Review by Daniel Lima The problem with many of the faith-based films of the West is the seemingly universal desire to merely reflect the values of their audience rather than give even the barest hint of any challenge to their deeply held beliefs. Nuance in the portrayal of venerated religious figures, interrogation of the righteousness of Christian dogma, and anything that could possibly be construed as questioning the moral fortitude and objective truth that the New Testament provides is prohibited. Unfortunately, these complexities are the stuff of compelling stories, so a film like Angel Studios' Cabrini is left devoid of anything that is even marginally interesting. Frances Xavier Cabrini was a nun who, at the turn of the 20th century, established a mission in New York City to attend to the needs of Italian immigrants. A passionate advocate for the rights of her fellow countrymen, she was very effective in cultivating and organizing aid and establishing schools, orphanages, and even a hospital. Decades after her death, she became the first U.S. citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Reader, you are now freed from the obligation of seeing Cabrini. That description sums up the experience of watching the movie. As impressive as this woman's accomplishments were, particularly considering the discrimination she would face as both a woman and an Italian immigrant herself, she was undoubtedly more than a series of bullet points detailing important moments in her life. Certainly, she must have had doubts, if not in her Christian faith, then in the institution to which she devoted herself. Perhaps she wavered in her dedication to her cause or in her certainty that she could surmount the obstacles in her way. One could imagine that the transition from pastoral Italy to an industrial-age urban slum might have presented a significant readjustment to her daily life or worldview. So many possible avenues exist to explore who she was as a flesh-and-blood person rather than a historical figure or saintly object. This film is uninterested in any of that. Here, she is an uncompromising, static individual, a paragon whose perspective is always both morally superior and entirely practical. She faced no adversity that a well-placed admonishment or impassioned plea could not brush aside; if one scene sees an authority figure set up a roadblock, rest assured it will be dismantled in the next. Doggedly uncomplicated, lacking any inner turmoil, practicing exactly what she preached, she was in life exactly what she is in death: an idol. To be fair, this form of superficial hagiography is a common sight in secular productions, with many such films earning critical and commercial success despite their own dull, bland retread of personal histories. Indeed, Cabrini does not spend much time on its protagonist's Christian faith at all; instead, she focuses on her efforts on behalf of the Italian Americans consigned to the bottom rungs of NYC society. This is more similar to a stodgy, liberal-minded biopic than the proselytizing drivel that makes up most faith-based productions. If anything, that is to the film's detriment. The lack of a meaningful exploration of her religious convictions — a crucial part of who she was — is a glaring omission that calls even more attention to how shallow this depiction of her life and work actually is. That such an exploration does not necessitate a critique of Christianity, or even the Roman Catholic Church, is obviously irrelevant. Anything less than a fawning, perfect portrait of the saint could be deemed an offense to the target audience, so that dramatically rich path is closed off. That's not to say that Cabrini lacks ideology or social messaging. The cursory, surface-level overview of her biography is itself a statement, preserving the events of the film in amber and stymieing any attempt to draw parallels between early 20th-century America and the present day. Specifically, the dire circumstances of Italian Americans at the time could easily be compared to how the West treats immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized groups today. While the closing narration limply gestures towards such a comparison, their plight is otherwise viewed purely through the lens of recounting Cabrini's accomplishments, rooting their struggles in the sociopolitical realities unique to that era. Considering director Alejandro Monteverde is himself a naturalized American citizen, this pointed refusal for a more explicit link to the present is surprising. Considering his previous film for Angel Studios was the Sound of Freedom, which utilized universal revulsion towards sex trafficking and genre conventions as a smokescreen for fringe right-wing politics, this makes sense. In the world of Cabrini, sandblasted of any complexity or nuance or any resembling a critical eye, venerable institutions that actively participate in the subjugation of human beings are not intrinsically rotten, merely slow-moving, in need of shaking up by a passionate individual who is nevertheless a fervent adherent to the established social order. Reform is preferable to revolution, and even then, in its own due time. It's a decidedly conservative vision, made palatable to a mass audience by avoiding overt preaching. That this is the fictional take on a life that seems far more textured in reality is insulting.
