G20: An engaging guilty pleasure

G20 (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for relentless violence

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Viola Davis isn’t the first Best Actress Oscar winner to turn into a kick-ass action hero — she was preceded by Halle Berry, Charlize Theron, Helen Mirren and Jennifer Lawrence — but Davis definitely is the first EGOT to do so.

 

Secret Service Agent Manny Ruiz (Ramón Rodríguez) helps President Danielle Sutton
(Viola Davis) to safety, as South Korean First Lady Han Min-Seo (MeeWha Alana Lee)
wisely follows.

(She achieved that status in 2023, when she won a Grammy Award for narrating her memoir, Finding Me, as an audiobook.)

I’d also argue that, even in full-blown battle mode, Davis is the most regal of the bunch.

 

G20 is pure hokum, but director Patricia Riggen and editors Doc Crotzer and Emma E. Hickox keep things moving rapidly enough to camouflage a plot that has more holes than the proverbial Swiss cheese. Honestly, the four credited scripters — Logan Miller, Noah Miller, Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss — could have tried a little harder.

 

(I also get a sense — given that production on this film took place in early 2024 — that all concerned envisioned this as wishful thinking about the upcoming real-world election, and cheekily built their story around a Black female U.S. president.

 

(Ah, if only...)

 

We’re introduced to President Danielle Sutton (Davis) as she’s dragged out of bed late one night, because her headstrong teenage daughter Serena (Marsai Martin) once again evaded her Secret Service handlers to sneak out of the White House. 

 

Thoroughly fed up — because the girl refuses to realize how such behavior places her in danger — Sutton and her husband, Derek (Anthony Anderson), decide to take Serena and her brother Demetrius (Christopher Farrar) to Cape Town, site of the annual G20 summit meeting, in order to keep her under strict surveillance.

 

This soon will place Serena and Demetrius in far greater danger than her midnight escapades, because...

 

...Summit security has been outsourced to a private outfit.

 

(“Stupid mistake!” we scream.)

Kung Fu Panda 4: Fun and frenetic

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The folks at DreamWorks animation deserve considerable credit; they keep finding clever ways to inject fresh life into a franchise that began as little more than a one-note visual gag.

 

(A panda becoming a kung fu expert? Seriously?)

 

Following a rough ocean voyage, Po and Zhen get their first glimpse of bustling
Juniper City. Po wouldn't be so excited, if he knew what was coming...

Thanks to an inventive script by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger and Darren Lemke — along with sharp, rat-a-tat dialogue delivered with great comic timing by the voice cast — this is Po’s best adventure since his debut, back in 2008.

Directors Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Stine, with an able assist from editor Christopher Knights, ensure that this 94-minute romp never slumps. Indeed, the length feels perfect; all concerned know when to get off the stage, on a crowd-pleasing high.

 

This new film’s premise is perfect: After three death-defying adventures involving world-class villains and amazing martial arts moves, Po (voiced by Jack Black) is told by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) that it’s time to give it a rest. It’s time for Po to assume a greater role as Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace ... which means finding and training a new Dragon Warrior, before he can assume this lofty position.

 

Alas, Po has no interest in giving up his mad kung fu exploits as the current Dragon Master. More to the point, he hasn’t the faintest notion of what his new role might involve. (Spiritual Leader? Sounds like a snooze!) Po also is unwilling to abandon the love-fest adulation emanating from the many animal denizens of the Valley of Peace, particularly since he has concocted so many ways to franchise himself (much to Master Shifu’s disapproval).

 

Adoptive goose dad Mr. Ping (James Hong) and panda birth dad Li (Bryan Cranston) offer encouragement, but they can’t help Po find enlightenment.

 

He’s briefly distracted while catching a cloaked thief who tries to steal valuables from the sacred palace; after a brief skirmish, Po is able to put this nimble, wisecracking intruder — a Corsac fox named Zhen (Awkwafina) — behind bars.

 

(At this point, savvy viewers will have a pretty good idea how this story will conclude, but that doesn’t diminish the delights along the way.)

 

Potential Dragon Master tryouts are interrupted when Po learns that a nearby water buffalo quarry has been terrorized and taken over by raging snow leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane), Shifu’s former student and arch-nemesis. But wait ... wasn’t Tai Lung soundly defeated back in the first film, and banished to a golden-hued afterlife?

