Project Hail Mary: Overcooked

Project Hail Mary (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.22.26

This sci-fi epic has much to admire: two nail-biting challenges woven into an unsettling premise; well-sculpted characters brought to life by a top-notch cast; sensational special effects; and occasional dollops of cheeky humor.

 

Alone aboard an interstellar starship, filled with unanswered questions concerning a
mission he doesn't fully remember, Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is further surprised
by something entirely unexpected.

All of which are sabotaged, because co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller overwhelm everything with unrelenting blasts of Daniel Pemberton’s overloud score, with its bombastic droning synth and weird choral touches.

This pounding, so-called “music” pretty much ruins the film.

 

What the heck were Lord and Miller thinking?

 

In some ways, this film — adapted by Drew Goddard, from sci-fi author Andy Weir’s 2021 novel of the same title — feels like a third-generation descendent of 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But director Stanley Kubrick knew how to use music ... and, more importantly, what kind of music, and when not to use it, thereby allowing the unfolding story to speak for itself.

 

Even so, this saga’s hook is a corker. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakens abruptly, and uncomfortably, in some sort of cocoon. After thrashing his way out, frightened by the autoboots attempting to help, he stumbles aboard what we realize is some sort of deep-space ship. But Grace has amnesia: no idea how he got here, and initially not even who he is. 

 

To make matters worse, he discovers that his only two shipmates — also cocooned — are dead, something having failed in their life-support system.

 

Grace is alone. And terrified.

 

His memory returns in fits and starts, establishing the many flashbacks that eventually supply answers; these continue to be intercut, throughout the entire film, with Grace’s ongoing present-day predicament.

 

He recalls being a junior high school science teacher, beloved by his students, one of whom hits him with an uncomfortable question. We thus learn of the “Petrova line” of particles radiating from our Sun to Venus, draining the former’s intensity. Unless something is done, the dimming heat will plunge Earth into a catastrophic ice age within 30 years.

 

Grace is approached by Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), accompanied by stern government types who include Carl (Lionel Boyce). Stratt, who introduces herself as the head of a multinational task force assembled to solve the problem, knows Grace’s back-story: He’s a brilliant molecular biologist blackballed after boldly insisting that one of his field’s leading researcher’s work is stuffed full of wild blueberry muffins.

 

The Fall Guy: Rip-snortin' mayhem

The Fall Guy (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for action violence, drug content and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.17.24

This is way too much fun.

 

Director David Leitch and scripter Drew Pearce dumped their stars into a frothy, tongue-in-cheek action epic that never takes itself seriously ... while simultaneously delivering a heartfelt indictment of Hollywood’s shameful refusal to properly acknowledge the brave, hard-working stuntmen and women — and their support teams — who’ve operated in the shadows since the dawn of cinema.

 

With everything to lose, Cole (Ryan Gosling) makes a last-ditch effort to solve the weird
mystery that plagues his ex's film shoot.

A few have been appropriately recognized, over time: the utterly amazing Yakima Canutt, gender-breaking pioneers Helen Gibson and Evelyn Finley, stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham, and acrobatic stars such as Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan.

Most, though, remain anonymous ... thanks in great part to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ ongoing refusal to honor them with an Oscar category.

 

(They’re about to add one for casting directors ... but still not for stunt workers? Shameful.)

 

But I digress.

 

Pearce’s balls-to-the-wall plot, very loosely based on the 1981-86 Lee Majors TV series of the same name, opens as well-respected stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) successfully completes a drop-shot as a stand-in for insufferably self-centered movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). The latter, egged on by producer/manager Gail Meyer (the hilariously overblown Hannah Waddingham, late of TV’s Ted Lasso), demands a retake; too much of Colt’s face is visible in the shot, spoiling the illusion that Ryder does his own stunts.

 

(This arrogant PR nonsense, notorious among far too many of Hollywood’s insecure “action heroes,” is woefully tolerated even to this day.)

