Tag: Casey Affleck

The Finest Hours

The_Finest_Hours_posterThe members of the Coast Guard don’t get the credit that cops, firefighters or soldiers do for saving lives. “The Finest Hours,” Disney’s telling of an historic rescue mission, is full of heroics but also people just doing their job. It’s a sentimental, old-fashioned thriller but is also endearingly modest.

Chris Pine is known for playing the hot-shot, loose cannon Captain Kirk in the “Star Trek” movies, but here he’s Bernie Webber, stationed on the coast of Cape Cod in the winter of 1952. Webber is timid, sheepish, apologetic and looking to please. In front of his bride-to-be Miriam (Holliday Grainger) he practically melts. Miriam is everything he’s not: confident, forward and even willing to ask him to get married.

Webber isn’t the only timid one. A few miles out to sea Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck) is aboard a sinking tanker caught in a violent storm. In a remarkable shot, a seaman stops short on a broken bridge to discover that the entire ship has split apart with the front half suddenly barreling toward him before plunging into the ocean. Sybert knows the boat up and down, but no one quite likes his introverted demeanor or appreciates him tucked away in the engine room. When we see him nervously explaining their situation to a reluctant crew looking to abandon ship, Affleck plays Sybert hunched between bodies, quietly and calmly stating his plan as he peels open a hard boiled egg. Both Pine and Affleck are uncharacteristically understated and are the heart of the movie’s sentimental charms.

The twist involves a second tanker that has also split in two and has dividing the Cape Cod crew, leaving Webber, his inexperienced team and a tiny, 36-foot motorboat the only chance for Sybert and the remaining sailors biding their time.

Will the Coast Guard save the day? Take a wild guess. “The Finest Hours” remains bloodless and predictable, even contrived as Miriam forces her way into the office of Webber’s commanding officer (Eric Bana) or when one of the trapped sailors (John Magaro) pettily challenges Sybert’s manhood. But the film is not without danger or suspense. The waves keep getting bigger, the sea grows darker, and the stakes more impossible as time runs out.

Director Craig Gillespie (“Million Dollar Arm,” “Lars and the Real Girl”) has the finest special effects available to him, whether in its impressive set design, some stunts that take the Coast Guard’s small boat inside the curl of a wave, or in its flashy digital, 3D cinematography that swoops from the ship’s deck to its hull in a single unbroken take. And everything has a wintery color palette that makes the film look decidedly classical.

It’s no surprise Disney made a movie in which the heroes are transformed into underdogs who have to overcome their insecurities and fears. More surprisingly, “The Finest Hours” feels muted in its storytelling and its heroics. These characters are the humble second-string guys just doing their job rather than the first responders. And the film remains epic despite being a rescue mission for just 30 people instead of 30 million.

For telling a good story well, give the Coast Guard and “The Finest Hours” some much deserved and long overdue credit.

3 stars

Out of the Furnace

Christian Bale and Casey Affleck star in Scott Cooper’s grim Americana noir.

OutoftheFurnacePosterThere’s a moment in “Out of the Furnace” when a backwoods, villainous hick named Harlan DeGroat has a deer skinned to its bones hanging from the ceiling. The imagery calls to mind something absolutely raw, as though this bleak look at Americana symbolized all that’s emotional and open about the people who live this way. But Director Scott Cooper’s prized trophy doesn’t have that much meat on its bones to begin with. “Out of the Furnace” feels frustratingly unspecific, empty and generic, no matter how gritty the characters are.

It starts as a story of two brothers grappling with the complications of poverty, crumbling industry, crime, family, violence and more before taking a left turn as a revenge story driven by not much at all. Cooper has loaded his film with imagery and personalities full of gravitas as though that were enough.

Russell and Rodney Baze (Christian Bale and Casey Affleck) are two good ‘ole boys with little to their name beyond their factory jobs and their truck. Russell has a girlfriend he loves dearly (Zoe Saldana) and a father on his death bed, but he’s yanked violently from those loves when he gets involved in a drunk driving wreck that kills a woman and child. While his brother lies in prison, Rodney has lost thousands gambling and looks to repay his debts through illegal bare-knuckle brawls. As a former soldier, fighting seems to be all he knows.

Rodney eventually finds his way to the most rural of rural areas, where the meth dealer and backwoods boss Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson) has organized a fight that gets Rodney in trouble. Russell, now free from prison, looks to rescue his brother and bring him back home.

These are men full of rage, anger and addiction, but none of it seems specific or tied to a real backstory or social issue. That Rodney is driven to fight as a result of his veteran status is treated as a given. The police claim they have no jurisdiction in Harlan’s gangster society up in the hills, and yet their dynamic as criminals seem to have no real impact on Anytown, USA where “Out of the Furnace” is set. Rodney is forced to take a dive during his fight, but it’s never explained why there should be an unspoken tension and danger between Harlan and Rodney’s manager (Willem Dafoe). “Am I supposed to be scared because he sucks on a lollipop,” Rodney asks of Harlan. Cooper struggles to explain why we should be afraid of Harlan, but with a line like this he calls attention to how cartoonishly cliché and short tempered Harrelson’s character is in the first place.

In fact all of the industrial, Americana imagery in the film contains an understated melodrama but doesn’t seem to signify much of anything in particular. Saldana is the film’s only named female character, and she’s given absolutely zero to do. And Bale’s Russell is the protagonist, but possibly only to serve as an ironic counterpoint to his more troubled brother. “Out of the Furnace” ends on a heavy note, and the cinematography makes it to be a movie of purpose, but it’s without much purpose at all.

2 ½ stars

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Steven Soderbergh takes the heist movie to the art house with his “Ocean’s Eleven” remake.

 

“Ocean’s Eleven” was when Steven Soderbergh took the art house to the mainstream. It wasn’t Oscar bait like “Traffic” and “Erin Brokovich,” and it wasn’t gritty and experimental like “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” It was just pure Hollywood fun in the biggest way possible, which is probably the reason why most critics were unkind to it. To see such a gigantic studio picture with no lofty ambitions come from an otherwise serious director was like a concert pianist pounding out a little honky-tonk, as Roger Ebert put it in his 2001 review.

But to see how much it gets right, how different it feels and how unique it looks at every moment in comparison to similar Hollywood capers like it is to realize that “Ocean’s Eleven” is a great film after all, and a fun one. Continue reading “Ocean’s Eleven (2001)”

Tower Heist

 

It’s probably not a mistake to feel somewhat robbed after “Tower Heist.”

Brett Ratner’s movie is too rigid and bland to be a good comedy and too goofy and tame to be truly thrilling.

We learn a lot of mundane details about the inner workings of a New York building that is essentially Trump Tower, including security policies, elevator codes and its many tenants.

Why we have to know so much about a building of all things is frustrating when “Tower Heist” refuses to develop its characters or even begin to get comically creative. Continue reading “Tower Heist”