Credit where it's due; this is a handsome movie. Though it takes on the same sickly and desaturated hue as other period works, there are some inspired compositions here, often framing Cabrini within geometric shapes that naturally draw the eye towards her diminutive figure. Adding to this effect are the dramatic lighting, detailed costumes, and production design. These are not in service to much, but at least it shows that Monteverde has an eye for these visual details. Hopefully, he one day finds a better showcase for his abilities than the likes of this. Ultimately, Cabrini is a bloodless, banal biopic of a woman who deserved a more intellectually curious and challenging film. Though there is a politically conservative undercurrent, more damning is its artistic conservatism, relegating it to nothing more than a dry rehashing of an eventful life. For those still curious, Frances Xavier Cabrini's Wikipedia article is every bit as insightful and dramatically fulfilling, and that can be read in only a couple of minutes. Cabrini arrives in theaters March 8. Rating: 2/5
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Review by Daniel Lima It's hard not to have a love/hate relationship with found footage horror. On the one hand, it's a genre that is incredibly accommodating to burgeoning filmmakers, turning a lack of resources from a bane to a boon and forcing them to think outside the box in evoking a particular mood and feel. However, it is far too easy for burgeoning artists to rely on well-worn tropes and conventions, boring the audience and leaving the potential of their works unrealized. Sadly, such is the case for Frogman, which shortchanges its most ingenious elements by adhering to a stale and predictable formula. The film follows a trio of friends as they visit the small town of Loveland in search of a legendary cryptid that one of them caught on video as a child. Along the way, simmering tensions between them mount, and as they dig deeper into the mystery, they find that there might be more to the legend than they could have ever conceived. The audience, however, will be bored out of their minds. Anyone who has seen any found footage horror film in the past three decades knows all the typical story beats: set up the dynamics between your leads, let them aimlessly converse and bounce off one another for an hour, hint at something strange and dangerous in the meantime, end with twenty or thirty minutes of people running and screaming through the woods. Basically, back end all the horror and fill the rest with a mumblecore drama of variable quality. Suddenly, a decent short film becomes a marketable feature. Frogman conforms to this exactly, making that first hour an aggravating challenge to sit through. It becomes clear that all the meaty bits will be saved for the climax, so for an hour, the film is just a drama starring horribly unlikable characters that are impossible to care about. The actors are all serviceable, but the found footage subgenre necessitates a certain raw naturalism that their calculated performances do not allow. Everything they say and do feels artificial, merely a holding pattern until the film gets let off the leash. By the time it does so, it's too late.
That's a shame because the finale does show promise. The titular creature is a great-looking practical monster, and there are moments of body horror and inspired editing choices that give the impression that the characters have wandered into a situation they cannot handle. It should also be noted that the film is largely shot on a HI-8 camcorder rather than tinkering with footage from modern equipment in post. Touches like that are why I will always have a fondness for this subgenre, even if the films tend to blend into one another. Unfortunately, Frogman doesn't have enough juice to make the wait for the good stuff worth it. Frogman is available on VOD and digital March 8. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima It's rare for a filmmaker's artistic low point to be rewarded with critical recognition, but it happens. Case in point: Peter Farrelly, who went from making lowbrow, gross-out comedies to the Academy Award-winning, profoundly asinine and racist film Green Book. One additional foray into "serious" filmmaking later (The Greatest Beer Run Ever), he's back to his roots with Ricky Stanicky, a dumb comedy with no greater ambition than getting some laughs. It's largely unsuccessful, but it does an admirable job as a showcase for one towering performance. A trio of friends have been invoking their fabricated friend, Ricky Stanicky, to make excuses and get out of trouble since childhood, from youthful pranks to golfing excursions charged to their company. After they're caught in one too many lies and their families demand to meet this mysterious figure, they decide there is only one way forward: hiring a struggling actor to take on the role of Ricky. As committed as he becomes to his gig, however, they find it might have been easier if they came clean in the first place. Looking at this film, it's incredible to think that it is the work of a commercially successful director who won the Oscar for Best Picture only five years ago. Green Book and The Greatest Beer Run Ever might not be among the most visually dynamic movies, but they do look like "Real Movies," productions with money behind them and meant to be experienced on a big screen. By contrast, there is a level of cheap artifice here usually reserved for direct-to-video trash (or, these days, the most expensive studio projects). Flat and diffused lighting coupled with barren production design makes every space feel like a set rather than an actual location. A lack of resources isn't the filmmaker's fault, and a lack of visual ingenuity isn't a huge problem on a road comedy. However, it does speak to the industry's fickleness: you're only as good as your last movie, and no one saw Farrelly's last movie. The most important quality of a comedy is, of course, how funny it is. Ricky Stanicky is a mixed bag. The script has been floating around Hollywood for over a decade, and while much of the interest surrounding it may simply be due to the promising premise, there are only a handful of inspired gags and lines scattered through the film. The film is at its best when it embraces its own stupidity, gleefully engaging in the kind of obscene, low-effort humor that seems out of fashion today. The best example of this would be a cutaway gag of the struggling actor's Atlantic City club act, performing lewd versions of classic rock songs. The blunt crudeness of the changed