FILM REVIEW OF ''ARGO" (2012)

The Iranian hostage crisis escape thriller “Argo” (**** OUT OF ****) gives new meaning to the adage that truth is stranger than fiction.  Ostensibly, this imaginative Warner Brothers release takes us back to the year 1979 when America as a superpower found itself cornered by a small but fanatical nation.  Basically, Iran was exacting payback for our imperialist urges in the 1950s when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill persuaded President Dwight Eisenhower to help stage a coup and overthrow the civilian government.  During the ill-fated presidency of Jimmy Carter, outraged Islamic militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November after their cancer-stricken sovereign, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been installed as monarch by America, fled the country for sanctuary in America.  This unfortunate episode with Iran is not one of America’s star-spangled moments, any more than the U.S.S. Pueblo debacle in North Korea.  The radical strongman—the Ayatollah Khomeini—replaced the tyrannical Shah, and Khomeini’s minions violated the sanctity of our foreign embassy and abducted 52 hostages at gunpoint.  These brave Americans suffered in captivity for 444 days before the U.S. managed to negotiate their release.  Television news turned this unforgettable event into a nightmare that polarized Americans and torpedoed Carter’s bid for a second term.  Now, some 33 years later, actor/director Ben Affleck and fledgling scenarist Chris Terrio have appropriated this historic subject matter for an audacious as well as inspirational espionage caper.  “Argo” should rank in the top ten of anybody’s list of the best films of 2012.  Despite its R-rating for profanity, “Argo” qualifies as the kind of true-life adventure that should please not only armchair historians but also make us all feel a little prouder of our red, white, and blue.

As the fury of a crowd besieging the U.S. Embassy in Tehran mounts, a small number of diplomats—six of them—debate their options and quietly slip out a back door that the radicals aren’t watching.  They find sanctuary at the residence of the Canadian ambassador, Ken Taylor (Victor Garber 0f “The Town”), and try to sit out the situation.  During the last few moments when Americans controlled the embassy, everybody struggled to shred top secret documents.  The Embassy personnel managed to turn enough paperwork into fodder so the six workers weren't missed immediately by the invading Iranians.  Nevertheless, with each day, the predicament of these diplomats grows even more dramatic.  They fear that when the Iranians discover them that they will die horrible deaths.  The Central Intelligence Agency shares similar sentiments, and it hatches several harebrained schemes to save the six.  CIA executive Jack O'Donnell (Bryan Cranston of TV’s “Breaking Bad”) invites one of best experts,Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck of “Good Will Hunting”), to sit in on the conference.  Government officials present a number of scenarios for rescuing the hostages.  For example, they plan to smuggle bicycles to them and await them at the border.  Mendez takes a dim view of this option.  Instead, he suggests they provide training wheels and meet them at the border with Gatorade.  Nobody appreciates his sense of humor, and Mendez dreams up a scheme that seems even more insane.  Mendez proposes to masquerade as a Canadian film producer, fly into Tehran, and waltz the six out under the noses of the Iranians as a team of filmmakers sent to scout locations for a science fiction movie!  Eventually, despite desperate misgivings, the CIA green lights the Mendez plan, and our hero goes into high gear to make it all happen.  He enlists the help of an Oscar-winning Hollywood make-up artist, John Chambers (John Goodman of “Red State”), and a shrewd movie producer, Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin of “Inspector Clouseau”) who doesn't miss a trick.  In real life, Chambers won an Oscar in 1969 for the original “Planet of the Apes.”  They establish a production office and option an obscure science fiction screenplay for which Siegel has nothing but contempt.  Revealing anything more about the elaborate plot would spoil many surprises as well as the nail-biting tension that Affleck orchestrates.

