AMERICAN SNIPER - YET ANOTHER CLINT EASTWOOD FILM ?

This was another big name last Oscar season, even though it only managed to take away the award for Sound Editing. Well, with names as big as Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper attached it could hardly help being in the limelight. I have infinite respect and admiration for Clint Eastwood. I quote High planes drifter on a regular basis when I write. But I do also have to point out that I – and quite a few other – people have accused him in the past of basically playing himself in films and making the same film over and over again. This time he has a rather extraordinary true story on his hands – so how has he fared? Same film again – or something a little different?

The hero of our story, brought to life by Bradley Cooper is legendary American sniper Chris Kyle. During his four tours in Iraq, Kyle quickly raised to rank of legend through his sheer dedication to service, accuracy when shooting and determination to do what is truly right. The men admire and support him, his superiors admire him and the public read about him with admiration in the papers… But one cannot see the things Kyle has seen without changing. Every time he comes home to his wife and children, Kyle finds it harder and harder to leave the war behind… In fact, even if he does survive the fighting, his memories may well end up consuming him… The question is, will he admit this – even to himself – and start fighting back in time ?

Looking at the list of wins, I can’t help but think that Bradley Cooper deserved a little more than he actually ended up receiving – his performance is pretty much what makes the film not just another Clint Eastwood film. Because given the subject matter, I cannot quite imagine anyone else making this film. And Eastwood makes it exactly the way we imagine he would make it. Kyle was evidently quite an extraordinary man, don’t get me wrong, but the way the story goes, how all American he is throughout, his easy rise to stardom as a sniper… It is all… Just too smooth. Eastwood finishes the film with real footage of Kyles funeral (I reckon his death is not a spoiler as it pretty much counts as common knowledge) which was of course a military, patriotic affair. No wonder his critics accuse Eastwood of tubthumping banality – it is JUST like a  million other films made to show the horrors of war. Smooth, polished but without an original bone in its body.

Take a film like The Hurt Locker. Jeremy Renners character William James is Kyles equivalent in the film and paints a completely different picture. He is a lot harder to like, he is a lot less of a gentleman, he has lost a lot of his positive emotions in all aspects of life and, to be honest, I think he is a much more realistic portrayal of what war can do to a good man. I almost feel the film is in denial about the sheer amount of trauma Kyle would have had to cope with. We do not see the grit and dirt of the matter at all, only the polished surface you present to visitors. 

Which is precisely why I say Bradley Cooper needs a few more accolades for the work he did here. Cooper sticks to the letter of the script, it is true. His character is always polite smiling and courteous, and yet… The nuances, the tiniest gestures, the little moments Cooper manages to insert into his all round good old American cowboy routine give us hair raising insights into what must be going through Kyles mind. It is without a doubt the tonic the films overly varnished surface needed – I just devoutly wish there were more of those hints. If our imaginations were meant to make up the rest of the horrors, well, the film does not give us enough to work with.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that all films pertaining to war should necessarily end badly, be dark and not have any positive emotion in them at all. But the trauma Kyle went through lies at the heart of the story. The characters ark consists of his entering this state of trauma and coming out the other side – at least supposedly. We have to be able to see the trauma so we can rejoice with him and his family when he comes out on the other side. If we do not believe in the trauma in the first place, well, there is a part of the film that becomes completely pointless – the emotional journey has been aborted before it even began. Bradley Coopers extraordinary performance rescues the story to a certain point, but the other failing is, in my opinion, simply too great.

American Sniper is without doubt a good film. It is fascinating to watch, it is a story well worth being told. But it is, sadly, yet ANOTHER war film and something of a missed opportunity. By all means watch, but don’t expect it to change your world…    

JUST DOIN' THE "AMERICAN HUSTLE" TO SURVIVE...

“I don’t know what all the fuss is about” complained Mom as I talked to her on the phone the other day. “It’s just another heist movie isn’t it? I got bored, quite frankly, I didn’t even finish it.” I tutted at that, I highly disapprove of not finishing films. I have done it only two or three times in my life, usually when I felt a migraine coming on. Having recently watched American Hustle, I feel the team putting the film together was well aware that there are a lot of heist films out there. It’s a tricky one really, because heist films have a legitimate fan base for their own sake. But if you want to step above and beyond that fan base you need to do something different.       Something different that, at the same time, is not going to change the basic structure so much that it doesn’t alienate the fan base. American Hustle has actually negotiated that fine line very successfully – hence the Oscar nomination. There are those who, like Mom, are completely sick of heist movies but well… You get those in every genre…

Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale)  has a nice life all in all. He has a beautiful wife (Jennifer Lawrence) with whom he “fights and f.cks” but ultimately cannot seem to separate from; he has a nice little business running laundrettes with some art dealing on the side… Oh and he’s got a second little side line as a con artist, taking from the rich and desperate and giving to himself. Ok himself and his gorgeous business partner and lover Sydney (Amy Addams). So there he is, rolling along, making a “decent” living when… SLAM. The FBI. He is “nailed” by one of the FBI’s brightest, Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). Now, every hustler knows that everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY has a weakness. The secret to survival lies in finding and abusing it. Richie is over-ambitious. What starts off with a simple trade off with Irving and Sydney – You get me a couple of big fish and I’ll make your charges go away – spirals slowly and steadily out of control as Richie forever sees opportunities to get bigger fish… Irving tries to warn him, not unsubtly, that he is heading into very murky waters but Richie remains stubbornly blinded by future glory… The question is, how far is he prepared to chase these dreams for and how far will he end up falling from?

