The Intern

You gawkin' at me?

Grade: B –

Director: Nancy Meyers

Starring: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm, JoJo Kushner, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine and Zack Pearlman

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 1 min.

The tableau of The Intern unspools like the unofficial sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, with Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs now the ambitious yet affable head of her own e-commerce fashion company, herself forced to balance the demands of work and family. In truth, the two main characters in this latest feathery film from writer-director Nancy Meyers shrewdly project the two actors playing them.

Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is a 70-year-old widower retired from a 40-year career in the phone book production business. Ben wiles away his lonesome days with 7:30 a.m. coffee at Starbucks, tai chi and periodic trips to San Diego to visit his son and grandchildren (none of whom we meet, curiously). He’s used up all his airline miles and, he fears, his usefulness.

A flyer advertising a Senior Internship Program at the Brooklyn-based workplace of About The Fit catches Ben’s eye. A video resume later and Ben milling around the company’s refurbished digs and assigned to Jules Ostin (Hathaway), its founder. Jules is the sort of spunky stereotype who bikes to and inside the office (a quirk that totally vanishes as quickly as it's introduced) and ventures to the shipping warehouse to correct the way they fold the tissue paper. She's also the sort of workaholic whose career detracts from life with her moppet and stay-at-home husband/dad, Matt (Anders Holm, with a performance that’s forgettable in real time).

The hook is that Ben’s snappy charcoal suits, 1973 attaché briefcase and flip phone stand in sharp relief to today’s casual Millennial milieu. Predictably, Ben shows the young'uns a thing or two and proves the deus ex machina for Jules’ home and work woes, including a looming decision whether to hire a CEO (from all male candidates, a gender dynamic never explored) to relieve Jules’ workload and further grow her 18-month-old clothing enterprise.

Jules, like Hathaway, is a female rising star in a male-dominated corporate world whose career success has coincided with dark times in her romantic relationships. Ben, like De Niro, is a former titan of his industry seemingly rendered obsolete by age and changing culture. Neither De Niro nor Hathaway appear at ease here when isolated on camera or with other castmates. However, there’s palpable, platonic chemistry whenever they’re paired off, and the parallels with their characters subtly surface during their byplay.

That said, The Intern is still a treacly, ethnically homogeneous Nancy Meyers joint (see also: Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated, and The Holiday) with missteps massive and minuscule. A mid-film sequence involving an errant e-mail Jules sends her unseen mother devolves into a heist op that undercuts Jules and Ben’s characterizations. Ben’s dalliance with Fiona, the flirty office masseuse (right …) played by Rene Russo, is a needless subplot that begins with a back rub turned De Niro chubby, something I could have gone my whole life without seeing.

And while De Niro and Hathaway are terrific, their amiable characters are ultimately uncomplicated. Jules has professional and personal obstacles, but nothing that time and a few tweaks don’t tidily resolve by film’s end. And Ben’s sage sensei comes sans any background messiness. He’s the embalmed embodiment of a romanticized era, where men were men and women, well, can be men, too.

The Family

What is that which gives me joy? Gangster roles!

Grade: B+

Director: Luc Besson

Starring: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron and John D’Leo

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 52 min.

One scene binds the satirical layers of French director Luc Besson’s The Family. Playing a former Brooklyn mob boss now posing as a writer under federal witness protection in a remote village in northwest France, Robert De Niro is invited to a gathering of the town’s local film society. When the night’s original featured film, Some Came Running, falls through, its replacement is another distinctly American film from “Monsieur Scorsese.” And so we see an aging De Niro, the flicker of a film projector haloing his head, smiling wryly at the opening moments of Goodfellas.

Here, Besson encapsulates the whole of his adaptation of Tonino Benacquista’s novel “Malavita.” First, the film is an elegy to the glorified American movie gangster, embodied in the visage of a goodfella who didn’t stay on top or die living the life, but instead chose to snitch on his mob family in order to save his real family and now wiles away his later years in foreign exile. Indeed, it’s not a stretch to analogize De Niro’s Giovanni Manzoni—living under the assumed name Fred Blake—to Henry Hill about 16 years after the end of Goodfellas.