The worst thing you can say about “Argo” is that it unfolds with methodical attention to detail.  Affleck and Terrio rely on history, intelligence, and wit to depict this suspenseful thriller.  They do an excellent job of providing all the necessary history of Iran. Leaving the theater as the end credits roll will only serve to deprive you of some other choice surprises.  You get to compare the actor or actress with the real person they impersonated.  Affleck visited former President Carter, and Carter remembers the moment when he met Mendez.  Meantime, “Argo” skewers the film industry, too.  John Goodman excels a sarcastic make-up artist and Alan Arkin brings multiple dimensional to Lester Siegel.  Indeed, Arkin steals every scene in which he appears.  Affleck and Terrio based their spine tingling saga on the 2007 article "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran" by Joshuah Bearman that “Wired” magazine published.  You can go on-line and read the informative article.Bearman's article is insightful.  Incidentally, although things went pretty much as planned, the CIA had to keep the affair hushed up until 1997 when President Clinton officially declassified the operation.  Nevertheless, the liberties that the filmmakers take to enhance the dramatic impact aren’t as drastic as you might imagine.  Affleck and company deserve kudos for not making the Iranian adversaries look like cretinous, one-dimensional villains.  “Argo” qualifies as one of the freshest, most stimulating films that you will ever see.

FILM REVIEW OF "LOOPER" (2012)

“Looper” (* out of ****) qualifies as a sordid science fiction thriller about time travel with an awful ending.  Stir a little H.G. Wells in with some Stephen King and add a pinch of “The Sopranos,” and you’ve got the basics of “Brick” director Rian Johnson’s contrived, unconvincing chronicle.  Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are cast as one in the same character in this disappointing actioneer that pits them against each other with a no-win outcome.  Furthermore, both protagonists emerge as more anti-heroic than heroic.  If you dismiss the fact these talented thespians bear scant resemblance to each other, you must still consider the scarcity of information about a distant future as well as a warped premise.  These shortcomings constitute the chief flaws in this imaginative but predictable sci-fi saga that unfolds in an erratic manner, lacks quotable dialogue, and features one character with no qualms about shooting innocent adolescents. By the time this uninspired, R-rated, 118-minute, spectacle has worn out its welcome; you have no reason to care about anybody, including an obnoxious telekinetic tyke who doesn’t know when to keep his trap shut.  Mind you, the future has never appeared more dystopian.  Some people are born with a mutation that enables them to levitate objects, and these fellows find that they can lure facile-minded babes into bed by making quarters float above the palms of their hands.  The economy has hit bottom, and vagrancy has become epidemic. Citizens can execute vagrants on the spot if they feel so inclined.  Any time Hollywood undertakes a time travel tale, the filmmakers conjure up some of the ugliest vehicles.  While the cars and trucks look hopelessly tacky, the motorcycles resemble something Luke Skywalker wouldn't ride.  Basically, you see a guy straddling a cylinder with handle bars.  Computer-generated special effects blur everything beneath his feet so he appears to be cruising on a cushion of air. 

Johnson’s screenplay is as amoral as his narrative premise is warped.  Imitating the best Mafia movies of director Martin Scorsese, Johnson relies on the voice-over narration of his lead character to acquaint us not only with his unusual profession but also with the seedy world where he thrives.  Kansas in the year 2044 serves as the setting.  Presumably, Johnson is making an ironic “Wizard of Oz” joke with his futuristic fable.  The premise of “Looper” is that a guy can live the high life by killing individuals from the future who have been sent back to the past.  Joseph Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of “The Dark Knight Rises”) is a killer who was brought up the ranks by his boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels of “Blood Work”), to do his dirty work.  Actually, Abe was beamed back from the future to coordinate the equivalent of Murder Incorporated.  In the 1940s, the Mafia relied on hired gunmen from out of town to ice enemies on their own turf.  For example, if the New York Mafia wanted to dispose of an adversary, they contracted a Chicago gunsel to eliminate him.  The rationale was that the authorities always sought a motive.  What motive would a Chicago mobster have for killing New York mobster that he didn’t know?  This remained standard operating procedure until the authorities figured out the connection.  

