Night Moves.

Far from perfect and not the directors best film, Night Moves (2013) is the story of three miss matched environmental warriors who set out the blow up a hydroelectric dam by purchasing a boat, from which the film gets its name, and packing it with fertiliser. The three protagonists are the dour environmentalist Josh played by an equally dour Jesse Eisenberg an actor that does not have ‘smile’ in his repertoire and tends to be typecast as the ‘defeated human being’, Dakota Fanning is the little rich girl who has dropped out of college, and the brains behind the project is ex marine Harmon a role that really suits actor Peter Sarsgaard. In the first half of the story we witness them planning the action, moving the boat up to the dam and attaching a timer device to carry out their act of sabotage. In the second part we observe how each of them deals with the aftermath of their environmental activism and what effects it has on their fundamentalist mind sets.

 

Peter Sarsgaard provides the brains behind the operation. 

I’m sure director Kelly Reichardt, who co wrote the movie with her regular writer Jon Raymond; set out to make what she deemed to be an important cinematic statement in which she poses a morale question ‘would we be capable of carrying out acts of terrorism to coincide with our own personnel beliefs’?  Admittedly we can all sit at home and become cyber worriers but have we got the bottle to carry out a direct action that could endanger your own life and possible others in the collateral damage that normally follow’s such an action? Reichardt’s movie is telling us what we already know, our world is deemed to be in danger, in peril, and would we act, how do we value human life, most of us will value it highly but others may be of the opinion that the end justifies the means! Radicalism[1] is the description that the media would give this group of three people who join forces to carry out the political act demonstrated in the film. The films narrative, as I have opined, involves the affect that this type of act has on the people involved, who admittedly start out with an enthusiastic zeal that may or may not last after the incident. The director admits that film does not deliberately set out to mimic any other political group of the present or in fact of the past and is deliberately set in a post 9/11 world where the penalties are very high for acts of terrorism, - environmental or otherwise.  

 

Dakota Fanning provides the finance.

and Jesse Eisenberg  never smiles!

I did not have a great deal of time for Reichardt’s Old Joy (2006), but both Wendy and Lucy (2008), a road movie without a car and Meeks Cutoff (2010), a western without a cowboy, are fine examples of Independent American film making. But this latest movie, although thought provoking, did not grip me, which I believe is partly down to the non-charismatic portrayal of the characters.  A better movie that cover’s similar territory, and one I would urge you to see, is Zal Batmanglij’s The East (2012).

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[1] Politics advocating major changes.

Now You See Me.

Thanks to an unknown benefactor, four down on their luck street magicians form a collective called ‘The Four Horseman’, although incidentally one’s a woman, with the sole aim of pulling off robbery’s during their high concept magic show performances and with an added touch of Robin Hood they give the money away to their audiences. In the first show in Las Vegas they pull off an ingenious bank robbery in a different country. In the second show in New Orleans, they manage to steal $140 million dollars from a wealthy insurance broker. By this time FBI agent Dylan Rhodes and his French Interpol assistant Alma Day realise that they should track down and make an attempt to arrest the these ‘magical’ criminals.

The synopsis for this ‘big’ movie is actually far better than the finished article, “The more you think you see, the easier it will be to fool you” a statement made by one of the illusionists aptly describes French director Louis Leterrier’s latest outing. Like his previous films, including 2008 The Incredible Hulk, there are some great set pieces in a heist movie that involves deception and illusion to steal rather than the normal gunplay. It does its best to make the narrative interesting by constantly jumping from one plot twist to another without a lot of success. A slight of hand movie where you’re never sure who are supposed to be the bad guys and who are the good guys?  It does have a grand ensemble cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, Isla fisher, Woody Harrelson and French actress Melanie Laurent. But even the high profile of these involved can’t seem to lift this movie beyond its rather dull predictability.

The Social Network

Film poster

I was obviously in the minority at RBC Film Club on Monday night, there was me thinking that David Fincher's latest film was about the social network service and website Facebook and the obnoxious wee Harvard students that conspired for world domination of cyberspace but I was wrong! It was a court room drama? The lightweight plot of The Social Network (2010) pivots between the rapid expansion, during 2003 – 2004, of the addictive, at times dangerous, internet phenomenon and the subsequent court squabble between the person credited with programming it, Mark Zuckerberg, and his former friends and business partners, litigation reaching a monitory conclusion but very little else.

The film, based on a book by Ben Mezrich The Accidental Billionaires, is interesting without being dynamic and far from being a candidate for the film of the year as suggested by some of Monday night’s audience. Although it has a cleverly written script by Aaron Sorkin, its rapid fire dialogue could be hard to understand at times. For example the opening scene between the soon to be Americanised Lisbeth Salander, Rooney Mara, and Jesse Eisenberg (Roger Dodger 2002, The Squid and the Whale 2005, Adventureland 2009) who plays the second year undergraduate. Zuckerberg and his cohorts are some of the most unlikable characters committed to film, the man himself is a surprisingly unsympathetic social introvert driven by the need to date girls more easily. I would disagree with the opinion offered that the film offers a snap shot of today’s youth culture, it may offer a snap shot of the more privileged section but certainly not of youth in general.