Law Abiding Citizen: Far from arresting

Law Abiding Citizen  (2009) • View trailer for Law Abiding Citizen
2.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, rape, torture, gore and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.15.09
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The biggest mystery concerning this tawdry, wind-'em-up exploitation flick is how it managed to attract such an A-list cast.

Kurt Wimmer's mean-spirited screenplay never could have been anybody's idea of a good time at the movies, and F. Gary Gray's pedestrian direction coaxes no better than a fair-to-poor performance from star Jamie Foxx. Fortunately, co-star Gerard Butler and the supporting players do much better.

When the incarcerated Clyde (Gerard Butler, center) somehow orchestrates
another brutal killing, District Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx, right) arranges
a private "interview" with the help of a sympathetic cop (Colm Meaney). But
Clyde isn't about to give away his secrets, which means we're in for more
indiscriminate murders.

But that's not likely to matter in a project that gives us nobody virtuous to cheer on: rather ironic, considering the degree to which the concepts of law and justice are bandied about. All the characters on display here are flawed, in some cases ridiculously so. More to the point, Wimmer's so-called "indictment" of the American justice system fails miserably, because he — and his on-screen "mouthpiece" — indulge in behavior far worse than is necessary to make some sort of point.

Wimmer also hasn't the faintest concept of authentic human emotion, and at times his characters behave in ways that are laughably unrealistic.

Finally, Gray wallows too much in unnecessarily vicious violence and gore. Although not as bad as the mainstream torture-porn that Diane Lane got sucked into last year — the utterly appalling Untraceable — this one's still gratuitously, needlessly unpleasant.

The film opens with a nasty prologue stolen from the original Death Wish, as Clyde Shelton (Butler) is bound and gagged during a brutal home invasion, and forced to watch as his wife is raped and then killed, along with their young daughter. Inexplicably, Clyde is left alive ... which, frankly, makes no sense at all.

The bad guys get picked up, and Clyde puts his trust in the hands of prosecutor Nick Rice (Foxx), an overly slick individual with his eye on conviction rates — no matter how compromised — rather than the human cost. The worst of Clyde's two attackers gives evidence against his younger, much less involved companion; the latter gets a death sentence, while the truly guilty thug gets a plea-bargained slap on the wrist.

Clyde does not take this well.

A decade passes, during which Nick has climbed the ladder in the Philadelphia district attorney's office, where he has become close to his boss and mentor, Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill, in a nicely modulated performance). Nick also has his own loyal understudy, the resourceful Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb, similarly convincing).

The younger felon involved in the Shelton family assault, finally having wound his way through the system, is strapped into the prison execution chamber for his lethal-injection cocktail. Nick, Sarah and several others are in the viewing chamber when the procedure goes horribly awry.

But that's nothing compared to what Clyde does to the other guy, more or less simultaneously, elsewhere in the city.

My One and Only: One to keep

My One and Only  (2009) • View trailer for My One and Only
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.9.09
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The sturdy road picture genre usually concerns a journey of the soul in addition to actual travel, often with multiple stops that reveal telling facets of the characters involved.

Although billed as a light romantic comedy, My One and Only frequently dips into melancholy, and sometimes quite unexpectedly. The film is fueled by another of Renee Zellweger's carefully nuanced performances: in this case a mid-1950s Southern belle who, having suffered one indignity too many from her philandering husband, takes off in a sparkling new soft-top Cadillac Eldorado with her two teenage sons.

Putting on a false front is what Ann Devereaux (Renee Zellweger) does best, so
she'll seize any opportunity for celebration, no matter how slight. Her two sons
react to such antics quite differently: Robbie (Mark Rendall, left) generally is
content to play along, while the far more pragmatic George (Logan Lerman)
inevitably has uncomfortable questions.

Her goal: a better father figure and provider for the boys, and a better companion for herself.

Director Richard Loncraine is better known across the pond for earlier films such as Brimstone & Treacle (1982) and Bellman and True (1987); his recent "movie star efforts" — Wimbledon and Firewall — were respectable but not particularly memorable.

On the other hand, he helmed a crackerjack episode of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, and he has a genuine gift for coaxing telling performances during quietly intimate moments. My One and Only has many of these, thanks to a whimsically quirky script from Charlie Peters, working far above the slapstick junk with which he was involved in the 1980s and '90s.