 

All is not what it seems ... and — wouldn’t you know it — Zhen has some answers.

Air: A perfect swish

Air (2023) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for frequent profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.7.23

Nothing beats a story well told.

 

Nike’s early effort to partner with basketball’s Michael Jordan seems an unlikely topic for a fact-based mainstream drama, but in director Ben Affleck’s hands, the result is mesmerizing.

 

The magic moment: Nike creative guru Peter Moore (Matthew Mayer, left) outlines his
innovative shoe design plan for sports scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon, center) and
marketing VP Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman).

And that remains true, every minute, even though we all know this saga’s outcome.

 

Credit Affleck’s sublime handling of a cast that dazzles in every scene, along with William Goldenberg’s staccato editing and scripter Alex Convery’s sharp, shrewd and thoroughly absorbing script; it positively roars with captivating, Aaron Sorkin-style dialogue that sizzles when delivered by this roster of accomplished scene-stealers.

 

Who knew sports endorsements could be so fascinating?

 

Affleck opens with a lightning-quick montage of iconic early 1980s moments, movies, products, TV commercials and cultural touchstones: the perfect way to establish the struggling effort of distant-third Nike to establish itself as a basketball-branded shoe, running dead last behind Converse and Adidas.

 

The former had Magic Johnson and Larry Bird; the latter had the “cool” factor that made it the shoe kids wanted to wear. Adidas also had its eyes on draft pick Michael Jordan, a hot-prospect guard from the University of North Carolina.

 

The problem, as former NBA draft pick-turned-Nike exec Howard White (Chris Tucker) explains to colleague and basketball scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), is one of image. In a ferociously funny, rat-a-tat lecture delivered in Tucker’s inimitable style, Howard points out that Nike is “known” for making jogging shoes … and no Black kid would be caught dead jogging.

 

Up to this point — as the story begins — Sonny hasn’t had much success recruiting top players to the Oregon-based company’s basketball division. The situation has become so dire, the board of directors is threatening to shutter the basketball division. 

 

“I told you not to take the company public,” Sonny laments, to friend and Nike founder/CEO Phil Knight (Affleck).

 

Sonny — who lives and breathes basketball, and has an instinct for talent — can’t get enthusiastic about any of the other draft pick candidates; he’s interested solely in Jordan. But the rising young star has eyes solely for Adidas, and doesn’t even want to hear from Nike. Nor will Jordan’s shark-in-the-waters agent, David Falk (Chris Messina) — despite a respectful professional kinship with Sonny — do anything to facilitate such a meeting.

 

Sonny shares his frustration with longtime friend and Nike marketing VP Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), who is sympathetic but similarly stymied. And it must be noted that the dynamic between these four men — Sonny, Phil, Howard and Rob — is strained, as is the atmosphere within Nike’s headquarters. 

 

Even so — even when tempers are so frequently frayed — Affleck and Convery never lose track of the camaraderie, friendship and loyalty that bond these guys.

 

The Suicide Squad: Totally deranged

The Suicide Squad (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence and gore, relentless profanity, sexual references, drug use and fleeting graphic nudity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Fans of trash cinema — and their number is larger than you’d expect — fondly remember the 1980s glory days of Troma Studios, which brought us gleefully gruesome low-budget classics such as The Toxic Avenger, Surf Nazis Must Die, Rabid Grannies and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, among many others. 

 

Having battled their way through most of an island nation, our "heroes" — from left,
Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Bloodsport (Idris Elba),
King Shark and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) — simply cannot believe what
they now must deal with.

Writer/director James Gunn’s carnage-laden sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad — this new one adds a crucial “The” — is like a Troma flick with a big-studio budget. That homage clearly is deliberate, since the voluminous end credits include an acknowledgment of The Toxic Avenger.

Which is to say, this is an unapologetically tasteless, offensive, gruesome and profane 132 minutes of hyper-violent gore, made (perhaps) a bit more palatable by equally relentless gallows humor. It’s The Dirty Dozen gone dog-nuts.

 

Gunn and visual effects supervisor Kelvin McIlwain include all possible means of torturing a human body, invariably amid gouts of splattered blood: decapitations, sliced limbs, craniotomies, gouged eyeballs, halfectomies (just what it sounds like), close-range shotgun blasts, and every other imaginable form of slicing and dicing. (Actually, they may have missed defenestration, but I’m not going back to double-check.)

