The Protégé: Solid action chops

The Protégé (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence, profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Revenge thrillers are a lot more interesting when the characters involved have actual personalities, as opposed to being one-dimensional rage machines.

 

With respect to the latter, Wrath of Man is a recent case in point: sheer boredom.

 

With a successful assignment behind them, Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) and Anna
(Maggie Q) turn their attention to a long-dormant mystery ... little realizing the
consequences of this seemingly innocuous investigation.

Happily, The Protégé is cut from superior cloth. Scripter Richard Wenk understands solid character development — he gave us both Denzel Washington Equalizer entries, among others — and director Martin Campbell has two gilt-edged Bonds under his belt, in addition to 2017’s terrific Jackie Chan vehicle, The Foreigner.

If star Maggie Q were a better actress, the results here would be similarly noteworthy. Sadly, her thespic limitations are a distraction, particularly when in the company of seasoned scene-stealers such as Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton.

 

Following a brief prologue that tips its hat to the core premise in 1994’s Léon: The Professional, we’re introduced to Anna (Maggie Q) and Moody (Jackson). They run a rather unusual extermination business, with high financial returns for the successful removal of two-legged cockroaches. They’re always successful.

 

Indeed, Moody taught Anna everything he knows. And she was an eager pupil.

 

By day, she’s an antiquarian book dealer — intelligent, refined and shrewd — with an adorable street-corner London shop. She also spends as much time as possible with Moody, whom she adores as a surrogate father. She’s troubled by the implications of his relentless coughing jags, but maintains a neutral face while (for example) celebrating his 70th birthday with a particularly special gift. (Guitar geeks will salivate.)

 

An old case has been nagging Moody; he asks her to investigate somebody who went off-grid back in the 1990s. Back in her shop, Anna is approached by a cultivated and sophisticated gentleman who introduces himself as Michael Rembrandt (Keaton). He also knows books; they quote Edgar Allan Poe to each other. Their banter is superficially flirty, but the undertone is tense. Deadly.

 

Keaton makes excellent use of his arched eyebrows and condescending, reptilian gaze. Campbell wisely lingers on it.

 

Rembrandt departs; Anna watches him thoughtfully. (Credit where due, Maggie Q does contemplative thoughtfulness pretty well. Her line deliveries, alas, are another matter.)

 

Hours later, all hell breaks loose.

Honest Thief: Routine, but enjoyable

Honest Thief (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, crude references and brief profanity

By Derrick Bang

The Taken series — starting with the first one, back in 2008 — turned Liam Neeson into an action hero, which he has embraced enthusiastically.

 

And who can blame him? Strike while the iron is hot.

 

Forced to go on the run with Tom (Liam Neeson), whom she suddenly realizes has been
concealing a lot about himself, Annie (Kate Walsh) begins to worry about her own
life expectancy.

Director Mark Williams’ Honest Thief — available via Amazon Prime — is an unremarkable, cookie-cutter thriller; even so, Neeson brings his customary dignified gravitas to the project.

 

The script, by Williams and Steve Allrich, is pure formula: a reasonable set-up, a despicable villain, a token (brief) car chase, familiar co-stars, a cute dog and a satisfying conclusion. All told, it’s a reasonable way to spend 99 minutes on a mindless Friday evening.

 

Boston-based Tom Dolan (Neeson) has been a master thief for years, carefully sussing out banks with older, easy-to-crack vaults. The smoothness of his one-man jobs has seen him dubbed the “In-and-Out Bandit” — a moniker he loathes — by the media and FBI agents who’ve never gotten anywhere near nailing him.

 

Dolan has amassed $9 million … but, oddly, hasn’t spent a penny. His motivation, we eventually learn, leans more toward retribution than avarice.

 

He has a chance encounter with Annie Wilkins (Kate Walsh, refreshingly age-appropriate), a clerk at the storage facility where he hides his ill-gotten gains. They banter briefly; the room’s atmosphere shifts.

 

Flash-forward one year.

 

Tom and Annie are a solid item, and he has given up on bank jobs, but nonetheless feels guilty about having to conceal his larcenous past. (One wonders what he has told her, in terms of how he earns a living, but this script doesn’t worry about such details.) He therefore decides to negotiate a trade: He’ll turn himself into the FBI, and return all the money, in exchange for a lenient sentence with visitation rights.

