Damian Szifron’s To Catch a Killer

This mass murderer is madman rather than a terrorist. That is bad news for the FBI, because it makes the unknown suspect harder to predict. “Fortunately,” local cop Eleanor Falco has so much emotional baggage, she can kind of relate. That is a good thing, at least according to Special Agent Geoffrey Lammark, who makes her his liaison to the city police. He is not easy to work with, but the ruthless sniper gives them plenty of motivation in Damian Szifron’s To Catch a Killer, which opens Friday in New York.

At the strike of New Year’s Day, a sniper blew away several dozen partiers. Somehow, the killer eluded the police, despite Falco’s heads-up policing of the crime scene, which does not go unnoticed by Lammark.

Frankly, most of the procedural stuff in To Catch is very run-of-the-mill. The only thing that really distinguishes the script co-written by Szifron and Jonathan Wakeham is the time devoted to internal FBI infighting. Far too often, Lammark and Falco must waste time with bogus leads and dubious strategies mandated from above. If you were not already skeptical of Federal bureaucracy before, To Catch a Killer will help finish the job.

The actual identity of the killer is kept secret until the third act, so at least the film does not feel like a warmed-over Quinn Martin rerun. When he is finally revealed, it is an interesting-looking, quite imposing thesp playing the mystery killer.

Cyrano, the Musical

Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, the real-life figure on whom Rostand’s hero was based, is considered one of the first science fiction writers. Depictions of him usually show a prominent but not extraordinarily large nose. Since Rostand presumably exaggerated a little, it seems fair for this new take on Cyrano de Bergerac to posit a different physical source for his romantic insecurities. His friend Le Bret gets away with the term “distinctive physique,” so we’ll use that too. Regardless, the swashbuckler is still quite handy with both words and sabers in Joe Wright’s Cyrano—by the way, it is also a musical—which opens today nationwide.

His nose is no longer conspicuous, but this is still Cyrano de Bergerac. Despite the changes of screenwriter Erica Schmidt’s adaption (based on the stage musical she also penned), this is still Cyrano, so you should know what that means. The roguish soldier excels at poetry and duels, but he quietly carries a torch for his cousin Roxanne, fearing she would reject him, because of his physique. Instead, he aids his doltish but handsome new colleague Christian de Neuvillette to woo her. This time around, his obvious rival, the Count de Guiche is much slimier and his interest in Roxanne is decidedly more exploitative. If you need a fuller refresher on Rostand’s original source material, check out the 1950 film starring Jose Ferrer (it streams on Tubi, Kanopy, and several other sites).

Frankly, Peter Dinklage might be the best de Bergerac since Ferrer. He has the right swaggering physicality. Whatever their preconceptions might be, viewers will buy into him as a formidable swordsman and dissolute carouser. It turns out Dinklage also has a pleasingly character-tinged baritone voice, vaguely reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. He is a great romantic hero, who pines hard and banters amusingly with Bashir Salahuddin, whose Le Bret is more memorable than most of his predecessors.

However, Hayley Bennett and Kelvin Harrison Jr. are both rather bland as Roxanne and Christian, even though their singing voices are quite nice. However, the always reliable Ben Mendelsohn is spectacularly sleazy and moustache-twistingly villainous as the nasty de Guiche. He is a piece of work, but that really raises the stakes and heightens the tension.

As for the tunes, they largely hit the same notes, over and over. Ironically, the most powerful and distinctive song (and the one that really sticks with you) does not feature any of the primary cast-members. Instead, “Wherever I Fall” is a number for the “chorus” that expresses the eve-of-battle thoughts of average rank-and-file soldiers as they face their impending mortality. The lyrics are genuinely moving and the performances (including Glen Hansard of Once as a guard) are pitch-perfect. In contrast, the rest of the tunes fit the mood well enough, but they all blend together.

The Outsider: HBO Adapts Stephen King

DNA evidence has been widely hailed as a tool to exonerate the wrongly convicted. However, in Terry Maitland’s case, it falsely implicates him in a horrific child murder. He will need someone who can think way outside the box to prove his innocence. Holly Gibney from the Mr. Mercedes books and TV series is certainly an unconventional investigator. She sees things others miss, so she might be the perfect detective to stalk the real killer in The Outsider, Richard Price’s 10-part adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, which premieres this Sunday on HBO.