 

Oh, yes: and being devoured by an enraged, land-based shark.

 

Gunn has no shortage of chutzpah. Recognizing that the 2016 film was a grim, joyless affair, he has doubled-down on this one’s unceasing snark. The most ridiculous lines, emerging at the most inappropriate moments, are uttered with straight-faced sincerity … which, of course, makes them even funnier (if your predilections run to such things).

 

And I do love the clever intertitles that bridge events and signal flashbacks (“Eight minutes earlier…”).

 

Gunn also earns geek cred for resurrecting some of the craziest characters ever introduced in DC comic book lore, such as the one updated here as TDK (and played by fan fave Nathan Fillion, although he’s hard to recognize beneath the mask); and the even more unlikely Starro the Conqueror, the first supervillain faced by the original Justice League of America, when that team debuted in early 1960.

 

Unlikely, to be sure … yet also quite creepy.

 

But that comes much later. Events kick off with the clandestine, late-night invasion of the island nation of Corto Maltese, which — thanks to a vicious regime change — suddenly has become a threat to the good ol’ US of A. Our assembled “mercenaries” are misfit, hyper-enhanced villains given this chance to shorten their sentences at Belle Reve, a prison with bragging rights for having the country’s highest mortality rate.

 

These degenerate delinquents are released to the care of Task Force X leader Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), with their every move monitored back in the States by government techies supervised by the merciless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). One false step, and she’ll activate the micro-bomb implanted in the base of each villain’s skull, thereby blowing his — or her — head off.

 

(Yes, of course we get to watch that happen.)

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Absolutely unforgettable

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) • View trailer

Five stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.21  

August Wilson’s plays are not for the faint of heart.

 

Even acknowledging that, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is acutely harrowing: a cry of rage whose 1982 stage debut was almost six decades removed from its 1927 setting, and — sadly — just as relevant today, almost a full century after the events depicted within.

 

At first, the other combo members — from left, in the rear, Toledo (Glynn Turman),
Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and Cutler (Colman Domingo) — are amused by the
arrogance and swagger of the much younger Levee (Chadwick Boseman). But he'll
soon wind them up far beyond patience and endurance.

Wilson’s play is the second in what would become his 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle. It’s the third chronologically, following Gem of the Ocean (set in the 1900s) and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1910s).

 

Director George C. Wolfe and scripter Ruben Santiago-Hudson have “opened up” this Netflix film adaptation a bit, tweaked the narrative chronology here and there, and amplified a key climactic metaphor (the latter a powerful enhancement). But rest assured: This remains Wilson’s play, and its frustrated anger and impotent despair are delivered via stunning work from stars Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman (the latter’s final film, prior to his untimely death last August).

 

Only rarely is a film able to deliver the intensity of live performances by charismatic actors, who literally suck the air out of the room when they saunter onto a stage.

 

This is one of those occasions.

 

A brief prologue establishes legendary singer Ma Rainey’s enormous popularity — deservedly dubbed “The Mother of the Blues” — among fans in her native Columbus, Ga. We then cut to Chicago, during the sweltering summer of 1927, where Ma has agreed to interrupt her current tour long enough to cut a record for the flyspeck Hot Rhythms label.

 

(Ma is the sole character in Wilson’s 10-play cycle who is based on a real person. She also was an unapologetically “out” lesbian, who in her song “Prove It On Me,” crooned “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends/Must have been women, ’cause I don’t like men.”)

 

Her band arrives first: pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman, who has played the role on stage), bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and trombonist Cutler (Colman Domingo). Cornet player Levee (Boseman) is a bit late, having been distracted into purchasing a pair of flashy yellow shoes spotted in a shop window.

 

We’ve already seen — in the aforementioned prologue — that Levee has a high opinion of his musical chops, and has a tendency to upstage Ma (to her visual displeasure).

 

Once assembled, the four band members are confronted by the two white men supervising the recording session: exploitative, penny-pinching studio owner Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne); and Ma’s manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos). Both want to know where the hell Ma is; Irvin does his best to calm Sturdyvant’s mounting anger.

 

Widows: Revenge with style

Widows (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, nudity and sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.16.18

This one hits the ground running — literally — and never lets up.

