Words of War: The Anna Politkovskaya Story

October 7^th might be the most evil date in the calendar. Obviously, it has become infamous for the Hamas’s horrific 2023 terror attacks. Furthermore, in 2006, independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was ruthlessly gunned down, in a blatantly politically motivated assassination, on October 7^th—a date possibly selected as a “birthday gift” for Putin, who was indeed born on that very date. It was a tragedy, an outrage, and a precursor of worse atrocities to come. Politskaya’s idea of journalism was telling the truth, without fear or favor. Not surprisingly, that incurred the Putin regime’s wrath, as viewers witness in James Strong’s biographical drama, Words of War, which opens today in New York.

Politkovskaya wrote for Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s only editorially independent newspaper, edited by Dmitry Muratov, a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. Muratov is a muckraker at heart, but even he worries about the risks Politkovskaya takes. Frequently reporting from the battlefields of Russia’s dirty war in Chechnya, she earns the Chechens’ trust revealing Russian war crimes. She also earns Russian military’s hostility and several beatings.

Her family is not necessarily thrilled with her new notoriety, especially her son Ilya. Her semi-estranged husband Alexander somewhat resents seeing her journalistic prestige eclipsing his own. Yet, he makes a point of recording the death threats she receives, which becomes almost a full-time job. Thanks to the credibility she established, the Chechen militia hostage-takers requested her as a mediator during the Moscow Theater Siege, so she saw first-hand how the Russian police killed 132 innocent civilians through their use of an opioid-derived chemical agent.

The film begins with the first attempt on Politkovskaya’s life, an airliner poisoning that eerily parallels the 2020 attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, and then rewinds to show the why’s and how’s. Frankly, it really starts with a bang, because her escape from the compromised hospital, engineered by Muratov and her grown children, Ilya and Vera, is a true white-knuckle sequence.

It is also worth noting Words of War never indulges in hagiography. As portrayed by the aptly cast Maxine Peake, Politkovskaya is often difficult, but always acutely human. She is also more right than wrong, at least on the big-picture issues.

If you don’t know how it ends, then the Kremlin would like to commend you on your choice of news sources. For the rest of us who understand what is coming, it still lands as a gut-punch, because it is so cold and cruel. We can’t say we weren’t warned. What happened to Politkovskaya happened to Navalny and the war crimes committed in Chechnya were repeated in Ukraine.

Archie, on BritBox

All Cary Grant fans know he was born Archibald Leach, because they remember he dropped his real name as a one-liner in His Girl Friday. He reinvented himself as Cary Grant, but there was always some Leach in there, deep down. Not surprisingly, his early years of poverty and family strife inevitably shaped his later behavior, definitely including his relationship with fourth wife Dyan Cannon. Creator-writer Jeff Pope largely draws from Cannon’s memoir to tell Grant’s story in the four-part Archie, which premieres Thursday on BritBox.

The only thing that could have made Leach’s childhood more Dickensian would have been a stint in the work-house. His older brother was clearly his mother Elsie’s favorite, so his untimely death partially broke her. Nonetheless, young Archibald craved her approval, whereas his lowlife father Elias was incapable of being a loving parent. After consigning his mother to a mental institution, Elias told Archie he was dead and then pawned the young lad off on a relative.

As a result, Leach had to make it on his own, which he did as film star Cary Grant. After his early success and short-lived marriage to former silent movie star Virginia Cherril, Pope and series director Paul Andrew Williams fast-forward past two marriages and several dozen classic movies (including The Bishop’s Wife and To Catch a Thief). Suddenly, in the early 1960s, Grant is feeling at loose ends. His films are as popular as ever, but Sophia Loren will not return his calls, so he shifts his focus to up-and-coming actress Dyan Cannon.

Laura Aikman is a good likeness for Cannon and she has her signature laugh down cold. It is pretty clear Cannon was involved in the series as an executive producer and the author of its primary source material, because Archie is definitely sympathetic to her perspective. However, it is not wholly unsympathetic to Grant’s either, but he is far more complicated.

