Guns & Moses: A Rabbi Stands Up to Corruption

In Chinatown and The Two Jakes, it is water and oil that fuel corruption. Now, money from green energy greases palms and fills dirty pockets. Except, maybe it isn’t all that green. When a solar energy magnate is assassinated, the cops assume it is an antisemitic hate crime, but his rabbi suspects government land use and energy regulation might be the true motivations for Alan Rosner’s murder in Salvador Litvak’s Guns & Moses, which releases Friday in theaters.

Rabbi Mo Zaltzman lacks a proper Temple, but he has thriving community in the southern California town of High Desert. Rosner pledged to fund a permanent home for the High Desert congregation, but he will be quickly cut down by an assassin’s bullet.

Suspicion quickly and conveniently falls on Clay Gibbons, a young, troubled skinhead, who had menaced the Rabbi’s storefront community center. It all looks pretty done and dusted to the cops but Rabbi Zaltzman really believed he was starting to reach Gibbons, so he starts digging. He finds the deceased was deeply enmeshed in schemes involving environmental impacts statements (both phony and legit), as well as contested scrub land possibly needed by the state’s eternally under-construction light rail.

Rabbi Zaltzman turns out to be a very appealing amateur sleuth and Rosner’s solar-panel farm shines as a cinematic location. However, Litvak and co-screenwriter (and wife) Nina Litvak cannot match the clever plotting of Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi David Small novels. The character is strongly drawn and relatable, but the mystery/thriller business is about as complex as an episode of a 1970s network TV detective show.

Nevertheless, the Litvaks and company make some serious points that are very much oof our current moment. Indeed,it is quite significant to watch Rabbi Zaltzman reluctantly agree to arm himself. Yet, this is a very real-life experience for many Jewish Americans, especially in light of recent attacks in DC and Boulder. The title is no joke.

In fact, Litvak stages several highly satisfying shootouts. The action is nicely realized, but the cast really lands the film. Mark Feuerstein quite charmingly portrays the Rabbi’s fatherly corniness, as well as his earnest and devout faith. He wears well over the course of the film and maybe even warrants a follow-up. He also develops nice chemistry with Alona Tal, as Hindy Zaltzman.

Litvenenko, on Sundance Now

In 2018, the “Salisbury” poisoning attacks on Sergei and Yulia Skripal fatally killed an innocent British subject, who had no connection to Russia whatsoever. It was a pretty brazen assassination attempt on British soil, but obviously Putin was not very impressed by the UK government’s response to his previous hit-job executed in England, against a naturalized British citizen, back in 2006. Of course, the authorities had to provide some proof before taking punitive action. That was the job of various detective and investigators of New Scotland Yard, whose procedural work drives the four-episode mini-series, Litvenenko, written by George Kay and directed by Jim Field Smith, which starts premieres tomorrow on Sundance Now.

It is spooky how much the once-and-future Doctor Who David Tennant looks like Alexander Litvenenko, especially during his death bed scenes. The former FSB agent and outspoken critic of Putin’s “mafia state” (his own term), defected to the UK, becoming fully naturalized literally on the day of his poisoning. Initially, the somewhat fictionalized DI Brent Hyatt is not sure how to proceed, when the still living Litvenenko tries to report his own murder, like Edmund O’Brien in D.O.A. However, the interview tapes he records with the poisoned man supplied the foundation for the marathon investigation that followed.

Hyatt worked murders, which is a serious responsibility within the Yard, but a case like this was transferred to Detective Superintendent Clive Timmons, who oversaw the counter-terrorism office. He kept Hyatt and his DS attached to the case, because the DI had cultivated the trust of Litvenenko’s widow, Marina, and for his expertise investigating homicides. The case gets personal for Hyatt, since he saw Litvenenko waste away in the hospital. He also has his own scare, when the forensics department finally identifies Polonium 210 as the lethal agent involved. It is one of the deadliest Polonium isotopes known to man, but it is only produced in Russia.

