Confess, Fletch: Hamm on wry

Confess, Fletch (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R for profanity, sexual content and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.28.22

Well, this is a nice surprise.

 

Beloved literary characters rarely get a second chance, if their debut leap to the big screen is sabotaged by arrogant studio execs catering to the whims of a Hot Star Of The Moment.

 

Fletch (Jon Hamm) isn't quite sure what to make of the larger-than-life Countess
Sylvia de Grassi (Marcia Gay Harden), particularly since she's apt to become his
future mother-in-law.

Exhibit A: Author Lawrence Block’s gentleman cat burglar/detective, Bernie Rhodenbarr, who became Bernice when Whoopi Goldberg wound up starring in 1987’s absolutely dreadful Burglar. No surprise, Bernie’s subsequent adventures have remained within the safe confines of two covers.

The late and greatly lamented Sue Grafton, author of the beloved Kinsey Milhone “alphabet mysteries,” famously refused to entertain any sort of screen adaptation. She knew full well, having worked in Hollywood earlier in her career, how often a property gets ruined by meddling hands determined to “improve” a writer’s work.

 

At first blush, Chevy Chase seemed an ideal choice as Gregory McDonald’s rogue investigative journalist, Irwin Maurice Fletcher, and 1985’s Fletch was tolerable. But the deplorable 1989 sequel succumbed to Chase’s disguise-overkill vanity, and the character subsequently languished in development hell.

 

Until now.

 

Jon Hamm is spot-on as Fletch, radiating grizzled charm and just enough snark; his comic timing is well-suited to this amusing script’s many cheeky, insubordinate and downright smart-assed one-liners. 

 

Director Greg Mottola, admired ever since 2009’s under-appreciated Adventureland, has just the right touch for this material. He and co-scripter Zev Borow simplified the book a bit, and introduced some different supporting characters, but all essential plot points are in place; in several cases, they even retained McDonald’s dialogue.

 

The story opens in Rome, where Fletch has become engaged to the voluptuous Angela de Grassi (Lorenza Izzo), whose father has been kidnapped; the ransom demand is a Picasso from the Count’s famed art collection. Unfortunately, other parties unknown have stolen the entire collection, which leaves Angela frantic. 

 

She asks Fletch to liaise with an art broker in Boston, where the Picasso is rumored to have surfaced. He duly flies to Boston, arriving late in the evening; he walks into the apartment Angela has arranged for his stay … and finds a dead woman in the living room.

 

Fletch duly calls the police — an amusing conversation that sets the tone for what will follow — and soon finds himself in the cynical cross-hairs of Inspector Morris Monroe (Roy Wood Jr.) and his recently minted partner, Griz (Ayden Mayeri).

 

(Morris is a replacement for the book’s Inspector Flynn, who is missed … but no matter.)

 

Fifty Shades of Grey: Colorless

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for strong sexual content, profanity and considerable nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.13.15

While it’s certainly true that this film is better than the atrociously written book on which it’s based, that’s damning with very faint praise.

Because this film still is a stinker.

Hunky gazillionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) makes Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) an
offer she absolutely should refuse: to become his "submissive" during a brief "relationship"
that he promises won't include love. Hey, it's every girl's dream, right?

Dakota Johnson is reasonably persuasive as Anastasia Steele, the naïve, freshly minted college graduate who enters a web of sexual sin with a blend of curiosity, wariness and endearing, flirty innocence. Kelly Marcel’s screenplay also makes Ana smarter and spunkier than the dim-bulb imbecile of E.L. James’ so-called novel, who constantly talked and behaved as if she were 21 going on 12.

But Jamie Dornan is a total joke as billionaire, super-stud businessman Christian Grey. Dornan couldn’t act his way out of a snowball in hell; he actually makes Keanu Reeves look talented. Dornan is as uncomfortable in this role as his Grey is in his impeccably tailored clothes: stiff, awkward and wholly unconvincing.

Dornan’s line readings are the stuff of acting workshop nightmares ... although, in fairness, I’m not sure anybody could breathe credible life into this wooden dialogue.

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has precisely two tricks up her sleeve, and she uses both to wretched excess: constant tight-tight-tight close-ups on her two stars, and instructions that they deliver every word with breathy, clipped, arched-eyebrow hesitation. Both affectations are the stuff of turgid afternoon TV soap operas, a level to which this film constantly sinks.

An over-reliance on tight close-ups minimizes a story’s sense of time and place; it’s also boring. Most significantly, it denotes a director who doesn’t trust her cast, the theory being that (for example) it’s easier for Dornan to emote if cinematographer Seamus McGarvey moves his camera close enough for us to count the pores on Christian Grey’s cheeks.

That’s the trouble with theories: Not all of them turn out to be true.

Taylor-Johnson has only one previous feature film to her credit: Nowhere Boy, 2009’s thoughtful biography of John Lennon’s early years. It’s leagues better than this dull, turgid, over-hyped and under-delivering mess.

Magic in the Moonlight: A cute little trick

Magic in the Moonlight (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for fleeting sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Every year, like clockwork, Monarch butterflies return to Pacific Grove; Punxsutawney citizens await the arrival (or no-show) of their famed groundhog; surfers brave “the most dangerous waves in the world” during Half Moon Bay’s Mavericks Competition; and Woody Allen makes another movie.