lyrics, for selections that seem to offer ample opportunity for more clever modifications, is bound to get a laugh out of anyone. Whether this is a Farrelly contribution or a part of the script that enticed him, it's clear that this material is what he's most comfortable working with. The ace up his sleeve is the one genuinely impassioned, movie star performance of the movie: John Cena, in the titular role. Cena has shown himself to be an incredibly gifted comedic actor, and what he can wring out of what he's given here is truly astounding. Rather than simply making Ricky — or "Rock Hard" Rod, the man behind the mask — a complete caricature, he imbues the character with such sincerity, sensitivity, and warmth that he completely takes over the film whenever he's on-screen. He's able to sell every one-liner no matter how weak, but his real strength is finding the humanity in such a deeply ridiculous figure. And when he actually has to throw his weight behind a gag, he does so with a superhuman lack of self-consciousness; listening to him belt out a pornographic rendition of "Baby I Love the Way" ("Baby I Masturbate") is one of the greatest delights of the year so far. This is the kind of performance that should be acclaimed and awarded. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast. Most of the ensemble seems to be just punching the clock, dutifully setting up or spitting out jokes with no real attempt to sell the material, with Andrew Santino, in particular, seeming like a random passer-by that was pulled off the street. William H. Macy does show up to work, professional as ever. While Zac Efron makes an admirable attempt to do justice to his character's emotional journey, that narrative is so threadbare it's hard to imagine anyone pulling it off. For some reason, this film seems much more interested in laying out that narrative than going for laughs. As wonderful as the high concept is, Ricky doesn't actually start getting mixed up in the trio's lives almost halfway through the movie, with a baffling amount of time spent setting up the circumstances that lead to it. In trying to justify the conceit, a strained Freudian explanation is concocted about how Efron's horrible childhood makes him feel like he needs to lie. For as much time is spent on this, it never feels as interesting or organic as the story of Ricky, and it begs the obvious question of why he gets this treatment when he has had two accomplices on this grand fib for years. It feels more like something tacked out of the desire to conform to traditional storytelling beats than to benefit of the story being told.
Perhaps worst of all is the film's craft. While a comedy like this doesn't need to be beautiful, it does need some semblance of rhythm and timing for jokes to land and a jovial atmosphere to be maintained. Instead, the film is filled with dead air — long pauses between already sparse zingers that make every scene drag. That constant silence makes the lack of sound design more evident, adding to the feeling of artificiality. This, in turn, makes the actual gags feel awkward and ungainly, with random interruptions in an aural stillness rather than a cohesive and steady stream of comedy. As flimsy as the comedic beats of the movie are, it's hard not to wonder if decades in the business and a sojourn into more respectable awards fare has dulled Farrelly's comedic sensibilities. Yet, if you put the crass and messy Ricky Stanicky next to his previous solo projects, it is clear that this is comfortably the best of the bunch. It could be tighter, more focused, better acted, and funnier. Still, at the end of the day, John Cena decked out as a member of Devo, screaming out self-love instructions to the tune of "Whip It," represents the intellectual and artistic high water mark of his oeuvre — even if it's still not very good. Ricky Stanicky is available to stream on Amazon Prime beginning March 7. Rating: 2/5 Review by Daniel Lima There was a time when the prospect of a silly, lazy pastiche of old kung fu movies that attempted to coast entirely on charm and good vibes was catnip to me, regardless of how well they emulated those films or whether they had a clear voice of their own. Now, the moment I see fake film grain and scratches added in post over digital footage, the blood in my veins freezes up as I prepare for a test of endurance. The Invisible Fight — the latest in this ignoble subgenre — is no better than any of the films that preceded it. In some crucial ways, it is much worse. Ursel Tilk stars as a Russian soldier at a military outpost who is the sole survivor of an attack by high-flying, leather-clad, metalhead warriors. Spurned on by this experience, he becomes a monk at the local Eastern Orthodox monastery with the intention of becoming a “badass at black metal kung fu.” Though he takes to his duties well, jealous brothers, disdainful mothers, and a vexing love interest all vying to pull him away from the spiritual journey he has embarked on. The first scene is the attack by a small group of warriors, blaring Black Sabbath’s music from their boomboxes. It is immediately evident that this film will only superficially borrow the aesthetics of the ones it is aping, amounting to the aforementioned post effects plus the occasional dramatic zoom. It’s not a bad-looking movie, with some interiors displaying genuinely striking lighting, but it is very conventional and in keeping with a modern independent comedy. It fails to either evoke the particular feel of classic martial arts cinema or establish a particular feel of its own. The basic structure is, at first glance, not dissimilar to any number of films about brash young students who labor to join the ranks of Shaolin monks. While they at first join because of their status as legendary martial artists, the tough training instills in them the value and philosophy of the ascetics, to the point that they become genuine converts. They are constantly faced with temptation, but their commitment allows them to persevere. Importantly, however, it is an actual challenge for the heroes of those Chinese (well, typically Hong Kong) films. Tilk’s character is shown to immediately understand all the lessons being impressed upon him, and his many transgressions are all immediately forgiven due to the ease with which he accomplishes his tasks. It could be argued that this allows for the development of the character played by Kaarel Pagga, a pious monk incredibly jealous of Tilk’s success and nonconformity. However, that means most of the runtime is spent with a protagonist who never has to grow or change.