 

The retake ... goes badly.

 

In a sickening sequence that draws horrified gasps even though Leitch keeps it off-camera — and is a disturbing echo of the real-world accident that crippled Daniel Radcliffe’s longtime stunt double, Davis Holmes (sensitively addressed in a poignant 2023 documentary — Colt breaks his back.

 

Flash-forward a year and change. Colt has withdrawn from life and the career he loved so much ... and from the woman, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), who also meant so much to him. He now works a dead-end job as a parking attendant; she has parlayed her behind-the-scenes film set responsibilities into a first-time directing assignment on an overblown sci-fi epic dubbed “Metalstorm.” It stars Ryder, of course, with Gail as executive producer.

 

But there’s trouble on the set. Unknown to Jody, Ryder has mysteriously vanished; worse yet, so has his stunt double, Kevin (Ben Gerrard). Gail, knowing that she can stall for a few days by suggesting that Jody focus on second-unit action scenes, reaches out and begs Cole to step in.

 

“Jody wants you,” Gail insists. “She needs you.”

 

Although plagued by doubt and guilt over how he abandoned Jody, Colt cannot resist this plea; could it mean that she has forgiven him?

Barbie: Far more than a plastic toy

Barbie (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and needlessly, for suggestive references and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.4.23

This must be one of the most unusual ideas ever pitched to a Hollywood film studio. 

 

I’d love to have been a bug on the wall during that concept meeting.

 

Total catastrophe! Barbie (Margot Robbie, center) is dismayed to discover that her
perfectly arched feet have become flat. Her fellow Barbies — from left, Ana Cruz Kayne,
Sharon Rooney, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef and Emma Mackey — are similarly
horrified.

And yet, defying expectations — of some silly, frilly bit of toy-themed fluff akin to 1986’s My Little Pony — this film is thoughtful, audaciously subversive, and one of the most insightful indictments of gender stereotypes ever unleashed.

It’s also quite funny.

 

And pink. Very, very pink.

 

Director/co-scripter Greta Gerwig — along with writing partner Noah Baumbach — have concocted an immersive “Barbie experience” that playfully honors the iconic Mattel doll’s 64-year legacy, while contrasting her idealized realm with the harsher truths of our real world.

 

Although such progressive thoughts certainly weren’t contemplated when the first Barbie hit store shelves on March 9, 1959 — your choice of blonde or brunette — Mattel soon employed the doll as a subtle means of girl empowerment. Barbie could be anything: a doctor, lawyer or scientist; tennis champ or ace baseball player; astronaut, Supreme Court justice or even president of the United States.

 

(Granted, this was primarily marketing savvy; the actual goal was to make money. But if a little idealism rubbed off along the way, so much the better.)

 

Thus — following a hilarious prologue that lampoons the opening sequence in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — we meet pert, perky “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), as she wakens to enjoy another in an impossibly long line of perfect days.

 

Identically perfect days.

 

She rises, greets the Barbies in adjacent dream houses, showers beneath invisible water, enjoys breakfast while drinking invisible milk, and opens her magic wardrobe to get her outfit for the day: a bit of spin, and poof, it’s on her body. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is as amazing and colorfully inventive as Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. (Who knew pink came in so many shades?)

 

Since Barbie’s dream house has no stairs, and is open at the front, she merely steps off the edge and floats to the ground below. (Newton’s laws don’t exist in Barbie Land, nor does wind, gravity or anything else that might interfere with this realm’s pink perfection.)

 

The Gray Man: Colorfully overblown

The Gray Man (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense violence and action, and some profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.29.22

Given the often exaggerated genre we’re dealing with, this film trundles along reasonably well … until most of downtown Prague — and its entire police force — are blown to bits during the dog-nuts second act (apparently without sparking an international incident).

 

With scores of gun-toting thugs laying waste to downtown Prague while trying to kill him,
Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) is about to make clever use of a passing tram.