Director Steve McQueen’s skillfully constructed crime thriller boasts a top-flight ensemble cast and a sharp script — from McQueen and Gillian Flynn — along with slick editing (Joe Walker) and creative cinematography (Sean Bobbitt), which a camera that frequently crouches and prowls around walls and cars. The latter two elements contribute to a rising level of nail-biting tension that becomes nearly unbearable by the explosive climax.

Veronica (Viola Davis, center), grieving over the sudden, violent loss of her husband, is
comforted by political candidate Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), who insists that she get
in touch if she ever needs anything. She'll find cause to hold him to that promise...

Everything that a taut suspenser should be.

McQueen’s film is adapted and updated from an equally hard-boiled, six-part 1983 British miniseries written by Lynda La Plante, best known on these shores for having created DCI Jane Tennison, in the riveting Prime Suspect franchise. La Plante set the narrative in London; McQueen and Flynn transplant the action to Chicago, while adding a strong — and brilliantly integrated — political element.

(Chicagoans must wonder whether their city ever will escape its corruption-laden reputation.)

The story kicks off on a heist-in-progress gone violently awry, as a four-man crew led by Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) attempts to escape in a van, while police cars descend from all directions. This sequence is intercut with glimpses of earlier, calmer moments between the men and their four wives: Harry and Veronica (Viola Davis) in bed, deeply in love with each other; Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), arguing finances with the evasive Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo); Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a Polish immigrant bride nursing another black eye inflicted by the abusive Florek (Jon Bernthal); and Amanda (Carrie Coon), happily nesting and co-parenting a newborn infant.

Back in the moment, Harry screeches the van into their warehouse hangout, two of his accomplices tending to the badly wounded third. But it’s a trap; surrounding police unleash a fusillade of gunfire. The van explodes and burns hot, leaving nothing but charred remains.

Meanwhile…

Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), a legacy candidate running for alderman in Chicago’s 18th Ward, pays a visit to the modest campaign headquarters of Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), the African-American opponent whose poll numbers have begun to climb. Jack’s family has run (and looted) the 18th Ward for generations, and Jack isn’t about to let that change on his watch; his viciously racist father, Tom (a savage, venom-spewing Robert Duvall), wouldn’t tolerate it.

This superficially cordial tête-à-tête between Jack and Jamal bristles with veiled threats and razor-sharp dialogue (which McQueen and Flynn continue to pen throughout the film). Jack clearly is as crooked as a spent match, dogged by accusations of having “extracted” $5 million from various phony public works projects. But it quickly transpires — after Jack departs — that the seemingly virtuous Jamal is no better.

Worse yet, Jamal’s interests are safeguarded by his homicidal younger brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya, recognized from last year’s Get Out), a psychopath with a fondness for using guns and sharp knives to extract information … or eliminate “problems.”

Fences: Built to last

Fences (2016) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and mild profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.28.16

Big-screen adaptations of famous plays can be problematic; it’s often difficult to “open up” the drama, in order to avoid a claustrophobic sense that the result is simply a filmed stage production.

Although Troy (Denzel Washington, center) has long promised to enclose his back yard
with a spiffy wooden fence, best friend Bono (Stephen Henderson, left) cheerfully
expresses his doubts that it'll ever happen. Wanting to demonstrate otherwise, Troy orders
teenage son Cory (Jovan Adepo) to start sawing the lumber.

As a director, Denzel Washington and production designer David Gropman haven’t done much to expand this play’s original stage tableau; most of the action still takes place in the back yard of the tiny home that Troy Maxson shares with his wife Rose, although the film also brings us inside, where we see how hard she works to keep things clean and tidy. Occasional establishing shots give a sense of mid-1950s Pittsburgh, and we spend a bit of time with Troy and best friend Bono, making their rounds as garbage collectors.

But it really wasn’t necessary to enhance any of these settings, because the film’s secret weapon is the same element that made the play a Tony Award-winning hit during its initial 1987-88 Broadway run, and subsequently led to a Pulitzer Prize: playwright August Wilson’s mesmerizing dialogue. Many of the lines — particularly those spoken by Troy — have a lyrical, attention-grabbing cadence that transfixes us just as much as the drama itself.

Fences was revived for a 13-week Broadway run in the spring of 2010, once again earning multiple Tony Awards, including a pair for stars Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. They’ve reprised their roles for this film adaptation, and remained utterly faithful to Wilson’s original script: No “adaptor” has messed with the dialogue.

The result is an enormously powerful showcase for Wilson, Washington and Davis.