To make matters worse, this movie is nearly two full hours, when most of its inspirations would barely hit an hour and forty minutes. This is the result of a very shaggy narrative, filled with superfluous fluff that never amounts to anything. An encounter with Soviet officials seems like a satiric attack on their policies towards religion, but that is not elaborated on. Many scenes are spent with the women who live in the monastery, but these are ill-defined. There simply isn’t enough here to support such a long runtime, so the film quickly outstays its welcome. One would hope that, if nothing else, the action would capture at least a bit of the spark of people like Lau Kar-Leung, that classic choreography that was so expressive and distinct. That does not happen. These actors are not martial artists or stunt people, nor is the director, and that is made clear by how stiff and immobile all the fight scenes are. There are some inspired beats throughout the action design, mostly involving wirework, but it does have the feel of a high school production where the primary concerns are safety, then comedy, and then excitement at a distant third. This naturally begs the question: “Is it funny?” After all, this movie is more in conversation with the likes of Kung Fu Hustle and Kung Pow: Enter the Fist than Shaolin Temple itself. How does it hold up to the standard of post-modern martial arts comedies? Obviously, this is the most subjective quality of any film. All I can say is that I personally found the film so deeply and abrasively unfunny that it feels like a moral failing on the part of the filmmakers. Like so many other small-scale comedies, director Rainer Sarnet appears so tickled by the idea that he is transposing the classic Shaolin training narrative to his native land and blending it with incongruities like metal music that he forgets to make actual jokes. Most of the comedy is physical, rooted in the spirited performance of Tilk, but he can only go so far when the material is so dusty and hack. Two monks attempting to stop their speeding vehicle give the appearance of performing oral sex; Tilk gets a tour of the abbey in undercranked footage, and he trips on a garden hose; Tilk dumps a bunch of pepper into his food and doesn’t like the taste. That these are some of the comedic highlights of a two-hour film makes most of that runtime agonizing. The most interesting and distinct aspect of The Invisible Fight is the one most frustratingly never fully explored. The Hong Kong films that so mythologized the Shaolin monastery reflected both the spiritual tenets of Chinese martial arts and the contemporary relationship Hong Kong had with mainland China (or, more specifically, the CCP). In setting this film in the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union, there are ample opportunities for an exploration of the religion and traditions of the Orthodox Church and the Church’s relationship with a militantly nonreligious government. This thread is not picked up; instead, it simply uses empty platitudes while going through the motions and mimicking the plots of those action classics without recognizing what gave those films that staying power. This, more than anything, is its greatest failure. The Invisible Fight is now in theaters. Rating: 1/5 Review by Daniel Lima With the U.S. releases of both Furies and Bad Blood last year, I wondered if the cinema of Vietnam has been overlooked as a hotbed for no-frills, old-school martial arts action. That may well be the case, but 578 Magnum shows that as high as the highs of that industry are, there are still incredible depths to be plundered. This belongs to a class of movies that could be described as a collection of images projected at a rate of twenty-four individual frames per second to give the impression of movement. Which is to say, it is barely even a movie. The story is nominally about a father out to get revenge on the criminal organization that kidnapped his daughter. He’s a man with a particular set of… well, it’s Taken, just like Bad Blood last year. Curiously, by the time the laughably generic opening credits start rolling, she has already been kidnapped and returned, eliminating the sense of urgency that films of this ilk typically have by default. It’s a baffling decision, yet it’s one of the few even discernibly deliberate choices. Breaking down 578 Magnum is difficult because there are precious few narrative films that have such a lack of coherence and continuity. What characters want at any moment — or are even attempting to do — is never entirely clear. Characters drop in and out of the story seemingly at random. Scenes are haphazardly cut together, making every transition feel jarring. Poor subtitles certainly don’t help clear things up. Every possible deficiency in storytelling pops up, to the point that it feels like the film was shot with nothing more than a general idea of what this kind of revenge tale consists of instead of an actual script.
