Sadly, this movie came highly recommended (although it did not receive good reviews); I cannot recommend it to you, my reader, unless I was recommending it as a sedative. K*19 is the true story (co-produced by National Geographic Films, no less) of a Soviet submarine pressed into duty early in 1961 before the boat is remotely close to ready, to meet a political need, and how the maiden voyage could have triggered World War III.

Or at least that’s what the makers would have us believe, since there is little else in the way of dramatic tension to keep us awake. Harrison Ford is brought in at the last minute to be K*19’s captain, pushing Liam Neeson down to executive officer even though he is beloved by the crew and Ford is seen by them as a careerist who married a politician’s daughter to advance his career. I had no trouble seeing where director Katherine Bigelow (Strange Days) and writer Christopher Kyle (TV’s Homicide: Life on the Street) thought the tension would be.

“There are great human dynamics in this story,” Neeson said in a publicity piece, and this is the crux of the problem–the dynamics just aren’t that great. Sorry. Running drills on a submarine don’t make for tension as they are only drills. Towards the end, when the boat is stranded and an American helicopter flies over to reconoiter, the Soviet crews’ response to the enemy is a mass mooning. Wow, that was just how I would have answered my mortal enemy during the depths of the Cold War. The one bit that I found interesting, when the young officer in charge of the reactor crew refuses to sacrifice himself, is Hollywooded away without his ever being confronted by any other character onboard for his cowardice.

Not recommended

Continuing the recent theme of quirky British gangster movies and even plain old gangster movies, we saw the new Malcom McDowell/Paul Bettany flick Gangster No. 1 (the official site pissed me off some with a Flash intro that can’t be skipped passed and other than some clips from the cutting room floor is a surprisingly useless website). One of the real positives for this film is that all the dialog, for a change, is understandable to American ears.

The action is split between 1968/9 and 1999. The film opens in the latter period with Malcom McDowell surrounded by a table of associates in a very fancy ballroom with a boxing match going on in the center. The men are chatting and laughing, reminiscing, when one of them mentions that another “golden oldie, Freddy Mays” is getting out of the joint after 30 years. McDowell gets up from the table, leaving his pals wondering why, and leaves. We flash back to the ’60s and hear McDowell’s voiceover tells us that we’re seeing the younger him (Paul Bethany) in a pool hall and he has been summoned to meet Mays for the first time.

Through the rest of the movie, even though the character (who is never given a name) is played by mostly Bettany, we have McDowell providing the voiceover. No doubt that Bethany does look like a young McDowell; he will be familiar to you as Crowe’s imaginary friend in A Beautiful Mind and Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale. Given that there are three other characters we see in both times, all played by the same actors using makeup, I don’t really understand why Paul Bettany doesn’t play our protagonist throughout. Nothing against McDowell but I don’t see that he does much that Bettany couldn’t.

Frankie Mays (David Thewlis) has established himself as an English crime lord (nicknamed The Butcher of Mayfair) and is quite good in the 1968/69 sequences but not much in the later scenes. Saffron Burrows is quite lovely, all legs, and big eyes, as the nightclub dancer who’s pushed into love at first site with Mays, much to the dismay of our protagonist.

Director Paul McGuigan is responsible for keeping us engaged. There are no real subplots here, just the two main lines of action and while he does go in for a little more of the red stuff than one might deem necessary (and why do we need to see the older gangster Tommy’s puke?), it’s all believable, all straightahead. The script is credited to a Johnny Ferguson but he has no other credits in IMDB and this makes me wonder if this is a pseudonym.

The climax actually comes in the next to last scene, a confrontation between McDowell and Thewlis, and, in this reviewer’s opinion, should have been the end; the last scene is unnecessary and really detracts from what’s come before. Overall this is a very bloody, violent film so don’t go if this makes you ralph.

Also, the film was released in the UK and elsewhere in 2000, one must wonder why we’re seeing it here only now.

Recommended but not for the quesy

Sometimes Tivo Sugestions are really brilliant, yeah. Jonny Lee Miller gets lifelong pal Jude Law to bring him into uncle Ray Winstone’s North London mob in Love, Honour and Obey and, fancy that, Jonny is after a bit more of the old bang bang than Ray and Jude are really up for. Definitely one of those quirky English gangster films of recent years like Sexy Beast and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and not a bad example at that. In a strange twist, most, but not all, of the characters have the same first name as the actor playing the part.

Jonny is a courier bored out of his skull with life. He’s a childhood buddy of Jude’s and sees the mob as a way out of his troubles. Jude is not inclined to bring him in but Jonny comes up with a moneymaking scheme that clinches the deal. Soon enough he’s showing signs that he’s much more aggressive than the others, who seem content to earn their dosh and explore their sexual inadequacies. This aggresiveness leads to a series of mishaps for know-nothing gang member Perry beginning with a stabbing (by Jonny) and ending with a revenge firebombing (to revenge an unauthorized action by Jonny against the other gang). It also almost brings open warfare against the rival South London gang. No one can get quite to the level of anger and despair, other than Jonny, though, and so the two leaders find a way out.

Ray is married to TV star Sadie. One part of the movie that doesn’t match up with the rest is a subplot where Sadie’s co-star on a soap opera tries to play up a romance between the two. This does piss off Ray no end, of course, and lead to a serious beating for the co-star but the only way it ties back into the main plot is to show that even a tough guy can be lead around by a woman.

Recommended if you can put up with not quite understanding all the dialog due to British accents and overly loud soundtrack.

Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law go Prohibition era gangsters in Road to Perdition. So many others have acclaimed this as the movie of the year and the best gangster film since Godfather 2 but allow me to disagree. Sure, I enjoyed it, thought it was well-made, well-acted, with an interesting and original story, but it still doesn’t top The Bourne Identity or Spider-Man as my choice for best of 2002.