Throughout Archie, it is very clear what a number his awful parents did to him. Whenever the mature Grant acts manipulative or cruel, the series flashes back to show what was done unto him. Harriet Walter is particularly effective in this regard, as Grant’s demanding elderly mother, who gives back precious little in return. Dainton Anderson, Oaklee Pendergast, and Calam Lynch are all quite earnest as the various young Leaches, but Jason Isaac is an eerie dead-ringer for the silver-haired Grant. He also nails Grant’s unique Transatlantic accent. Frankly, the casting of two leads is remarkable. Plus, Ian McNeice is appropriately jolly and jowly as Alfred Hitchcock.

Although much of drama that marks their relationship is familiar Hollywood aging male star-young starlet stuff, Isaacs and Aikman truly have screen chemistry together. Viewers can believe they cannot help getting together, even though they both probably know it will be a mistake.

The Crowded Room, on Apple TV+

When Daniel Keyes first wrote Flowers for Algernon, it was considered science fiction. Now, it is more like straight fiction, or maybe part of a very small subcategory, along with Oliver Sacks’ novelistic nonfiction. Simply knowing this series is “inspired by” one of Keyes’ “nonfiction novels” should alert viewers to the nature of its strictly embargoed secret (which is pretty easy to stumble across). Even if you do not know who Danny Sullivan is based on, it is clear he needs a lot of psychological help in creator-writer Akiva Goldsman’s 10-part The Crowded Room, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

If you really think about it, even the show’s title is a spoiler, but fine, we’ll keep humoring everyone. The extremely twitchy Sullivan has been arrested for his role in a shooting in Rockefeller Center, an unfortunately high-profile location, but his reputed accomplice and ambiguous girlfriend Ariana remains at-large. Based on evidence found at Sullivan’s Queens home, Matty Dunne invites Dr. Rya Goodman (whom he dated once and wouldn’t mind dating again) to examine him. He thought the squirrelly kid could be the career-making case study Goodman has been looking for and he might be right—or Sullivan might become the rabbit-hole that professionally derails her.

If you enjoy flashbacks, you will love the next nine episodes. Sullivan’s weird behavior and crimes are clearly a product of his traumatic past. However, proving that to a jury will be difficult, especially since Sullivan is unable or unwilling to admit what happened. Goodman even struggles to convince Sullivan’s public defender, Stan Camisa, a Vietnam veteran, who is self-medicating his own trauma.

Set in 1979, Crowded Room recreates period New York in all its grungy glory. The directors, especially executive producer Kornel Mundruczo (who helmed White God), nicely build and maintain the tension of Goodman’s sessions with Sullivan. The legal drama aspects of the series featuring Camisa and Goodman are also quite compelling. However, Goldman’s decision to shape the material into a psychological mystery-thriller was a mistake, because 95% of viewers will guess what is going on. Seriously, you already get it, right? If not, you will when you see how awkwardly certain characters interact.

If Goldman really wanted to present Crowded Room as a big twist thriller, he should have focused and concentrated the narrative into considerably fewer episodes. He just could not preserve a sense of mystery over ten installments.

Be that as it may, there are still some excellent performances in Crowded Room. Tom Holland shows tremendous and convincing range as Sullivan. Frankly, Christopher Abbott does some of his career-best work as Camisa. (It is also worth noting, with the cancelation of The Winchesters, Crowded Room is currently the only series dropping new episodes that features a Vietnam veteran as a major character.)

Agent Game

Covert ops is a tough business, because there is so much expendability built in—and everyone is always expendable to someone above them. At least, that is the cynical view of intelligence services presented in this film. Fair or not, Kavinsky’s team was recruited to take a fall, but he maybe picks up on the mission’s bad vibes before it is too late in Grant S. Johnson’s Agent Game, which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Olsen is a high-ranking “deep state” CIA administrator, who is having a bad day, judging from the prologue, showing him firing off shots on the streets of DC. It will take multiple, confusing flashbacks to explain how he reached this point. Somehow, it involves Kavinsky’s team of misfits, whom Olsen personally recruited to snatch and grab an unidentified target.

