Iron Man 3

But, this scene looks great in 3D!

Grade: B

Director: Shane Black

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall

Rebecca Hall

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 10 min.

In every conceivable way, Tony Stark’s foe in Iron Man 3 is himself. It starts with an enemy born of Stark’s chronic dickishness, a spurned fan-turned-supervillain not unlike Buddy Pine-cum-Syndrome in The Incredibles. It continues with a superhero whose egotistical compulsion to unmask his true identity continues to put an ever present bullseye on him and his scant loved ones. But Stark’s biggest adversary is his own psyche, an id now fractured by insecurity—indeed, it’s wry genesis that the film is essentially a 130-minute psychiatrist’s couch confession.

Beneath his renowned wisecracks and cocksuredness, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) faces a new reality spawned from the Big Apple battle royale finale to The Avengers. It bears mentioning that Iron Man was the first installment of the now-interwoven Marvel Cinematic Universe. The years since have seen gods and genetic behemoths as heroes, and mutants and aliens from other dimensions as villains. Against this backdrop, Stark is a self-described “man in a can,” seized by fits of anxiety when a child fan merely asks about “what happened in New York.” (More 9/11 allegory? Nevermind, let’s just move on.) While the 42 iterations of armor Stark has fashioned in the basement his cliffside laboratory appear the embodiment of an obsessive mind, they are actually the ongoing realization of Stark’s fateful “I am Iron Man” declaration at the end of the first film. The man and the machine are becoming inseparable, an evolution propelled by equal parts ego and envy.

Comic book enthusiasts familiar with the Extremis plotline at the heart of Iron Man 3 know the physical road this journey will eventually take. But in the meantime, scour the DSM-IV to decipher a scene in which Stark, clad in his Iron Man armor, greets and gropes gal pal Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) at the outset of a romantic evening, only to further reveal that it’s actually an unmanned suit being remotely controlled by Stark from elsewhere in the house. Or moments later, what would Freud make of Stark protecting Potts during a chopper attack launched by a terrorist called The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) by neuropathically summoning the diffuse pieces of a modular armor to tessellate around her, encasing Pepper inside a protective phallus?

The theme of identity is central in Iron Man 3, including the complexities of celebrity, frontmen for terror, and the duality of actor and character. North Carolinians will further identify with shooting locales throughout the state, from Wilmington to Wrightsville Beach, from SAS campus in Cary to downtown Rose Hill (inexplicably set in Tennessee for the film).

In Downey, Shane Black finds the perfect vehicle for the keen action screenwriting once forged in his Lethal Weapon scripts. For example, take the terrific byplay between Stark and Harley (Ty Simpkins), a 10-year-old Tennessean who comes to Stark’s aid after he’s stranded in Rose Hill. Backed by Black’s staging, Simpkins more than holds his own opposite Downey, who in turn wisely refuses to pull any rhetorical punches.

But for all the intriguing (pop) psychological, where Iron Man 3 falters is, ironically, its mechanics. Directing only his second feature (after 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which also starred Downey), Black’s pace and plotting fizzle as often as Stark’s constantly malfunctioning suits. While that affords Downey an inordinate amount of screentime sans armor, you eventually want to see Iron Man in an Iron Man movie. When Black tries to make up the deficient all at once during the final act, the result is garish, confusing and head-scratching—why didn’t Stark summon his Iron Legion the half-dozen times he could have used their help earlier in the movie? Indeed, there are repeated logistical lapses, and several supporting parts are not fully realized, including the underutilized red, white and blue Iron Patriot, nee War Machine (Don Cheadle), and Dr. Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), a botanist from Stark’s past whose work helped create Extremis along with scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce).

But filmmakers understand who the real hero is, thematically and financially. It’s no accident that the end of Iron Man 3’s closing credits declares that “Tony Stark Will Return.” Yes, it’s an indication of that melding of men and machine. But back in the theater, it’s also reassurance that no matter the storyline, Robert Downey Jr. will remain star of this show.

Animal Kingdom

Grade: B

Director: David Michôd

Starring: James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Sullivan Stapleton, and Jacki Weaver

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

There is little honor among thieves – or police, for that matter – in the oh-so aptly named Animal Kingdom.

Audiences have long been primed to expect a contrasting balance of loyalty and pitiless expediency when it comes to pop-cultural portrayals of felonious families, whether the Corleones or the Sopranos. David Michôd’s Australian crime drama – his feature debut and the World Cinema dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner at this year’s Sundance film festival – presents a milieu in which the cruelest survive and devotion is a fungible commodity.