Hollywood often brings out the worst in young writers, and Peters was on the fast track to nowhere with the likes of Hot to Trot, My Father the Hero and Krippendorf's Tribe. But an 11-year industry hiatus seems to have sharpened his skills, or maybe he simply needed the right material; whatever the reason, My One and Only displays sensitivity and authenticity in equal measure.

Things begin swiftly, when Ann Devereaux (Zellweger) returns home early from a shopping spree and finds her bandleader husband, Dan (Kevin Bacon, once again shining in a supporting role), in bed with a sweet young thing. Ever the polite society woman, Ann even helps this interloper dress before drawing herself up, facing Dan and announcing her imminent departure.

Dan, perhaps having heard it before, doesn't believe she'll go through with it; for all her good breeding — indeed, because of her good breeding — Ann has been groomed to be little but an appendage to (ideally) a respectful gentleman.

No matter. Calmly accepting responsibility for her two teenage sons as well — Robbie (Mark Rendall), from a previous marriage, and George (Logan Lerman) — Ann packs her things, arranges for the purchase of a new car, and roars off. Her mantra, as George glances back toward their home: "Never look in the rear-view mirror."

The Invention of Lying: The truth hurts

The Invention of Lying  (2009) • View trailer for The Invention of Lying
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.8.09
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This one's a 15-minute stand-up monologue with delusions of grandeur.

Although the premise of The Invention of Lying — written and directed collaboratively by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, and starring Gervais — is intriguing, and no doubt would make a fascinating topic for theological discussion, this 100-minute film runs out of gas long before the halfway point.

Despite his newfound wealth and prestige, Mark (Ricky Gervais, right) still
can't prevent Anna (Jennifer Garner) from preferring the superficial physical
attributes of the pompous and insufferably vain Brad (Rob Lowe).

Much of the blame falls to the direction and many of the performances, which are oddly flat and uninvolving. Gervais is his usual amusingly understated self, and co-stars Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe bring much-needed sparkle to these proceedings. But everybody else seems to amble about in a perpetual Valium haze, their line-readings delivered with a neither interest nor conviction.

The Invention of Lying takes place in a parallel world precisely like ours, except that people are wired in such a way that they're incapable of anything but the absolute truth. Thus, a standard greeting — "How are you today?" — invites a wealth of excruciating detail, and spontaneous encounters are likely to be quite deflating. ("My, what an ugly baby!")

Somehow, all this raw honesty never leads to violence, as if this world also has been flensed of anger and wounded pride. The moment this penny drops — roughly, oh, five minutes in — the seams of this script begin to spring other leaks, as well. A full-length film, particularly one this languidly paced, gives us far too much time to ponder its many logical flaws.

Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a screenwriter for the Lecture Films Motion Picture Studios, known by its motto: "We film someone telling you about things that happened." Fiction also doesn't exist in this realm, because fiction is untruth: thus, no novels or dramas of any kind. Movies and TV are nonstop documentaries, and Mark is having serious trouble finding anything "fun" to write about in his given assignment of the 13th century.

A blind date with Anna McDoogles (Garner) doesn't go terribly well, because she candidly admits that she probably won't want to see him again. Things get worse when Mark loses his job and is one day away from being evicted from his apartment. In desperation, he heads to the bank to empty his account; the computers are down temporarily, but of course the teller is willing to take his word for how much remains.

And he lies.

Capitalism, a Love Story: Broken hearts

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) • View trailer for Capitalism: A Love Story
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, and quite stupidly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.2.09
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I keep waiting for the outrage to kick in.

California's foolish experiment with deregulated power, which led to rolling blackouts in the summer of 2000, massive homeowner energy bills and the "surprising" revelation that the state's wholesale electricity marketplace had been gamed, didn't do it.

Filmmaker and agent provocateur Michael Moore tries one final time to obtain
an audience with the CEO of General Motors, but gets no farther than the glass
doors leading to the lobby. (The irony, in the wake of GM's eventual fate,
can't be missed.)

The big lies spun in the wake of 9/11, which allowed the Bush administration to strip away freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights, didn't do it ... not even more recently, as the breathtaking degree of prevarication has become more blatant.