That said, poor storytelling can be easily excused so long as there are commensurately great set pieces. Sadly, the fights here are almost as bad as those in Taken itself, plagued with the same scattershot editing as the rest of the film. It’s clear these performers are not all trained in stunts or choreography, with many of their movements looking sluggish and lacking any power, often clearly going wide of their target. There are a handful of inspired touches that show someone might have actually cared enough to think through the action design, such as a fight that goes under and inside a car here or a brawl where the hero gets blinded with colorful dyes there. Still, the moments where everything comes together are fleeting. The single most surprising fact about 578 Magnum is that it was, for some unfathomable reason, Vietnam’s submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Film. For such a shoddily made, incomprehensible work to be put for serious awards consideration, the same year that Furies would have also been eligible, calls into question the judgment and soundness of mind of every single person involved in that decision. 578 Magnum is now on VOD. Rating: 1/5 Review by Daniel Lima Regardless of one’s political affiliations, it’s hard to find any sympathy for police officers charged explicitly with clearing people out of their homes. The Legionnaire makes a valiant attempt to engender that sympathy through its portrait of a cop torn between his sense of duty to his badge and his roots. While the way it builds out his world is admirable, it can’t help but feel constrained by its own narrative limitations. Germano Gentile plays an Afro-Italian riot officer — one of the jack-booted troops with shields and batons who hit protesters and clear out apartment buildings of unwanted tenants. He emigrated to Italy from Africa, and his brother and mother still live in the apartment building he lived in as a child, along with a community of squatters who have a longstanding agreement with the building’s owners. Now, the owners want them out, and Gentile has to contend with navigating a war between two sides of his life. Some familiarity with Italian history and current events is helpful in understanding the film, and I must admit I have only cursory knowledge of any of that. The country has seen a large influx of migrants over the past several years, leading to a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Left-wing politics have played a large part in the nation, and the community of migrants seems to identify themselves as communists. Squatters have a decent amount of legal rights. Everything beyond that, however, was left for me to infer. Fortunately, one of the greatest strengths of the film is how much it communicates: entirely organically. The cluttered, beleaguered apartment of the squatters is no paradise, but all that clutter is evidence of a place that has been a real home for hundreds of people for decades. The pristine settings Gentile’s cop finds himself in feel almost austere by comparison, clean and presentable but devoid of personality. The warmth and diversity of the migrants, devoted as they are to the well-being of the community, is likewise contrasted with the camaraderie of the police. Jovial and tight-knit as they are, the constant casual racism and meat-headed bravado created between the sole Black officer and his supposed brothers-in-arms begs the question: why is he even there?
The two brothers, like everyone else in the cast, give solid performances. Both Gentile and Maurizio Bousso, as the apartment-dwelling brothers, are tenacious, driven, and stubborn men, certain in their convictions, even though their parallel paths may put them against one another. That said, it does feel like a piece is missing from Gentile’s story. Considering how lived-in his former home is, it feels like a jump to then join the police force, then a special unit that might see him evicting people he grew up with. While the film does wring as much drama from that scenario as possible, that lack of definition ultimately feels like a writerly contrivance. This is almost certainly the case; The Legionnaire is an adaptation of director Hleb Papou’s short of the same name. Expanding the scope of that earlier film invites questions that hadn’t needed answering, and at a scant eighty minutes there simply isn’t enough time to truly flesh out both sides of this story. As hard as it is to imagine having real empathy for a riot cop, just a bit more context for his motivation in joining and staying in the force would have done wonders. Even so, The Legionnaire does a good enough job cultivating a particular feel for both sides of the world the brothers find themselves on, and the intensity in their performances carries the film even as you wish to spend more time taking in their surroundings. This is an unusually accomplished first feature for a director, and I look forward to whatever he may bring in the future. The Legionnaire is now streaming on Film Movement Plus. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima Only a few years after the end of America’s longest war — the last large-scale engagement of the Global War on Terror — and amid the federal government’s culpability in Israeli war crimes, it certainly does not feel like the public is yearning for a story about the righteousness of the U.S. military. Indeed, in the past two decades, it appeared that the classic rousing war picture has fallen entirely out of fashion, even at the height of pro-war sentiments in the aftermath of 9/11. How, then, do you make a 21st-century war movie? The latest attempt, Land of Bad, is more interesting in how it navigates that question than in the form it ultimately takes. Liam Hemsworth plays a young U.S. Air Force officer attached to a squad of special operations soldiers on a covert mission to extract an American asset from a militant compound located in Southeast Asia. When the mission goes sideways, he finds himself alone in hostile territory. His only companion is the voice of a USAF drone operator, located thousands of miles away, who attempts to guide him to safety. Perhaps the most important detail that separates the 21st-century war film from those of decades past is the kinds of soldiers and conflicts that tend to be the focus. Gone are the grandiose, large-scale battle scenes with thousands of combatants; America has not been in a war against a uniformed adversary that could match its military might in nearly a century. Instead, the war film has evolved into both a more character- and process-focused genre, delving into the personal lives of service members and the meticulous detail of their combat missions. Often, these are stories of elite special forces carrying out specialized missions rather than regular troops. Land of Bad follows this trend to a T. There are only a handful of named characters, all called upon to do a specific task. A good amount of attention to detail goes into getting all the military jargon correct, all the different roles the men in the squad would take, the numerous agencies that would come together for a mission like this, the approach these men would take in completing it, and