Mobsters in the year 2074 cannot murder their adversaries because humans have become too easy to track.  Since the mob cannot kill their own, they contract hits out to mobsters from the past.  Gunman designated ‘loopers’ kill and dispose of these victims that the mob has beamed back so nobody can find them.  Our hero wields an exotic shotgun called a ‘blunderbuss,’ and the looper waits near a cornfield in the middle of nowhere with his weapon and a tarp spread on the ground.  Eventually, a bound man with a bag over his head and silver ingots strapped to his back materializes.  After he murders his prey, Joseph incinerates him so no traces remain. When a gangland assassin in the future has worn out his welcome, however, the mob sends him back to the past so he can kill himself.  They call this ‘closing the loop.’ After Young Joe botches the job of killing Old Joe, he has to dodge the bullets of his former associates—known as ‘gat-men’--until he can corner and kill himself. Losing one’s older self is referred to as ‘letting his loop run.’  Joe’s quick-witted alter-ego from the future (Bruce Willis of “Twelve Monkeys”) escapes and searches for a mysterious person code named the ‘Rainmaker.’  This enigmatic individual wants to eradicate any trace of the loopers.  Older Joe has been given a map with three possible addresses for this ‘Rainmaker.’  Joe wants to wreak vengeance on the ‘Rainmaker’ because the ladder dispatched trigger-happy gunmen who accidentally murdered his Asian wife. 

Instead of keeping things simple, Johnson complicates matters with a subplot about a kid with telekinetic powers.  Cid (Pierce Gagnon of “The Crazies”) lives on a sugar cane farm with his mom, Sara (Emily Blunt of “The Adjustment Bureau”), who runs the place by herself.  One of the locations that the Old Joe has is Sara’s farm.  He suspects Cid may be the reason that assassins are knocking themselves off.  Essentially, what we have here is a good assassin and a bad assassin who share the same body from drastically different decades.  Young Joe stakes out Sara’s farm so he can terminate Old Joe with extreme prejudice.  This uneven, poorly-plotted, high body count stinker doesn’t flow well and is often confusing, too.  Moreover, the logic is questionable.  Wouldn’t it be easier for the future mob to kill their enemies and send the remains back to the past for disposal?  Furthermore, what would happen if the victim that they sent back managed to escape like Old Joe and gum up the works?  As far as that goes, how does Abe know when a man is going to be sent back to the past. In most movies, you look for a character that you can either love or envy.  Nobody is lovable in “Looper” and parts of this movie are just plain downright dull.

FILM REVIEW OF ''EDGE OF DARKNESS" (2010)

Mel Gibson delivers a devastating performance as a grief-stricken dad in “Casino Royale” director Martin Campbell’s remake of his own 1985 BBC mini-series “Edge of Darkness.” This revenge-themed rampage about a veteran Boston homicide detective who investigates the mysterious murder of his only daughter and the suspicious role that a shady corporation may have played in her death is far too gritty for its own good. No, “Edge of Darkness” (**1/2 OUT OF ****)is nothing like previous Gibson outings, such as either the charismatic “Lethal Weapon” franchise, “Conspiracy Theory” or “Payback.” Campbell and scenarists William Monahan of “The Departed” and Andrew Bovell of “Head On” alternate between Gibson’s investigation and surreal scenes between Gibson and his dead daughter that compare with similar scenes in the Peter Jackson movie “The Lovely Bones.” Meantime, Gibson remains appropriately grim-faced and humorless throughout this heavyweight but predictable 118-minute police procedural, political conspiracy thriller. Older, wiser, but every bit as lean and mean as he was in his “Mad Max” movies, our hero neither spouts witticisms nor has a twinkle in his eye. Basically, “Edge of Darkness” does not qualify as a big-dumb action opus with far-fetched stunts. The R-rated violence is brief, bloody, and brutal, something that will make the squeamish squirm. Mind you, it is fantastic to see Gibson back on the big screen after an eight-year hiatus, but this is not the kind of movie that you want to celebrate afterward with beer and pizza. The supporting cast, including Bojana Novakovic, Caterina Scorsone, Danny Huston, Jay O. Sanders, Peter Hermann , Ray Winstone, Shawn Roberts, and Tom Kemp, is commendable. Nevertheless, the tragic finale, the lackluster villains, and the shortage of enough surprises all undercut this suspenseful police thriller.

