The Bad Guys 2: Animated mayhem

The Bad Guys 2 (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.3.25 

This madcap adventure is even more fun and crazed than its 2022 predecessor.

 

Director Pierre Perifel definitely knows how to pace an animated action comedy, and he has ample support here from co-director JP Sans, elevated from his previous role as head of character animation for the first film.

 

The Bad Guys — Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha and Ms. Tarantula —
triumphantly confront the owner of the prized item they're about to steal.

The script, by Yoni Brenner and Etan Cohen — once again drawing from Australian author Aaron Blabey’s popular children’s graphic novel series — contains the same blend of visual slapstick and subtly sly adult humor. (As co-producer Diane Ross suggests, in the production notes, the goal is an homage to complex heist films, with a soupçon of Quentin Tarantino.)

As before, this romp takes place in an alternate universe with humans existing alongside anthropomorphized animals, where an oversized shark can successfully impersonate a man half his size. (It’s all in the costume and attitude, donchaknow.)

 

Rather than open precisely where the previous film concluded, we first get a flashback prologue that shows our quintet of bestial baddies — Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina) — operating at their larcenous best, stealing a one-of-a-kind sportscar from a vain gazillionaire’s heavily guarded mansion.

 

The resulting vehicular pursuit — totally breathless — showcases Jesse Averna’s imaginative smash-cut editing.

 

Back in the present day, however, the former Bad Guys — having gone straight as the first film concluded — are finding it impossible to obtain gainful employment, since everybody associates them with their larcenous past. The only bright spot is Gov. Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), who helped secure the group’s freedom, and now maintains an arm’s-length flirty relation with Mr. Wolf.

 

The world still doesn’t know that Foxington formerly was an elusive master thief known as The Crimson Paw.

 

Local law enforcement — headed by the anger-prone Police Commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Bornstein) — is baffled by a series of high-profile burglaries conducted by an elusive and never-seen culprit. The most troubling detail is that this mysterious individual has been using some of the distraction gimmicks once employed by The Bad Guys ... which turns Luggins’ attention to them.

 

Realizing it’s in their best interest to help identify the actual criminal, Mr. Wolf employs his detail-oriented observational skills to suss out the likely next target for theft; he realizes that all stolen objects were made of a precious metal dubbed MacGuffinite (and there’s a sly joke for long-time movie buffs).

 

Alas, in an increasingly complex escapade laden with double, triple and even quadruple-crosses, things often aren’t what they seem. Except when they sometimes are.

Argylle: Fails to knock our socks off

Argylle (2024) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and much too generously, for relentless strong violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.2.24

I’m not the slightest bit surprised to recall that scripter Jason Fuchs’ early résumé includes 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift.

 

Because, after a promising first act, this new spy comedy devolves into an increasingly insufferable — and boring — live-action cartoon.

 

Having discovered a secret stash in an otherwise abandoned London safe house, Aidan
(Sam Rockwell) is surprised to see that Elly (Bryce Dallas Howard) recognizes some
of the concealed tech.

Director Matthew Vaughn has long favored violent, over-the-top material, from 2010’s Kick-Ass to the Kingsman trilogy (with, so it seems, two more on the way). But even by his outré standards, this film’s third act spirals totally out of control.

And not in a way that can be excused as “dumb fun.”

 

This one’s just dumb.

 

A revved-up prologue opens as stylish spy Argylle (Henry Cavill) meets a femme most fatale, who unexpectedly turns the tables on him. A rambunctious chase sequence follows, the woman finally captured with the assistance of colleagues Wyatt (John Cena) and Keira (Ariana DeBose).

 

But the mission has ended badly, and our good guys now are isolated from their agency handlers.

 

At which point the curtain pulls back, and all this is revealed as the visualized final chapter of book five in the popular Argylle spy series, read aloud at a bookstore event by author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard). Fans adore her and the series; one questioner wonders aloud how she’s able to so uncannily concoct stories that seem to anticipate real-world events.

 

Plenty of dull research Elly replies, with a modest smile.

 

Back at home with her beloved cat Alfie, Ellie has an intriguing “relationship” with her series character; when stuck for a bit of dialogue, or how to move the action along, she “becomes” him — Cavill obligingly reappears — long enough to find the right words. Indeed, she has just finished the sixth novel, which she cheekily intends to conclude on a cliffhanger.

 

(Oh, those merciless authors; they do love to torture us readers.)

