Maggie Moore(s)

Anyone who happens to be named “Maggie Moore” will probably get some ribbing over this film during the next few days. Fortunately for them, it will then be largely forgotten. In the movie, two unfortunate women with that name happen to get murdered days apart. Like viewers, Police Chief Jordan Sanders believes it is too coincidental to be a coincidence in John Slattery’s Maggie Moore(s), which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

The first Maggie Moore we see die is actually Maggie Moore #2, in the awkward and unnecessary in media res prologue, before Slattery shows us Maggie Moore #1. She had the great misfortune to discover her husband Jay has unknowingly traded manila envelopes full of explicit under-age sexual material to Tommy T, in exchange for expired food to serve at his failing sub shop (maybe “Jared from Subway” is a customer). Right off the bat, you might have an inkling Slattery and screenwriter Paul Bernbaum have trouble finding the right vibe for their extremely dark material.

Even though Jay Moore apparently did not know what he was passing along, Maggie Moore #1 still understandably freaks, so Tommy T puts him in touch with Kosco, a deaf hired thug, to “handle” her. To Jay M’s partial “surprise,” he handles her permanently. Through a mildly odd chain of events, the newly widowed Moore happens to know there is another Maggie Moore in town, which gets him thinking. That will mean more work for Sanders, but at least this case introduces him to Maggie Moore #1’s next-door-neighbor, Rita Grace. She is a nosy divorcee. He is a sensitive widower. They could be perfect together, if neither of them sabotages it—but that’s unlikely.

Maggie Moore(s) (just try writing a review of this film without accidentally calling it Maggie May(s), six or eight times) could have been a slyly amusing film, but Bernbaum needed ten or twelve further drafts to iron out all the kinks. Instead, this film will leave viewers baffled, with a severe case of whiplash from the tonal shifts. One minute, it is a genial rom-com about middle-aged misfits taking a second chance at love. Then, suddenly, innocent people are getting viciously murdered over packets of illegal pornography.

Confess, Fletch—Soundtrack on Blue Note

The standards for journalism have fallen so low, even Irwin Fletcher has left his old profession in disgust. However, he is still perfectly happy to defy authority and engage in some improvised deception, for a good cause. For him, an attractive Italian woman in trouble certainly qualifies as such. Of course, his new misadventures cannot compete with Michael Ritchie’s original Fletch film, but at least the soundtrack full of classic Blue Note (and Pacific Jazz) tunes keeps everything cool and jaunty in Greg Mottola’s Confess, Fletch, which releases Tuesday on DVD.

Angela de Grassi was rather surprised when her father the Count hired Fletch to track down several of the family’s valuable paintings (of semi-dubious providence), but she was pleasantly surprised by his progress—and his charm. Indeed, he will be a great comfort when the Count is kidnapped. Instead of money, his abductors demand the stolen paintings, so Fletch makes haste to Boston, to investigate Ronald Horan, the dodgy art dealer possibly fencing the stolen paintings.

Complications immediately set in when Fletch finds a murdered body in the townhouse de Grassi arranged for him. Inspector Morris “Slow-Mo” Monroe takes an instant dislike to Fletch, but he needs more evidence for an arrest. Fletch will have to clear his name while saving the Count, but the two cases are probably related anyway.

Confess, Fletch is amusing, but nobody will be quoting from it in a year’s time. It is brisk and breezy, but even more laidback than the first Chevy Chase film. As Fletch, Jon Hamm has an appropriately casual attitude, but his wisecracks do not land with the same crispness. Hamm shares some appealing chemistry with Lorenza Izzo as de Grassi (she’s Chilean, but she convincingly passes for Mediterranean). He also kvetches drolly with his old Mad Men colleague, John Slattery, playing an old newspaper crony, but it is dry chuckles rather than big laughs.

Sundance ’18: Beirut

There was a time when Lebanon’s capital city was a prime tourist destination, renowned for its night life. Then the PLO moved in and the party came to a screeching halt. Up-and-coming Foreign Service Officer Mason Skiles was stationed there when things first started to go bad. Reluctantly, he agrees to return ten hard years later in Brad Anderson’s Lebanon, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

In 1972, Skiles’ star was on the rise. Lebanon was getting more violent, but it was not the wasteland ruled by the Hezbollah terrorist group that it is now. Skiles and his wife were in the process of adopting a war orphan named Karim, but unbeknownst to the Yanks, the scruffy thirteen-year-old is actually the younger brother of notorious Munich terrorist Abu Rajal. That is why the Mossad crashes the Skiles’ soiree hoping to grab Karim, but his brother’s faction gets him first.