The film also spotlights the French’s simultaneous abhorrence of Americans and adoration of American culture. When the Blakes host a cookout, the neighbors line up to sample hamburgers and other American cuisine, while at the same time snobbishly sniffing at Fred’s attempts to ignite his charcoal grill. When Fred’s wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer) dares ask a local grocer if he stocks peanut butter, the faux pas is met with a string of whispered insults that Maggie answers by blowing up the store.

Beyond the provocative allegory, what keeps the film entertaining is its knowing casting and its breezy, offbeat comedic script. While the Blake clan may have moved overseas, they brought their mob mentality with them. Normandy is only the latest landing spot for Fred, who has been uprooted by his federal minder Robert Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones) several times due to Fred’s anger issues. Warren (John D’Leo) is a hustler in training who begins working the angles the first day at his new high school. Meanwhile, teenage daughter Belle (Dianna Agron, a long way from Glee) is an acute mix of her mother’s beauty and her father’s hair-trigger temper.

There’s a subplot involving Fred’s investigation into local water supply (perhaps a nod to Chinatown), as well as his attempt at writing his memoirs using an old Brother typewriter, an endeavor dissuaded by Stansfield. Even a seemingly throwaway aside by Warren about the varied uses of the f-word is slyly revisited following a film-ending cataclysm.

It’s no secret that Besson’s films, and the Cinéma du look French film movement he helped form, are heavily influenced by New Hollywood cinema and modern Hollywood action movies. In this way, The Family—particularly its violent final act—is also Besson’s sardonic response to the longstanding criticism that his work is too slick, commercial and “Hollywood,” lodged by countrymen harboring their own predilection for Yankee pop culture.

Silver Linings Playbook

Well, it ain't Ozzie and Harriet

Grade: A
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver and Chris Tucker
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hr. 2 min.

A Hollywood romantic-comedy reflected in a fun house mirror, Silver Linings Playbook ends with a guy literally chasing after a girl, but only after the girl spends much of the film literally chasing him down. Such is the symmetry and idiosyncrasy of writer-director David O. Russell’s blessed return to his screwball comedy origins of Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster after trawling for Oscars with an overrated The Fighter.

After an eight-month stint in a Baltimore mental institution, Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) returns to the Philadelphia home of his eccentric mom Dolores (Jacki Weaver) and dad Jack Sr. (Robert De Niro). Pat, an ex-high school teacher, landed in the loony bin after nearly beating his wife Nikki’s lover to death. Now out of the hospital, Pat embarks on a quixotic quest to win back his bygone spouse, in violation of both common sense and several active restraining orders.

During an otherwise disastrous dinner party with friends, Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a shapely widow whose own bipolar battles prompted promiscuity, losing her job and moving into the guest quarters behind her parents’ house. Tiffany takes an uneven liking to Pat even though he continues to foolhardily pine after Nikki. Pat also struggles to reconcile with his dad, an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive, gambling addict and long-suffering Eagles fan now launching a misguided second career as a bookmaker. Pat Sr.’s desire to spend time with his son is partly a desire to connect and partly a superstitious belief that Pat’s presence on the family couch brings his beloved “Birds” good luck and Pat Sr. good fortune.

Silver Linings Playbook is a delightful, virtuoso marriage of humor, poignancy, fluid camerawork, lighting and music ranging from The White Stripes to Ella Fitzgerald to Led Zeppelin. There’s a Dylan and Johnny Cash duet of “Girl From The North Country,” along with Frank Sinatra’s plaintive rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” And the film nearly does for Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” what “Sea of Love” did for Phil Phillips’ 1959 recording.

It’s an eclectic stew that navigates its darker and lighter moments with equal aplomb, including, of all things, an amateur dance competition. But it all works thanks to Russell’s sure hand and a terrific cast, led by awards-worth performances from Lawrence and Cooper, the latter appearing in virtually every scene and managing Russell’s distinctive prose through varying gears of mania. Much is said throughout this verbose film, but the imagery is also revealing: even a simple shot of Pat’s portrait propped against the wall, dismounted from its perch alongside his brother’s, speaks volumes about the dysfunctional Solitano family dynamic.

