Starred Up (***)

This is worth watching for those who like films about the internal dynamics of prison life. The screenwriter, Jonathan Asser, worked as a prison therapist, perhaps something like the one, played by Rupert Friend, who tries to help the main character, Eric (Jack O'Connell). The unusual aspect of this film, compared to other such dramas, is that Eric’s father (Ben Mendelsohn) is incarcerated in the same institution.

The title is likely to be obscure to non-UK audiences — it refers to the process of transferring an offender from a juvenile facility to an adult one. Also obscure may be much of the dialogue, which is spoken in a variety of mostly non-posh British accents. (The entire film was shot in two prisons in Northern Ireland, with no scenes set on the outside.) Best to use the subtitles, if available, though some of the most powerful scenes employ no dialogue. Asser and director David Mackenzie depict prison as an unsentimental place full of people, not least protagonist Eric, with anger issues. It’s not cheery.

IMDb link

viewed 5/21/14 7:30 pm at Gershman Y [PFS screening] and reviewed 5/21/14

Incendies (***3/4)

Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which I saw the night before this, includes William Faulkner’s famous quote, “The past is never dead; it isn’t even past.” Probably that’s why it came to mind while watching this harrowing mystery, which proves the point. It also proves that it’s not only science-fiction films and action-thrillers that deliver mind-blowing conclusions. (Yes, the one here involves a big coincidence, but it’s a coincidence that mostly explains subsequent events rather than too-conveniently wrapping up a messy plot.) What starts out as a slow-paced drama about French Canadian twins asked to carry out their late mother’s last wish—find their lost father and brother—becomes increasingly compelling. For me the point at which I started becoming involved was when, in flashback, the mother (the very fine Lubna Azabal) finds herself facing a Christian death squad in Lebanon’s civil war of the 1970s. Thinking quickly, she not only shows them her cross to prove she’s not a Muslim, but also tells them that a young Muslim girl is her daughter, hoping to save the child.

Alternating with the mother’s story, her daughter (but not her twin brother, less inclined to carry out the will of a mother he somewhat resents) travels from Montréal to Lebanon and slowly uncovers her mother’s unfortunate past. Director Denis Villeneuve, who’s adapted the play by Lebanese Canadian Wajdi Mouawad, keeps the actual violence off-screen while showing its effects. The flashbacks and the modern scenes move toward the same conclusion, but the contrast couldn’t be greater. It’s not only that the twins live in a world of cell phones and air-conditioned vehicles, but that they live in a world where they have the luxury of being able to forget the past.

This was nominated for the foreign-language Oscar. It’s nearly a toss-up whether this or the winner, In a Better World, is better. But the twist at the end of this one, and Villeneuve’s natural-seeming presentation of a tricky structure, gives this the edge.

IMDB link

viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 6/23/11

Stone (***)

Crime has paid for Edward Norton. His breakout role (and first Oscar nomination) came in 1996’s Primal Fear, in which he played an altar boy accused of murder. His second Oscar nomination came two years later, when he played a white supremacist who finds redemption in prison. He is once again imprisoned as the title character in this psychological drama, an arsonist hoping to be paroled after serving nearly a decade.

Reunited with his Painted Veil director John Curran, Norton gets to try out another accent of some sort that I found irritating. But then, this is not a movie for those who crave likable characters. Stone says things like “I don’t want no beef with you. I just want to be a vegetarian.” Norton/Stone mutters this under his breath, so it doesn’t sound as silly as it reads. He’s talking to Jack (Robert De Niro), the man who will decide whether to make Stone a free man. De Niro isn’t likable either, as our view of him is colored by the first scene in the movie, a flashback in which Jack makes a violent threat to prevent his wife (played by Frances Conroy in the later scenes) from leaving. Also not likable is Stone’s wife (Milla Jovovich), a teacher who sets out to “talk” with Jack on behalf of her husband. Her transparently fakery made me also irritated by her, or more so by Jack’s apparent blindness to her attempts to manipulate him.

What might be a setup for an intense thriller is instead a morality drama. The script by Angus MacLachlan, who wrote the delightful Junebug, paints Stone as a kind of mirror for Jack, whose job is to determine whether others are good, who admires goodness but doesn’t understand it. Religion is a theme in the movie. Jack and his wife listen faithfully to a radio preacher, but he has doubts that seem to stem as much from his own failings as those he sees in others. Both male characters are intended to be ambiguous. Stone seems simultaneously coy and honest, and a little crazy; we have no idea whether he will re-offend if released. What seems ambiguous to some may seem underwritten to others. The relationships between the two men and their wives remain mysterious, and Conroy is a good actress (and the most sympathetic character) whose role—the long-suffering spouse—could have been profitably expanded.

IMDB link

viewed 11/11/10 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 11/11 and 11/15/10

A Prophet (***1/2)

It took a mistake to land him in jail. It took prison to make him into a criminal. That would be my imaginary tagline for this French drama from director Jacques Audiard (Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped).