The lack of moral equilibrium hits you from the opening scene, in which 17-year-old Joshua (James Frecheville) – J for short – impassively watches a game show as paramedics futilely attempt to revive his smack-addict mother. As a virtual cipher, J is taken in by the rest of the Cody clan, an extended family led by the affectionately named Grandma Smurf (Jacki Weaver) and J’s three uncles – Darren (Luke Ford); Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), and Barry (Joel Edgerton) – bank robbers whose exploits are only shown over the opening credits via haunting black-and-white surveillance camera stills.

Duplicitous cops – some more interested in summary retribution than evidence gathering – are hot on the Codys’ trail, particularly after eldest brother and ringleader Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) resurfaces. The police’s Star Chamber tactics prompt a violent reprisal in the form of ambushing and gunning down two young police officers – the screenplay is loosely inspired by the real events surrounding the Walsh Street police shootings that took place in Melbourne in 1988.

One honest investigator, Leckie (Guy Pearce), zeroes in on J as the family’s weakest link and his best chance at turning someone state’s evidence. What follows is a sometimes subtle, often brutal battle for the J’s allegiance between Leckie, insane Pope, and a grandmother not afraid to flash her wizened talons when necessary.

A sociopathic vibe permeates Animal Kingdom, as the (threat of) violence that dictates every twist and turn feels not so much shocking as eerily inevitable. Degrees of depravity are the only way to assign relative villainy, and there are no heroes but rather those who don’t deserve to die as much as others. In this regard, Animal Kingdom reminded me of another Australian genre retooling, John Hillcoat’s neo-western The Proposition.

Michôd’s minimalist staging ratchets up the tension – a dead girl’s nearby ringing cell phone evokes more dread than her actual murder. A game cast – especially Frecheville and Mendelsohn – completes this crime family portrait that jumps past any glorification of their misadventures and instead wallows in their deconstruction. It’s Goodfellas without the wise-guy farce. And, while J’s ultimate character arc may loosely parallel Michael Corleone in The Godfather, the moral to Animal Kingdom is not “blood is thicker than water.” Instead, J quickly learns a different Corleone directive: Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

Neil Morris

*Originally published at http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/animal-kingdom-is-a-tough-aussie-crime-drama/Content?oid=1684380

The Hurt Locker

This summer's latest action movie, G.I. JOE,

now in theaters...oh, wait...

Grade: A –

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, Evangeline Lilly, and Guy Pearce

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes

Of all the taut, gripping images in director Kathryn Bigelow’s exceptional Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker, one of the simplest lingers longest in your mind.

Pinned down by sniper fire in the middle of the desert with a group of British mercenaries, three American soldiers endure insufferable heat for hours, waiting out – and killing – their adversaries one by one. In the stillness of their stakeout, flies conspicuously hover and nestle on the soldiers’ faces, as if these men striving mightily to stay alive were somehow already dead.

Set in 2004, Hurt Locker follows the final month in the rotation of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, or “Blasters,” whose mission is to defuse or otherwise nullify enemy mines and IEDs. Following the death of the squad’s leader (Guy Pearce, in a cameo), Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are joined by Sgt. Will James (Jeremy Renner), a hotshot whose expertise and brazenness have helped him disarm over 800 bombs. James enjoys each disabling mission not just as a challenge, but as an almost a sexual rush that typically calls for a post-coital cigarette.

A scene in which Eldridge unwinds by playing a war-themed video game evokes both the psyche of the war-torn soldier and the nature of the actual war. The Iraqi battlefield is depicted as an arid theater in which opposing sides engage in an unending, deadly game of cat-and-mouse, devoid of politics, religion, or any other animating ideology. In the arena of urban warfare, distinguishing friend from foe is both paramount and nearly impossible. An enemy could be peering from behind or atop any building; an IED could be hidden underneath any innocuous bag of garbage. For the locals, war has become a spectator sport – children fly kites from rooftops as suicide bombs detonate below.

Although Hurt Locker certainly benefits by comparison to the many previous lackluster films about America’s war in the Middle East, it is no small praise to declare it the best non-documentary yet about the Iraq War. Making her first feature film since 2002’s K-19: The Widowmaker, Bigelow finally realizes her promise as a filmmaker. Filmed in Jordan, her action sequences are both austere and breathtaking – “edge-of-your seat” is an appropriate compliment. Meanwhile, the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a journalist who spent time embedded with an actual bomb squad in Iraq (Boal’s 2004 article about the death of an Iraq War veteran was the basis for Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah).