Then, there are the flashbacks to a black site in an undisclosed Eastern European country, where veteran officers Bill and Harris are interrogating Omar, who was formerly an American-backed revolutionary leader, but the agency seems to think he has gone over to the dark jihadist side. The thing is, the two old hands have been doing this long enough to know Omar’s denials are the truth. However, Visser, Olsen’s loyal enforcer wants them to just bury him and sign-off on the agency’s suspicions.

It would be nice to see a new film that actually celebrated the sacrifices of American intelligence personnel, instead of demonizing, but this is not that film. Nevertheless, there is a lot of surprisingly tense intrigue, especially that focused on Bill and Harris in the black site. Eventually, screenwriter Tyler W. Konney and Mike Langer tie everything together, but viewers almost need to take notes to keep track of the various timelines.

Be that as it may, Jason Isaacs and Dermot Mulroney are terrific as the two dubious interrogators. They are credibly smart and world-weary. If there is anyone viewers will identify with in this film, it would be them. It might be frustrating type-casting for him, but Barkhad Abdi (from Captain Phillips) is also quite good as the unfortunate Omar. Scheming against them, Annie Ilonzeh makes a strong, forceful antagonist as Visser. However, Mel Gibson is more than a bit over the top spouting good-old-boy-isms as the villainous Olsen.

Hotel Mumbai: Facing the New Template of Terror

Deadlier and more destructive acts of terrorism have been committed in recent years, but the 2008 Mumbai attacks were probably the most successful at instilling sheer terror. Part of the horror was the vicious simplicity of it all: teams of armed gunmen shooting civilians indiscriminately. The coordinated attacks paralyzed the city, culminating in the siege of the venerable Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. The tragedies and atrocities of those dark days are vividly recreated in Anthony Maras’s Hotel Mumbai, which opens this Friday in New York.

This is not an action movie, but there is a weird parallel with Die Hard when Arjun starts his day having footwear issues. The hard-working Sikh is already expecting his second child, so he could not afford to miss a shift. Initially, the head chef Oberoi dismisses him for the day, but he relents, allowing him to borrow a pair of his ill-fitting shoes instead, thereby establishing him as both a stern taskmaster and a figure of compassion. Together, Arjun, Oberoi, and the rest of the Taj staff will do their best to save their guests when the terrorists start executing everyone, floor by floor.

Of course, there is a rather diverse clientele in the hotel that day. We soon meet the well-heeled Muslim Zahra and her Yankee newlywed David, who have a newborn baby and a British nanny up in their suite. Russian oligarch Vasili has two escorts waiting in his room, but the terrorists will get to them first. When news of the attacks first reaches the Taj they will admit a group of survivors, including Australian tourists Bree and Eddie. Unfortunately, the first pair of backpack-wearing gunmen also gain entrance with the group of refuge-seekers.

Hotel Mumbai is a harrowing film that will make many viewers uncomfortable (in ways that they should be discomfited). It is much like One Less God (a.k.a. House of War), another Australian film dramatizing the attacks in the Taj Mahal, but Maras and co-screenwriter takes it further and deeper. To their credit, they never obscure the Islamist ideology of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists committing the mass murders, with logistical support from elements within the Pakistani intelligence service. Chillingly, we hear a steady stream of the brainwashing encouragement from their Svengali, “Brother Bull,” which sounds like hate-speech seasoned with socialist class warfare.

Maras also strikes a good balance in terms of the violence presented on screen. A great many innocent hotel worker are executed at point-blank range, right before our eyes, but probably just as many are shot off-screen. As result, the film should not be accused of white-washing anything, but neither is it an endless cycle of death and sadism.