 

But Elly’s No. 1 fan — her mother, Ruth (Catherine O’Hara) — having been sent a copy, can’t believe that her daughter would be so cruel. Let’s get together, Ruth proposes, and we’ll brainstorm a final chapter.

 

Bundling Alfie into the world’s cutest hard-shell bubble capsule pet carrier, Elly boards a train. (Flying terrifies her.) She winds up accosted by Aidan (Sam Rockwell), a scruffy fan who proves quite useful when everybody else in their train car suddenly tries to kill them both. 

 

Cue a lively fracas, which is well-staged by fight choreographer Guillermo Grispo.

 

See How They Run: A whimsical delight

See How They Run (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for mild violence and fleeting sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

This is way too much fun.

 

Director Tom George’s mischievous period “whodunit within a whodunit” is a valentine to Agatha Christie — and her fans — and a cheeky send-up of theatrical storytelling conventions.

 

Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and his fresh-faced associate, Constable Stalker
(Saoirse Ronan), are surprised by the care with which a murder victim has been
placed on a theater stage couch.

Mark Chappell’s tongue-firmly-in-cheek script misses no targets. This is the sort of romp where, if a character laments the “awkwardness” of flashbacks as a plot contrivance, you can bet that the next scene will be a flashback.

Most of the humor is slow-burn: witty, not farcical, in the manner that is uniquely British.

 

Chappell also did his homework. A surprising amount of his narrative’s core details are based on historical fact (and I’ve no doubt viewers will rush to the Internet to determine fact from fiction, after watching this retro charmer).

 

The setting is early 1953, at West End London’s Theatre Royal, as the cast and crew of Christie’s new murder mystery play, The Mousetrap, celebrates its 100th performance. Essential details are supplied by an unseen narrator who, in a nod to 1950’s Sunset Blvd., speaks from beyond the grave.

 

The festivities are cut short both by the drunken antics of boorish, blacklisted American screenwriter Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), and — a bit later — the distressing discovery that one of these folks has been murdered. For real.

 

Cue the arrival of world-weary Scotland Yard Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and his eager-beaver rookie, Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan). They find the body propped on the couch of the play’s single-room theater setting.

 

“Staged, so to speak,” Stalker impishly observes.

 

Chappell’s script is full of similarly playful one-liners.

 

The corpus delicti is none other than Köpernick, who — as flashbacks reveal — managed to irritate, annoy, belittle or blackmail just about everybody else. In true Agatha Christie fashion, there’s no shortage of suspects.

The One and Only Ivan: A noble hero

The One and Only Ivan (2020) • View trailer 

3.5 stars. Rated PG, for mild dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.4.20 

Break out the Kleenex; you’ll be snuffling before this gentle little fable concludes its first act.

 

Which is not to say that The One and Only Ivan, debuting on Disney+, is an unrelenting tear-jerker; far from it. But by replicating the “gimmick” from Katherine Applegate’s Newbery Medal-winning 2012 children’s novel — in which the title character, a silverback gorilla, narrates his own story — scripter Mike White puts us squarely into this intelligent creature’s heart and soul.

 

Under the watchful eye of Bob, a stray dog and best bud, Ivan reluctantly
agrees to baby elephant Ruby's request that he tell her a story.

I’ve not been a fan of the increasingly convincing CGI talking animals in recent Disney films — particularly when they burst into song — because their speaking ability destroys the otherwise astonishing accuracy with which such critters are created. But it works here, because it is essential that we understand what motivates this saga’s star: what he imagines and yearns for, and how he reacts to the environment, people and other animals in his orbit.

 

Right from the start, it’s easy to embrace the fact that we’re sharing Ivan’s thoughts … which was, of course, the point of Applegate’s book. Considerable credit also goes to Sam Rockwell, who voices Ivan so sensitively; and director Thea Sharrock, who plays us like a fiddle. Let us not forget that Sharrock helmed 2016’s Me Before You, which had folks sobbing in the aisles.

 

Needless to say, this film — as was the case with Applegate’s book — also is a quietly powerful statement in our ongoing reassessment of wild animals in captivity. Indeed, the fact that this story is set in a circus, of sorts, feels uncomfortable. But it’s a period piece, faithful to the 1980s setting; more to the point, Sharrock and White don’t preach. 

 

Viewers have no trouble drawing the proper conclusions.