The federal government's staggeringly inept response to Hurricane Katrina didn't do it.

Gasoline prices that crested above $4 per gallon in 2008 didn't do it.

The health care industry's disenfranchisement of an ever-expanding sector of the American population hasn't done it. Worse yet, shrilly hysterical right-wing blowhards have conned the easily swayed into defending the very industry that routinely denies them medical assistance.

I keep wondering: When will we, as a nation, finally come to our senses and recognize that the increasing corporate hammerlock under which we now serve, much like feudal serfs, has got to stop?

Filmmaker Michael Moore obviously wonders the same thing, and he's getting tired. The weary disbelief can be heard in his voice-over narration for Capitalism: A Love Story, as he rallies his team for one more round. The poor guy must feel like Sisyphus, forever rolling the boulder up the hillside, hoping each time that some of us will come along and shoulder part of the load.

Where is our modern Joseph Welch, who during the 1954 Army hearings quite famously deflated Sen. Joseph McCarthy by saying, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"

Surely Moore can't be the only person willing to ask that question of the Wall Street titans and corporate CEOs who orchestrated our current financial crisis — beginning quite craftily, as this documentary suggests, when Ronald Reagan was elected president — and capped their financial coup d'état by maneuvering massive bailout funds from U.S. taxpayers ... which were granted with absolutely no strings attached. No checks and balances.

Actually, my vote for Welch's modern-day successor would be U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a tough-talking spitfire with the gumption to expose this financial chicanery for what it is: outright theft. Kaptur is this film's shining star: the belle of a ball attended by far too few like-minded souls.

Whip It: A true whip-snorter

Whip It (2009) • View trailer for Whip It
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity, drug references and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.1.09
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OK, this is the most fun you can have on eight wheels.

Drew Barrymore makes a smashing directorial debut with Whip It, one of the best misfit underdog sagas in recent memory ... and mind you, we've seen quite a few lately.

Having earned a nickname -- Babe Ruthless -- and a place on the Hurl Scouts
roller derby team, Bliss (Ellen Page, center) prepares for a competitive move
with the assistance of teammates Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore, left)
and Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig).

The highly entertaining roller derby-oriented drama is deftly adapted by author and former Los Angeles Derby Doll Shauna Cross from her own novel, which just landed on my must-read pile. The reason: Given the pains Cross takes to flesh out every character in this script, her book must be even better.

In fairness, Barrymore and the cast also deserve a lot of credit. Rarely will you find so many parts filled so perfectly, and casting directors Justine Baddeley and Kim Davis-Wagner deserve a standing ovation of their own. Consider: Once our mousy young heroine decides to re-invent herself as a roller-skating, bad-ass wannabe, who else but Juliette Lewis should play the snarling skate-babe who causes the most grief?

More than anything else, though, Barrymore and star Ellen Page — delivering even more on the promise she showed in Hard Candy and Juno — are to be congratulated for playing straight with a subject that invites the same reflexive howls of derision usually reserved for TV wrestling bouts. The "sport" of roller derby, generally little more than a punchline, certainly didn't gain any respect in the wake of the only other high-profile Hollywood production that leaps to mind, 1972's hilariously inept Kansas City Bomber. (Raquel Welch on skates. What more need be said?)

Barrymore and Cross obviously intended to change that perception, and they succeed with a heart-tugging first act that makes us embrace all the key players before roller skates are even seen, let alone worn.

Page stars as 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, a shy and introverted girl whose life in the truck-stop town of Bodeen, Texas, swings between two ghastly extremes: waitressing at the Oink Joint, home of "The Squealer" — a massive sandwich that remains free of charge for any diner able to consume it in less than 3 minutes — and dressing up in cotillion-style gowns to please her beauty pageant-obsessed mother, Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden), who dreams of seeing the Miss Blue Bonnet Pageant crown on her elder daughter's head.

No doubt about it: Life is hell.

There are compensations. Bliss' easy-going father (Daniel Stern, as Earl) is the laid-back yin to her mother's uptight yang, and he has a few surprises buried within his still waters. In a film laden with sweet moments, one of the best is a father/daughter chat that occurs after Bliss discovers one of Earl's best-kept secrets: a revelation that is sweet in its own right.