Terry Maitland is a well-liked teacher and coach in his quiet, working-class Oklahoma community, until Det. Ralph Anderson has him arrested and cuffed during one of his little league games for the murder of eleven-year-old Frank Peterson. There is ironclad DNA and eye-witness testimony linking Maitland to the crime scene, but his lawyer, Howie Gold, quickly uncovers physical evidence and video footage placing him in another city at the time of the murder.

It is all quite baffling to everyone, so Gold retains Gibney’s specialized services. Feeling guilty for turning the town against the Maitland family, Det. Anderson joins Gold’s investigation team while on leave from the department. He is not inclined to believe the fantastical, even when Gibney uncovers a string of similar child murders attributed to suspects still proclaiming their innocence, due to similarly conflicting DNA evidence and eye-witness statements. However, his wife Jeannie is more willing to reserve judgment and keep an open mind. She too joins Gold’s kitchen cabinet, after forging a sympathetic understanding with Maitland’s wife, Marcy.

Based on the first six episodes provided to the press (out of ten), it should be safe to say the serial killer at work boasts some sort of supernatural shape-and-DNA-shifting powers—and that shouldn’t be particularly spoilery, since it is a creation of Stephen King. However, the series unfolds with the style and drive of a procedural mystery. Indeed, comparisons to HBO’s True Detective are rather apt. Yet, Price fully capitalizes on the existential implications of a monster that (perhaps literally) feeds on human alienation and misery. These are especially damaged characters, even by the standards of King’s oeuvre.

Jason Bateman’s earnest everyman portrayal of Maitland easily convinces viewers to buy into the character’s predicament, sort of like Henry Fonda in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man taking a detour through the X-Files. Yet, perhaps more importantly, he effectively sets the vibe of mounting dread as the director of the first two episodes. However, Ben Mendelsohn surpasses him when it comes to projecting world-weary angst as Det. Anderson, whose every decision is influenced by the prior death of his own young son.

The Outsider also earns credit for featuring three women characters, who transcend stereotypes and become of equal or greater importance to the story than Maitland or even Anderson. Cynthia Erivo never resorts to cheap ticks or shtick in her endlessly intriguing portrayal of the on-the-spectrum Gibney (radically different from Justine Lupe’s depiction in the Mr. Mercedes series). It showcases her brilliance, a la Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, but also emphasizes her acute vulnerability. Yet, Price also empowers her as a woman, who haltingly explores the possibility of romance with a former law enforcement contact, nicely played by Derek Cecil.

Likewise, Mare Winningham and Julianne Nicholson are consistently devastating as Jeannie Anderson and Marcy Maitland, respectively—two women ironically united in grief. Each woman displays unexpected agency, beyond merely standing by their men. In fact, Nicholson could arguably be considered the Outsider’s lead and central POV figure.

Una: Victim Confronts Abuser

When properly staged, David Mamet’s sexual harassment drama Oleanna disturbs and provokes because it presents truth as something ambiguous and slippery. Una and Ray could be the other side of the coin. The truth of their forbidden relationship was pretty well established in court. Yet, they persist in similar forms of denial and self-deceit. After years apart, they will finally face each other again in Benedict Andrews’ Una (trailer here), adapted by David Harrower from his own play Blackbird, which opens this Friday in New York.

When she was thirteen, Una was seduced into a sexual relationship by Ray, her father’s friend and next-door neighbor. He hardly looked the dashing sort, but Una was convinced she loved him. In fact, she was willing to run off to the Continent with him, where this kind of relationship is apparently more readily accepted. However, the events of that fateful night will be the only significant points of contention of their problematic affair. Believing he had abandoned her, Una panicked, which led to his arrest and conviction, resulting in a scandal that tarnished them both.

Fifteen years later, Una chanced across his photo in a newspaper. Having changed his name to Peter Trevelyan, Ray started a new life with a wife and co-workers who knew nothing of his past, whereas Una remained the notorious girl who ran off with the lecherous neighbor. She will show up unannounced at the manufacturing plant where he works as a middle-manager, perhaps to expose him or perhaps to rekindle what she thought they had. She probably does not know herself. Either way, her presence will deeply disturb Ray/Peter.