The two stars have numerous impressive scenes, and it’s difficult to cite one over the others. But, days later, I remain drawn to a moment when Troy shares an incident from his childhood: an event that precipitated his running away from home, at age 14, to escape from a dangerous father who might have killed him. In a role that’s given to deliciously baroque, self-indulgent speeches and explosions of short-tempered anger, Washington’s handling of this scene resonates for its contrast.

He relates the anecdote quietly, its impact still affecting Troy deeply, so many years later. As an audience, we dare not even breathe: just as transfixed as the characters listening to Troy speak. I’ve not seen a moment to match this degree of softly narrated trauma since Billy Bob Thornton’s first soliloquy, in 1996’s Sling Blade.

Suicide Squad: Great premise, uneven execution

Suicide Squad (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.5.16

E.M. Nathanson deserves the credit, and nobody has the faintest idea who he is.

He wrote the best-selling 1965 WWII thriller, The Dirty Dozen, which director Robert Aldrich turned into a crackling action film two years later. With the template firmly established — that of disgraced convict soldiers sent on a suicide mission, with the promise of commuted sentences for any survivors — numerous books and films have “borrowed” the premise, often to crowd-pleasing results.

Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman, center top) has his hands full, trying to control the behavior
of his misfit squad: clockwise from upper right, Deadshot (Will Smith), Captain Boomerang
(Jai Courtney), Katana (Karen Fukuhara), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Killer Croc
(Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)

Those crowds include comic book readers, particularly with the 2007 re-boot of this concept in DC’s Superman universe.

And why not? Bad guys always get the best lines, and there’s no questioning the vicarious thrill of watching villains allowed to behave reprehensibly.

As one of this new film’s characters impertinently explains, following a minor transgression: “We’re bad guys. It’s what we do.”

The audaciously irreverent big-screen adaptation of Suicide Squad has plenty of snarky allure, in great part thanks to Margot Robbie’s captivating star turn as the sexy, salacious and gleefully homicidal Harley Quinn. As any longtime comic book fan will attest, Robbie nails the character, with all of her cherubic, psychopathic charisma. Harley revels in her over-the-top awfulness, and Robbie embraces the role with lustful fury.

Comic book movies very rarely get remembered by Academy voters, but this one should; Robbie’s performance here makes the movie.

She gets a strong assist from Will Smith, doing an equally fine job with the more difficult role of Floyd Lawton, better known as ace assassin Deadshot. Most of the time, Lawton has no problem with killing at the behest of the highest bidder, but he hates being viewed in a negative light by his estranged but still devoted adolescent daughter, Zoe (Shailyn Pierre-Dixon, touching in a brief performance).

Smith, as a result, must navigate the more delicate waters of a conflicted soul: a bad guy who might possess a shred of nobility.

But we’re getting ahead of things. To the plot:

As the next installment in DC movie continuity, Suicide Squad — directed and scripted by David Ayer — takes place in the aftermath of early spring’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, which concluded as Big Blue was dealt a mortal blow by a Kryptonite spear. The U.S. government, in something of a panic, worries how a world without Superman could defeat the next hyper-powered adversary.

Blackhat: A crumpled cyber-joke

Blackhat (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Rarely has a film worked so hard, on so many levels, to be dumb, dull and mean-spirited.

I cannot imagine why an A-list director such as Michael Mann attached himself to Morgan Davis Foehl’s thoroughly ludicrous, bonehead-stupid script. Nobody with an ounce of savvy could have seen gold in this dross; if green-lighting this sort of puerile junk truly represents corporate thinking, then Universal Pictures is run by monkeys.

On the run and trying to evade pursuit in Hong Kong's colorful market district, our heroes
— from left, Nick (Chris Hemsworth), Lien (Wei Tang) and Jessup (Holt McCallany) —
quietly make their way to the safety of a modest apartment. But can they be truly safe,
in a world where everybody's movements are tracked by cameras and computers?

Foehl has worked as an assistant editor, mostly on television, for roughly a decade. Blackhat is his first script.

It shows.

He makes every rookie mistake, and quite grandiosely: from a relentless barrage of computer-oriented techno-babble, to seriously — seriously — misjudging the impact of his malicious tightening of the dramatic screws. Tuesday evening’s preview audience grew downright hostile as we hit the third act, and with good reason; we weren’t merely betrayed, we were sucker-punched.