of course, their emotional state and commitment to duty. Most obviously, this results in a lean, straightforward narrative that allows for more emotional investment in these characters as people rather than representatives of an ideology of American superiority. As the men banter, we see them not merely as men in uniform but as people performing an incredibly difficult job. As they go about it, there are stakes beyond whether the government completes a task successfully. To that end, this film is a mixed success. Hemsworth gives a surprisingly natural performance, but considering his character is largely reactive to an evolving situation, not much time is spent developing him. As the drone pilot supporting him, Russell Crowe has a much meatier role and makes the most of it. As an anti-authority figure who nevertheless is a stickler for adhering to a particular order of doing things and feels great responsibility towards the operators, he finds himself partnered with. Even though he spends most of the movie in front of a computer screen, I found myself wishing more time was spent with him than the guys with guns in the jungle. The condensed perspective of this narrative, and the many others like it, does fulfill an ideological purpose. While focusing on these small teams is more reflective of U.S. military operations today, it also allows filmmakers to sidestep the many concerns surrounding American military activity abroad. Detailing the immediate hardship of a soldier under heavy fire with no way to retreat means the script never has to justify why that soldier had to be there in the first place. Naturally, such is the case here. While the opening text crawl mentions that the Susu Sea is a hotbed for extremist groups, where exactly this compound is located is never specified. Going further, the film never clearly defines the actual adversary the Delta Force squad is there to combat. One antagonist is named, but what his goals are, what his activities include, his brand of politics, and his gripes with the United States are not elaborated on. The man is fully willing to kill children, which, of course, makes him a bad guy. Then again, as anyone who has been paying attention to the news in the past four months is aware, the American government is hardly one to throw stones.
This ambiguity is undeniably an effort to obfuscate the underlying assumption of all the war movies: the U.S. military agenda worldwide is inherently good, all those who support it are heroes, and all those who oppose it are villains. Of course, bad politics don’t make a bad movie, and there is no shortage of action movies doubling as propaganda that are quite enjoyable. However, with such an establishment-friendly and conventional worldview and a general lack of character development, a film like Land of Bad must deliver truly remarkable action and thrills to rise above a sea of similar works. That, more than anything, is its greatest failure. The set pieces here are decent enough by the standards of a mid-budget American production, thankfully keeping the camera steady throughout its handful of shootouts and melees and featuring some actual practical explosions. None of it, however, is particularly memorable, lacking a sense of geography or choreography that properly utilizes the environment. Without anything to make it distinct, the action fades quickly from memory. With it goes anything notable about Land of Bad, barring one fun performance from Russell Crowe. As run-of-the-mill as any other modern attempt at a muted, chest-thumping love letter to American imperialism, one can’t help but wish that this film took a more overtly jingoistic approach to the material if only to have something actually interesting to dissect. Sadly, the only purpose this serves is to illuminate how much times have changed. Land of Bad arrives in theaters February 16. Rating: 2.5/5 THE MONK AND THE GUN -- Pensive Dramedy Questions the Value of Western Hegemony, Capitalism2/9/2024 Review by Daniel Lima After centuries of Western dominance in world affairs and decades of the globalist neoliberal world order, it can be easy to fall into the mindset that all the identifiers of Western society are somehow inherently good. The economic systems, the political structures, the moral values, for those who live in the West — certainly for Americans — the idea that these represent the pinnacle of the evolution of a civilization can border on religious dogma. Part of what makes The Monk and the Gun so refreshing is it directly challenges this supposition, asking whether concepts like democracy and capitalism actually benefit people when exported and enforced. The film is set in a rural Bhutanese village in 2006, shortly after the king's abdication. As the country prepares to hold its first national elections, small teams have been dispatched nationwide to ensure the populace understands the democratic process. As the small community responds to these changes, a foreigner and a local monk vie for possession of an antique gun, the former for profit and the latter "to make things right." Overwhelmingly, the response of the locals is confusion or indifference. Isolated as they are from the larger world, yet still fully functional, they don't see any pressing need to reshape their own community to conform completely to "modernization." Some even worry for the health of their former ruler, less because of what he's directly done for them, but more for what he represents: a sense of continuity with generations past, something more tangible and meaningful than the creation of a parliament in a far-off capitol. If anything, the introduction of Western-style ideas has decidedly negative repercussions. Consumer goods made accessible by the global market inflame long-standing resentments among the townspeople; the election divides them along lines that previously had not even existed. The film posits that these institutions may be inherently divisive and discordant, as optimistic as the government officials are. When one suggests to a villager that these new measures will eventually make people happy, the retort is immediate: "But we are happy." The official has no response. Even more interesting than this political dimension is how The Monk and the Gun explores how fundamentally different the values of this insular community are from the capitalist incursion. Money has very little meaning in this community for the obvious reason that there's not much to buy. More valuable is one's social standing, the perception that one is being just and fair, and goods with practical use. This leads to fascinating scenes where people refuse trades because they seem to disproportionately benefit or go back and forth, refusing to accept anything in return. The one foreign character seems perfectly willing to exploit this seeming kindness but is at a loss when actually brokering a deal. What he fails to understand is these aren't clueless bumpkins who don't recognize some immutable, empirical value of what they own. Rather, they operate with a different set of principles shaped by their history and culture. The failure of the Westerner to recognize that speaks to a deficiency in him, not the Bhutanese.