Stanley (Colin Firth) doesn't believe in Sophie's (Emma Stone) claimed powers of
clairvoyance: not for a moment. But his debunking skills get nowhere with this charming
young American, and soon he begins to doubt: Could she be the completely genuine
spiritualist that the 1920s world has clamored to find?

The man is amazing; he hasn’t missed a year since 1981 ... and he compensated with two films in 1987.

An output that prodigious can’t help delivering mixed results, and even Allen’s staunchest fans will acknowledge that his crowd- and critic-pleasing smash hits — 2011’s Midnight in Paris being the most recent — are vastly outnumbered by quieter, smaller charmers (Scoop, To Rome with Love) and the occasional stinker (Anything Else).

Magic in the Moonlight belongs to the middle camp. It’s a modest little rom-com that feels like a mash-up of P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie: a flapper-era bit of froth set in the south of France, replete with upper-class twits, social climbers and a central mystery that becomes more provocative by the minute.

Actually, Allen’s cheeky, dialogue-heavy script would make a marvelous play; aside from a few of cinematographer Darius Khondji’s luxurious overviews of the opulent Riviera, the action is confined to just a few locales that easily could be reproduced and/or conveyed on a theater stage. On top of which, the story’s second-act kicker would be a bravura delight, live and in person.

Not to mention how much more fun Allen’s razor-sharp verbal duels would be, delivered by actors declaiming mere yards in front of a rapt audience.

But I certainly don’t mean to downplay this project’s equally droll enticements on the big screen, many of which spring from the feisty banter between stars Colin Firth and Emma Stone.

Firth is all but unrecognized at first glimpse, in his “professional” persona as Chinese conjuror Wei Ling Soo, the most celebrated magician of his age. The film opens on a typical performance, highlighted by his famed vanishing elephant trick, and his eye-popping de-materialization from a closed sarcophagus to a chair, visible at all times, at the opposite end of the stage.

Off-stage, though, the magician strips off the robes and make-up to reveal Stanley Crawford, a grouchy, arrogant Englishman with the snooty, insulting manner of an aristocratic boor: a man with absolutely no friends — well, maybe one or two — and a cold-fish fiancée who seems to respect rather than love him.

Firth has a marvelous time with Stanley’s waspish put-downs and supercilious bearing; he’s so cheekily condescending that we can’t help admiring the man’s pompous elocution.

Whip It: A true whip-snorter

Whip It (2009) • View trailer for Whip It
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity, drug references and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.1.09
Buy DVD: Whip It• Buy Blu-Ray: Capitalism: Whip It [Blu-ray]


OK, this is the most fun you can have on eight wheels.

Drew Barrymore makes a smashing directorial debut with Whip It, one of the best misfit underdog sagas in recent memory ... and mind you, we've seen quite a few lately.

Having earned a nickname -- Babe Ruthless -- and a place on the Hurl Scouts
roller derby team, Bliss (Ellen Page, center) prepares for a competitive move
with the assistance of teammates Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore, left)
and Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig).

The highly entertaining roller derby-oriented drama is deftly adapted by author and former Los Angeles Derby Doll Shauna Cross from her own novel, which just landed on my must-read pile. The reason: Given the pains Cross takes to flesh out every character in this script, her book must be even better.

In fairness, Barrymore and the cast also deserve a lot of credit. Rarely will you find so many parts filled so perfectly, and casting directors Justine Baddeley and Kim Davis-Wagner deserve a standing ovation of their own. Consider: Once our mousy young heroine decides to re-invent herself as a roller-skating, bad-ass wannabe, who else but Juliette Lewis should play the snarling skate-babe who causes the most grief?

More than anything else, though, Barrymore and star Ellen Page — delivering even more on the promise she showed in Hard Candy and Juno — are to be congratulated for playing straight with a subject that invites the same reflexive howls of derision usually reserved for TV wrestling bouts. The "sport" of roller derby, generally little more than a punchline, certainly didn't gain any respect in the wake of the only other high-profile Hollywood production that leaps to mind, 1972's hilariously inept Kansas City Bomber. (Raquel Welch on skates. What more need be said?)

Barrymore and Cross obviously intended to change that perception, and they succeed with a heart-tugging first act that makes us embrace all the key players before roller skates are even seen, let alone worn.

Page stars as 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, a shy and introverted girl whose life in the truck-stop town of Bodeen, Texas, swings between two ghastly extremes: waitressing at the Oink Joint, home of "The Squealer" — a massive sandwich that remains free of charge for any diner able to consume it in less than 3 minutes — and dressing up in cotillion-style gowns to please her beauty pageant-obsessed mother, Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden), who dreams of seeing the Miss Blue Bonnet Pageant crown on her elder daughter's head.

No doubt about it: Life is hell.

There are compensations. Bliss' easy-going father (Daniel Stern, as Earl) is the laid-back yin to her mother's uptight yang, and he has a few surprises buried within his still waters. In a film laden with sweet moments, one of the best is a father/daughter chat that occurs after Bliss discovers one of Earl's best-kept secrets: a revelation that is sweet in its own right.