Dev Patel probably does his best work since Slumdog as Arjun. We can feel in our own guts the profound degree of his fear, which makes it so compelling each time he knuckles down and torques up his courage. Yet, if anyone emerges as an awards contender from Hotel Mumbai (an unlikely prospect, given the subject matter), it would be Anupam Kher, who radiates gravitas and gruff humanism as Oberoi. He practically becomes the personification of the stately hotel’s soul.

As the four primary on-camera terrorists, Amandeep Singh, Suhail Nayyar, Yash Trivedi, and Gaurav Paswala are terrifyingly young-looking and chillingly blood thirsty. Jason Isaacs chews up the scenery and everything else that isn’t nailed down as the lecherous Russian, but he still bears watching. Nazanin Boniadi and Tilda Cobham-Hervey have some quite poignant moments (distressing, even) as Zahra and Sally, the nanny, but Armie Hammer is blandly vanilla playing her blow-dried American husband.

There is no question the Mumbai attacks established a template that has already been applied in an organized manner in Paris and by at least one unsponsored wildcat zealot in New York, but the original 2008 events still remain largely under-reported and under-analyzed in the Western media. That makes Hotel Mumbai rather timely and pressing cinema. It also happens to be an engrossing (and emotionally draining) human drama. Highly recommended for anyone interested in serious movies for grown-ups, Hotel Mumbai opens this Friday (3/22) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza uptown and the Angelika Film Center downtown.

London Fields Finally Opens

After the success of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, the unreliable narrator became all the rage in popular fiction, but Martin Amis had already been there and done that. Admittedly, his untrustworthy story-teller was a bloke rather than a “girl,” but the principal is the same. In this case, he also happened to be a failed novelist—an Amisian trope if ever there was one (see The Information). Long mired in legal and financial wrangling, Amis’s celebrated deceptive narrator finally gets a theatrical release, but he is not fooling anyone in Matthew Cullen’s London Fields (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Thus far, Samson Young’s literary career has been a miserable failure, but he picked the perfect time to visit London. Apocalyptic riots break out nightly across the city, but the lack of tourism meant the terminally ill writer could swing a flat exchange with pompous bestselling novelist Mark Asprey, swapping his crummy Hell’s Kitchen apartment for the tony London pad. As a further fringe benefit, Young discovers Asprey also has quite a beautiful neighbor in Nicola Six, who might just provide the inspiration for the page-turner he never had in him.

Young quickly learns Six has foretold the exact time of her death, which is fast approaching. However, she only knows she will be murdered—not by whom. For impishly perverse reasons, Six seems determined to help fate along, by stoking the lust and jealousy of the two leading suspects: flamboyant small-time hoodlum Keith Talent and petulantly entitled gentry-lad Guy Clinch. Young is convinced he can just record this real-life “novel” unfolding around him to finally score his bestseller.

The biggest problem with Roberta Hanley’s adapted screenplay is that we can immediately guess the big twist as soon as the film establishes all the main characters. Maybe it is all Gillian Flynn’s fault, but even if the troubled film had been released before Fincher’s Gone Girl, Cullen and Hanley simply do not incorporate enough misdirection to carry off the surprise. That is especially problematic, since they have stripped away most of the idiosyncrasy of Amis’s novel, opting to focus on the D.O.A.-ish noir plot-strand.

To give you an idea how long Fields has been held up, way back when it went into production, it was still considered a good idea to have Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in the same film. Depp is strangely uncredited, but that is probably for the best, considering his recent career setbacks. Frankly, he and Jim Sturgess are cringe-inducingly embarrassing as Talent and Chick Purchase, his pimped-out loan shark and professional darts nemesis. Admittedly, Heard is stuck with an underwritten character in Six, but at least she makes a credibly smoldering femme fatale. Theo James fares somewhat better than Sturgess as the shallow and easily manipulated Clinch, even though he is rather bland and forgettable.

In contrast, Billy Bob Thornton is unusually restrained as Young, but he still manages to chew a good bit of scenery. Frankly, Jason Isaacs largely steals the show, which is kind of sad, because most of his work as Asprey comes via voice messages to Young, sort of like the opening answering machine gag that always launched the Rockford Files credits.