Kay and Smith do a remarkable job establishing the damning case against Putin, without miring the series in minutiae. After watching Litvenenko, you should be able to shut down any of his internet trolls who haven’t been drafted to be cannon fodder in his invasion of Ukraine. Obviously, this is an opportune time for series about Putin’s disregard for international law and human rights to release. However, it is most of all a cracking good police procedural-geopolitical spy thriller-hybrid.

For a change, Neil Maskell gets to play an unambiguous good guy—and he is terrific as Hyatt. The rapport he develops with Margarita Levieva playing Litvenenko’s widow is quite poignant. The same is true for his unfortunately limited scenes with Tennant in the doomed title role. It is sadly but necessarily a small part, but Tennant is totally convincing. Frankly, they needed someone of his caliber, to show how Litvenenko’s principled persona could take on such heroically tragic proportions.

Rubikon: A Science Fiction Lifeboat Film

When the world ends, it is apparently due to vaguely defined environmental causes, but our overreliance on artificial intelligence did not help. Consequently, three survivors in orbit must deal with some deadly serious issues of “life” and “choice” in Magdalena Lauritsch’s Rubikon, which opens Friday in New York.

Hannah Wagner is a soldier in one of the private corporate armies (this being a dystopian future) who has come to the Rubikon space station to appraise the progress of Dr. Dimitri Krylow’s experimental algae-based self-sustaining life support system and hopefully shuttle it back to Earth. Then, the big catastrophic event happens. At least the algae works as promised. It will do its job, keeping alive Krylow, Wagner, and Gavin Abbott, the entitled environmental-activist son of a high-ranking executive. However, Krylow’s system was optimized for six crew members and requires at least three to function, so they are all in this together.

Through fate and happenstance, this happens to be a very interesting film to see at this particular time. Choices the suicidal Abbott (temporarily banished to Rubikon) might make could directly impact Wagner and Krylow. Likewise, when they contact a pocket of survivors on Earth, it prompts another round of life-and-death decisions. It also forces viewers to confront class-based prejudices from both sides of the divide.

Frankly, the lifeboat-ethics presented in Rubikon are so complex and intriguing, there is no way the children throwing tantrums on Twitter can deal with it. Throughout the film, it is clear characters’ choice involve severe externalities. It also dramatically depicts the law of unintended consequences. Thematically, it is a bit like George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky, but it is exponentially smarter. Lauritsch’s story is not heavily-dependent on special effects, but the Space Station quarters and the shrouded Earth below look pretty credible.

A Late Quartet: The Fugue’s Requiem

In classical string quartets, they say the second violinist is not necessarily subservient to the first.  They also say there are no small parts, only small actors, but nobody believes that either.  The complicated inter-relationships of an acclaimed string ensemble will be challenged to their breaking point in Yaron Zilberman’s A Late Quartet (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The Fugue Quartet has performed together for nearly twenty-five years.  Yet, as their quarter century anniversary approaches, their future becomes uncertain.  Cellist Peter Mitchell, the senior member of the ensemble, has been diagnosed with early Parkinson’s.  He can still function well enough to teach his students, including Alexandra Gelbart, the daughter of second violinist Robert and violist Juliette.  However, it is not clear whether he is up to the rigorous demands of concert performance, especially Beethoven’s Opus 131 String Quartet in C-sharp minor, a punishing seven movement piece that offers no resting place for musicians who tackle it.

It quickly becomes apparent Mitchell was the glue holding the quartet together, even though first violinist Daniel Lerner largely dominated the quartet’s artistic decisions through the force of his personality.  He also has romantic history with Juliette Gelbart, one of the many reasons for Robert Gelbart’s burgeoning resentment.  Yet, recognizing his talent, the Gelbarts send their daughter to him for personal tutoring, resulting in drama that could permanently rip the Fugue asunder.