The heart Boal’s script is an exploration of the soldiers’ survival instincts. In the waning days of their tour, Sanborn retreats to the safety of caution and protocols. In contrast, James faces down the enemy and its deadly devices headlong. He is either a deus ex machina or a reckless cowboy with a death wish, and the tension resides in whether his methods harm or protect his squad mates.

Where Hurt Locker falters is when the focus shifts too far onto James’ growing mental and emotional volatility, triggered primarily by the discovery a bomb hidden inside the cadaver of a young child and manifested chiefly by his sudden desire to embark on seek and destroy missions for anonymous triggermen. While this allows Renner to expand on an already noteworthy performance, it disrupts the balance between the characters.

The film’s title is generally a colloquialism for inflicting pain on someone else. In the context of the film, there are alternate allusions. First, there’s the crate James keeps under his bunk containing dozens of triggering devices he has previously diffused, which remind him of the number of times he has cheated death. And then there is the bulky suit Blasters wear when approaching an explosive device up close, a kind of mobile sarcophagus that is relatively ineffectual against short-range detonations at preventing pain or death. Ironically, it is also the place James feels most at peace – he even takes to sleeping in his blast helmet.

Contrast that with a short scene near film’s end, in which James, temporarily States-side between deployments, visits a local grocery store to buy breakfast cereal for his estranged wife (Evangeline Lilly) and their child. James looks upon the aisle of seemingly limitless choices with both perplexity and alienation. The “real world” has lost its meaning. For soldiers like James, the only way to feel alive is to keep facing death.

Neil Morris

Traitor

Yet Another 48 Hrs.

Grade: B
Director: Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Starring: Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Saïd Taghmaoui, Neal McDonough, and Aly Khan
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Traitor is another in the increasing line of films that strive to blend sober examination of historical Middle Eastern unrest and, in particular, recent Islamic terrorism into a familiar action-adventure construct – The Kingdom springs to mind. The perspectives of both the American foreign policy apparatus and Islamic-based terrorist organizations are presented with often discomforting objectivity. A terrorist co-opts a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. to support his wicked cause, and when a covert U.S. intelligence contractor declares, “It’s a war; you do whatever it takes to win,” it is sagely noted that he is speaking the same language as the terrorists.

However, the most radical part about Traitor is that it chooses to draw the dividing battle lines between good and evil not along nationalistic or jingoistic grounds, but instead as a religious conflagration. It is here where the film’s title finds it double-meaning. Initially, the moniker of “traitor” seems to apply to Sudanese-born, American-educated expatriate Samir Horn (the eternally underrated Don Cheadle), who as a child watched his father perish in a car bomb and then grows up to seemingly become a devout Muslim peddling arms to terrorist groups. Samir’s association with a terrorist cell headed by an Arab Muslim named Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui) lands him in a Yemenese prison, and after an escape the streets of France and the United States, where he is pursued by two FBI agents played by Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential; Memento) and Neal McDonough.

Along the way, we eventually learn that Samir is a top-secret U.S. operative posing undercover to infiltrate the terrorist group. However, instead of being viewed as another sort of traitor (to his own people), the true betrayal the film chooses to spotlight is also Samir’s driving motivation: the belief that those who kill innocents in the name of Allah are blaspheming the true nature and meaning of Islam. Samir’s relationship with his C.I.A. handler (Jeff Daniels) is an uneasy one because while the American fights for country, Samir sees himself as fighting for God.

Writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, working from a story originated by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), melds the weighty themes into occasionally edge-of-your-seat entertainment. All the elements of a neo-1970s spy thriller are in play: double agents; moles; disparate and dysfunctional government agencies; cloak & dagger intrigue; etc. And, the performances are uniformly top-notch, especially Cheadle, Pearce, and Taghmaoui.

It is only during the film’s final stage that is suffers a near-crippling identity crisis, as Nachmanoff transitions from Syriana to something akin to The Departed starring Jason Bourne. Holes and conveniences begin to infect the script, eroding its intelligent underpinning. Still, thanks largely to Cheadle’s skill and an uncompromising first-half, Traitor tries to become that rarest of breeds: a Hollywood blockbuster with a brain (released in August, no less).

Neil Morris