On film, Una is largely a two-hander, but there is still a significant part to be played by Scott, one of “Trevelyan’s” direct reports, who becomes a pawn in their emotional chess game. Still, the heart and guts of the film consist of their raw face-to-face confrontations in the company’s ironically pristine break room. (It won’t look so tidy when they finish with it.)

There is some tough stuff in this film, but it is clear why actors would jump at the chance to play such viscerally dramatic confrontations. Credit is therefore due to Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn, who do right by Harrower’s text, pushing themselves and each other, while always keeping it real. Forget the ill-conceived Dragon Tattoo remake (assuming you haven’t already), because Una represents some of Mara’s career best work, along with Charlie McDowell’s ridiculously underappreciated The Discovery. The word volatile does not begin to describe her, but there are no shticky Streepian excesses to be seen in her portrayal. Instead, she is tightly, even dangerously restrained. There is an intensity to her work that suggests she could explode at any second.

Likewise, Mendelsohn makes Trevelyan or whoever you want to call him frighteningly human, especially his desperate survival imperative. Riz Ahmed wisely opts for an understated approach as poor clueless Scott, but his work humanizes and anchors the film. It is also rather mind-blowing to see Tara Fitzgerald, once a romantic co-lead in Hugh Grant comedies, playing Una’s uptight mother Andrea. She is perfectly fine in an absolutely thankless role.

Una is a bracing film that eschews false sentiment and unrealistic closure. The truth is Una and Ray, victim and abuser, will probably both be profoundly damaged for the rest of their lives. Andrews and Harrower open it up for the big screen quite effectively, while maintaining the concentrated power of the one-on-one verbal skirmishes. Recommended for mature audiences, Una opens this Friday (10/6) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine.

Slow West: From the Highlands to the High Plains

Yes, the Old West was a violent place, but what could you expect if everyone brought over their grudges from the Old Country. Rose Ross and her father are a case in point. There was a good reason they left Scotland in a hurry. Unfortunately, a lovesick lad from home might very well lead all that trouble straight to their doorstep in John Maclean’s Slow West (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Clearly, young, naïve Jay Cavendish considers Ross the love of his life, but it is unclear just what he is to her. Nevertheless, he has an address and is determined to “save” the lass. Traveling through the rugged Colorado plains is a dangerous proposition, but Cavendish finds an ostensive protector. Silas Selleck will try to keep the boy alive, but he has different ideas for Ross. Unbeknownst to Cavendish, a price has been put on the heads of the Ross father and daughter. Selleck is the sort of man who collects on them.

Of course, he is hardly the only hunting the Rosses. Selleck’s old acquaintance Payne is also on the trail. It is safe to say their rivalry is not the friendly sort. Payne would have no problem killing anyone in his way, whereas Selleck genuinely starts to like Cavendish. Obviously this produces seriously conflicted feelings on his part. Regardless, it will all inevitably lead to a violent standoff of some sort. After all, it is the Old West.

At this point, it is too late to call Slow West a revisionist western, because its in-your-face critique of Manifest Destiny represents the current official story of westward expansion. Despite a few heavy-handed sequences (to put it mildly), Maclean still constructs a compelling men vs. men tale, set against a harsh but breathtaking natural backdrop (in this case, it is New Zealand stepping in for the Colorado plains).

Slow West is also a heck of an example of how much the right wardrobe can add to a film. In the future, Ben Mendelsohn will probably be known simply as “the dude in the fur coat.” Costume designer Kirsty Cameron makes everyone look period appropriate, but that enormous trapper coat adds additional layers of attitude and Mendelsohn’s characterization of Payne.

The film also marks the third cinematic collaboration between Maclean and Michael Fassbender and serves as a reminder why it is potentially perilous for critics and film journalists to ignore shorts films, like their previous Man on a Motorcycle and the BAFTA Award winning neo-noir Pitch Black Heist. Fassbender is instantly credible as a high plains drifter and he keeps cranking up Selleck’s intensity as they approach the Ross homestead. Even though Kodi Smit-McPhee’s vacant screen presence is highly problematic in any film charging admission, it sort of works for the clueless and immature Cavendish. However, the real discovery in Slow West is the forceful work of Caren Pistorius as Rose Ross.