To give credit where it is due, cinematographer Guillermo Navarro makes all look fabulously noir and stylish. The electronic score credited to Toydrum, Benson Taylor, and Adam Barber is also percussively propulsive, sounding quite appealingly influenced by Birdman and earlier crime jazz. Unfortunately, any viewer with any pop culture savvy will be way ahead of this film, which gives them plenty of time to lose patience with the shtickiness of Depp and Sturgess. It is not nearly as hideous as it is cracked up to be, but London Fields still isn’t recommended when it opens today (10/26) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Sundance ’18: The Death of Stalin

Maria Yudina was such a brilliant classical pianist, she survived the Great Terror, even though she made no secret of her Orthodox faith and her contempt for Stalin’s brutal regime. According to a story mostly considered apocryphal, she was dragged back for a repeat concert performance (with full orchestra) after Stalin requested [demanded] a recording of her live radio broadcast of Mozart’s Concerto No. 23. That true-in-spirit historical legend inadvertently ignites a political crisis in Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

The poor, harried director of Moscow Radio does indeed call back Yudina and the orchestra to accommodate Stalin’s whims. She is not inclined to be so agreeable, but her participation is quickly purchased. It is also an opportunity for her to slip a personal note of pointed condemnation to Stalin, who is so surprised to be criticized in such terms, he has a massive coronary and dies.

Of course, this ignites a power struggle within the Central Committee. Technically, the pompous Georgy Malenkov is next in line as the Deputy General Secretary, but the real contenders are Lavrentiy Beria, the sadistic chief of the NKVD and Nikita Khrushchev, the closest thing to a reformer in Stalin’s inner circle. Thanks to his de facto control over Kremlin administration, Beria gets a jump on Khrushchev, hypocritically positioning himself as reluctant participant in the purges and a would-be liberalizer. However, Khrushchev will win over key allies, such as Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov and the dithering senior statesman, Vyacheslav Molotov.

Adapted from Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin’s French graphic novel, Death of Stalin is a wickedly funny, pointedly scathing satire of corrupt power run amok. Frankly, the succession battle waged by Khrushchev and Beria ranks up there with the rivalry between Simon Yam and Tony Leung Ka-fei in Johnnie To’s Election, but Iannucci’s film has a higher body-count—by a factor of at least one hundred. Despite the mordant wit and subversive slapstick humor, Iannucci and his platoon of co-screenwriters make it chillingly clear what happened to inconvenient witnesses and ninety percent of the victims Beria swept up during the Stalinist Terror. It is hard to believe one can laugh so much during a film openly discussing torture and mass executions, but such is the case.

It is also hard to believe that A: we can find ourselves openly rooting for Nikita Khrushchev and B: pencil-thin Steve Buscemi would be the perfect actor to portray him, but both also prove to be true. In fact, Buscemi gives a tour-de-force, possibly career best performance as Khrushchev, with the help of a little stomach padding. Arguably, Iannucci’s conception of Khrushchev as shrewd opportunist and a fount of nervous energy rather puts him in Buscemi’s wheelhouse.

Buscemi is perfectly counterbalanced by Simon Russell Beale’s wonderfully sly and flamboyantly sinister portrayal of Beria, which rather helps align viewer sympathies with Team Khrushchev. Jeffrey Tambor basically does his regular shtick as Malenkov, assuming he won’t be replaced by Christopher Plummer for the film’s American theatrical release. However, it is a real stitch to watch Jason Isaacs ham it up as Zhukov. Yet, maybe the best surprise in DOS, is a late-career comedic gem from Michael Palin as the astonishingly indecisive Molotov. Plus, Olga Kurylenko adds some class and poise as Yudina, while Andrea Riseborough gives it greater human dimension with her vulnerable and conflicted turn as Stalin’s future-defector daughter, Svetlana Stalina.