Now, in one sense this is a common or garden heist film. I can, in that sense, see why Mom got so bored of it. But then, let us not dwell on the similarities. We have already covered that, the movie HAD to do it. The fans would get bored. Let’s concentrate on the stuff the movie did differently. Because, let’s be fair to the movie, it has done a substantial amount.

Now, first up, our hero.  You guys know how much of a Leo DiCaprio fan I am right? Right. I have to begrudgingly admit that although Leo is the main guy I support this year… Well… I won’t be that upset of Christian Bale gets it. I may even be rooting for him a tiny bit. Because as the heroes of heist movies go, Irving is quite a character. First of all, no Ocean’s 11 style smooth, handsome hero here. Irving is overweight and has a “killer” comb-over that gets a good few pages of dialogue all to itself. He has a beautiful blonde “dolly bird” wife sure. But what is different is, he has a COMPLICATED relationship with her. It’s a love-hate relationship, she’s depressed, is she an adequate mother? These are matters that ACTUALLY preoccupy us. We get to really know our characters in this film, as opposed to just reverting to stock characters and using all our previous knowledge to just assume what they’re like and move on. I mean then there’s Sydney. Her relationship with all the characters involved. You literally never know where she’s going to turn next, I mean you do, but the story is so cleverly designed that even a cynic like me had her misgivings.

And while we’re on the subject of characters, let’s have a word or two about Richie DiMaso. There are two types of possible cop in these movies. Ye can have the conscientious “good cop”, the hard-working, beetling antithesis to our “wise guy” heroes, like the police officers in The Wolf of Wall Street. These guys ultimately either win the day a la Wall Street or our heroes run rings round them, kinda like a Road Runner cartoon. Or, we are made to “hate” the cop so that we love the villain all the more – and ultimately the villain usually gets away. Richie… Is neither!  I mean ok, he is a sub-genre of the second variety. Ultimately he does get on our nerves. He is that over-ambitious type in the office who thinks, after taking two successful steps he is basically the best there is. Better than everyone. He has it coming to him a mile away and you know what, you kinda enjoy the smugness being wiped off his face. But at the same time… I’ll let you discover it for yourself but he has a bit of tough life. He is a bit of a “loser” in movie terms (and God knows I hate that term in real life but I’m trying to make a point here) but… Eh, he’s grey. He’s not black or white. Which makes this movie so great.

American Hustle is a fun, solid mix of something old and something new. It very successfully take a genre where it’s generally “goodies vs baddies” and made it… Well made it closer to real life. All the characters across the board have very real personalities and original personal tales. No one is a “stock” character. There is a lot of grey and not much in the way of black and white. I mean yes, this has meant giving up on originality in other areas sometimes but, like we said at the beginning, we can’t afford to lose the fans now, can we? J Soo yeah. I guess I’m ok with it getting a pat on the head. I’m not “outraged” about the nominations. I’ll have something to say if it actually gets all ten Oscars® it is nominated for but for that, dear ones, we have to wait for next week… 

GO FACE YOURSELF IN "THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES"

I was really excited to see this one. The hype about it contributed, as did the presence of Ryan Gosling. Ok, ok, having Bradley Cooper around didn’t hurt either… Social media outlets are full of the film these days, especially since its recent release on DVD so I knew it was going to be good. I also knew a major plot twist. Yes, one wrong search and bam. The internet is full of spoilers. Don’t worry though – this review isn’t. It really isn’t. But anyway, I was slightly worried that knowing afore-mentioned plot twist was going to kind of ruin the film for me. In fact, finding this plot twist in certain circles is so easy you may well know what I’m talking about. Let me assure you whole-heartedly that that little kernel of information, while key, is not so much the end but the beginning. So even if you do stumble across it by mistake, all you lose is a tiny bit of shock value. The rest of the film is so chock-full of awesomeness that it more than compensates for that… Seriously.  

Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a motorcycle rider at a fair. Doing shows on his bike is just about all he’s good at – well that, and getting into trouble. But boy is he good with his bikes. He lives a pretty carefree life with no major attachments of any kind, traveling with the show from town to town. It is on these travels that he runs into Romina (Eva Mendes), an old flame of his; one of those girls that was just a little more special than the rest… Romina is not only special, but she drops a bombshell on him. She has a son. It’s his. Jason is not a little scared by this news, but he reacts in a way that you might not expect him to – Romina definitely doesn’t expect it at any rate. He stays. He is determined to be a part of his son’s life and provide for him. This is touching but not a little awkward as Romina has a steady partner, Kofi, who is already the surrogate father figure for baby Jason. Well, that and the fact that Luke has turned up out of the blue after almost a 2 year absence. There is another flaw in Luke’s plan. How is a man who has only ever done shows on a bike for a living going to provide for a family? Luke decides to do the one thing we all joke about but mercifully few of us do : he decides to rob a bank. This decisions entwines his fate with that of Avery (Bradley Cooper), a young lawyer turned policeman working the beat in the same town. The conflict will have a knock on effect on their lives, and the lives of every single person around them in ways neither of them could have possibly imagined…

Now, this is a very tough film to review without giving away spoilers. But I’ll tell you this much, the way ideas and conflicts are handed down through the generations, the way conscience comes into play all reminded me of one of those beautiful old 19^th century stories . It seems to be just poor folk out in the sticks, but we actually ask ourselves truly philosophical questions. What is good? What is bad? And most importantly, how much confidence should we have in the surface level labels people have? When a bank robber and a police officer are “duking it out”, we assume the police officer is “the good guy”, this film asks us “Really? Every single time?” Another thing we realise is that more often than not, the things that truly matter are handed down through the generations, though families. It is sort of comforting to think of a thread  linking us to people in our family past who we have never actually met, linked to us through a talent, an attitude, a like or dislike… It almost makes up for never having met those folks… Almost…

Lastly I just want to mention that the film is beautifully shot, in addition to that the choice of location , wherever it may be, is superb. I loved the beautiful longshots of Luke riding through the pines mentioned in the title of the film. By the way, if you’re wondering what in the world the film has to do with the pines mentioned in the title, trust me, the place beyond the pines is a key location in the narrative. You’ll just have to watch the film and find out why though… 

PRESENTING AN OSCAR SWEETHEART: "SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK"

You may look at the name of this film and the subject matter and you may well decide to steer clear of it. It’s understandable. Especially if you haven’t read the book. Mental illness and family difficulties may sound a tad bit too serious for an evening out. Luckily this particular baby has 8 Oscar® nominations and a big name like Robert De Niro for extra pull. A good thing too, otherwise audiences would miss out on one of the sweetest films made in recent history.

Pat (Bradley Cooper) is just out of hospital.  This would be a sensitive time for anyone, but especially for Pat and his family, because Pat is just out of a mental institution.  Having just discovered he had undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder (after what we shall call for now a rather unfortunate incident involving his ex-wife and her lover) he has undergone the necessary treatment and is now ready to face society once again – or is he? Yes, Pat seems to be doing everything he possibly can to get his life back on track but with one caveat. He wants his life back on track so he can get back together with his ex-wife. His ex-wife has a restraining order on him, so, as you can imagine, this is not an entirely straightforward process. In the midst of all this, however, his friends and relatives are doing the best they can to support him. His father’s (Robert De Niro) OCD is as bad as ever and it’s all his mother (Jacqui Weaver) can do to keep them both in line. Besides, on good days Pat is buoyant, full of energy and optimism… But then there are the bad days… The bad days are really bad… Especially considering Pat is not too hot on the idea of taking his meds. But then, then Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games fame) comes into his life. Tiffany has her own demons to contend with, this much is obvious. She is intelligent, sassy, talented, ok she’s more than a little crazy, but she may well be just what Pat needs… If he can get his mind off his ex-wife for two seconds that is…

Now, on the one hand there are things I don’t like that much about this film. Mainly the fact that, when you scratch the bottom of it, it is blindingly obvious who’s going to get together with who, etc, etc. Ok it’s technically a spoiler so I won’t tell you the end, but yeah. It’s basically the first scenario you thought of. You might say, why get upset with that? Films like that are two a penny, why let this specific one get to you? Well my dears, simply because, the film has SO much promise in other areas I would have honestly expected a lot better from it. A lot better.

Having had personal experience of people with Bipolar disorder, I can safely say that both the character of Pat and his relationship with his family are accurate to the bone. I have read reviews from viewers with the same disorder, all highly recommending anyone who has the disorder – and now has it under control – and the families and loved ones of anyone with this disorder to see the film. I second that. You will see SO MUCH that is so familiar. Pat is infuriating. His behaviour is erratic to say the least and sometimes downright dangerous, both to himself and to those around him. But with his endless optimism, his seemingly inexhaustible ability to bounce back, you can’t help but love him as well. Then there is the relationship with his father. Again, this is not a particularly original theme, but, maybe due to Robert De Niro’s great talent, there were bits that brought tears to my eyes. Not only are they a typical father – son in that everyone is very “manly” and problems and feelings are not discussed, the father also suffers from what is obviously quite serious OCD.

I guess the point is we’re all a little mad when you think about it but we’re all trying to battle our personal demons, be they big or small, towards the same goals in life. Love, happiness, success…  Ok, yes, I do think bits of it could be worked out a lot better. But the bits that work, work SO damn well… I don’t know man, you just HAVE to see it.