Not that Mann doesn’t deserve his share of the blame. Under better circumstances, a thriller dealing with cyber-terrorism should be able to ride the obvious promotional bump delivered by headlines still echoing from the recent Sony hack. Indeed, the serendipity is almost spooky, on par with 1979’s The China Syndrome being released 12 days before the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.

But we know Blackhat is destined to be a stinker, when Mann opens his film with a protracted, electron’s-point-of-view sfx ride that purportedly shows what it’s like, deep within a server’s countless circuit boards, when a rogue command activates. The whole sequence feels like a what-the-hell cast-off from Tron, and it brings this new film to a grinding halt ... before it even starts.

And, to compound the felony, Mann soon indulges in this tedious exercise a second time.

A bloated thriller that clocks in at a butt-numbing 133 minutes can’t afford that sort of self-indulgence; it denotes a director who isn’t in control of his own movie. Which, in Mann’s case here, quickly becomes obvious.

Get On Up: An artistic downer

Get On Up (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, drug use, violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang 

Rarely has a strong starring performance been sabotaged so thoroughly by a film’s core structure.

During what begins as a casual chat following a successful concert performance, Bobby
(Nelsan Ellis, right) makes the mistake of sharing some of his own musical dreams with
longtime friend and colleague James Brown (Chadwick Boseman). Big mistake: Of all
people, Bobby should have known that in Brown's world, there's only room for one ego.

Chadwick Boseman impressed us last year with his dignified, finely shaded portrayal of baseball great Jackie Robinson, in 42. Boseman is simply amazing here, as “godfather of soul” James Brown: the voice; the earthy charisma; the electrifying, bone-defying dance moves; and most particularly the soul-shattered instability. It’s a performance for the ages.

Too bad it’s buried in such a clumsy and maladroit package.

One generally blames the director for the totally of a film; he is, after all, the guy who signs off on every take, oversees the editing and assembly of words, images and music. I’m reluctant to do so in this case, because Tate Taylor certainly deserves credit for coaxing such a galvanic performance from Boseman ... and, to only a slightly lesser degree, from the equally talented Nelsan Ellis, just a memorable in a supporting role as Brown’s longtime friend and musical colleague, Bobby Byrd.

Taylor, after all, guided Octavia Spencer to an Academy Award for her fine work in The Help, a thoroughly absorbing adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s book, which also garnered a Best Picture nod and acting nominations for Viola Davis and Jessica Chastain. The man clearly knows how to elicit the best from his actors.

On the other hand, Taylor obviously didn’t recognize the serious deficiencies in this biographical portrait. Censure more deservedly goes to scripters Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Steven Baigelman, for the bewildering and off-putting manner in which they’ve chosen to tell Brown’s story.

The film begins very poorly, and you’ll likely want to bolt during the distasteful and downright weird prologue: an incident from late in Brown’s career, when mental demons have transformed him into an unstable, potentially dangerous lunatic. This sequence is “expanded” from a real-life meltdown that led to his arrest in September 1988, and six-year jail term (of which he served three years).

But absent any context, it’s impossible to view this scene as anything but disrespectful: a thoroughly unpalatable introduction to a man who meant so much to the music world. It’s also not one of Boseman’s better moments; he’s not able to sell Brown’s volatility in a way that enhances the drama. Even much later, when the narrative has come full circle to better explain this sequence — and its aftermath — we remain unsatisfied.

Of all the places to begin this drama, Taylor went with that one?

Ender's Game: Well played

Ender's Game (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.1.13

Celebrated sci-fi author Orson Scott Card was 26 when his first work, a novella titled “Ender’s Game,” was published in the August 1977 issue of Analog. In 1985, with much more ambitious plans for that tale’s young protagonist — and with the security of a rapidly blossoming literary career — Card expanded his debut effort into a novel that won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

While Petra (Hailee Steinfeld) watches warily, the thuggish Bonzo (Moises Arias) angrily
warns Ender (Asa Butterfield) to stay out of his way. But Ender isn't one to remain on
the sidelines, which Petra senses immediately; things are destined to get quite ugly
between these two boys.

Today, the so-called “Ender series” encompasses — are you sitting down? — a dozen novels, a dozen short stories and roughly four dozen comic books (some adapting existing novels, some with entirely new material).

Obviously, fans can’t get enough.

