All the Money in the World ... can't guarantee a perfect film

All the Money in the World (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, violence and drug use
By Derrick Bang

This film’s Christmas Day release couldn’t be more appropriate: Rarely has a real-world individual been depicted in a manner so reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge.

Invitation to catastrophe: Gail (Michelle Williams) and her husband John (Andrew Buchan,
right) assume that being embraced by his father, J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer)
will be the best possible thing for their family, and particularly for their eldest child Paul
(Charlie Shotwell). How wrong they are...

Although All the Money in the World draws its stomach-clenching suspense from the uncertain fate endured by its young victim, director Ridley Scott’s film gets most of its juice from Christopher Plummer’s mesmerizing portrayal of billionaire J. Paul Getty: an avaricious, repugnant monster whose breathtakingly awful behavior knows no bounds.

Indeed, each example of cruelty is topped by one that’s much worse. We’re frequently inclined to believe that scripter David Scarpa fabricated this or that jaw-droppingly ludicrous detail ... but no. Getty really was that stingy and parsimonious, particularly with family members, and Plummer’s performance oozes heartless contempt. (How artistically fitting that Plummer recently played Scrooge in The Man Who Invented Christmas.)

Scarpa’s script is drawn from the relevant portion of John Pearson’s 1995 book, Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. One can’t help feeling that it ain’t easy to be wealthy (although everybody would love to try).

I also can’t help wondering if Scott, Scarpa and Plummer intend this performance as a thinly veiled indictment of the similarly callous behavior currently emanating from the unfeeling über-rich in Washington, D.C.

Plummer is so perfect — so contemptibly vile — that it’s difficult to imagine anybody else in the role. And yet he was a last-minute replacement for the publicly disgraced Kevin Spacey, who had completed work on the film. Assuming Scott and Sony are willing to release that footage, it’ll be fascinating to compare the two performances, once this drama hits home video.

(Actually, 88-year-old Plummer seems a better choice than 68-year-old Spacey, given that Getty was 81 when these events went down.)

All the Money in the World concerns one of history’s most unusual — and protracted — crimes: the 1973 kidnapping of Getty’s 16-year-old grandson, John Paul Getty III, affectionately known as Paul. He endured half a year of imprisonment, from mid-July through mid-December, while his captors’ demands encountered a brick wall of refusal from the old man.

Alien: Covenant — Rather disappointing

Alien: Covenant (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, profanity, nudity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

In space, no one can escape being surrounded by idiots.

The Alien franchise, just shy of four decades old, continues to crank merrily along, of late shepherded by founding director Ridley Scott. To some degree that’s a good thing, because his films always are handsomely mounted, crisply paced and graced with compelling ensemble casts.

Once it becomes obvious that something nasty is prowling on board their massive
colony ship, Daniels (Katherine Waterston) and her synthetic companion Walter
(Michael Fassbender) consider their options.

They’re also usually a great deal smarter than this newest installment.

Alien: Covenant suffers from the same bone-stupid plotting that made the recently released Life — a rather blatant Alien rip-off in its own right — such an infuriating experience. Nobody has a lick of sense, the various characters utterly ignoring chain of command and basic safety protocols, while bickering and squabbling like school kids. As I’ve noted in the past, if these numbskulls represent Humanity’s Finest, then we deserve to be massacred by outer space nasties.

This aggravating film’s script comes courtesy of Jack Paglen, Michael Green, John Logan and Dante Harper, who sacrifice plot logic on the altar of routine gore effects. You’ll find little genuine suspense here; all the alien attacks — whether by the now-familiar ovomorphs, facehuggers, chestbursters or adult xenomorphs — are telegraphed by maddeningly unhurried reveal shots.

Most of these encounters are by-the-book horror flick stuff: Somebody hears something, s-l-o-w-l-y turns around — or peers at something — and whammo! More blood on the screen.

This film offers neither the shock of the opening installment, nor the full-throttle energy of James Cameron’s immediate follow-up, 1986’s Aliens.

Most subsequent films were disappointments of one sort or another, until Scott re-ignited the franchise with 2012’s Prometheus. As a prequel to everything that had come before, the Jon Spaihts/Damon Lindelof script established an intriguing back story that explored the creation of the xenomorphs, the origins of mankind, and the space-faring race of giant “Engineers” who apparently seeded life throughout galaxies. Very high-falutin’ God stuff.