 

Enter local FBI Chief Sam Baker (Robert Patrick) and agent Sean Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan), who take Tom’s phone call. They don’t initially believe him, because they’ve been hearing from all manner of nut-jobs who claim to be the In-and-Out Bandit. 

 

The irony here is amusing: Tom wants to come clean, but can’t.

 

Identity Thief: Two hours stolen from our lives

Identity Thief (2013) • View trailer
One star. Rating: R, for violence, vulgarity, relentless profanity and frequently crude sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Some things just aren’t funny, and identity theft is high on that list. Any veteran of the struggle to reclaim bank accounts, credit ratings and the rest — and that’s quite a lot of people, at this point — will be thoroughly disgusted by an effort to paint the process as “amusing.”

Having just caught up with the woman (Melissa McCarthy) who hijacked his bank
account and good name, Sandy (Jason Bateman) spoils her day by revealing his
genuine driver's license. Alas, that won't cut much ice; he's a few seconds away
from a sucker-punch to the throat. 

But that didn’t stop scripters Craig Mazin and Jerry Eeten from trying to fashion a comedy out of this topic, a task at which they failed miserably.

Identity Thief signals its tawdry, numbnuts lack of redeeming virtues almost immediately; it’s one of those gawdawful flicks that has you scanning for exits before 5 minutes have passed, in case rapid flight is the better part of valor.

Trust me: It’s your best option.

Seth Gordon has gone nowhere but down since coming to Hollywood’s attention with 2007’s The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a whimsical and thoroughly fascinating documentary about an unemployed Washington teacher’s attempts to break a longstanding record in the arcade game Donkey Kong.

Since then, Gordon has burnished his rep with clumsy, badly paced and thoroughly humorless junk such as Four Christmases and Horrible Bosses. He seems to fancy himself a low-rent Judd Apatow wannabe, trolling in projects that offer the same uncomfortable blend of profanity, vulgarity, moron slapstick and “funny” violence.

Yes, indeed: Nothing elicits chuckles like the sight of a woman being smacked by an SUV and then hurled, like a sack of potatoes, to the side of a highway ... after which she gets up and dusts herself off, apparently having bruised no more than her dignity. Uh-huh.

The degree of Gordon’s miscalculation, in that scene alone, can be clocked by the gasps of horror as the woman was hit ... and the muted, barely there wisp of nervous laughter when she stood up and made light of the incident. You lost a theater filled with viewers there, Seth.

Actually, that’s not true; you lost ’em a good hour before that.

Jason Bateman is a reasonably funny and competent actor cursed by the worst taste in projects, often ghastly attempts at romantic comedy such as Couples Retreat and The Switch. He also was part of Gordon’s Horrible Bosses debacle, and these aren’t even the most awful; all three of his 2012 films — The Longest Week, Hit and Run and Disconnect — barely achieved theatrical release. Never heard of them? Consider yourself lucky.

Gangster Squad: Cheeky, audacious portrait of 1950s Los Angeles

Gangster Squad (2013) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for nonstop violence, gore and profanity
By Derrick Bang

It’s a can’t-miss formula that goes back to the days of vintage Hollywood Westerns: the few against the many, particularly in a righteous cause.

Electronics nerd Conwell Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi, center) overhears some delectable
information from the bug he planted in mobster Mickey Cohen's home, while squad
members John O'Mara (Josh Brolin, left) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) determine
how best to use this revelation.

This already engaging dynamic was enhanced by turning the underdog heroes into rag-tag misfits, with the genre expanding to include war and crime (or the war on crime). Some of the best examples have become cinema classics, such as The Magnificent Seven — and its forbearer, The Seven Samurai — and The Dirty Dozen. My own list of personal favorites includes Where Eagles Dare.

Director Brian De Palma upgraded an early 1960s TV show and brought Sean Connery an Academy Award as the moral center of 1987’s The Untouchables. A decade later, that film’s 1930s Chicago setting shifted to 1950s Los Angeles with director Lee Tamahori’s stylish handling of Mulholland Falls. Even post-WWII crime thrillers weren’t quite this noir.