Hanks plays completely against any previous role, which many have commented on, but I think he was perhaps not the best choice as he’s gruff but not, well, menacing; the scene where he confronts the club owner is an excellent illustration. Jude Law reminds me so much of Malcolm MacDowell circa Clockwork Orange in this film. The way customer designer Albert Wolsky and the makeup department collaborate to emphasize his face yet take away his hair is probably why. Tyler Hoechlin is intense as Hanks’ son.

Director Sam Mendes and screenwriter make one big mistake, though, when they have Hoechlin narrate the opening standing on a beach. Otherwise I really like the way Mendes works, he’s not a film school graduate but a stage director and he gives us film which shows his fascination with the possibilities film offers visually and aurally that he doesn’t have on stage.

Recommended, certainly

Oh yeah. K is back and splittin’ wigs! Why MIB2 got such bad reviews I can’t tell you. It’s not Spider-Man or The Bourne Identity, but it isn’t a film where you walk out saying I want those two hours of my life back, either. I laughed and enjoyed it, maybe not quite as much as the original.

Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith have the same great chemistry as ever, with Jones putting Smith quickly in his place once he’s back in action. Lara Flynn Boyle and Rosario Dawson are truly luscious as the bad and good girls, respectively. I like the worms but you can keep the dog and Patrick Warburton (sorry Patrick but your act never appealed to me on Seinfeld or The Tick either). David Cross was an inspired pick as Newton, the UFO fanatic video store owner, who gives a totally different comic feel–who else could get over the line “So what’s with anal probing?” so, well, naturally?

Everyone loves Rick Baker’s aliens. I have to agree, especially some of the scummy bad guys Boyle sends after the duo. Director Barry Sonnenfeld even uses one of Baker’s creations, the alien called Creepy, to pay homage, sort of, to Dr. Arliss Loveless from his previous film Wild Wild West. I think that Smith plays much better off Jones than Kevin Kline.

Plus, you get to see Meet the Chubb Chubbs! beforehand. Totally cute computer generated animated short with lots of your favorite science fiction characters thrown in.

Recommended for laughs

It’s been awhile since I paid money to watch a movie a second time (hello, you knew it was LOTR) and this film is definitely worth it. Seeing it again I got to focus on more of the details and the acting and I appreciated them even more.

A good example of what I mean is the relationship between Bourne (Matt Damon) and Maria (Franka Potente). There’s no condescension or simple arrogance in the way he talks to her, even in moments when they’re in extreme peril such as sitting in the battered little car outside the Paris train station with two dozen cops about to descend. More: Bourne is no superhero, just amped up with advanced pharmacology and serious training, so although no one who goes up against him in a fight can beat him, he never resorts to cartoonish violence either. The two times he goes up against other Treadstone operatives show this. Okay, I would have used a little less volume on the sound effects reinforcing the punches. Very European feel, even apart from the fact that it’s set there, with the old, small car of Maria’s, the friend’s farmhouse, and the in-city car chase.

Doug Liman constantly foreshadows and refers back giving the film a holistic quality and keeps the plot driving forward, relentlessly, very little exposition (such as the scene when Jason and Maria stop for dinner on the drive from Zurich to Paris) and even minimizing the romance, just enough to show us that the two are forming an intense bond. I’m amazed that this is his first big budget film. Maybe this is where screenwriter Tony Gilroy’s experience on films such as Armageddon and Devil’s Advocate comes in.

The odd thing is that Robert Ludlam, who wrote the briliant novel on which this film is based, died in March, 2001, yet is credited as executive producer. Must have been one of those contractual things.

Best film released in the first six months of 2002

Eric Rohmer gives us a seaside meditation on love in 1983’s Pauline a la plage. Pauline, 15 and just coming into her femininity, joins her perfectly beautiful cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle) late in the summer season, when their Normandy beach town is mostly empty. Pierre, an old love of Marion’s, Henri, for whom Marion quickly hungers, Louisette, who plays into the adult mix, and Sylvain, a boy for Pauline, are the only other players we meet.

Rohmer, who wrote and directed this film, puts each character into an identifiable space and shows us their real selves. Which turn out to be quite independent of their self-identification. He mutes the tempo, the lovely natural scenery, and even the emotional acting out so we are forced to focus on the words and actions. As Diana Lind said in her review, “This could potentially be boring, but fortunately the dialogue is provocative and the evolving plot is suspenseful.”

Recommended but you need to be in the right mood. You’ll know if this is your kind of movie after watching the first 15 minutes.

A recent take on the Jesse James story. The script, by Rod Taylor, casts the outlaw gang in a very different light. Returning from losing the Civil War to their farms in Missouri, they find that some railroad baron (Harris Yulin, with a goatee to make himself look evil) has gotten government support to take away their farms. Rejecting the railroad’s offer, they get their farmhouses burned down and Jesse’s mom is killed.

Colin Farrell, so good in Minorty Report, plays James and Scott Caan, who doesn’t bluster as well as his dad at the same age, plays Cole Younger. The two lead the gang in a series of robberies intended to deny the railroad the resources needed to continue driving the rail line through Missouri. Allan Pinkerton, the real one, played by Timothy Dalton with a scraggly beard and Irish accent, is the nasty hardass hired by Yulin to stop them. In the end, of course, he does but really achieves no better than a Pyrrhic victory. Ali Larter, famous for her acrobatic Doritos eating feats, does a fine job of dressing up the screen as Jesse’s love interest and Kathy Bates has a small part as his mom.

Recommended for cable viewing by Western fans