Slow West features some truly impressive technical craftsmanship, particularly Robbie Ryan’s cinematography, which is big in every way. Maclean also stages a terrific gunfight, bringing to mind the climax of Kevin Costner’s criminally under-appreciated Open Range. Recommended for fans of post-Little Big Man westerns, Slow West opens this Friday (5/15) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

Sundance ’15: Mississippi Grind

Apparently, Gerry never heard the old Kenny Rogers song. He is the sort of gambler you bet against and feel fine about doing so. He might win for a while, because he spends every spare moment studying various games of chance, but he reeks of losing. However, he believes his fortunes have turned when he teams up with a younger, luckier gambler in Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s Mississippi Grind, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Curtis is just passing through. That’s what he does. Gerry really ought to be leaving soon. He owes a lot of people a lot of money, but just keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. Strangely enough, he wins when playing at Curtis’s table, but he promptly blows all his takings on an ill-advised bet shortly thereafter. When fate subsequently brings them together again, Gerry recognizes a good thing. Determined to keep it going, Gerry convinces Curtis to join forces to play regional games and hole-in-the-wall casinos as they work their way down the Mississippi towards a high stakes poker game in New Orleans.

It sounds like a winning proposition, but the “sign”-obsessed Gerry cannot change his spots. He is still a crummy person and when Curtis is not around, he keeps finding ways to lose. In contrast, Curtis might be slightly commitment-phobic, but he is dramatically healthier than Gerry, often preferring to visit the local blues club over a tacky gambling den. It is really quite considerate of him, since it justifies Grind’s savory blues soundtrack (and some original themes scored by Scott Bomar).

Although Gerry, the aggressive screw-up, is the flashier role, Grind still might prove to be a career pivot for Ryan Reynolds. As Curtis, he plays with and against his pretty-boy type-casting, showing surprising grit down the stretch. Although Ben Mendelsohn is relatively restrained compared to some of his scenery-chomping villainous turns, he fully embraces Gerry’s pathetic, self-deluding, self-centered nature. Frankly, sometimes it is painful to watch his debasement.

Granted, anyone who has seen a gambling road movie will have a general idea where Grind is headed, but Fleck & Boden give the material a few nice twists, including the ironic but wholly fitting third act source of the title. They exhibit a strong sense of place, grounding the film in picturesque Southern-border state locales. It is also certainly safe to say they never glamorize gambling. In fact, the film could almost be a PSA for Gamblers Anonymous and a seedier, more naturalistic corrective to noir-ish The Gambler and Chow Yun-fat’s heroic God of Gamblers franchise. Recommended for fans of gambling films with local flavor, Mississippi Grind screens again tomorrow (1/31) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Black Sea: Salvage this Film

It should have been a routine, but highly profitable salvage job. Thanks to Russian military adventurism in Georgia and Crimea, Ukraine, the whole rights and permissions thing is now considerably trickier. As a result, a disgruntled submarine captain will lead an off-the-books mission in Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Cap. Robinson has just been down-sized (or as the city of Detroit says, “right-sized”) by his buttoned-down corporate marine salvage firm. Finding little work for a disgruntled submarine skipper, Robinson is up for a caper and one of his former colleagues has one. It turns out, while the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was still observed by both sides, Stalin agreed to loan Hitler millions in gold (as one socialist to another). However, the German U-boat carrying it home was sunk and Germany invaded Russia shortly thereafter. For decades, it lay forgotten at the bottom of the Black Sea. Eventually, the company struck a deal with the Georgian government to salvage it, but the operation was put on hold when the Russians starting paddling around like they owned the place.

With the help of a mysterious funder, Robinson will recruit a crew to sneak down there and get it. To make things unnecessarily complicated, half the crew must be Russian—so they can talk to any Russian torpedoes that might be launched at them? Acquiring an old Russian sub that is more like a barnacle with a periscope, Robinson’s team heads out to sea, but tensions quickly rise. Daniels, the transparently villainous financial go-between, is particularly alarmed when Robinson announces each man gets an equal share once their backer gets his forty percent. Wouldn’t they be tempted to bump each other off to get a bigger slice of the pie? Still, you might think they would need a minimum contingent of crewmembers to keep the sub seaworthy. It turns out that number is nine.