In their obvious efforts to kick-start a new franchise, scripters Joe Russo, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have retained very little of Mark Greaney’s 2009 espionage thriller (first in a series of 11 books thus far). Russo and co-director Anthony Russo have uncorked a fast-paced loner-against-the-world saga which — despite becoming increasingly preposterous — ticks all the boxes for folks seeking mindless thrills.

And, in fairness, we get a solid set of (quasi) good guys, victims in peril, and some very very bad guys.

 

During a brief prologue set 18 years in the past, Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is rescued from a lengthy prison sentence by upper-echelon CIA handler Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton).

 

“What’s the catch?” Gentry asks.

 

“You come work for us,” Fitzroy replies.

 

Turns out Gentry has mad assassin skills, but — as the first action sequence reveals, once we bounce back to the present day — also possesses a strong desire to avoid collateral civilian damage. Gentry has become a highly valued member of Fitzroy’s dark-ops “Sierra” program, his identity submerged beneath the code-name Sierra Six, or simply Six: aka the Gray Man.

 

Unfortunately, Fitzroy was pushed into retirement a few years back, his place taken by the ruthlessly ambitious Agency Group Chief Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page, suitably condescending), who lacks his predecessor’s scruples. Worse yet — for reasons not immediately revealed — he has no use for the Sierra program, and is busily “cleaning house” in a lethal manner.

 

This doesn’t sit well with Deputy Group Chief Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick), who regards her boss as reckless and arrogant. She spends the entire film barking objections at his heels, to the point of turning into a tiresome nag. It’s not a well-crafted role, and Henwick brings nothing to the party.

 

When Six accidentally gains possession of intel that would destroy Carmichael’s career, the latter hires charming, kill-crazy psychopath Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to terminate the final link in the Sierra chain.

 

Hansen, who torments his targets for sport, is introduced while torturing some poor schlub; we therefore know he’s Not A Nice Guy.

 

First Man: A troubled landing

First Man (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.12.18

Director Damien Chazelle and screenwriter Josh Singer jump into their film with an edge-of-the-seat sequence: the highest of solo pilot Neil Armstrong’s numerous test flights in the X-15 rocket airplane.

While Janet Armstrong (Claire Foy) putters in the kitchen, her husband Neil (Ryan Gosling)
and their elder son Rick (Gavin Warren) work on a jigsaw puzzle during a rare moment
of family bonding, unaware that a phone call is about to bring disturbing news.

It’s a savagely cut cacophony of images: the shuddering and jouncing aircraft; the roar of the rocket engines that blast Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) up to 207,500 feet; similarly jittery close-ups on his determined expression.

And then utter silence, as the engines switch off (intentionally) ,and Armstrong gets a panoramic view of the blue globe below, against the dark-night contrast at the edge of space.

Totally, amazingly breathtaking.

But that’s just the preamble. Armstrong’s return to Earth goes awry when the X-15 begins to “bounce” off the upper atmosphere, sending him even higher into the mesosphere above. Utter chaos, as he tries to compensate while mentally plotting a new landing spot, having zoomed past the planned touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base.

Like, wow.

First Man is laden with sequences even superior to this one, given a degree of verisimilitude — by visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert — wholly on par with the we-are-there reality viewers experienced while watching 2013’s Gravity. It becomes clear that Armstrong had more lives than a cat, and also possessed seat-of-the-pants math and physics calculating skills that made him just this side of a walking computer. (A good thing, too, given the limitations of 1960s mainframes.)

If only this film’s quieter moments were handled as well.

Singer’s script is adapted from James R. Hansen’s 2005 best-seller, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, the pilot/astronaut’s only official biography. The film’s intimate “family” element takes place in between stunning piloting events that could be considered myth, were the details not so well known: the aforementioned 1962 X-15 flight, the 1966 Gemini 8 crisis, the 1968 mishap with one of the Earthbound Lunar Lander Research Vehicles, and — the reason for this film’s existence — the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.

