News of the World (2/5 Stars)

 

News of the World was brought to us by writer/director Paul Greengrass. Greengrass is one of our better directors. He has made some excellent dramas like Bloody Sunday and Captain Phillips as well as the best installments of the Jason Bourne franchise. He has a knack for stripped down realism. Bloody Sunday is the story of a protest gone wrong in Northern Ireland. Captain Phillips, his first collaboration with Tom Hanks, recreated the hijacking of a container ship by Somali pirates off the horn of Africa. Dialogue in a Greengrass movie is utilitarian and his hand-held shooting style gives that documentary feeling of being there. More than anything, a Greengrass movie usually benefits the from the creator’s clear and distinct matter of the subject matter. News of the World would seem to be an exception to the above. This movie feels like an anachronistic jumble of modern sensibilities shoe-horned into the guise of a Western. The most obvious example is the casting of Tom Hanks who has never acted in a Western before and for what seems to be good reason. He looks and feels out of place and time. He doesn’t even try for an accent even though his character has lived all his life in Texas.

Tom Hanks plays “Captain Kidd”, a man who spends his time travelling from place to place in Texas reading big city newspapers. He is a travelling show, but with a bit more scholarly class. The movie takes place during Reconstruction after the Civil War. For some reason, there are federal union troops standing in the back fully armed. The people in the audience do not like the occupying troops or hearing any news about the federal government, which is weird because its not like the show is mandatory curriculum. They could just leave or not show up at all. And it is not like Captain Kidd must read that news. He is like a mother serving vegetables at dinner, but he’s not a mother and these people are not his kids, so…

Between one town and the next he comes across a hijacked wagon. The driver of the wagon, a black man, is hanging from a rope nearby. There is a paper on him that reads something like, “Not in Texas”. Captain Kidd finds nearby a traumatized white girl who speaks only Kiowa. For that reason, she can’t explain what happened to Captain Kidd. How convenient. I would give a shiny nickel to anyone who could explain to me what happened. Clearly some unknown white people lynched the unknown black guy, that much we know. But why did they do it? Did they dislike the fact that he was transporting a white girl? If so, why did they leave the white girl there? Did they perform the lynching just because he was black and on the road? Is the message supposed to be for other black people? But there are no other black people in this movie. And this is the middle of Texas in the 1870s. Why would he be here, and if he was here, why would he be by himself? Here’s the real stumper: What in the world is this black man doing with this particular white girl? We learn later in the film that she is a daughter of German settlers who had been massacred by the Kiowa Tribe. The tribe kidnapped her, adopted her, and taught her the language. She was with the tribe for years we learn. Okay, so what is with the black man? Did he rescue her a la John Wayne in The Searchers? That seems unlikely. Where was he taking her and for what purpose? Did Greengrass just want to show us a lynching regardless of whether it made any sense in the story? Questions, questions.

There are several scenes of unreality happening here and there. Not a single character is religious even though almost every character should be. There is the usual dearth of children even though back then they would have outnumbered adults (This is an anachronism found in almost all historical movies). Captain Kidd spares the rod to an absurd degree for a man in the 1870s. Then there is this one ridiculous scene. Captain Kidd and Joanna (the girl) are caught in a serious dust storm with no help of shelter, not even a tent. It is a situation that ought to be fatal given their circumstances. Instead, Joanna uses her magical Kiowa training and finds some magical Kiowa tribesman. They are just hanging out there in that dust storm. They give Joanna a horse, like one of their good ones, for free. Captain Kidd and Joanna ride that magic horse into town and survive. This isn’t supposed to be real, right? I mean this must be some kind of metaphor, right? Right?

The lack of judgment, nay the outright reverence, this movie has for this tribe is kind of crazy. I mean, they murdered the entire family of this girl. And Tom Hanks just stands there repeating in an impotent manner, “I know people are hurting.” I suppose it is hard being judgmental when the movie seems to take the modern view that the settling of the American West was a bad thing overall. This kind of viewpoint makes for a strange Western, made more so since there are no major Native American characters, and the supporting ones are magical creatures of the plains.