 

Events take place at the Exit 8 Big Top Shopping Mall and Video Arcade, which for years has boasted a “little top” circus. (Filming took place in Lakeland, Fla., although the script deliberately avoids specificity; this could be any indoor mall, in any city or state.) Ivan, the 400-lb. star, is joined by Stella (voiced by Angelina Jolie), an aging African elephant, and a small assortment of other critters.

 

The tiny circus was founded years earlier by Mack (Bryan Cranston), as a means to accommodate and earn a living with Ivan, who was rescued as a baby but quickly outgrew his initial suburban home. The two have long shared a special relationship.

 

In the tradition of such stories, Ivan, Stella and the other animals converse avidly with each other, but never with humans. It’s a testament to both Cranston and CGI wizardry, that we recognize the Mack/Ivan bond via silent expressions, forehead touches and other tiny — but powerful — shared gestures.

 

Richard Jewell: Grim slaughter of innocents

Richard Jewell (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Perhaps the most reprehensible lingering disgrace in the ordeal suffered by Richard Jewell — during a lengthy nightmare laden with hourly indignities — is the fact that, to this day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution maintains that it behaved responsibly.

Centennial Park security officer Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser, center) points law
enforcement officers to a suspicious-looking backpack that has been abandoned
beneath a bench near the sound-and-light tower adjacent to the performance stage,
where Jack Mack and the Heart Attack are entertaining thousands of fans.

To borrow a phrase from the younger generation, I call BS.

Jewell deserves to be remembered solely as the hero who, while working as a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, discovered a bomb-laden backpack and helped evacuate the crowded area before it exploded. He undoubtedly saved many, many lives.

Instead, he’s more likely remembered as the hapless individual who, three days later, was identified as the probable suspect who planted the bomb, thanks to an overzealous FBI investigation, inflammatory “reporting” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the hundreds of media outlets that subsequently fanned the flames. 

Despite being cleared after an 88-day siege by media and all manner of law enforcement, Jewell undoubtedly remained a question mark in the minds of many, particularly since nobody initially was arrested for the heinous crime. It’s easy to imagine the rumor-mongering: “Maybe he did do it, but the FBI just didn’t have enough evidence…”

Even when Eric Rudolph confessed to being the bomber after being arrested in 2003, there was no way to wholly eradicate the avalanche of accusatory publicity that had buried Jewell and his equally hapless mother for 88 days. Retractions and “fresh truth” rarely have the impact of three months’ worth of screaming headlines.

Director Clint Eastwood and scripter Billy Ray — adapting Marie Brenner’s mesmerizing profile of Jewell, in the February 1997 Vanity Fair — have done their best to restore his honor, in a compelling drama fueled by powerhouse performances from Paul Walter Hauser and Kathy Bates, as Richard and his mother, Bobi. The result is a terrifying cautionary tale about the fragility of one’s place in society, and the ease with which an ordinary life can be ruined by authority and bad publicity.

Jewell’s ordeal truly is straight out of Kafka.

Jojo Rabbit: A cheeky masterpiece

Jojo Rabbit (2019) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, disturbing images and violence
By Derrick Bang

You’re unlikely to see a more audacious film this year.

The slightest misstep — the most minute mistake in tone — and director/scripter Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Christine Leunens’ Jojo Rabbit would slide into puerile bathos or unforgivably heinous poor taste.

Having just discovered that a young woman (Thomasin McKenzie, as Elsa) has been
concealed behind the wall of an upstairs bedroom for an unknown length of time,
impassioned Hitler Youth acolyte Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is uncertain how to
handle this potentially dangerous situation.

Such a delicate tightrope walk … which Waititi maneuvers with impressive grace, skill and cunning.

Along with his unerring handling of a note-perfect cast.

Satires about Adolf Hitler are rare, and for obvious reasons; the very notion is an artistic mine field. Charlie Chaplin pulled it off, with 1940’s The Great Dictator; so did Mel Brooks, with his Oscar-winning script for 1967’sThe Producers. And now we have an even more daring and impudent skewering of the dread Teppichfresser.

Ten-and-a-half-year-old Jojo Betzler (precocious Roman Griffin Davis, in a stunning acting debut) is introduced as he stares at his reflection in a mirror, dressed in Nazi finery. “Today you join the ranks of the Jungvolk!” he proudly tells himself. “You are in peak mental and physical condition. You have the body of a panther, and the mind of … a brainy panther. You are a shiny example of shiny perfection!”

