12 Mighty Orphans: Touchdown!

12 Mighty Orphans (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, profanity and suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.18.21

This seems to be the season for inspirational, fact-based underdog stories, and we’ve got another good one.

 

Indeed, I’m surprised it took so long for this astonishing saga to hit the big screen.

 

As a meager few spectators watch, coach Rusty Russell (Luke Wilson, left),
Doc Hall (Martin Sheen, right) and a dispirited Snoggs (Jacob Lofland) contemplate
the disaster unfolding on the football field.

Director Ty Roberts’ heartfelt adaptation of author/sportswriter Jim Dent’s mesmerizing 2008 nonfiction book may be the ultimate underdog saga, given its Depression-era setting.

Events begin when Rusty Russell (Luke Wilson), his wife Juanita (Vinessa Shaw) and their little daughter Betty (Josie Fink) drive onto the grounds of the Fort Worth Masonic Widows and Orphans Home. Rusty has just become the institution’s head football coach: a significant step down from his previous successful position at Temple High School, and a decision made even stranger by the fact that Fort Worth Masonic doesn’t have a football team.

 

Heck, it doesn’t even have a football field: merely an open stretch of gravel, rocks and grass occupied by scrawny goats.

 

(The actual Russell had a good reason for this apparently rash and impulsive decision: a crucial detail poorly hinted at, in the otherwise solid script by Roberts, Lane Garrison and Kevin Meyer. Brief and vague flashbacks to Russell’s WWI trench experience aren’t sufficient.)

 

The challenge seems insurmountable, given that most of the older boys — the few with any potential, only 12 of whom qualify — are as scrawny as the aforementioned goats. They’re also an unkempt, ill-mannered and under-education bunch, with a tendency to quarrel and fight each other. That’s particularly true of the newest arrival, Hardy Brown (Jake Austin Walker), delivered — his clothes ominously covered in fresh blood — by the local sheriff.

 

Most of the other boys go by nicknames: Snoggs (Jacob Lofland), Wheatie (Slade Monroe), Fairbanks (Levi Dylan) and so forth.

 

Their belligerence and uncooperative natures aside, the enormity of Rusty’s endeavor becomes clear when the field is cleared for the first practice. He expected the absence of anything resembling uniforms, but the boys don’t even have shoes. Nor is there a football, so Juanita and Betty improvise a substitute.

 

Despite all this, Rusty remains hopeful; he senses an inner spirit, a yearning for pride, waiting to be nurtured. He understands that those who have nothing, and are given an opportunity to amount to something, will fight like hell to embrace and retain it.

 

Zombieland: Double Tap — Bloody good fun

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for strong bloody violence, relentless profanity, drug use and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang 

Director Ruben Fleischer made an impressive big-screen feature debut with 2009’s Zombieland, applying his snarky sense of humor — honed by television work alongside Jimmy Kimmel and Zach Galifianakis — to an equally outrageous script from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

Temporarily without wheels, and now saddled with the bubble-brained Madison (Zoey
Deutch, far left), our heroes — from left, Wichita (Emma Stone), Columbus (Jesse
Eisenberg) and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) — ponder their next move.

They also were blessed by an impressive cast, although that wasn’t entirely obvious at the time: Woody Harrelson (one Oscar nomination, two more to come); Abigail Breslin (still riding high on her Oscar nomination for Little Miss Sunshine); Jesse Eisenberg (not yet a breakout star, one Oscar nomination to come); and Emma Stone (also not yet noticed, with a Best Actress Oscar to come).

The result was an outrageously tasteless and frequently hilarious take on the whole zombie phenomenon: a thoroughly successful American response to Britain’s equally outré Shaun of the Dead.

Indeed, Zombieland was so successful that it begged for a sequel … but then, well, Eisenberg and Stone became rather famous. And quite busy.

So here we are, a full decade later, and the question is obvious: Can lightning strike again, after so much time has passed?

Answer: certainly.