Satirizing a period of such widespread fear and suffering is a tricky business, but Iannucci and company pull it off with flying colors. DOS manages to be absolutely hilarious and totally chilling, simultaneously. It is a terrific film, but don’t take my word for it. The Putin regime is considering banning it, so you know it must be good. Very highly recommended, The Death of Stalin screens again on Saturday (1/27) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

A Single Shot: Sam Rockwell Goes Hunting

Call it a simple improvisation rather than a simple plan.  Nobody thinks too far ahead or particularly deeply in this criminal morality tale.  As a result, there is a mess of trouble for everyone in David M. Rosenthal’s roughly passable backcountry noir, A Single Shot (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

John Moon is an unemployed loser, whose wife Jess has filed for a divorce.  Aside from some occasional farm labor temp jobs, Moon mostly puts food on his table through hunting.  While stalking his game one fateful morning, Moon inadvertently kills a young woman squatting in the woods.  Attempting to cover-up the accidental shooting he discovers a large stash of cash.

Now Moon has enough money to retain Pitt, the town’s slimiest lawyer, and throw some look-I’m-not-a-deadbeat-money Jess’s way.  Of course, this is not exactly the best way to maintain a low profile.  Suddenly, he is on Cro-Magnon drug dealer Waylon’s radar, in a bad way.  Everyone else around him is also acting rather suspiciously, but Moon is not so quick on the up-take.

Shot has a number of moody and atmospheric scenes that work quite well, but the tension always dissipates rather than growing and compounding.  Perhaps the greatest problem is its dubious premise.  An experienced hunter would never fire off the reckless shot that ignites this film.  Someone like Moon, who has been hunting longer than Rosenthal has been making movies, knows never to pull the trigger unless you are absolutely certain of what you have in your sites.

Still, Rockwell is convincingly slow-witted yet simultaneously slow-burningly intense as Moon.  It is largely his work that will keep viewers invested in Shot, at least to some extent.  William H. Macy is rather amusing as Pitt, but he might as well be credited as a “special guest star.”  In contrast, the potentially interesting Jason Isaacs is completely wasted as Waylon, buried under a Wookie’s worth of greasy locks.

There are no big secrets or revelations in Shot, so despite some well executed bits of skullduggery, there is little suspense overall.  Basically, it is a bad idea to come between and drug dealer and his illicit cash.  Nor is it a winning strategy to pick a fight with an anti-social mountain man who lives and breathes hunting.  As a result, everyone learns something in Shot, except the audience, who come in way ahead of everyone on-screen.  Just sort of okay but not great, A Single Shot opens this Friday (9/20) in New York at the AMC Empire.

Case Histories: Jackson Brodie, One Detective, Two Last Names

Jackson Brodie jogs, listens to sad music, mismanages his personal life, and agonizes over his tragic family history. Occasionally, he does a spot of detective work. Fortunately, DC Louise Munroe just swoons over him, because the former Edinburgh cop has burned a lot of bridges, both on the force and with his ex. Indeed, there will be a lot of brooding in store for viewers with the premiere of Case Histories this Sunday on PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery.

Based on the novels by Kate Atkinson, each nearly two hour episode introduces several ostensibly separate cases, which usually turn out to be interrelated in various ways. However, the first eponymously titled installment rather forces the strands together. Yet, it is Brodie’s backstory that really takes center stage. The divorced gumshoe tries to be a good father to ten year-old-ish Marlie, but he is always distracted by work.

Initially, he is hired to solve the decades old disappearance of a young girl by her two ragingly neurotic grown sisters. Shortly thereafter, a grieving father engages Brodie to find his daughter’s murderer, whom he assumes acted on a random violent impulse. A bit later, a nurse convinces Brodie to find the sister she turned her back on years ago. At least she is considerate enough to seduce him first.