IMDB link

viewed 3/25/2010 at Ritz 5

Tyson (***1/2)

I admit I only saw this because I was invited to. But James Toback’s documentary was an unexpectedly revelatory portrait of the boxer who, after taking the heavyweight world by storm, increasingly came to seem like a human cartoon. Toback, known for features like The Pick-Up Artist and Black and White, built the film around five lengthy interviews with Mike Tyson. Aside from extensive footage of Tyson’s bouts and some news footage, chronologically ordered segments of these interviews form the entire film. But while the movie is in no sense objective—and Toback is Tyson’s longtime friend—it doesn’t seem like hagiography either.

While the champ, who became the youngest heavyweight champion (aged 20) in 1986, isn’t exactly articulate—his recounting of the time he performed “fellatio” on a woman in a toilet elicited snickers—he is able to speak with a perspective on his past that he lacked at the time. He chalks up his celebrated, brief marriage to Robin Givens to mutual immaturity. He dismisses Desiree Washington, of whom he was convicted of raping in 1992, as lying “swine,” while admitting to other bad sexual behavior, such as the “extracurricular” activity during hs marriages. The infamous ear-biting incident involving Evander Holyfield is also addressed. Yet the less sensational moments, such as the worshipful way he speaks of his first manager, Cus D’Amato, are most revealing. Whatever you think of Tyson, this unexpectedly fascinating film turns the cartoon into a human being.

IMDB link

viewed 3/29/09 at Ritz East (Philadelphia Film Festival) and reviewed 3/31/09

Nothing to Lose (***1/2)

As in The Fugitive, a convicted killer (Theo Maassen) escapes and sets out to prove his innocence, yet this story, based on an actual case, is far removed from that. That it’s the work of a Belgian, Pieter Kuijpers, who made another good crime drama, Godforsaken, is one reason. Another is that, for much of the film, the escapee is in the company of a thirteen-year-old girl (Lisa Smit) he’s taken as a hostage. Most significantly, the characters make the film unique. For one thing, it’s clear that, innocent or not, the convict is no Richard Kimble. His escape is from a facility for the criminally insane. At times the film operates like a thriller, as when he tries to flee the country. At others, it is more of a drama, but with the tension of wondering whether the girl is right as she begins to trust him, and without undue sentimentality.

IMDB link

viewed 4/13/08 (Philadelphia Film Festival); reviewed 8/8/2010

Gridiron Gang (***1/4)

 ? Notwithstanding a title that makes it sounds like a comedy about a Pop Warner football league, this is a fairly serious movie about slightly older kids who’ve landed in a California juvenile detention center. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a supervisor at the facility named Sean Porter who gets the idea that some teamwork would help rehabilitate the young men. The movie was coproduced by Lee Stanley, whose 1993 TV documentary was a basis for this feature. Xzibit plays a fellow probation officer and assistant coach.

+ Somehow it seems that the movies I see with the “based on a true story” tag rate a lot higher on the bullshit meter than many supposedly fictional ones. This is a happy exception. The movie concentrates on showing how a few key players transform themselves in the program, as well as Porter’s attempts to push the players without alienating them. Just as one touchdown won’t win a football game, the movie never implies that one key moment will make the difference in the players’ outlook, or even that every player will be rehabilitated. Though some prison officials express skepticism about the program, they’re not portrayed as uncaring buffoons. As Porter himself goes through many moods, the Rock continues to exhibit the range he showed in Be Cool. The could-have-been-corny parts with the coach’s dying mother even work fairly well, though I still suspected this storyline to have been made up.

- The basic plot is one you’ve seen many times, and on those terms the movie offers few surprises.

= ***1/4 Gridiron Gang overcomes the pitfalls of the underdog sports story by focusing on the personality of the coach, not unlike the otherwise different Miracle. It’s a cut above most movies of its type. The documentary clips at the end, which closely mirror scenes in the fiction version, are a nice touch.

IMDb link

After Innocence (**3/4)

A documentary focusing on men who’ve been wrongfully imprisoned. Shot as a series of human-interest stories, it might have been more involving with a sharper focus on the process that led to the unfortunate outcomes.

This is one of four limited-release documentaries (counting the performance film Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic) that opened on the same weekend in Philadelphia. The second favorite film in April’s Philadelphia Film Festival (another documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom, beat it by a step), it tells the story of several “exonerees,” wrongly convicted men who spent years or even decades in prison before new DNA evidence (or in one case, a confession) led to their being freed. Given the title, it makes sense it that it’s mostly the men talking about their adjustment after prison. (There’s no narration.) Still, getting sent to prison for crimes—mostly involving rape, which yields DNA evidence—they didn’t commit is probably the most interesting thing that will ever happen to any of them. I couldn’t help but wish there was more detail about the crimes themselves and the legal process that led to the unfortunate outcomes. A more in-depth focus on a few of the men might have yielded more insights into how things like this happen, and what practical steps can be taken to improve things. I’d also have wanted more screen time for Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who pinpoint misidentification by witnesses as the common element in most of these cases. There is a Philly angle to this film, as two of those profiled are local, and a proposed bill to compensate Pennsylvania exonerees and expunge their records is given some attention. [As of 2009, it does not appear that the bill was passed.]

IMDB link

viewed at 12/?/05 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 12/5/05