Okay, so we only have white people talking here. What are they saying? Captain Kidd says “I know people are hurting.” Okay, that’s unhelpful. The main bad guy is Mr. Farley. He is a western entrepreneur. His employees shoot buffalos and only take the hide. There are heaps of shorn carcasses laying around. A terrible environmentalist. He is also very ugly, which in a Hollywood movie is a dead giveaway to someone’s underlying decrepit moral character. Mr. Farley says the main problem is Indians, Mexicans, and Blacks. Really? He is out here in the Wild West (i.e. the middle of nowhere) and that is his problem?

The Western is a longstanding genre in American movies. It has produced many great movies and a vast trove of mediocre ones. The main problem in a Western is not racism, its lawlessness. When you think of racism in America, you think of slavery and segregation (or zoning?), both of which were enforced through a legal code. In the Wild West, there is no legal code. Whatever justice or injustice exists is meted out by individuals. (This by the way is the great storytelling strength of the Western. Because there is no society, the characters’ individual choices matter more than usual, which raises the dramatic stakes, makes good men better and bad men worse). Some of the best Westerns are those movies that are about the slow and painful transformation from the state of nature to civilized society, for example The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and the HBO series Deadwood.

Ever since the 1970s though, this theme has fallen into disfavor with a vast segment of the population. After all, to tell a story from the American West with the theme of a transition from a state of nature to a civilized society carries with it the implicit argument that civilized society did not exist in the American West before the Europeans showed up and imposed it. In response to this dig at Native Americans, there are many movies that portray Native Americans as some magical people imbued with all colors of the wind. To hear them say it, the Native Americans would have forever lived in peace and harmony had the white people not shown up. In Dances with Wolves, a disaffected veteran of the American Civil War seeks to live with the Indians to get away from the corruption and strife within American society. Actually, the Native Americans have wars too, but this white man does not see the shared humanity between races behind such negative outcomes. He witnesses a battle between Native American tribes and reflects that white people fight and kill over stupid things like religion and ideology while the Native Americans fight and kill over things that make sense like food and territory. Yeah, I don’t think a distinction between reasons for killing is persuasive. We are not so different. If Native Americans wore cowboy hats, some would be white and some would be black.

I say since the 1970s, but this kind of viewpoint of tribal peoples is much older. In fact, its French. It is the sort of thing that contrarian French aristocrats like Voltaire and Rousseau would throw around while lounging in salons. (The British were busy taking over the world). In Voltaire’s Candide, the main character travels to America and discovers a secret city named El Dorado, that lacks crime, is full of happy people, etc. Its superiority derives from the lack of modern influences. For example, diamonds line the streets because the inhabitants are uncorrupted by the modern economic forces that would make them valuable. (Wakanda from Black Panther is basically the same idea. It is ironic that the message of Black Panther is openness, given everything about Wakanda argues for the opposite. After all, if Wakanda, a morally superior and technologically advanced civilization, has a racial makeup that is 100% homogenous, wouldn’t that argue in favor of a closed society and a pure race. How exactly has the immigration policy of Wakanda changed since its king publicly lectured the world on the benefits of openness? I would love to see that debate on Wakanda CSPAN.) Rousseau was basically of the belief that men hit their peak of morality a thousand years before cities when everyone was a Noble Ape, a child of the forest. This point of view is not too different from Dances with Wolves.

The grass is always greener on the other side. It is hard to explain what ought to be obvious. That life is better for everybody now than it ever was for any single Native American back then. People live longer, they don’t starve to death, their children don’t die in droves in childbirth and disease, women aren't treated like chattel, there is far less violence in the world, we’re all much more educated and have much more free time. I could go on, how much time do you have? A good Western understands this. It does not ignore the trials and injustices of the past, but it understands that the story is one that starts at chaos and heads toward order, not the other way around. If it does not have this, and it isn’t explicitly in the French line of thinking, it is a search in the wilderness for meaning and purpose. It is Tom Hanks playing an ex-Confederate soldier without the characteristics of one, feeling vaguely guilty, but not being able to articulate why.