As high-minded and serious as all this may sound, the film is a pleasant, relaxing watch. The story unfolds slowly, these observations being made at a leisurely pace. Much humor is found in these villagers' ambivalence towards the changes happening around them, but the joke is always centered on the apparent fruitlessness of the imposition of a new order or the comedic irony created by the disconnect; the townsfolk themselves are never portrayed as merely rustic and ignorant. The film is visually gorgeous, often allowing the picturesque setting to fill the frame and give the audience a small measure of why these people would be so comfortable with their own way of life. Even without the riveting subject matter, this would be a charming, low-stakes dramedy. There are two major missteps the movie takes. As clear as the burgeoning social strife is, the amount of times a character outright states the central conflict feels excessive. A government official coaxing a crowd to act like they want to hurt each other at a mock election is funny and full of acerbic wit. Having a woman openly question why this process requires people to be rude feels like a bridge too far. More frustratingly, the film ultimately does not take a stand on whether the encroaching Western influence is actually a net negative. Though the preliminary effects seem only to be detrimental to social cohesion, some concessions are made to the idea that exposure to the wider world can give the villagers prospects that extend beyond the village or allow exciting new ways of thinking to develop. The climax seems to give weight to the idea that this "progress" is inevitable and maybe even beneficial, but it fails to fully articulate how that might come to pass. In introducing this possibility without reconciling it with all the evidence presented to the contrary, the film ends on a sour note. Even so, The Monk and the Gun is a transfixing, engaging, often moving watch that captures a way of living that in 2024 may seem impossibly idyllic to those living in a hyper-capitalist society that values goods over individuals and social harmony. It may not stick the landing, but it is a worthwhile experience for anyone who laments the state of the world today. The Monk and the Gun is now in theaters. Rating: 4/5 Review by Daniel Lima The title Air Force One Down invokes two action films that center on the American presidency. One is the languid 1997 Harrison Ford vehicle Air Force One, featuring the president himself taking on terrorists who have taken over the titular plane. The other is White House Down, a fun buddy action-comedy that teams the president with a cop as they take out terrorists in the titular building. In referencing those films so obviously, this DTV thriller announces its own low ambitions as a brainless, disposable genre flick that seeks only to hold the audience's attention for just under ninety minutes. It fails even that, but not without earning some plaudits. Katherine McNamara stars as a fresh recruit to the U.S. Secret Service, assigned to protect the well-heeled, silver-spooned president by her uncle and new boss. On only her second day on the job, she finds herself on board the official plane of the commander-in-chief as a group of armed Estonian dissidents takes it over. She quickly becomes the last line of defense between the insurgents and the most powerful man in the world, so she must push herself to the brink to ensure his safety. It should come as no surprise that this is not a thought-provoking work, though the extent of the script's complete lack of intellectual rigor is surprising even by the standards of a low-budget direct-to-video action movie. Estonia, one of the most highly-developed countries in the world, having an active armed communist resistance in the 2020s is completely untethered from reality; clearly, the filmmakers just threw a dart at a list of former Soviet states. That an Estonian-American oil deal would be a hot-button political issue is even more laughable. McNamara's character is a MARSOC operator who is somehow allowed to abandon her commission for a civilian job. A thousand and one little details like these give the impression that the screenplay was just a series of mad libs. These are just nitpicks, but there are structural issues as well. The film is halfway over by the time McNamara actually has to spend time with Ian Bohen's president. Where most films would take the obvious but effective tack of wringing some dramatic tension out of their differing personalities or McNamara's negative perception of him, Air Force One Down quickly dispels that possibility. Most of the dialogue is empty exposition, establishing the narrative stakes without ever setting up the emotional ones. The cast is given next to nothing to flesh out their characters, barring a character's name popping up in the corner of the screen that anyone watching is bound to forget. Even at this movie's short runtime, it struggles to build momentum. Things just seem to happen until they don't, each new plot development more obvious than the last. This is obviously a resource-starved production, so it's hard to fault how cheap it all looks. Every location is clearly a set, barren white office walls sparsely and unconvincingly decorated to look like the Oval Office or Air Force One. A solid chunk of the film is lit flatly and staged with as basic a setup as possible, looking more like a commercial than a feature film. Plenty of strange cuts and VFX are off, almost certainly a casualty of lack of time.