Essentially, Quartet is soap opera at its most sophisticated and refined.  There is plenty of angst and jealousy at play, but the screenplay (penned by Zilberman and Seth Grossman) really sings when addressing the musicians’ approach to their art.  For those coming from the jazz tradition, it is fascinating to watch the debate between Robert Gelbart, who wants to play Beethoven’s Opus without charts to give it a freer, more emotionally spontaneous feeling, and Lerner, who insists on following every little notation, to the squiggle.  Gelbert is not advocating improvisation, just a bit more interpretive latitude in their attack, but for Lerner this would ignore the benefit gleaned from years of careful study.

Although he refrains from eccentric Walkenisms, Christopher Walken still steals nearly every scene he appears in as Mitchell.  Knocking some richly written lecture scenes out of the park, one wonders if perhaps he missed his calling as a music teacher.  Yet, the most Oscar worthy performance comes from the one member of the quartet not previously nominated.  Mark Ivanir really opens up the icily precise Lerner, markedly laying bare the messy insecurities so many great artists share.  In contrast, as the Gelbarts, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener stay on familiar ground, depicting the petty tribulations of the privileged class.  We have seen this from them both before, but at least Zilberman shows them bickering in interesting places, like Sotheby’s.

Perhaps Zilberman’s most important collaborator is the Brentano String Quartet, whose elegantly elegiac rendition of the Opus powerfully underscores the film.  Their fans will also enjoy seeing cellist Nina Lee appearing as herself, whom Mitchell is determined to recruit as his replacement.  Memorably capturing the heart and milieu of classical music, Quartet deserves attention during award season, particularly for Ivanir and Walken.  Yet, as a true chamber piece, it may lack the bombast the academy responds to.  Recommended for classical listeners and those who appreciate the drama inherent in creative differences, A Late Quartet opens this Friday (11/2) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Israel’s Human Resources Manager

In addition to mundane benefits administration and payroll management, HR managers do a bit of PR flackery in Israel. They also have to worry about terrorism. When an immigrant worker at a struggling bread factory is murdered during a Palestinian attack, but goes unmissed for days, it creates a media scandal that must be dealt with by the title character of Eran Riklis’s The Human Resources Manager (trailer here), the winner of Israeli Academy Award for best picture, which opens this Friday in New York.

She is the only character in the film with a proper name. Yulia worked the graveyard shift on the lowly cleaning crew. She had a son back in Romania, but seemed to like living in Israel, at least according to secondhand reports. The HR Manager would not know. He does not even remember her. In all fairness, he has had plenty to distract him. In fact, the HR Manager clearly hates working in HR. However, he accepted the Jerusalem-based position in hopes of mending fences with his estranged wife and their sensitive daughter.

During his investigation, the protagonist learns the messy but oh-so human reason why Yulia’s absence went unnoticed for so long. Naturally, he is reluctant to air their laundry in public. Unfortunately, the journalist pursuing the story has no interest in truth. He simply sees an opportunity to embarrass a supposedly exploitative corporation. (Yes, some things are universal, regardless of national boundaries.) In order to put the controversy to rest, the HR Manager must escort Yulia’s body back to her family in Romania. Yet, even that task turns out to be more complicated than he anticipates.

Though HR eventually settles into the road movie format, it is far deeper and sadder than typical on-the-road fare. More than anything, it is the quietly compelling work of Mark Ivanir as the HR Manager that distinguishes the film from the pack. He conveys a complex lifetime of experience just in the way his character carries himself. Clearly missing the action of an earlier life, but profoundly world-weary and haunted, he is an extraordinary everyman.

Unlike Riklis’ previous film The Lemon Tree, HR is not an explicitly political movie. Yet, for American audiences, the everyday reality of terrorism will loom over the film. The value Israelis place on human life, even anonymous immigrants like Yulia is equally evident. Truly, a film HR could never be produced within any of Israel’s neighbors.

As Israel’s official submission for best foreign language Academy Award consideration, HR is a considerably worthier candidate than the recent Oscar winner, In a Better World, but it was not even shortlisted. Academy voters in this category were simply out to lunch this year. HR is a film of subtle emotional payoffs, honestly earned, primarily through Ivanir’s remarkably strong and dignified lead performance. A very good film, HR opens this Friday (3/4) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.