Captain Phillips (4/5 Stars)

David v. Goliath except Goliath is the good guy and wins.

“Captain Phillips” the new movie by Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum) starts with a conversation between Captain Phillips, played by Tom Hanks, and his wife, played briefly by Catherine Keener, in the car on the way to the airport. They are long married couple with adult children and they have a solemn conversation about how the world is changing fast and how life is not the same for their kids like it was for them. “A man could keep his head down and do his job and he would become a captain in ten years when I started,” says Phillips, “but not anymore.” Life is more complicated and these parents worry about their kids.

In true Greengrass style, this understated conversation that could realistically happen between any married couple with kids foreshadows the incredibly empathetic treatment of the pirating of the Maersk Alabama in 2009 by four Somali pirates. It is a terrifying ordeal for the unarmed American crew that was hijacked by the assault rifle wielding pirates and Greengrass shows in his strict procedural style what was truly suspenseful and dangerous about it. At the same time though, Greengrass does not ignore that the huge container ship was taken over by kids (all the pirates were between 16-18) way way over their heads. The battle of wits between the pirates and Captain Phillips is interlaced at times with a truly paternalistic feel. The kids have picked a fight with Goliath, are supremely unmatched in the long run, and will probably not make it out of the situation alive. Captain Phillips in-between moments of tricking the uncoordinated and untrained pirates with his much larger experience and far better training (along with the training of his crew also well represented in terms of heroism) gives advice to the Somalis, one in particular, a boy named Muse. He tells them several times what the best way to escape alive is almost as if he is giving advice to his own unruly children. Children, that in a far more extreme way than Phillip’s children, are living in a fast changing world (the Somali coast main economy of fishing has been trawled away by richer larger nations) where desperate crazy acts (Muse is commanded to pirate ships by armed warlords) is the difference between a bare-bones type of survival (Muse lives in a small hut with a dirt floor) and, I don’t, maybe starvation and death.  

The unfairness of the fight is demonstrated in particular by the casting of the actors. In a very tense screenplay, the American is played by two-time Oscar Winner Tom Hanks, veteran of such other realistic thrillers like Apollo 13 and Castaway. Muse is played by Barkhad Abdi in his very first movie role. Barkhad is at once frightening and pitiful to behold. Like the pirates who boarded the ship he looks like he is in a daily struggle to eat a decent meal before the day ends. He is rail thin and emaciated. One particular detail the movie contains is that the pirates left on their mission without packing food, something that was apparently routine even though they usually travelled several hundred miles off the coast. What they have instead is khat, a mild narcotic plant that suppresses appetite. Barkhad also has the gaunt eyes of a desperate man. The kind of eyes you really don’t want to see from a person waving a gun at you. Barkhad Abdi though way overmatched on paper meets Tom Hanks scene for scene. And if Tom Hanks does well enough for a Best Actor Oscar nomination (which I believe he does) than Barkhad Abdi does well enough for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Real life provides a dramatic ending to this story that Greengrass pulls off most thrillingly. Half way through Captain Phillips gets pulled into the lifeboat with the Somali pirates as they make their escape from the ship. It is a fool’s errand because the lifeboat goes really slow and the Somali piloting it doesn’t really know how to steer. They also won’t open up the hatch to allow air to circulate because Phillips suggested it and they don’t want to be tricked again. Captain Phillips and the four increasingly desperate and starved pirates spend so much time getting very slowly that there is enough time for a third of the US Navy and Seal Team Six to show up for the party. The last third of the movie is like a sequel to Zero Dark Thirty. Seal Team Six executes with extreme professionalism an operation in a very risky situation with incredible and effective precision. The Somalis just get absolutely stomped.