Considerable time is spent with Armstrong’s home life, particularly early on, as he and his wife Janet (Claire Foy) agonize over the final months of their 2-year-old daughter, Karen, who died while being treated for a malignant tumor at the base of her brain stem. This is a lot to take in, so quickly, and explanations are minimal. 

The presentation of this chapter establishes the style Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren use throughout the film: lots of tight close-ups and jiggle-cam tracking shots, like one would expect from home movies. This suggests documentary-style authenticity — which Chazelle likely intended — but it also assumes considerable pre-existing knowledge of the part of the viewer, and repeatedly leaves questions unanswered.

I got a sense, heightened as the film continued, that this 141-minute drama has been distilled from a longer director’s edit. Details are left unexplained; scenes cut abruptly to unrelated events.

Blade Runner 2049: Future imperfect

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, nudity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.6.17

I suppose we should be grateful that things haven’t deteriorated nearly as much as the original Blade Runner suggested ... given that it was set in 2019.

That said, the film’s envisaged weather anomalies no longer seem as unlikely.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Kay (Ryan Gosling), pausing for a quick meal,
little realizes that he's about to be approached by a trio of seductive "doxies"
interested solely in the photographs that he has been studying.

It’s also amusing to recall that Ridley Scott’s magnum opus was a critical and audience bomb upon release in 1982: wholly bewildering to viewers who couldn’t wrap their brains around retro sci-fi noir, and who were disturbed by the notion of Han Solo/Indiana Jones playing such a morally conflicted character.

Funny, how things can change. Blade Runner now is regarded as one of the all-time great sci-fi classics, praised for the same distinctive vision and thoughtful narrative complexity that originally baffled folks. Scott has tweaked and re-edited the film more times than I can remember, fine-tuning it to match his original vision (which was compromised by unwelcome eleventh-hour editing, prior to release).

While his film didn’t necessarily beg for a sequel, the setting and core premise certainly invite fresh examination. Few filmmakers are better equipped to do so than director Denis Villeneuve, who helmed last year’s marvelously meditative Arrival, and co-writer Hampton Fancher, who helped adapt Philip K. Dick’s source novel into the first film. Fancher is assisted this time by co-scripter Michael Green, and they’ve definitely retained the brooding atmosphere that makes the setting so compelling.

The setting’s persuasively chilling authenticity, in turn, comes courtesy of production designer Dennis Gassner and visual effects supervisor John Nelson, carrying forward the arresting tableaus designed for the first film by Douglas Trumbull and David Dryer. No other word suffices: This new film looks amazing.

And very, very unsettling.

The story is again based in Los Angeles, although the narrative expands to include the entire state. Every square inch of land in Central California has been covered by massive hydroponic facilities necessitated by a climate shift — nothing but furious rain, dust and snow storms — that has destroyed any semblance of a natural growing season. Such enhanced output also is required to feed an expanding population with an exponentially huge homeless faction: The disenfranchised no longer camp out merely on sidewalks; they also squat in apartment corridors, jeering at those fortunate enough to have their own residences.

Advertising has run even further amok, further amplified by a salacious element that suggests the complete absence of spiritual content. There’s a sense of society’s very fabric coming unstitched, with order barely maintained by officers working for the immense police department building that looms above all else.

Well ... almost all else.

La La Land: (Mostly) breathtaking magic

La La Land (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.16.16

Ten minutes into this film, giddy with excitement, I couldn’t wait to see it again.

Ninety minutes in ... the enthusiasm had waned.

When Mia (Emma Stone) insists that she doesn't care for jazz, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling)
takes her to his favorite club, in order to demonstrate why true jazz can't just be heard,
but must be seen emanating from those who perform it.

At its best, La La Land sparkles with true magic. Writer/director Damien Chazelle’s romantic, music-laden fantasy is a true “sense of wonder” movie akin to Moulin Rouge! or Hugo: a dazzling tour de force that takes full advantage of the medium’s many elements.