This new film takes place 10 years later — still roughly 20 years prior to the events in Alien (for those who pay attention to such things) — as the deep-space Earth colony ship Covenant makes its way to the distant planet Origae-6. The crew and 2,000 colonists are deep in hyper-sleep, the ship monitored solely by a synthetic android named Walter (Michael Fassbender) and an onboard computer dubbed Mother (voiced by Lorelei King, sounding very much like Sigourney Weaver). Once the journey is complete, the settlers hope to establish a new human outpost.

The Martian: Out-of-this-world suspense

The Martian (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for profanity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

The most impressive aspect of 1995’s Apollo 13 lay in the tension that director Ron Howard generated, despite our certain awareness of the film’s outcome.

After all, history had spoken: Everybody knew that the astronauts got back safely. So, since Howard couldn’t concoct any suspense from the what, he concentrated on the how ... as in, how in the world did they survive?

Having realized that his only hope for survival involves the long-term rationing of his
supplies — along with figuring out some what of "creating" more food and water — Mark
(Matt Damon) begins a careful record of his days on Mars.

There’s something enticingly absorbing about watching engineers work a particularly difficult problem. In the realm of fiction, this is why caper thrillers and the Mission: Impossible franchise remain so popular: We love to see unworkable puzzles solved via triumphant bursts of ingenuity.

No surprise, then, that director Ridley Scott’s handling of The Martian is 141 minutes of nail-biting anxiety. Andy Weir’s 2011 novel (which has its own amazing history) is a crackerjack sci-fi thriller to begin with, and Scott and scripter Drew Goddard have pumped it up with an engaging blend of quiet agitation and gallows humor.

Best of all, this is smart science-fiction: a rigorously technical narrative that we rarely get from a Hollywood factory that equates the genre with the zap-gun antics of Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy (which, let’s face it, are — at best — equal parts sci-fi and fantasy). In the literary realm, Weir’s book is regarded as “hard” science of the sort written by Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Such stories are harder to bring to the big screen, because they don’t grant actors many opportunities for showboating or melodramatic interpersonal dynamics. But exceptions do exist — 2009’s Moon comes to mind — and if Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman can generate unease from plodding investigative journalism, then surely talented filmmakers can do the same with a clever sci-fi premise. Right?

Indeed. To give further credit where due, Scott has packed his film with an impressive cast, assigning strong actors to even the smallest of roles. Top marks go to star Matt Damon, who anchors most of the film with a compelling, deeply expressive, one-man performance on par with what we’ve seen from Tom Hanks (Cast Away) and Robert Redford (All Is Lost).

The story, then:

The time is an unspecified point in the near future, after NASA has successfully sent a six-person mission to Mars. The Ares 3 crew has established a good-sized working habitat within the Acidalia Planitia plain, and has spent some number of days collecting samples and conducting experiments.

The Counselor: Guilty as charged

The Counselor (2013) • View trailer 
No stars (turkey). Rating: R, for graphic violence, grisly images, profanity and strong sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.25.13

Cormac McCarthy apparently felt that 2009’s big-screen adaptation of his novel The Road wasn’t sufficiently bleak, violent or morally depraved, so he upped his game with the original screenplay for this glossy bit of rubbish.

Despite repeated, protracted and viciously descriptive warnings from Westray (Brad Pitt,
left), our imbecilic title character (Michael Fassbender) stubbornly insists on getting
involved with a massive shipment of illegal drugs. After all, what could go wrong?

Rarely have so many A-list stars been involved in such a lamentable waste of time.

The Counselor isn’t merely set in a world of abominable behavior; McCarthy’s characters are cheerfully pragmatic about it. No act too vile to contemplate? They don’t merely contemplate; they discuss barbarism with the thoughtful ease of two fellows comparing cigar brands in a gentlemen’s club. Then, having laboriously exhausted the subject, director Ridley Scott ensures that we’ll eventually get to watch each degenerate act.

McCarthy has a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, for the aforementioned The Road, and rumor suggests that he’s under consideration for a Nobel Prize for literature. The characters in his novels often struggle with moral ambiguity in an increasingly cynical world, although we’re generally able to sympathize with a well-meaning protagonist, whether John Grady Cole in All the Pretty Horses, or Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in the grimmer No Country for Old Men (adapted into a sensational 2007 film by Joel and Ethan Coen).