Veteran Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson of “What Women Want”) picks up his daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic of “Seven Pounds”), at the Boston Amtrak Station and drives her home. Along the way, Emma coughs up blood and starts bleeding from her nose. Once they reach the Craven residence, Emma gets worse, and Craven and she are heading out the door to the hospital when a masked gunman with a sawed-off shotgun gives Emma both barrels in the torso. The blast lifts Emma off the porch, catapults her backwards through the door, and sends her sprawling in a pool of blood down onto the living room floor. Before Craven has time to react, the killer has vanished into thin air. The news media believes the gunman had targeted Thomas, but instead accidentally killed his daughter. Initially, Thomas shares this mistaken assumption. Later, after he has sifted through his case files, our hero confesses that he has nobody mad enough at him to try and kill him. When he inventories his daughter’s things, he discovers a fully loaded automatic pistol registered to Emma’s boyfriend, Burnham (Shawn Roberts of “X-Men”), who is trying to keep a low profile, too. When Craven visits him, a very paranoid Burnham roughs him up and refuses to talk because he knows that he is under surveillance.

Eventually, Craven visits the North Moor Facility, where Emma worked on classified projects, and speaks to the Chief Operating Executive, Jack Bennett (Danny Huston of “The Aviator”), who expresses his condolences. An urbane Bennett assures Craven that the news of Emma’s demise not only shocked but also saddened everybody at work. Some forty-five minutes into this conspiracy thriller, Craven learns his daughter’s apartment has been ransacked and her computer stolen. He traces Emma’s cell phone calls, but everybody refuses to talk. One night an older man surprises Craven in his back yard. A cigar-smoking spook with an English accent and a District of Columbia driving license, Jedburgh (Ray Winstone of “Sahara”) explains that Emma had been tagged as a security threat to the United States. Craven is still mystified because his daughter told him nothing about her job. As the plot unfolds, our driven protagonist peels the layers off a metaphorically toxic onion and learns about a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of government. Moreover, he finds himself tangling with gun-toting men in dark suits who cruise around in large SUVs with assault rifles in their arsenal. Before long our hero finds himself in a corner with nowhere to turn and the big guns coming after him.

The original version of “Edge of Darkness” appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom as a television mini-series about young environmental activist, Emma Craven (Joanne Whalley of the television mini-series “Scarlett”), killed under mystifying circumstances. Her father Ronald Craven (Bob Peck of “Jurassic Park”) of the West Yorkshire constabulary launches an investigation into an isolated nuclear waste storage facility on the Yorkshire dales, runs afoul of a C.I.A. agent (Joe Don Baker of “GoldenEye”) and bad things ensue. Martin Campbell and his writers have altered Troy Kennedy Martin's original teleplay, changed the setting, scaled back the action from 314 minutes to 117 minutes, but everything is essentially the same. Unfortunately, aside from it being Mel Gibson’s comeback film, “Edge of Darkness” boasts a lot of edge and too much darkness. The film unravels during its last half-hour and not even a slam-bang shoot-out can salvage the convoluted plotting. Danny Huston heads up the villains, but they make little, if any impression. The scenes without Gibson lack vigor and add little to the action. “Edge of Darkness” joins a long list of political conspiracy thrillers where the omnipotent villains eliminate everybody until the final scene when an envelope with all the incriminating evidence falls into the hands of the media.

Director Martin Campbell and his talented crew, including lenser Phil Méheux and editor Stuart Baird, have done a fine job staging the action. The scene where a motorist sideswipes a female informant and Gibson's cop character blasts away at the driver after he speeds toward our hero is a dynamite scene. You will never see it coming and that is what makes Méheux's photography and Baird's editing so engrossing. Sadly, the plot muddles up and this amounts to little more than an above-average revenge thriller.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RIGHTEOUS KILL''

"Fried Green Tomatoes" director Jon Avnet's new movie "Righteous Kill" qualifies as far from righteous. This gritty whodunit about corrupt cops with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino suffers from quite possibly the worst screenplay in film history. Some of Jean-Claude Van Damme's straight-to-video martial arts thrillers surpass this nonsense. "Inside Man" scenarist Russell Gewirtz gets it all wrong. Gewirtz takes the "Dirty Harry" sequel "Magnum Force" and rewrites it as an Agatha Christie mystery for tough guys. Indeed, sixty-five year old Robert De Niro quotes "Dirty Harry" at an Internal Affairs hearing when he observes, "Nothing wrong with a little shooting, as long as the right people get shot." Clearly, De Niro and Pacino made this clunker with its sloppy, incoherent, convoluted, unbelievable script for the bucks. "Righteous Kill" lacks excitement, suspense, and creativity. The eleventh hour revelation of the killer is so incredibly contrived that you wonder how they could have foisted this pathetic potboiler onto movie audiences. Everybody who buys a ticket to watch this tawdry tedium is expecting something as good as--if not better than--the two previous De Niro & Pacino pictures. Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather, Part 2" won a Best Picture Oscar in 1975, while "Miami Vice" creator Michael Mann's urban crime thriller "Heat" ranks as one of the great law & order epics. Righteous Kill" is, simply put, righteously ill in its criminal abuse of a stellar cast including Carla Gugino, Brian Dennehy, 50 Cent, John Leguizamo, Barry Primus, and Donnie Wahlberg, not to mention the hour and forty minutes that you'll waste watching it.