The setting is the quaint (fictitious) town of Falkenheim, Austria, years into the repressive Nazi rule. Although all signs point to the war’s imminent conclusion, the naïve and credulously gullible Jojo has waited to be old enough to embrace the pervasive propaganda against which he has grown up, by joining the Hitler Youth. He and best friend Yorki (Archie Yates, endearingly cherubic) are tremendously excited by the weekend of “training” that will transform them into hard-charging Nazi warriors.

Except that things don’t quite work out that way. 

The training camp is overseen by the wearily cynical Capt. Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), who’d prefer to lead men to “glorious death” at the front, rather than shepherd “a bunch of little titty-grabbers.” He’s assisted by loyal acolyte Freddie Finkel (Alfie Allen, late of Game of Thrones), far more faithful than intelligent; and Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson, whose deadpan slow takes are to die for), ever-willing to accept and spread the most absurd Nazi myths.

Trouble is, Jojo’s inherently sensitive nature is completely at odds with the Nazi “Aryan ideal” he’s so desperate to mimic. The crunch comes when, as the youngest and clearly most intimidated boy in the group, he’s ordered to demonstrate his ferocity … by killing a rabbit.

Vice: Evolution of a monster?

Vice (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for profanity and violent images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.11.19

It’s sad when the whole doesn’t live up to the sum of its parts.

Vice is turbo-charged by a jaw-dropping performance from star Christian Bale: as wholly immersive as Gary Oldman’s similarly masterful portrayal of Winston Churchill, in 2017’s Darkest Hour. Bale’s impersonation is equally convincing; at times, you’d swear that Dick Cheney himself were on the screen.

The fateful meeting: Presidential candidate George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell, right) wants
Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) as his running mate, a traditionally toothless position that
interests the latter not at all ... until he perceives the degree to which this particular
U.S. president could be controlled and manipulated.

Bale is (in)famous for putting soul andbody into his performances, having dropped 70 pounds for his emaciated role in 2004’s The Machinist, then regaining the weight — plus another 30 pounds — the following year, for the first of his three stints as Batman/Bruce Wayne. More recently, he briefly porked up to 228 for the convincing pot belly sported in 2013’s American Hustle.

Now, in order to step that much more persuasively into Cheney’s shoes, Bale bleached his eyebrows, shaved his head … and gained 40 pounds.

But Bale doesn’t rely exclusively on such physical attributes; he wholly inhabits the man’s bearing, stance, brooding gaze and terse, clipped manner of speech. And the most important feature of all: the reptilian, thousand-yard stare with which Cheney could cut a person dead (or, at the very least, render the recipient into cowed silence).

Amy Adams doesn’t rest in Bale’s shadow. Her handling of Cheney’s wife Lynne is equally compelling, Adams’ acting chops every bit as authoritative. Writer/director Adam McKay clearly has assumed that just as Cheney was the (mostly) unseen power behind George W. Bush, Lynne was the (mostly) unseen power behind her husband.

Vice more or less profiles Cheney’s rise from alcoholic twentysomething ne’er-do-well to Master of the World: an often macabre and deeply disturbing validation of the old warning that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

McKay audaciously acknowledges, via introductory lines of text against an otherwise black screen, that he couldn’t possibly have any inside knowledge regarding many (most? all?) of the conversations taking place between this cheeky film’s numerous real-world characters. Even so, the blend of supposition and known fact is — at times — grimly unsettling, particularly when further juxtaposed against McKay’s satiric tone.

It’s not easy to simultaneously chuckle and gasp with revulsion, but you’ll do so. More than once.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Signs of the Times?

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for violence and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang

This one’s not for the faint of heart.

Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s savagely dark assault on mainstream sensibilities is both a blistering burlesque and a painfully raw depiction of despair, frustration and unchecked rage. Much of this film obviously cannot — should not — be taken seriously; unfortunately, quite a lot also feels excruciatingly real.

Although troubled by the rather drastic step that Mildred (Frances McDormand) has taken,
in an effort to achieve closure regarding her daughter's long-unsolved murder, Police
Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) checks his emotions while explaining the
frustrating circumstances behind the case.

And not all that unlikely.

The film is powered by Frances McDormand’s sensational starring performance, an acting tour-de-force even more persuasive — more believably, subtly grounded, even within exaggerated circumstances — than her Academy Award-winning work in 1996’s Fargo. And I never, ever expected to write those words.