Despite that, there are a handful of touches that are appreciated. While the more pristine interiors all look bland and fake, the grotty military facilities the villains lurk in do conjure the feel of disused buildings commandeered by a guerrilla fighting force filled with grime and shadows. Though the performers have precious little good material to work with, they do an admirable job attempting to make the afterthoughts of these characters feel like actual people. Most impressively, the action is actually decent, even accounting for the budget. Director James Bamford has been working as a stuntman since the early 1990s, even serving as stunt coordinator on the huge Indian blockbuster Ek Tha Tiger, and he puts his experience to good use here. Though there isn't a lot of action, what's here is frenetic, claustrophobic, well-paced, and actually takes care to make use of the environment. From a couple of brutal fight scenes to a stitched-together oner that uses the jagged editing to its advantage, giving the set piece a certain threadbare flair, this action punches above its weight. I wish I could say that was enough to make Air Force One Down a worthwhile watch. For a certain kind of person, the promise of solid action in something so otherwise unremarkable might be intriguing enough. To anyone else, I would recommend White House Down. At the very least, I can confirm this clears the low bar of Wolfgang Petersen's film. Air Force One Down is now and theaters and will be available on digital February 9. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima “When you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.” The old adage has served as a comforting mantra for countless people in the throes of misfortune. In The Accident, the narrative feature debut of director Giuseppe Garau, that well-worn wisdom is put to the test, as the kind but foolish soul at its center manages to burrow into greater depths at every opportunity. The result is a bleak yet incredibly funny comedy, buoyed by a strong lead performance and an idiosyncratic visual style.
Giulia Mazarino plays a woman coming apart at the seams. She’s lost her job, her ex-husband has moved on with a new girlfriend and custody of their daughter, and she’s just gotten into a traffic accident. The tow truck driver who moves her wrecked car advises that she should never buy a tow truck herself, as she is not cut out for that line of work. Naturally, she does exactly that, and so begins a spiral that will test her resilience and moral boundaries. Despite that incredibly harrowing description, this is one of the funniest movies of the past year, in no small part due to Mazarino’s performance. The put-upon person in an unsympathetic, dog-eat-dog capitalist world struggling to make ends meet is an easy character to feel empathetic about, to the point that their hardships are hard to find comic. Mazarino, however, acts with a doe-eyed, good-hearted naivety to the point it’s hard to imagine how she functions in regular society. Constantly taking people at their word and lacking any survival instinct whatsoever, she is easily pushed around and manipulated by everyone she encounters. As ludicrous as it may seem, Mazarino is so totally committed to the role that it’s easy to be fooled into thinking this is a documentary. The result is twofold. On the one hand, her cartoonish innocence creates an emotional distance between the audience and the character, making it harder to relate personally to her tribulations. After all, many of her troubles come from blindly accepting circumstances that no one else would stand. Yet, seeing how pure and well-meaning she is, you can’t help but root for her in the hope that she may find her footing and assert herself. Even when the film takes a darker turn, forcing her to compromise her own ethics, it’s easy to understand her actions. One might even be inclined to root for, as endearing as she is. Curiously, The Accident is not only shot on 16mm film but is entirely from the perspective of the passenger’s seat. Most of the film consists of Mazarino driving, stealing away moments to have lunch, talking to people from the car window, and occasionally stepping just outside to have these conversations within the frame. As limiting as this vantage point may seem, it goes a long way in giving the film a candid sense of intimacy, as if the audience are voyeurs in this woman’s private life. And, of course, it sets the film apart from countless other low-budget indies. Even at sixty-six minutes, however, the film does feel like it’s straining to fill time. A few too many scenes of aimless driving and snack time give the impression of filler, and the moral quandary that Mazzarino finds herself in seems to resolve itself far too cleanly. Perhaps this is the pitfall of the same fettered visual language that makes the movie so gripping, obviating a more involving, complex conclusion. While such a finale would have been welcome, The Accident is still a wonderfully enjoyable comedy, finding laughs within the most desperate part of a gentle life. With any luck, this is the beginning of a prolific career for both its star and director. The Accident screened at the 2024 Slamdance Film Festival, which ran from January 19-25 in-person in Park City, UT and online from January 22-28. Rating: 4/5 |
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