book explains this intriguing affectation, but Furman can’t be bothered with such details, so audience members are left to wonder why Haller can’t afford a proper office environment.

That aside, Haller is quite willing to work with social misfits, whether members of a rough-trade biker gang or hookers struggling with a drug habit. For the most part, though, Haller demands regular visits from “Mr. Green” ... which is to say, suitable payment for services rendered.