Mind you, we’re talking about an “out there” level of success. This franchise is a guilty pleasure at best, thanks to a mutilated and blood-splattered level of gore commonly associated with George Romero’s more serious — and similarly gruesome — Living Dead entries. The faint of heart and easily offended are advised to steer veryclear.

As for the rest of us … what can I say? We have sick minds. (I make no apologies.)

The same period of story time has passed for veteran zombie hunters Tallahassee (Harrelson), Columbus (Eisenberg), Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin). They’ve set up housekeeping in the White House, where its priceless historical relics are treated with varying degrees of respect or contempt. The quartet occasionally ventures outside to hone essential survival skills, by blasting, slicing, dicing and stomping modest staggers of zombies.

Eisenberg once again supplies necessary back-story and running voice-over commentary in Columbus’ insufferably nerdy (but always amusing) manner, while reminding us of the inexhaustible list of rules that have kept their little gang alive: Limber up, to prepare for the inevitable running away; the Buddy System, to watch your back; the Double Tap, because one shouldn’t be stingy with bullets; and — most important — Never be afraid to ask (scream) for help.

While Columbus enthusiastically reminds us of these essential commandments, they also appear on-screen via playful text animation: a sight gag that never gets tired.

Brad's Status: On life-support

Brad's Status (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Inevitability is the death of drama.

Ten minutes into Brad’s Status, it’s blindingly obvious where writer/director Mike White will take his story, and precisely how he’ll get there.

Brad (Ben Stiller, right) and his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), time their visit to Harvard so
they can catch a classical music concert by one of the latter's former high school friends.

And that journey is pretty damn dull.

Mind you, the premise would have been a tough sell, even under more optimal circumstances. A middle-class, mid-life crisis feels unpalatably narcissistic these days, and casting Ben Stiller in such a project is way too on the nose. Much of his career has involved playing self-absorbed mopes, and this story’s Brad Sloan finds Stiller treading his own well-worn ground.

A 101-minute self-pity party isn’t my idea of a good time. Particularly when White’s plot bumps are so predictable.

Brad and his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) lead comfortable lives in suburban Sacramento; he runs a nonprofit that matches worthy causes with like-minded angel investors, while she pulls in “real money” with a government job. Their 17-year-old only child Troy (Austin Abrams) is college-bound, prompting a father/son trip across the country, to check out the universities likely to extend offers on the basis of the lad’s strong transcript and solid extracurriculars.

It’s a milestone event for Brad, which triggers all sorts of memories, long-buried desires and Big Questions. Am I successful? Have I done everything in life, that my impassioned, idealistic college-age self intended?

Trouble is, White saddles Brad with some rather insensitive dialogue right off the bat, during the sleepless night before the trip, in the form of a financially themed chat with the patiently exhausted Melanie. Right away, we don’t like Brad. He sounds and behaves like a whiny jerk, and Stiller never does much to change that snap judgment.

Which is a problem, because we’re definitely supposed to identify — even sympathize — with this guy. That’s an uphill struggle, likely impossible for some.

Matters aren’t helped when Brad constantly shares his innermost thoughts, via a constant sulky voice-over. I’ve long found unrelenting off-camera narration a potential red flag in cinematic storytelling; very few writers and directors know how to use it properly. White isn’t one of them; the technique merely slows his already dull fill to a lifeless crawl.

Concussion: Grim reality check

Concussion (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.24.15

Great movie entrances are pure magic.

Consider George C. Scott’s eyebrow-raising pep talk, at the opening of Patton. John Travolta, strutting down the street, in Saturday Night  Fever. Or, more recently, Christian Bale’s meticulous “suiting up” and comb-over, in American Hustle. Everything you need to know about each of these characters, in one quick scene.

When renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes (Alec Baldwin, center) finally gains an
audience with veteran NFL doctor Joseph Maroon (Arliss Howard, right), Dr. Bennet
Omalu (Will Smith) is enraged to hear that his meticulous research into brain injuries
is being dismissed. With prejudice.