One Good Turn, the middle episode, is somewhat stronger as a crime drama, but it indulges in far too many flashbacks to a fateful series of events in Brodie’s childhood. On one of his many long distance runs along the picturesque Scottish coast, Brodie spies a corpse caught sinking in the surf. Unable to pull her from the undertow, Brodie follows a handful of sketchy leads to a dodgy cleaning service using women trafficked from Russia. Reluctantly, he also babysits Martin Canning, a mystery novelist spooked by his involvement in an apparently simple road rage incident. Of course, somehow everything ties back to Russia. Even Canning has some dark history there, which Adam Godley reveals in Case’s best guest-starring turn.

With Marlie and her Mum temporarily living in New Zealand and Christmas fast approaching, the concluding When Will There Be Good News promises to reach Wallander levels of angst. To make matters worse, Brodie is considerably banged up in freak train accident. It would have been far more severe had teenaged nanny Reggie not come along at the right time. In return, she wants Brodie to find her missing friend and employer. Meanwhile, a messy adultery case just will not go away. Easily the most cohesive narrative of the series, Good News is also far more deft and disciplined in its use of flashbacks from the past.

Soon to be seen on NBC’s upcoming Awake, Isaacs is evidently catnip for women in their late 40’s to early 50’s. To give him due credit, he also looks credible taking a beating like a man. Frankly, he has a suitably intense screen presence. We just get a little too much of his guilt-ridden moping. Dude, you’re a pretty big guy. Go hit someone.

While Case Histories picks up momentum as the series advances, the drama with Brodie’s family and DC Munroe remain constant speed bumps. Frankly, Brodie private should have been more private. A mostly okay British mystery series, but nowhere near as cool as Zen, as cinematic as Sherlock, or as endearing as a warhorse like Lewis, Case Histories begins this Sunday (10/16) as part of the current season of Masterpiece Mystery.

Final Film of 2008: Good

The Academy likes literary adaptations. They also like films on serious subjects, so Vincente Amorim’s Good begins its limited release on this final day of Oscar eligibility in clear hopes it will find favor with Academy voters. We shall see. Based on C.P. Taylor’s highly regarded stage play about the Holocaust, Good (trailer here) does indeed open today in New York.

Mild-mannered literature professor John Halder thinks he is a good person (hence the title). After all, he has a Jewish friend. That alone should establish his bonafides as a tolerant German. He also cares for his sick mother and supports a temperamental wife. So when the National Socialist cultural authorities notice his obscure novel and ask him to write an academic paper on their behalf, complying does not seem like a significant ethical compromise. The subject of his novel and proposed paper: euthanasia. Does this slope sound slippery?

Suddenly everything is going Halder’s way. His novel is adapted into a motion picture and he ascends to the chairmanship of his department, not that he teaches very much anymore. He now holds an honorary position with the SS as their intellectual figurehead—a so-called advisor on “humanitarian” issues. He has even left his dramatic wife for an adoring younger model. The only challenge to his new life comes from his Jewish army comrade Maurice, who questions his growing involvement with the National Socialists.

Despite his mounting unease, Maurice refuses to abandon the country he fought for during the Great War. Smartly written and compellingly portrayed by Jason Isaacs, he is the redeeming character of Good. However, what he sees in Halder, as played by a wooden Viggo Mortensen, remains a mystery. Halder is supposed to be an ostensibly decent man, who lets ambition and denial blind him to the truth, but there is little sense of inner turmoil in Mortensen’s flat performance. Halder’s ultimate moment of revelation does not make much sense either. Having been mobilized as an SS auxiliary officer during Kristallnacht, he can hardly claim complete ignorance of his colleagues’ crimes.

Good is intended to be an intellectual examination of the attitudes which abet evil, with an emotional kicker at the conclusion. It might have been better served if it had not been released during the award season, where it will surely suffer in comparison to other related films. There are things to recommend in the film, including Jason Isaacs’ terrific performance and production designer Andrew Laws’ frighteningly realistic recreation of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, their noble efforts are ultimately undone by a lackluster central performance. Good opens today in New York at the Village East.

Happy New Year from J.B. Spins.