Her Mildred Hayes is wracked with grief and unresolved anger: a single mother pushed to the edge by her teenage daughter’s gruesome rape/murder, which remains unsolved after seven months. Fed up with what she perceives as investigative apathy, Mildred purchases messages on three long-unused billboards standing alongside the quiet road leading to her home.

The three-part message is a direct and controversial challenge to local police chief William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson).

Many of the residents in bucolic Ebbings regard Mildred’s provocative act as profoundly unfair. Tellingly, Willoughby isn’t all that bothered. But second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), an immature, racist, violence-prone mama’s boy who wouldn’t know prudence if she kissed him, gets ugly. Repeatedly.

The subsequent unraveling of McDonagh’s vicious narrative is laden with revelations, which is much of the fun: You simply cannot anticipate the twists and U-turns, and there’s no sense trying.

Casting is the first surprise, because Harrelson has built his career — in great measure — on a series of unbalanced and even dangerous misanthropes; we naturally expect the same here. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Willoughby is the story’s most rational, thoughtful and level-headed character: a decent man who wins our respect, because he responds to Mildred not with hostility, but kindness and sympathy.

It’s an absolutely cold case, he gently explains, after the billboards go up. No telling evidence. No DNA hits. Nada.

Harrelson exudes good-natured pragmatism and intelligence; he’s genuinely endearing. We all should be so lucky, to have such a thoughtful police chief.

Mildred is unconvinced; Willoughby acknowledges this as her right.

The Way, Way Back: A droll little gem

The Way, Way Back (2013) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, mild profanity and brief drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.13

We don’t necessarily realize this right away, but the battle lines are drawn in this film’s opening scene: War has been declared, and no quarter will be given.

Having enjoyed a delightful day together, which has lent weight to their growing
fondness for each other, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and Duncan (Liam James)
return home to a chilly reception from the aggressive adult that this boy has grown to
loathe: the bully who has become his divorced mother's constant companion. And,
just like that, the day's magic evaporates...

Sadly, our adversaries are badly mismatched, which the villain of this piece knows full well. And he’s perfectly willing to reduce his opponent to emotional rubble.

The Way, Way Back is one of the best coming-of-age tales ever caught on film: a captivating blend of snarky comedy and heartbreaking pathos that evokes pleasant memories of Summer of ’42, Stand by Me and other classics of the genre. This project is cast to perfection, with every actor — in parts large or small — making the most of the sharp script from writer/directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

Very few films leave us wanting more, as the screen darkens, the lights come up, and we regretfully abandon our seats. I didn’t want this one to end. Indeed, I wanted to watch it again, if only to catch some of the dialogue that was buried beneath the laughter coming from last week’s delighted preview audience.

The action takes place in the summer beach community of Marshfield, Mass., and the surrounding area on Boston’s South Shore. Although the setting is contemporary — only because we spot smart phones and ear buds — the locale feels oddly timeless, as is appropriate for the narrative. Youthful angst knows no specific era; the desperation of adolescents struggling for maturity has been relevant ever since Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

This anywhen atmosphere is further amplified by Water Wizz, the somewhat dilapidated water park that plays such an important role in these events. (It’s no set; Water Wizz is a fully operational, mom-and-pop operation in East Wareham, Mass.) Back in the day, Hollywood sometimes used traveling carnivals and circuses as settings for coming-of-age sagas; fading theme parks seem to have become the modern equivalent.

I’d love to see this new film on a double bill with 2009’s under-rated Adventureland, which has a similarly nostalgic vibe, although its protagonist is a bit older. Now, that would be a grand night at the movies.

Anyway...

Fourteen-year-old Duncan (Liam James) has been dragged along for a summer “vacation” at the beach house owned by his divorced mother Pam’s (Toni Collette) overbearing boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell). To say that Trent is a calculating bully would be understatement; he views Duncan as a potential impediment toward his pursuit of Pam — an absolutely accurate appraisal — and snatches every opportunity to crush the boy’s already fragile spirit.

Seven Psychopaths: Deranged in all the wrong ways

Seven Psychopaths (2012) • View trailer
One star. Rating: R, and generously, for strong violence and gore, pervasive profanity, sexuality, nudity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

A very thin line separates clever dark comedy from tasteless crap; this film crosses and permanently disfigures that line.

Then again, one probably shouldn’t expect much from a flick titled Seven Psychopaths.