But there’s nobody to like in The Counselor; indeed, it’s difficult to even understand most of the characters who populate this deadly dull study of ill-advised acts and their horrible consequences. Everybody is morally compromised at best, or sociopathic, or indifferently brutal. Everybody except the token innocent, that is, who may as well be wearing a sign that reads “Sacrificial Lamb.”

Mind you, a roster of degenerates isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself; Quentin Tarantino has a way of extracting wonderfully dark entertainment from the vicious swine who inhabit, say, Pulp Fiction or Inglourious Basterds. But that’s precisely the point: Tarantino characters are engaging for the way they revel in their bad behavior, whereas the increasingly tiresome players in this drama give new meaning to the word “boring.”

My favorite things: An effort at an all-time Top 10 list

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.23.11

People often ask if I have a favorite film.

That's easy; the answer hasn't changed since I was 8 years old, closing in on half a century ago.

Taking it further ... can be difficult.

My Enterprise colleagues, seeking cinema-themed content to help build excitement for this Sunday's Academy Awards celebration, dug into the files and realized that I've never gone on record with a list of all-time Top 10 favorite films. This is true, and with good reason: It's not a stationery target. I see between 150 and 200 films every year, and I've not yet lost my ability to be dazzled; simple logic demands that new "favorites" will replace older ones.

My wife and I have a similar problem at home, with our ever-expanding library of books. We've done pretty well over the years, in terms of constructing new shelves in out-of-the-way corners or just below ceiling height. But we've hit saturation, which demanded a new house rule: If a book comes in, a book must go out. In other words, the total number – whatever that is, and we've never had the nerve to count 'em – no longer changes.

So it is with the nebulous concept of an all-time personal Top 10 movie list. I could supply an answer today, which won't be the answer you'd have gotten 10 years ago, and likely won't be the answer I'd give next month. Times change. Taste changes. People change. I change.

It's also true, however, that each of us tends to be most transfixed by movies, books, songs and TV shows that we see between the ages of, oh, 10 and 22. Many of those early experiences remain fixed forever, sometimes beyond all reason; more than once, I've been embarrassed during a recent visit to something not seen or read for decades, which I remember being much better the first time. In some cases, you really can't go home again.

Attempting to explain all this to my Enterprise colleagues garnered no sympathy; they believe this is a good story idea – and it is, no question – and couldn't care less about my reluctance. An assignment is an assignment. Besides, they insisted, I'm waffling. Surely I can rattle off a personal Top 10.

Well ... no.

At least, not without cheating.

First, let's establish some ground rules. I'm discussing my favorite films, not those I consider the medium's best. The difference is significant: Favorite films are those we choose, repeatedly, to experience the reassuring embrace of an old friend. Big-screen comfort food. Movies which, for each of us, stand the test of time and bear multiple viewings. (In my case, often, lots of multiple viewings.) As a result, my favorites rarely correspond to the films usually cited by pundits as Hollywood's finest, such as Citizen Kane, High Noon, Gone with the Wind, West Side Story, The Godfather and many others.

My taste often is more, ah, eclectic.

Robin Hood: Straight as an arrow

Robin Hood (2010) • View trailer for Robin Hood
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for battlefield violence and occasional sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.14.10
Buy DVD: Robin Hood (Single-Disc Unrated Director's Cut) • Buy Blu-Ray: Robin Hood: Unrated Director's Cut (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)


Technically, director Ridley Scott's new film should be titled Robin Longstride, because the rugged character played so well by Russell Crowe doesn't become Robin Hood until the final scene.

So no, Brian Helgeland's screenplay — developed from a story by Helgeland, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris — isn't the usual Sherwood Forest romp, with the "merry men" making sport of the Sheriff of Nottingham, while robbing the rich to benefit the poor. This drama purports to reveal what transformed a skilled infantry archer in King Richard the Lionheart's army into a renegade no longer loyal to his king.

Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe, foreground right) chances upon an ambush
of British soldiers by French mercenaries, an intolerable situation that will
prompt him and his men -- from left, Allan A'Dayle (Alan Doyle), Little John
(Kevin Durand) and Will Scarlet (Scott Grimes) -- to lend their able support.
The results of this skirmish will shape Longstride's future.