Frustratingly, Black Sea has a very intriguing backstory, but screenwriter Dennis Kelly jettisons it almost immediately. (Nevertheless, the new reels playing underneath the opening credits make it look like Stalin will be played by Ben Mendelsohn.) Instead, he channels B. Traven, cranking up the class warfare and seafaring naturalism. Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a worthy film to emulate, but he leaves way to many holes in the narrative.

Mendelsohn’s Fraser, the diving specialist is a case in point. Half the time he is a reckless psychopath, but he serves as the ostensive voice of reason nearly just as often. Similarly, if he were really primarily concerned with saving his own skin, would he really let loose a bunch of mutinous chaos while they are navigating a shallow canyon? That just seems like needlessly perverse timing.

It is a shame Kelly’s narrative clunks and clangs along, because Jude Law is terrific as the salty Robinson. It is rather remarkable how convincingly he shows Robinson’s class resentments metastasizing into paranoid psychosis, nearly deconstructing the entire film in the process. Even though his character makes no sense, Mendelsohn is always enjoyable to watch chewing the scenery, as is Ben Wheatley regular Michael Smiley, who is reliably flinty and acerbic as Robinson’s crony, Reynolds. However, fans of Jodie Whittaker should not expect much, because she only fleetingly appears in flashbacks as Robinson’s ex-wife.

Partially shot on a vintage 1967 Foxtrot Soviet sub (one of only four such surviving vessels), Black Sea looks great and feels appropriately claustrophobic. Unfortunately, the narrative repeatedly undercuts everyone’s best efforts. There is just little too much message-making and not enough attention to action-details. An ambitious disappointment, Black Sea opens this Friday (1/23) in New York.

Ben Mendelsohn’s Trespass

Witness the next logical step of Occupy Wall Street’s escalating class warfare: violent home invasions. Diamond dealer Kyle Miller ought to “have” plenty. A desperate drug dealer deeply in debt to the mob “has not.” The fact that Miller was wiped out by the recent crash is an unfortunate complicating factor in Trespass (trailer here), Joel Schumacher’s latest bit of hyperventilating silliness, which opens today in New York.

Miller is married to Sarah, a beautiful architect who designed the tony new home they have not yet paid for. They have a rebellious teen-aged daughter, Avery, who looks like a porn-star. Trying to hustle freelance commissions, Miller has not told his wife and daughter he was let go by his firm. Ironically, his attempts to keep up appearances have enticed a gang of thugs with connections to his security company. Ostensibly led by Elias, the home invaders want inside his conspicuous wall safe. A highly motivated man, if Elias cannot pay off his debts with this score, he and his junkie girlfriend Petal are in a world of hurt. Thus begins the battle of wits, such as it might be.

To be fair, Miller’s attempts to negotiate with Elias are written relatively sharply. In contrast, the subplot involving Elias’s brother and his delusional attraction to Sarah Miller is just mind-numbingly dumb. Likewise, all the teasing near-escapes and aborted mayday calls quickly become tiresome. Still, production designer Nathan Amondson’s team created a cool looking, ultra-sleek architectural set that might be the second most interesting character in the film.

At least Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn understands what makes a great villain. He gives a ferocious performance as Elias, projecting savage cunning and major screen presence, even when concealed by his mask. It is pretty telling when the new Joel Schumacher movie starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman is best pitched as the latest Ben Mendelsohn film, but that seems to be about the size of things. He almost single-handedly earns the film an extra star and a half it does not deserve.

With his constant nostril flaring and ludicrous mangling of Air Force One style catch-phrases (“Get out of my house!”), the strung-out looking Cage is absolutely laughable as Miller, in the worst way possible. Still, he is trying his hardest throughout. Though she periodically tries to knuckle down and power out some kind of characterization, Kidman mostly just mails it in as Sarah Miller (and who can blame her?).

True, Trespass provides scads of unintentional comedy. That is all very fine for Saturday morning hangover viewing, but it is nowhere near sufficient to justify a suburban senior matinee ticket price, let alone the full fare in Midtown Manhattan. Basically just a big clumsy mess, Trespass opens today (10/14) in New York at the AMC Village 7.