It’s also an exhilarating throwback to classic American and French movie musicals, particularly Gene Kelly’s athletically graceful dance spectaculars: Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon and (most particularly) the sort of terpsichorean legerdemain he wove into a creaking floorboard and a stray section of newspaper, in Summer Stock.

Coupled with the luxuriously romantic atmosphere of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Chazelle obviously loves all of these classics, just as he includes more than a few nods to Bob Fosse’s aggressively gymnastic choreography. Chazelle also understands music’s ability to transport us to ethereal elsewheres, and he lives and breathes the toe-tapping, finger-snapping intensity of jazz; he demonstrated that with his mesmerizing directorial breakout, in 2014’s Whiplash.

That film was a grinding endurance test for its young protagonist, as he clashed with a brutal mentor en route to becoming a master drummer. La La Land is a much gentler saga of dreams and dreamers: of young people drawn to Southern California in pursuit of fame and/or artistic satisfaction (not necessarily in that order).

The simple core story is told with the heady, tongue-tickling sparkle and fizz of expensive champagne, Chazelle masterminding a squadron of associates who operate on full throttle: from Linus Sandgren’s opulent cinematography to David Wasco’s enchanting production design, from Tom Cross’ whip-cracking editing to Mary Zophres’ retro-stylish costume design, and Mandy Moore’s breathtaking choreography.

The Nice Guys: Abominable

The Nice Guys (2016) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for violence, sexuality, nudity, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang

A few minutes into this film, as we’re getting a sense of scruffy private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling), he attempts some late-night breaking and entering by wrapping his hand in a cloth, in order to punch out a glass door pane. He nonetheless slashes his wrist quite badly — the likely result, in real life — and we chuckle as he nearly faints at the sight of his own blood.

Meet Dumb and Dumber: Jackson Healey (Russell Crowe, left) and Holland March (Ryan
Gosling) find themselves enmeshed in a missing-persons case that leaves them baffled.
They should just let Holland's daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), take over; she's much
smarter than both of them combined.

Somewhat later, a 13-year-old girl gets thrown through a plate-glass window. Miraculously, she survives without even a scratch.

Interesting juxtaposition, donchathink?

It also begs the obvious question: Have we become so callous, as a society, that filmmakers assume we’ll be entertained by the sight of a helpless girl body-slammed through glass?

I’d like to think not, since the blame more properly can be directed at the repulsive schmuck who vomited up this tasteless excuse for big-screen popcorn thrills: director/co-scripter Shane Black.

Black established his Hollywood rep back in 1987, with the deservedly popular Lethal Weapon. Unfortunately, his subsequent action thrillers became dumber, noisier and appallingly mean-spirited, climaxing — at the time — with 1991’s indefensibly dreadful Last Boy Scout. Black unleashed one more bomb with 1996’s The Long Kiss Goodnight, and then wisely dropped out of sight for a decade.

When he resurfaced with 2005’s engaging Kiss Kiss Bang Bang — adapting a Brett Halliday mystery novel, and also making a decent directorial debut — Black appeared to have learned his lesson. The results also were good just a few years ago, when he helmed and co-scripted Iron Man 3.

Based on his newest film, though, Black was just building up enough cred to trick some studio — in this case, Warner Bros. — into letting him regress to his bad ol’ self.

So ... how tasteless is The Nice Guys?

It opens with the nauseating tableau of a horny adolescent boy running to the scene of a car crash, and then staring at the driver — a bloodied porn star, her voluminous breasts exposed — as she slowly dies. Black and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot turn us into unwilling voyeurs as well, by making sure those naked boobs are quite well displayed.

March’s constant companion is his 13-year-old daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice, who deserves so much better than this), who spends the entire film exposed to drugs, naked partygoers, porn flicks, appalling violence and a slew of very, very bad people. She also swears a lot, and employs an impressive string of vulgar sexual euphemisms. All of which are played as laugh lines.