The film’s tidy ending is incongruous with the rest of its inspired untidiness. Still, while Silver Linings Playbook is a romance, it’s also a movie about the obsessions and anxieties of ordinary peoples, whether over a long lost love or a favorite football team.

Little Fockers

Sir, this isn't Little Italy and my name isn't Marty

Grade: C

Director: Paul Weitz

Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Owen Wilson, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, and Jessica Alba

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes

The only character that utters anything approaching common sense in Little Fockers, – the tertiary installment in the Meet the… series – is Dr. Bob Banks (Tom McCarthy), appearing for the first time since Meet the Parents. In explaining his infidelity to wife Debbie, the daughter of curmudgeonly patriarch Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), Bob claims it was his only way out of Jack’s “circle of trust” and off the Jack Byrnes hamster wheel.

If only the rest of us could buy a ticket on that ride. Like its older cast members, Little Fockers is past its prime and quickly runs out of steam. Plagued by health problems and Dr. Bob’s letdown, Jack turns to Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) as successor to the familial throne. As always, however, Jack lets his chronic paranoia get the best of him, particularly when Nurse Greg starts hanging out with a flirtatious drug rep (Jessica Alba) hawking a new erectile dysfunction pill.

Reprising Kevin Rawley – the New Agey, obsessive ex-beau of Pam Focker – Owen Wilson enjoys his largest role in the series and repeatedly saves dead weight scenes. On the other hand, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand essentially give glorified cameos as Greg’s parents – indeed, Hoffman initially refused to appear in the film because of disagreements over script and replacing director Jay Roach with Paul Weitz (About a Boy).

Otherwise, Little Fockers is the same exasperating collection of miscommunications and crippling family dysfunction, capped by a final tack-on scene shamelessly and sloppily designed to overhaul this mess into a holiday film – the ribbon and bow adorning the film’s ad poster is part of the same stupid masquerade. Each plot point circles back to Jack and Greg’s tiresome tete-à-tete, even though any modicum of basic human communication would defuse every conflict.

There one moment of knowing hilarity when Jack calls into CIA headquarters to dust off his top-secret clearance. The incredulous phone operator tells Jack he can probably just find whatever he’s looking for using Google, an amusing nod to our open information age. Conversely, a scene in which De Niro and Harvey Keitel get into a shouting match only reminds you of the better films each of them once appeared in together. Chances are none of them featured De Niro pitching a tent in his pajamas.

Neil Morris

Everybody's Fine

Grade: C +

Director: Kirk Jones

Starring: Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Everybody’s Fine succeeds in evoking a spirit of family reconciliation and yuletide sentimentality. Outweighing all of that, however, is an overriding sense of déjà vu.

Robert De Niro plays Frank, a retiree trying to adjust to a life of menial solitude, unmoored from the outside world by his wife’s death eight months earlier. Disconnected from his grown children geographically and emotionally, Frank embarks on a road trip to visit and, hopefully, reconnect with them. Casual observers may note similarities to Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt, including De Niro and Jack Nicholson’s splendidly restrained performances. Officially, Everybody’s Fine is a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1990 Italian drama, Stanno Tutti Bene, starring Marcello Mastroianni.

This update from director Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine) amps the mawkishness to nearly oppressive levels, piling angst over growing old atop family dysfunction and the deaths of loved ones. Indeed, only the performances by the A-list cast keep this from dissolving into Hallmark Hall of Fame holiday-themed treacle.

Frank is the sort of everyman who shops for expensive wine at a supermarket and haggles over the price of everything from gas grills to Christmas trees. Clad and accessorized in nondescript browns, he also epitomizes certain men – especially older and working class – who are laden with tender feelings toward loved ones but unwilling or unsure how to express them. The way he greets his children is illuminating: His daughters with awkward hugs and his son with a handshake.

As the film opens, Frank is eagerly preparing for his four children’s first visit since his wife’s funeral: David the painter; Robert the musician (Sam Rockwell); Amy (Kate Beckinsale), a hard-charging Chicago ad executive; and Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a Las Vegas dancer. They all cancel at the last minute, however, prompting Frank’s cross-country odyssey.