Marty (Colin Farrell, left) only wants to finish his next screenplay. Unfortunately, he gets
sucked into a dog-napping scheme orchestrated by his best friend, Billy (Sam Rockwell,
right) and the oddly calm Hans (Christopher Walken). Everything goes to hell when
they snatch a pooch belonging to a violent mob boss, but that's only the tip of the
terrifying iceberg; poor Marty soon finds himself surrounded by all manner of
deranged psychopaths.

But that’s the problem; I did expect better. London-born writer/director Marin McDonagh previously brought us In Bruges, a compelling morality play that delivered precisely the right blend of mordant humor, interpersonal angst and jolting — but not gratuitous — dollops of violence. The film worked on several levels, and McDonagh garnered a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for his script.

Apparently, success has gone to his head. Just as apparently, he misjudged which elements made In Bruges work, and has chosen to amplify the wrong stuff for Seven Psychopaths. It’s neither funny nor compelling, and it certainly can’t be called a morality play. This repellant mess barely qualifies as a film; it feels more like a series of disconnected scenes and half-assed concepts, strung together and granted a provocative title, in an effort to trick viewers into purchasing tickets before word gets out.

Don’t be among the victims.

I can’t help wondering what better-skilled purveyors of pop sleaze — such as Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez — would have made of this fitful premise. At the very least, they’d have injected the necessary levels of giddy energy and ghastly insouciance that are wholly absent here. McDonagh obviously intends his long stretches of inane dialogue to capture the mesmerizing wordplay that Tarantino delivers so well, but the results here aren’t even close.

Aside from repugnant, this film is boring. Deadly, deadly dull ... even when it descends to levels of gore more appropriate to direct-to-video horror swill.

Colin Farrell stars as Marty, a Los Angeles-based screenwriter suffering a case of writer’s block that isn’t helped by his tendency to drink too much. He has nothing beyond a catchy high-concept title for his next project: Seven Psychopaths. The gimmick here is that everybody Marty encounters, during the next few days, will offer increasingly vicious and deranged anecdotes, urban legends and (ick!) personal experiences that they believe will “help” Marty flesh out his screenplay.

These sagas unfold as mini-movies themselves, wholly disconnected from the primary storyline.

This may sound clever. It isn’t.

Cowboys & Aliens: When genres collide

Cowboys & Aliens (2011) • View trailer for Cowboys & Aliens
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and rather generously, for intense sci-fi action and violence, brief partial nudity and a fleeting crude reference
By Derrick Bang

Scientist and sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke once observed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Scott Mitchell Rosenberg had plenty of fun with that concept, in the 2006 graphic novel he created and chaperoned with artist Luciano Lima and writers Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley. The basic premise is so beguiling, that it's amazing nobody else thought of it first: What if, instead of repeatedly bothering post-WWII Earth, extraterrestrials had arrived 100 years earlier?

Having tracked an unknown whatzis to its rather unusual lair, cattle baron
Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford, left) and wanted train robber Jake
Lonergan (Daniel Craig) ponder their next move ... while both men wonder if
the strange gadget on Jake's left wrist will prove helpful.

Surely the average citizens of our Wild West would have believed themselves beset by demons who wielded magic beyond their comprehension.

Director Jon Favreau's big-screen adaptation of Cowboys & Aliens takes numerous liberties with that original graphic novel; a press-gang of six (!) credited writers has shaped this rootin', tootin' saga around its two big-name stars, while also moving the core plot in different directions. But the story's foundation remains the same: How would 19th century folks have reacted to such a threat?

While Favreau sends up hoary film western conventions with a few chuckles here and there — the sort of levity he also brought to his two Iron Man films — Cowboys & Aliens is, at all times, a much grimmer saga (grim enough to test the boundaries of its PG-13 rating). We're quite removed from the cute, inquisitive outer-space visitors of Steven Spielberg's E.T.; the aliens in this tale are brutish, nasty and Up To No Good. They think nothing of kidnapping hapless Earthers and then studying them at great length.

And you can forget about the eyebrow-raising rectal probes discussed with such insistence by obsessed modern "victims" of alien abduction; these extra-terrestrials go straight to vivisection and cellular disintegration. Not nice folks. At all.

But that's getting ahead of things. Favreau's film opens as a man with neither memory nor name (Daniel Craig) wakens one morning, in the sun-blasted land just outside the small New Mexico town of Absolution. It's 1875, and our protagonist hasn't the faintest idea how he got there, or how he wound up with such a peculiar bracelet-type gadget around his left wrist.

The latter won't come off, and its purpose remains hidden.