The Big Short: A grand romp

The Big Short (2015) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.23.15

This is the mostly audaciously entertaining economics course you’ll ever take.

The Big Short isn’t merely a ferociously impudent adaptation of financial journalist Michael Lewis’ nonfiction 2010 book of the same title. Under the careful guidance of writer/director Adam McKay and co-scripter Charles Randolph, it’s a blistering primer that explains — precisely and unflinchingly — why the country fell off a cliff in 2007.

Mark Baum (Steve Carell, seated center) and his talented young financial analysts — from
left, Vinnie (Jeremy Strong), Danny (Rafe Spall) and Porter (Hamish Linklater) — react
with various degrees of concentration, disbelief and anger while Jared Vennett (Ryan
Gosling, seated far right) outlines his improbable scheme for making a fortune by
betting against the entire American financial institution. Jared's assistant Chris (Jeffry
Griffin) wisely keeps his mouth shut.

At the same time, it’s a raucous and yet tightly controlled showcase for a gaggle of unlikely antiheroes, played with whole-immersion glee by a top-flight cast of scene-stealers. McKay employs every trick in the filmmaking book, from Robert Altman-style overlapping dialog to characters who routinely emphasize a point by breaking the fourth wall and addressing us directly.

It sounds like total chaos, and in lesser hands that likely would have been the case. But McKay & Co. deliver the equivalent of the best, most savagely satirical Saturday Night Live sketch ever made ... and they keep it going for a full 130 minutes. True, the result sometimes feels like a series of self-contained scenes, but they’re strung together to build a cohesive narrative that is breathtaking, suspenseful and wildly entertaining.

And, ultimately, infuriating and unbelievable. Because it’s absolutely true.

Think we all got screwed by the 2007 housing bubble collapse? You have no idea how badly, or the degree to which the fat-cat, blithely indifferent — and, in many cases, reprehensibly ignorant — Wall Street and banking oligarchy danced on the ashes of your investments, retirement accounts and foreclosed homes.

McKay’s film reveals all, in torturous — and yet excruciatingly funny — detail, via the activities of a quintet of outliers and weirdoes, real people all, who smelled a rat early on and...

... wait for it ...

... still waiting? ...

... took a financial position against the supposedly rock-solid American housing industry.

Everybody else thought these guys were lunatics. Huge Wall Street corporations cheerfully took their wildcat investments, believing them the equivalent of going “all in” on the off-chance that a single number would come up on a colossal roulette wheel with 100,000 slots.

Because — and here’s the thing — most of the idiots pulling the country’s financial strings didn’t have the slightest idea what they were doing.

And the others were fully aware, but did it anyway, because a) they knew they’d never get caught; and b) knew that even if they did get caught, they’d undoubtedly be “punished” with a slap on the wrist and a fat bonus.

History — history that goes back only eight years — has proven them correct.

The Place Beyond the Pines: Can't see the forest for the trees

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: R, for profanity, violence, brief sexuality and teen drug and alcohol use
By Derrick Bang

What a yawn.

And an unpleasant, bewildering yawn, at that.

Although she should know better, Romina (Eva Mendes) rekindles what couldn't have
been more than a fleeting relationship with Luke (Ryan Gosling) in the first place.
Letting him back into her life makes him believe that he has family obligations, which
in turn prompts a rather desperate means of earning some cash. It's hard to view
this relationship as credible, a problem that infects most of the entire film.

No doubt inspired by Crash, Babel and similar films with interwoven plotlines, director/co-scripter Derek Cianfrance seems to have tried for the same with The Place Beyond the Pines. Unfortunately, he forgot a few key ingredients: engaging characters, credible behavior and a moral center to what rapidly devolves into a pointless muddle.