Until the end, the script is furtive about the actual reason the children choose to stay away. But, it strongly implies throughout that they were far more connected to their late mother than their supportive but demanding father. In one affecting scene, Frank visits Robert during orchestra practice and, even in the midst of their reunion, is unable to stifle his disappointment that Robert has chosen to play percussion instead of pursuing a career as a conductor.

Each child carries skeletons and imperfections he or she is reluctant to share. But, one problem is that the children are not allowed to be honest with their father; instead, Jones utilizes a bizarre, clumsily dream sequence to help Frank – and the audience – finally puts the pieces together.

The actors carry out their roles well, and De Niro’s interaction with each costar is pitch-perfect. However, there is a disconnect between the children’s dismissive, sometimes callous treatment of their father and the onscreen Frank. We are merely informed about Frank’s domineering parenting without being provided any glimpse into that part of his persona (unlike, for example, Royal Tenenbaum). The result is an incomplete narrative that engenders a festering dislike for Frank’s children, who probably don’t really deserve our malice.

Of course, this lack of context is probably intentional since it tidily clears away emotional debris for an obvious, tear-jerking plot turn and a Norman Rockwell-esque denouement. Everybody’s Fine is supposed to be an ironic affirmation. Trouble is, by the time Christmas (and the closing credits) arrives, it’s hard to detect the irony.

Neil Morris

Righteous Kill

At long last, we've found the remains of our careers

Grade: D +
Director: Jon Avnet
Starring: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Carla Gugino, John Leguizamo, Curtis Jackson, Donnie Wahlberg, and Brian Dennehy
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Back in 1986, 70-somethings Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas teamed together one last time playing elderly gangsters in the buddy comedy, Tough Guys. While the production was steeped in Hollywood nostalgia and a few guilty chuckles, it was more than a bit melancholy to witness two of the silver screen’s finest actors relegated to B-movie schlock. Their best days – and roles – were far, far behind them.

Righteous Kill trods similar ground, with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino starring as aging, tough-talking NYPD cops – nicknamed Turk and Rooster – teetering along the edge of the moral dividing line. However, with its obvious typecasting and palpable joylessness, the macabre spectacle reminds me more of the uneasy, strained collaborations between Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi during the latter days of their careers. It is a movie 20 years past its expiration date, and the only extraordinary sights to behold are Pacino’s efforts to still tease-up his increasingly thinning bangs, and De Niro laboring to propel his expanding girth through the Earth’s gravitational pull.

With the fragile assistance two younger detectives (John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg), Turk and Rooster are on the trail of a serial killer on the loose. The first, and and by no means only, with Russell Gewirtz's (Inside Man) ponderous screenplay is that it makes the mistake of forecasting upfront that Turk is secretly the killer. Fed up with rapists, pedophile priests, and drug dealers (including a kingpin played by Curtis Jackson, aka rapper 50 Cent) beating the rap and roaming the streets, Turk dispenses vigilante justice as some odd mash-up of Dirty Harry, The Star Chamber, and Se7en.

Or so it seems. You can be assured of one of two things while watching Righteous Kill: either this early revelation makes the rest of the film a gigantic waste of time, or there is going to be a twist ending you can see coming a mile away…and the film is still a gigantic waste of time. Director Jon Avnet helms this police procedural with the dexterity of a lumberjack as one implausible scene after another is strung together to form a head-scratching, tedious saunter through Madame Tussauds. An opening credits montage shows Turk and Rooster target-shooting and pumping iron (and, oddly, coaching Little League baseball and playing pickup chess), and Avnet spends the remainder of the film trying to prop up this masculine artifice.

No one is buying it, particularly when the cost includes being repeatedly subjected to De Niro’s creepy sexual escapades with a comely fellow cop (Carla Gugino), always shot from camera angles that obscure the actor’s paunch. Add to that De Niro’s animatronic line readings, poorly written supporting roles, and consistently stale repartee between the two leads (including a reference to the cartoon character Underdog as closeted pill-popper that is even older than De Niro and Pacino’s acting heydays), and you are left with a geriatric revue kept on life support way past the point somebody should have pulled the plug.

Neil Morris