“Captain Phillips” is a very American movie. By that I mean that Paul Greengrass handling of the story is an expression of what makes the American movie superior (as opposed to say a Soviet or Chinese movie). The Somali’s may have been far out-matched by American military might, but Greengrass gives them equal treatment as characters in his story. He provides their background and explores their motivations. How easily the pirates could have been just a bunch of dumb bad guys in a piece of “us v. them” propaganda that did nothing more than demonstrate US military superiority. But Greengrass is a true American. He has respect for the underdog, that distinctly American storytelling trait.

The Bourne Ultimatum 09/15/07

Pam Landy (Joan Allen) enters a hi-tech room in the CIA headquarters. She's greeted by David Straitharn who proceeds to introduce the rest of his staff, an entire room of techies stationed at a big desk with lots of computer screens. "Let's get to names later, What's the situation?" She asks. She is told and you know what, we never do find out who those people in the room are. They never are introduced. They certainly are yelled at alot by Straitharn, and they seem competent for his directives are always carried out, but they aren’t really characters in the movie. They are a modern movie cliché: A bunch of people in a control room who are shouted at and magically provide answers by typing rapidly on a keyboard. 
This is the third Bourne movie. The first two villains were Brian Cox and Cris Cooper respectively. We've got two more this time in David Straitharn and Albert Finney. If they make another one, I bet the bad guy will be Jon Voight. After that, who knows, I think they would have killed off every second tier dramatic elderly actor in the business. (Ian McKellan and Ben Kingsley maybe but I wouldn't call them second tier)
Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass reunite to give us not so much a movie as a really good television episode. By that I mean it didn't have any real gravity to it, no more extensive character development than an episode of the Sopranos. People do come to realizations, but you kind of get the sense that nothing substantial has changed. I don't think it would lose any intensity if they ran commercials through it every twenty minutes, maybe before and after every chase sequence, which is literally every twenty minutes. But I'm not just degrading the movie; I'm also complimenting it. An enormous amount has been done with very little and if it weren't in the sure hands of Damon and Greengrass this movie would not be worth seeing at all. 
This movie shouldn't be seen so much as it should be studied. It's the sort of movie that one would show in a film school. "Listen kids, this is how you film a car chase. This is how you stage a fight. This is how you shoot a roof chase in Morocco. Now all you have to do is add motivation." The techniques used here are ingenious and exciting in every way, and yes, if Greengrass directs it, I probably will see the next Bourne movie. It's a safe bet that I will get my heart pounding action and great dramatic acting. What isn't sure is that they'll offer closure of any sort. Like a television show it's afraid of any real change or character arc. They are deliberately inching their way to that point where the series 'jumps the shark' and they finally have to end the show.

United 93 04/29/06

I saw this movie today and um...it sorta speaks for itself. I don't feel there's much for me to add. Because it's such a complete telling of the story any commentary I have will be about what wasn't shown, which wasn't much, than what was. 
It's an unhappy ending. Everybody dies. So there's that. But this isn't suppose to be entertainment. It's true and because of that it's important. It's more important than anything else. This will be the definitive story of United 93. I don't think anyone will be inclined to say it needs to be made again. If Oliver Stone's movie about the World Trade Center is as good as this one, then the future will have a significant foothold on what was felt that day. That was the goal of this movie and it succeeded admirably in that respect. I never felt that any part of it was fake or gratuitous. This is the type of movie that needs to be made about this subject.
Where was our president? Throughout the movie the people are waiting for him to take charge. They need his call to open rules of engagement, but he's not there. Where was he? After seeing this movie, disliking him in general, and Hurricane Katrina I'm about to consider our President as one of the worst presidents we have in attending to national emergencies. Remember all those conventional disaster movies when the fictional President is talking to people, making decisions, present in the discourse. This movie isn't like that. George Bush isn't even present, noone knows where he is. If our president had done anything during this crisis he would have been in this film. He didn't and he isn't. Thank God we have competent people elsewhere.