21.02
legion
World War I, known then only as the Great War or World War, was one of
the most brutal and utterly miserable periods in mankind’s history. In War Horse
director Steven Spielberg, because the script is based on a children’s
book, sets out to make war a family friendly affair. You won’t see a
single battle wound in this war movie. The worst horrors of war are
largely hidden by a camera that cuts away at all the right moments, and
by focusing instead on the life of a horse.
After an interminably slow start in a quaint village populated by people
who seem more like hobbits then men, eventually we end up following a
horse named Joey as he’s sent off into battle carrying a British officer
into the war against Germany. Seen through the eyes of a cavalry
mount, it’s the story of how horses became utterly obsolete. The course
of the war gradually changes around Joey, as for the first time in man’s
history machines come into play to be used as engines of destruction.
Glorious cavalry charges in the sun gradually turn into men hiding in
muddy trenches clutching machine guns and massive metal tanks rolling
down barbed-wire choked ditches.
Joey’s journey through war-torn Europe is really just an excuse to tell a series of short stories set during the Great War. War Horse
soon settles in to a predictable formula of Joey meeting a new group of
people, spending time with them, and being torn away to spend time with
the next. Some of these stories are more successful than others. The
nervousness of Joey’s rider as he charges in to battle the first time
rings eerily true. The story of a sickly little French girl living with
her Grandpa, as the booming sound of guns approaches, will break your
heart.
But this isn’t Saving Private Ryan. It’s history seen through a
lens that children can understand and, if you’re looking for a way to
teach your kids about one of the darkest periods in human history, War Horse
is the perfect way to do it. If you’re looking for something more than
a few interesting stories in an overlong movie, you’ll walk away from War Horse
disappointed. Spielberg’s film, despite a great deal of effort, feels
like a good stage play that never quite makes a full transition into the
world of movies.
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20.50
legion
You've got to give it to Mark Wahlberg, who seems to have stumbled into
one of the steadiest careers in Hollywood through sheer force of will.
He managed to leave his underwear model and rapper days behind through a
tight friendship with David O. Russell, which led him to awards season
successes like The Fighter, paved the way for his Oscar-nominated role in The Departed, and also gave him the ability to headline a series of disposable thrillers tailor-made to prove he's still a man's man. Contraband,
if you couldn't tell from the poster in which he duct tapes wads of
money to his abs, is another one of those, long and loopy and completely
absent dramatic stakes.
It's not too surprising that Wahlberg would sign on for something like
this, or that he could put together a supporting cast-- among them Ben
Foster, Giovanni Ribisi, J.K. Simmons-- who seem equally half-asleep as
he is. But Contraband marks the directorial debut of Icelandic
director Baltasar Kormakur, who made a splash there with similarly
themed thrillers, and who starred in the original Icelandic version of
this story, Reykjavik-Rotterdam. With so much invested, why on
earth would he turn in a movie so plodding, so unconcerned with the
basic cause and effect beats of storytelling, or so convinced of its own
grittiness while also lacking any real-world logic? There is a Mark
Wahlberg movie about counterfeit money smuggling we would all fall over
ourselves to see, but Contraband scratches the surface of that idea just enough that you badly wish you were seeing the better version.
As described in some flatfooted expository dialogue at the beginning of
the film, Wahlberg's Chris Farraday and his BFF Seabastian (Foster)
"were the Lennon and McCartney of smuggling" before they gave up the
game, but of course, Chris is called in for "one last job" when his
brother-in-law runs afoul of some drug dealers. Chris sneaks on to a
container ship and marshals some of his buddies from the old days to
help him pick up crates counterfeit cash of Panama City, sell it off
back home in New Orleans and repay his brother-in-law's debt, all while
leaving his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two sons back at home in the same
town where those angry drug dealers live. Wahlberg moves through the
film with almost enough confidence to brush off this sort of giant logic
problems, but the more complications and violence Contraband throws your way, the harder it is to believe the movie has any idea what it's doing.
Kormakur wrings some tension out of a few scenes that rely on a ticking
clock, like Chris racing to hide the loot on board the ship before the
captain notices, or even when Chris's wife is put in an especially
preposterous sort of mortal danger. But stretching out nearly two hours,
Contraband squanders its tiny bit of goodwill with a hotdogging,
"gritty" attitude that's never reflected in the actual story. With
Wahlberg in dull leading man mode and even the usually reliable Foster
failing to cut loose, Contraband is not nearly as fun as it could
have been, but not dramatic or realistic enough to get by as an honest
thriller either. If this is the kind of filmmaking Kormakur is trying to
sell to America, he can keep it-- we've got plenty of it anyway
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