Shortly after wandering into Absolution — following a brief encounter with three would-be bounty hunters — our stranger learns that he's Jake Lonergan, and that he's wanted for all sorts of crimes. He encounters a young woman — Olivia Wilde, as Ella — who seems unusually interested in him; he also realizes that the entire town is in thrall to local cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), whose ne'er-do-well son, Percy (Paul Dano), is an untouchable thorn in everybody's side.

Until Jake touches him, anyway. Quite a solid touch, at that.

Conviction: Fascinating legal drama anchored by strong acting

Conviction (2010) • View trailer for Conviction
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.28.10

Autumn seems to be the season of docu-dramas, whether the family-friendly triumph of Secretariat or the deliciously snarky profile of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network .

In terms of tone and execution, Conviction slots somewhere between these two, and director Tony Goldwyn's compelling legal drama offers the same high-caliber acting that made The Social Network such a pleasure to watch.

While Betty Ann Waters (Hilary Swank) watches in disbelief and
consternation, her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) is led away
 after having been found guilty of a heinous murder. Kenny insists
on his innocence, and Betty Ann believes him ... but what can an
under-educated high school dropout do to help her only sibling?

Conviction is a grittier narrative about less palatable characters, given a finished polish of coarse authenticity by Pamela Gray's straightforward script. This is a story of uncompromising love and stubborn determination: an empowerment saga that would feel much happier under better circumstances ... but Goldwyn and Gray wisely eschew the Hollywood gloss that could have turned their film into a manipulative, tear-jerking fairy tale.

And although the events here are as factual and historically significant as those depicted in Secretariat and The Social Network, very few people will recognize the names of Betty Ann Waters and her older brother, Kenny. More than likely, then, this saga's outcome — although a matter of public record — will come as a surprise to most viewers.


Goldwyn and Gray pepper their first act with a series of flashbacks that allow us to develop a sense of Betty Ann (Bailee Madison) and Kenny (Tobias Campbell) as adolescents in the 1960s: wild children unsupervised by their absentee mother (Karen Young) and with only each other for support, and therefore frequently in trouble with the law in their small-town Massachusetts community.

Moon: Thoughtful sci-fi

Moon (2009) • View trailer for Moon
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.9.09
Buy DVD: Moon • Buy Blu-Ray: Moon [Blu-ray]

"The Cold Equations," a classic science-fiction short story written by Tom Godwin in 1954, concerns a space pilot in a one-man ship that has been sent on an emergency mission, to bring desperately needed medical supplies to the settlers on an outlying planet.

While en route, the pilot, Barton, discovers a stowaway: a feisty teenager hoping to visit her brother on the distant world ... a plucky, personable young woman everybody would love to have as a younger (or older) sister.

The monitor readouts rarely change, and this seems just like any other day
inside the lonely mining base dumped on the far side of Earth's moon ... but as
Sam (Sam Rockwell) is about to find out, this particular day will become
anything but ordinary.

Trouble is, the ship's fuel consumption has been calibrated precisely to the weight of the pilot and cargo: anything more — particularly something as heavy as a second person — and the ship won't reach its destination. The medicine won't arrive; countless colonists will die.

We readers, fully aware of what must be done, turn each page with mounting dread, hoping that Barton will figure out an alternate solution.

But no: The laws of physics and mathematics cannot be bartered with. Eventually, helplessly, Barton must cycle her out of the airlock.

The story's final two pages are chilling and instantly, permanently memorable.

So-called "hard" science-fiction rarely involves aliens, space battles or improbable time travel paradoxes. The futuristic setting is, instead, a reasonable extrapolation of modern society; such stories are driven by the same human conflict that would fuel a straight contemporary drama.

Sometimes the stories are parables: intentionally disturbing scenarios of what might result, if society continues to behave in a particularly short-sighted manner.

Movies made from such stories aren't vicarious thrill-rides such as I, Robot and the countless Star Trek and Star Wars installments.

Translation: They're rarely popular in the box-office sense that big studios demand, particularly in this 21st century. Which is ironic, considering how such films often have a far-reaching impact that exceeds their flashier, cotton candy-headed cousins.

I must confess surprise, however, that a film as cleverly scripted and persuasively realized as Duncan Jones' Moon has been marketed as an alternative "arthouse flick."

Are we to believe that arthouse/indie theaters are becoming the last refuge of thought-provoking drama, even when the trappings are science-fiction? What have those corporate Hollywood behemoths wrought?