All of which brings us to director Ruben Fleischer’s energetic Gangster Squad, based on Paul Lieberman’s book of the same title, and adapted with snap by Will Beall, who employs the same crisp sparkle he has brought to several episodes of television’s Castle. The dialogue sizzles, the dames are delectable, the actors chew their lines with the snarling fury of a hungry lion tearing into a steak, and the action has the rat-a-tat ferocity of the Tommy guns wielded on both sides.

Although Lieberman brought veteran journalistic skills to his well-researched account of gangster Mickey Cohen’s attempt to seize control of Los Angeles during the 1950s, this film probably bears no more relation to actual history than Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Some of the names will be recognized, but the execution here feels more like Mission: Impossible and L.A. Confidential, with a soupçon of 21st century sass.

And — sad to say — plenty of violence and some unnecessary gore. The story may demand a vicious streak, but must we really watch a man torn in half after being chained to two cars accelerating in opposite directions? Surely that image could have been left to our imaginations, rather than splattered across the screen ... along with the yummy glimpse of wild dogs tearing into the remains.

But then, Fleischer also is the gleeful maniac who upped the snark count in walking dead flicks, with 2009’s Zombieland, so I guess it’s in his genes. And, in fairness, everything that follows the aforementioned dismemberment — a prologue, of sorts, to set the mood — involves somewhat more palatable gunplay. And a few knives. And some acid. And ... well, you get the idea.

Trouble with the Curve: Just about out of the park

Trouble with the Curve (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for occasional profanity and some sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.21.12

Even the most familiar material will become vibrant in the hands of seasoned pros.

Randy Brown’s impressive debut script for Trouble with the Curve turns this film into a quiet little charmer that focuses on both sports and the angst-laden trauma of a long-estranged father and daughter. Along the way, Brown also scores perceptive points about loyalty, workaholics, the ageist contempt of youth, and the soul-grinding aggravation of growing old.

Veteran baseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) is having trouble with his vision, but he
dares not acknowledge this, lest he lose his job. Enter Mickey (Amy Adams), his
long-estranged and only child, who reluctantly serves as her father's eyes while
attempting to re-kindle a bond once characterized by love and a shared devotion
to their favorite sport.

Star Clint Eastwood continues to be at the top of his game, delivering another riff on the “crusty ol’ coot” persona that has served him well in projects ranging from the light-hearted Space Cowboys to the far more serious Gran Torino. His work here slides between those two extremes; Gus Lobel has become too cranky to be actually likable — the ravages of old age merely amplifying his less pleasant qualities — but we sympathize with him nonetheless.

Gus is an old-style baseball scout, long employed by the Atlanta Braves, who loves hunkering in the bleachers and bathing in the magic of the sport’s “true, sweet sound.” He’ll never accept computer-driven stats as a replacement for his devotion to poring over newspapers and tip sheets, and then watching the players, in order to draw his own conclusions.

He is, in short, a dinosaur: an object of ridicule to number-crunching Braves associate scouting director Phillip Sanderson (Matthew Lillard), who insists that computers can do it faster and far more accurately. Pete Klein (John Goodman), chief of scouts and also Gus’ longtime best friend, is finding it harder and harder to defend the “old ways” to Braves General Manager Vince Freeman (Robert Patrick).

At this crucial moment, with Gus’ contract due to expire in three months, things get even worse as his eyesight begins to fail; an expanding circle in the center of his vision has grown blurry. A reluctant trip to his optometrist confirms the worst: glaucoma and macular degeneration.

The timing couldn’t be worse, because Gus’ next assignment involves a trip to North Carolina, to observe hot Swannanoa High School prospect Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill). The Braves really, really want this kid, and Sanderson is leading that charge; Gus, not to be rushed, wants to reach his own conclusions ... but that’ll be difficult, if he can’t see how Bo handles a pitch.

Enter Gus’ long-estranged daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), a tightly wound associate at a high-powered Atlanta law firm, who has sacrificed everything to sprint along the fast track toward partnership. Mickey essentially has no life outside the office, but this is less a function of ambition, and more a self-defensive coping mechanism.

Once upon a time, long ago, Mickey and her father were inseparable, of necessity; her mother died when she was 6. Gus subsequently hauled his only child along on all his scouting assignments, and she grew to love the male-dominated atmosphere of swearing, joshing and drinking straight whisky. She also adores baseball to every possible degree, having reluctantly sublimated her talent for player stats in favor of torts and legal precedents.