As such, Helgeland plays fast and loose with both history and established legend, although that's probably splitting hairs; we've little idea what really went down in the 13th century, cell phone cameras not yet having been developed. Most of what modern folks know about Robin Hood derives from films starring the likes of Errol Flynn, Sean Connery and Kevin Costner, along with Richard Greene's extremely popular mid-1950s TV series.

Our only concern is whether Scott, Helgeland and Crowe deliver a suitably involving drama. They succeed, and quite admirably.

Things begin as King Richard (Danny Huston, one of few badly cast players in this film) and his troops, taking the long way home after their less than glorious behavior during the Third Crusade, lay siege to one final castle in despised France. They win the skirmish but lose everything else: King Richard is killed in battle.

Meanwhile, back in London, Richard's younger brother, John (Oscar Isaac) has upset his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins), by abandoning his British wife in favor of a French crumpet (Lea Seydoux, as Isabella of Angoulme). Worse yet, John has placed his trust in the duplicitous Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong, always a marvelous villain), who secretly plots with France's King Philip to invade England.

The timing is perfect, as the increasingly desperate British people have been taxed almost to starvation, in order to finance the Crusades. Sentiment against the crown is high, and a divided British populace unwilling to unite behind its monarch makes the country a tempting target for King Philip.

Eleanor recognizes this all too well, as does Sir William Marshal (William Hurt), her most trusted adviser. The question, though, is how to win over angered landowners and desperate serfs who've no love for the newly crowned King John: a childish twerp who does himself no good with arrogant temper tantrums and vindictive behavior.

Isaac plays such immaturity quite well; he truly makes John a ruler we love to hate.

Body of Lies: Truth or dare

Body of Lies (2008) • View trailer for Body of Lies
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity and graphic torture
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.10.08
Buy DVD: Body of Lies • Buy Blu-Ray: Body of Lies (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

For all its concussive, eardrum-shattering explosions and a nasty contemporary plot certain to unsettle — if not terrify — viewers already worried about the spread of Islamic fanaticism, director Ridley Scott's new film is most persuasive during its quieter, conversational moments between two people ... proving once again that the foundation of good drama is character, character, character.

Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) first meets Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani) when
she begins his rabies therapy after a particularly vicious dog attack; he quickly
realizes that his interest in this kind, soft-spoken nurse is more than casual. But
is such a relationship wise, in a profession that puts him — and anybody he
knows — in harm's way?

And Body of Lies is filled with intriguing characters, all of them played quite persuasively by actors who do their best to stand out against Scott's perhaps too-eager inclination to ratchet up the tension with scenes of grisly, crowd-laden mayhem.

Indeed, the balance is wrong, during the scattershot first act, before all the players have been assembled on this story's chessboard; I began to worry that Ridley was unwisely imitating the insufferably tiresome visual tics and hiccups of his more bombastic but lesser-talented brother, Tony Scott.

Fortunately, cinematographer Alexander Witt's zigzag camerawork does settle down, and the prime movers in William Monahan's script — adapted from David Ignatius' chilling novel — are allowed to develop and coalesce. At this point, Body of Lies gets interesting and engage our minds, rather than simply trying to frighten us to death.

The primary relationship is one of distant opposites. Under deep cover and on the ground in Iraq, Jordan or Syria, CIA op Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) relies on razor-sharp instincts and language fluency to discover and infiltrate terrorist cells, and thus gain knowledge about — or even help prevent — destructive acts against innocent civilians.

Ferris takes his marching orders from, and is in constant contact with, seasoned handler Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), an insufferably pragmatic analyst whose big- picture views frequently collide with Ferris' intimate methods. Hoffman demands immediate results and will hasten the "development" (read: ruthless exploitation) of an "asset" (informant), even if this threatens long-term gains; Ferris is more willing to patiently nurture a source, believing that trust will reap more benefits than intimidation.

Their endless philosophical squabble takes place via the continuous cell phone conversations that link Ferris, bouncing hither and yon overseas, to Hoffman, based at Langley's CIA headquarters and outwardly living the life of an average suburban soccer dad. The incongruity of these long-distance dialogues, set against the actions of both men at any given moment — Ferris often chasing a suspect or fleeing for his life, Hoffman helping his young son make the transition to grown-up bathroom behavior — is deliberately ironic and always mordantly amusing. Talk about multi-tasking!