"Righteous Kill" involves vigilante justice. Several unsavory citizens die in this R-rated opus. A serial killer guns down a black drug dealer (Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson), a white rapist (Terry Serpico), a child killer (Frank John Hughes), a pedophile Catholic priest (Malachy McCourt) , a pimp, and a Russian wrestler (Oleg Taktarov) in cold-blood. The same killer leaves a poem on a card at each homicide. Talk about poetic justice! Homicide Detectives Thomas Cowan (Robert De Niro) and David Fisk (Al Pacino) have been partners for 30 years in the New York Police Department. An Internal Affairs investigator comments that Cowan & Fisk are closer than Lennon & McCartney. These two profane, sharp-shooting, tough-talking veterans have witnessed the seamy side of life and eventually it affects their mindset. Cowan and Fisk had to stand by helplessly while the courts cleared a child killer from a crime that he committed. A self-righteous Cowan plants evidence that convicts the child killer of another crime to put him behind bars. Cowan behaves like "Dirty Harry" and his partner Fisk describes him aptly as "a pit-bull on crack." Initially, Cowan and Fisk have no luck catching the serial killer and Detectives Simon Perez (John Leguizamo of "The Rock") and Ted Riley (Donnie Wahlberg of "Saw 2") join their investigation when one of their cases coincides with our heroes. Cowan and Perez hate each other because they have been bedding down a nymphomaniacal Crime Scene forensics expert, Karen Corelli (Carla Gugino of "American Gangster"), who loves rough sex. No matter what they do to solve the case, they cannot crack it, until Fisk suggests that the killer is a cop. Cowan suspects a disgruntled cop busted off the force has the motive. Meanwhile, the feud between Perez and Cowan fuels Perez's belief that Cowan is the murderer. Cowan admits he knew the priest and Lieutenant Hingis (a shrunken looking Brian Dennehy of "Silverado") puts him on a desk and allows the younger detectives to engineer a sting that will expose Cowan. Cowan's partner Fisk laughs in Hingis' face as well at Perez and Fisk.

Things begin to fall into place when one victim, the Russian, survives the killer's three bullets and the N.Y.P.D. guards his hospital room. The best mysteries give audiences the chance to figure them out. "Righteous Kill" deprives us crucial background material that would have made it far easier to fathom the killer's identity. Instead, Gewirtz and Avnet treat us to scenes where our heroes rarely get into any dangerous predicaments. Avnet stages a clumsy shoot out in an African-American nightspot, but every time somebody dies in "Righteous Kill" the crime is shown from the killer's perspective. Repeatedly, what you don't see and what you're not told about the protagonists keeps you in the dark. For example, we know De Niro and Pacino's characters only by their nicknames. The filmmakers refuse to establish the identities of either De Niro or Pacino from the start. The criminal investigation takes weird turns and red herrings—things designed to distract us—appear everywhere. Actually, the best clue to the killer's identity is broached early in the action, but you won't pay any attention to it because it seems to have little relevance.

Television series like CBS-TV's three "C.S.I." shows make this big-budget Hollywood whodunit look sophomoric. At one point, Lt. Hingis asks our heroes if they want to retire because they aren't making any headway. Neither Cowan nor Fisk are prepared to back down from this challenge, even if it means disaster for them. In that moment, De Niro and Pacino behave like 'Grumpy Old Cops' out to solve one last crime. Watching "Righteous Kill" will give you a bad case of the N.Y.P.D. Blues.