Flashforward ten years. Skiles is now a boozy labor mediator, who wants nothing to do with the Middle East. However, he gets pulled back in when all-grown-up-terrorist Karim abducts Skiles’ old pal, Cal Riley, the local CIA hand. Karim demands the release of his brother in exchange for Riley and he insists on Skiles as the negotiator. Rather inconveniently, the CIA is not holding Rajal and they are far from sure the Israelis are, either.

Tony Gilroy’s screenplay is very le Carré-esque, in that it posits mixed motives and duplicity on all sides. At least in this case, that includes the PLO, who might be the scummiest of all, which indeed they are. Regardless, there is plenty of enjoyable intrigue and a fair degree of action. Using Morocco and CGI, Anderson also gives us plenty of opportunities to gawk at the wreckage of the city, Holidays in Hell-style.

As Skiles, Jon Hamm makes a perfect boozy anti-hero in the Graham Greene tradition. He has the right look, size, and presence to be a disillusioned policy wonk who can mix it up with terrorists. Frustratingly, Rosamund Pike is largely squandered as Riley’s trustworthy protégé, but Mark Pellegrino exhibits his usual flintiness as the hardnosed Riley.

Beirut is a cynical film, but what can we expect, given the backdrop? If anything, the prognosis for the Hezbollah-dominated nation is even worse now, than during the civil war-torn 1980s. Anderson maintains a healthy pace and juggles the large cast of characters adroitly enough. Recommended for fans of murky international thrillers, Beirut screens again tomorrow (1/27) in Park City, as part of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Boston Banking: The Town

How does Red Sox Nation make ends meet? Evidently, armed robbery is the leading source of employment in the Charlestown section of Boston. Everyone might be doing it, but Doug MacRay’s gang is good at it. One particularly ambitious bank job earns them a whole lot of federal attention in Ben Affleck’s The Town (trailer here), which opens nationwide this Friday.

MacRay’s combination armored car/bank heist went just about exactly as planned. However, when Jem Coughlin, his edgy childhood friend, briefly takes the bank manager hostage, it later raises security questions for the crooks. While shadowing the shell-shocked Claire Keesey, circumstances lead MacRay to ask her out. Naturally, things start to develop, which is hard to explain to Coughlin, who still hopes MacRay will get back together with his sister Krista, an oxy-addled trampy single mother.

Harboring ambitions of a new life, MacRay wants out, but Charlestown’s local crime boss "Fergie the Florist" has other ideas. He has a source that can get them into the cash vault inside Fenway Park, a Boston stadium that became a minor footnote in sports history due to the semi-pro team that plays there. Of course, getting in is the easy part. Needless to say, the dogged Special Agent Adam Frawley is out to complicate matters further.

Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, Town is not exactly the most original story, but the execution is consistently sharp. Effectively weaving back and forth from a moody crime drama and a shoot-‘em-up heist movie, Affleck again directs himself and a noteworthy ensemble cast quite well. His MacRay basically comes in three speeds: coolly down-to-business, sullen, and armed & seething, but frankly that is about right for a heist noir protagonist.

However, Town’s real star might be Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, who supplies a jolt of electricity whenever he is on-screen as MacRay’s G-man nemesis. A truly fine ensemble piece, the talented Rebecca Hall is also somehow able to scratch out some memorable scenes for the “woe-is-me” Keesey (much as she did in Nicole Holofcener’s self-important mish-mash Please Give). Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper add further colorful texture as Fergie and MacRay’s incarcerated father, respectively. As for Blake Lively, she certainly looks like an armored carload of trouble as sister Krista.

Clearly, Affleck has a visible affinity for Town’s noir-ish genre and Boston setting. He also seems to be working his way through the city’s official neighborhoods, following-up his acclaimed Dorchester-set directorial debut Gone Baby Gone. It appears to be a fairly rich vein for him to mine. Indeed, Town is pretty solid all the way around, featuring some scene-stealing work from Hamm. It opens wide today (9/17), including the Village East here in New York.