Ultimately, the gimmick is all that remains: one story that leads to a second, which in turn prompts a third that hearkens back to the first. By itself, that’s a rather slim thread on which to hang an interminable 140-minute film. That’s a lot of time to spend with dull, dreary characters we neither like nor understand.

Worse yet, Cianfrance’s insufferably ponderous style — long, lingering close-ups, great stretches of silence as characters contemplate The Meaning Of It All — screams faux relevance in every frame. One cannot be “deep” simply by wishing it so; the world is littered with the detritus of bad poets who’ve learned that lesson.

Actually, many of them never did learn, much to everybody else’s regret. And the same can be said of pompous filmmakers.

The result in this case is bewildering, given that Cianfrance’s previous effort, the deeply intimate Blue Valentine, delivered the achingly tragic emotional arc that eludes this new film at every turn. Maybe Blue Valentine’s success derives from Cianfrance’s greater comfort with just two central characters; the broader tapestry attempted with The Place Beyond the Pines — terrible title, by the way — seems beyond him.

Cianfrance shares scripting credit with Ben Coccio and Darius Marder, and they collectively view human nature the way we might be observed by visitors from Alpha Centauri. Most of the events and subsequent psychological fallout here ring false: as contrived as some of the tin-eared dialogue and angst-y recriminations.

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.

The Ides of March: Predictable political maneuvering

The Ides of March (2011) • View trailer for The Ides of March
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang


Despite some powerhouse acting and well-sculpted characters, The Ides of March ultimately delivers a message that hardly comes as a surprise: Politicians will lie, cheat and betray with impunity. Angel-eyed claims to the contrary, they’d toss their grandmothers under a bus in exchange for a few points in the polls.

Press spokesman Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling, center) feeds some sample
questions to Democratic presidential primary candidate Mike Morris (George
Clooney, far left), while members of the campaign staff watch. Such rehearsals
are essential, since Morris must be able to deflect any question posed by the
public or members of the press ... and Myers must anticipate such questions.

No ... really?

The story — adapted by Beau Willimon, George Clooney and Grant Heslov from Willimon’s play, Farragut North — concerns one man’s loss of idealism, but even that isn’t news. Unchecked passion has been dangerous for centuries, because — particularly in the political animal — it inevitably allows one to believe that the end always justifies the means, no matter how ultimately misguided the latter.

The Ides of March is Clooney’s third time in the director’s chair, and it’s easy to see why he was drawn to Willimon’s play; Clooney never has been shy about his political activism. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the fact that he has chosen a narrative that speaks less to the homespun optimism of, say, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and more to the dirty-tricks cynicism running throughout All the President’s Men.

Ultimately, though, the significant plot points here — and particularly the resolution — aren’t nearly as captivating as Good Night and Good Luck, which Clooney also directed and co-scripted with Heslov. That film painted a far more intriguing picture of Edward R. Murrow and the tempestuous early days of television news: a time when it did seem possible for integrity and virtue to triumph.

No more, alas.

Ryan Gosling, enjoying a phenomenal year, stars as Stephen Myers, press spokesman to Democratic presidential primary candidate Mike Morris (Clooney, granting himself this deliberately — and misleadingly — superficial supporting role). Myers has the gifts of gab, finesse and sincerity; he works the media like a veteran conductor extracting the best from each member of an orchestra.

Myers has the added benefit, this time, of believing in his cause. He regards Morris as the real deal; as New York Times reporter Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei) notes, with more than a little surprise, Myers has “drunk the Kool-Aid.”

The story is set during the tempestuous week leading up to the Ohio primary, where Morris — coasting with a comfortable lead in delegates — is campaigning against underdog Sen. Pullman (Michael Mantell). The latter is a relatively clumsy Democratic candidate, since he insists on playing the Christianity card; Morris, thanks to his own good instincts and scripted answers fine-tuned by Myers and campaign manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), has little trouble deflecting his opponent’s religiously loaded questions.