More significantly, for our purposes, those same fans — and the general public — will thoroughly enjoy director/scripter Gavin Hood’s big-screen adaptation of the novel that started it all.

The South African-born filmmaker is an impressively shrewd choice for this material, having burst onto the scene with 2005’s Tsotsi, which traces a week in the life of a young Johannesburg street thug who wrestles with his conscience after finding a baby in the back seat of a car he steals. The grim drama won that year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and Hood — a USC film school grad — went on to an eclectic career as a director, writer and actor.

Ender’s Game also focuses strongly on the warring conscience of a boy, while contemplating several big-ticket philosophical issues that include state-sanctioned child abuse, planetary resource depletion and the novel’s most controversial theme: the notion of meeting a bully’s brutality with a savage response designed to prevent ALL subsequent attacks.

The setting is a futuristic Earth, decades after our planet just barely repelled an invasion by an insectoid alien race dubbed the “Formics.” Expecting that these swarming monstrosities have returned to their home world in order to mount an even larger assault fleet, Earth’s united military force has pinned its hopes on a multi-national “Battle School” designed to train our best and brightest military tacticians:

Carefully selected children.

Young minds are much more agile and adaptable; we know this in our own real world. It therefore stands to reason that young minds weaned on a diet of strategy-laced computer games might be nurtured into becoming the next Patton, Napoleon or Hannibal.

(Needless to say, this rather disturbing notion — and the possibility that modern nations might be acting on it — is a helluva lot more timely today, than it was back in 1977. Among his many other talents, Card deserves credit for scary prescience.)

Prisoners: We cannot escape our nature

Prisoners (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity, torture and disturbing violent content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.20.13

Revenge thrillers have become a violent — often tawdry — Hollywood staple.

Not this one.

When Alex (Paul Dano, on his back) is released for lack of evidence, Keller (Hugh
Jackman) angrily confronts the younger man, convinced that he knows more than he's
telling about the disappearance of two little girls. Given time to think and plan, Keller
will continue this "conversation" in a less public setting, and with a decidedly more
dangerous intensity.

Prisoners is a brooding, atmospheric slow burn: part character drama, part mystery, part thriller ... and all-consuming. It has a distinctly European feel despite the small-town Americana setting: very much in the unsettling mode of French director George Sluizer’s 1988 chiller, Spoorloos, which he remade five years later with an American cast, as The Vanishing.

Prisoners comes from the capable hands of Québec-born director Denis Villeneuve, whose résumé includes tension-laden dramas such as Maelstrom and Polytechnique, and who garnered an Oscar nomination for 2010’s Incendies. Point being, Villeneuve has a superb sense of atmosphere and a knack for making the most innocent scene feel enshrouded by a blanket of malevolence.

He also has a gift for drawing persuasively authentic performances from his actors, and that’s certainly the case here. While the entire cast is compelling, stars Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal are sensational. Both are gifted actors; both have been fine before. Under Villeneuve’s capable guidance, they’re even better.

The story opens on a cold, overcast Thanksgiving Day in a working-class Pennsylvania suburb: the kind of town where kids set up lemonade stands. The homes and yards are tidy but looking a bit distressed: fading paint and weather-beaten vehicles a testament to folks barely hanging on during the tough economy.

Out in the nearby woods, Keller Dover (Jackman) offers a solemn prayer to God before encouraging teenage son Ralph (Dylan Minnette) to squeeze the trigger and claim his first deer. It’s a clean shot; as they drive the carcass home, Keller — a survivalist by nature — explains that they must be prepared at all times, must be their own strongest advocates, must expect to take charge when others inevitably fail.

Keller collects his wife, Grace (Maria Bello), and their 6-year-old daughter, Anna (Erin Gerasimovich); the family strolls up the street to celebrate the holiday with best friends Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard, Viola Davis). Ralph pairs off with teenage Eliza (Zoë Soul), who disapproves of the elder Dover’s fondness for hunting; Anna and 7-year-old Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons) play together with the exuberance of small children.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins’ camera ... hovers. We feel nervous: can’t explain why. Even as the adults relax after the huge meal, Franklin sharing his lamentable trumpet skills, the utter normality of this staunchly American ritual — playing out, we know, in similar homes across the entire country — is pregnant with building tension.

And yet it’s simply an ordinary celebratory tableau. All is right with the world.

Until, suddenly, it isn’t.