Writer/director Peter Landesman grants Will Smith’s Dr. Bennet Omalu a similarly illuminating entrance, as Concussion begins. It’s a courtroom confrontation; Omalu has taken the stand to testify; his credentials have been challenged. In a bravura display of gentle chiding, unassuming pride and a droll insistence on full disclosure — leavened with an oh-so-slightly-mocking sense of humor — Omalu takes complete control of the room.

It’s a brilliant display of acting chops by Smith, who — from this moment onward — firmly has our hearts and minds. We’ve learned everything essential about this doctor, mostly crucially that he is a good and honorable man. That he respects the dignity of others, and insists — in turn — that they respect him.

The scene is marvelous: destined to become a much-viewed YouTube hit.

And, of course, the perfect way for Landesman to start his film.

Concussion, based on journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas’ exhaustive September 2009 exposé in GQ Magazine, charts Omalu’s initially lonely and Sisyphean struggle to get the National Football League to acknowledge that grown men bashing their heads together, even when wearing the (minimal) protection afforded by a helmet, likely isn’t good for their grey matter.

Indeed, far from “not good.” Potentially life-altering, even deadly.

Sensible people, confronted with such a suggestion, would nod and say, “Well, of course; what else would you expect?”

But the NFL circled the wagons, sent out the lawyers, and — possibly — pulled strings in Washington, D.C., to thoroughly discredit anybody daft enough to suggest such a thing. We’re talking football, folks: the one thing in Amuuurica capable of generating more foolish passion than the right for each citizen to own 437 guns.

But that’s getting ahead of things.

Henry Poole is Here: Whimsical fantasy

Henry Poole Is Here (2008) • View trailer for Henry Poole Is Here
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.15.08
Buy DVD: Henry Poole Is Here • Buy Blu-Ray: Henry Poole Is Here [Blu-ray]

The quiet, unshaven man, some unknown sorrow weighing him down like the chains binding Marley's ghost, pays cash for the dilapidated, cookie-cutter house in a drab, middle-class Los Angeles neighborhood.

He moves in with minimal furniture, closes all the drapes and pulls all the blinds, and withdraws into a subsistence diet of doughnuts, pizza and alcohol. He wants only to be left alone.

Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) only wants to be left alone, and he naively believes
that retreating within his own house will afford that level of privacy. Imagine
his chagrin, then, when the house itself has other ideas...

God — fate, karma, whatever — has other plans.

Henry Poole Is Here is a quiet little treasure: a rare movie that treats faith, hope and religious conviction with a dignity too frequently absent on the big screen. Director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies) and writer Albert Torres, making an impressive big-screen scripting debut, deliver a tender, character-driven drama that at times feels very much like 2005's Millions, an equally delicate British film that confronted Earth-bound miracles with a similar compassion.

Pellington's film is unhurried and expectant, much like its central character. The atmosphere and approach are wholly unlike this director's previous films and TV work — notably half a dozen episodes of Cold Case — which tended to be exploitative and amped-up. Not all directors can so successfully alter their approach to fit the material, but Pellington certainly does so here; he's perfectly content to let Torres' narrative unfold at its own measured pace.

The result is painfully intimate — far more authentic than any so-called "reality" project, such as the laughably unpersuasive American Teen — as if we were eavesdropping on this man at the worst possible moment.

At the risk of sounding like a soapbox lecturer, this once again demonstrates the degree to which scripted drama — which is to say, fiction — can feel far more real than staged and hokey "documentaries."

The title character, Henry, is played by Luke Wilson at his mopey, disheveled best. The actor keeps his usual smugness and smart mouth corked (or Pellington does), instead delivering a carefully modulated less-is-more performance. Henry dresses so sloppily, tends to himself so badly, that at first blush he could be mistaken for a street person ... but even a casual glimpse into his eyes reveals intelligence, pain and something else. Betrayal? Anger?

Answers come slowly.

Henry has purchased this house, in this neighborhood, because it's close to the house in which he grew up. That one, sadly, wasn't on the market; instead, he contents himself with occasionally staring at it from across the street. Aside from these visits, and his equally brief sallies to a nearby grocery store, he tries to remain indoors.