Django, on Netflix

He still comes to town dragging a mysterious casket, but this time, the spaghetti western legend carries a lot more emotional baggage. Much of it is guilt stemming from the fate of his long-lost daughter Sarah, his only surviving family member. They will soon be reunited, rather awkwardly, in co-creator-writers Leonardo Fasoli & Maddalena Ravagli’s ten-part series reboot Django, which premieres tomorrow on Netflix.

This time around, “Django” (the totally unremarkable, everyday alias he adopted) is a veteran of the Confederate army rather than the Union Blue. Eventually, we learn he only signed up for the enlistment bonus he thought he needed for his desperately poor family. Unfortunately, war changed Django, so he decided to stay away when it ended. Tragically, he learned too late his family needed his protection.

He has followed a lead to New Babylon, a town of mostly freedmen that looks like it was built by Ewoks. The leader, John Ellis, has been feuding with the ultra-judgmental “Lady” Elizabeth, who is leads a gang of marauding moralizers in the neighboring town. They have some very personal history together, which is partly why her Pops deeded the land for New Babylon to Ellis.

Despite their considerable age difference, Ellis is engaged to Sarah. It is a bit off-putting to some, considering he raised her like a daughter after the tragedy-to-be-revealed-later, especially to his son Seymour, who carries his own slightly incestuous torch for Sarah. Initially, she resents Django’s sudden reappearance, but he is quite helpful saving the good citizens of New Babylon from Elizabeth’s goons.

Django best approximates the neo-spaghetti Western it wants to be through its multinational co-production funding structure. English was probably the fourth or fifth language you would have most likely heard on set, even though it is an English-language production (albeit with considerable over-dubbing). However, it lacks the stark archetypal emotional simplicity of real vintage spaghetti westerns. When it is all said and done, there is practically nothing about Django that we won’t know. For this genre, that kind of over-sharing is annoying.

Fasoli and Ravagli build to a revelation linking the two families that is supposed to be grandly tragic but is really just contrived. However, the climactic gun fight in episode ten is a real barn-burner that partially makes up for all the slow brooding (yes, that is when the you-know-what finally comes out).

Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead) has the right quiet hulking presence for Django (was his name-O), but he must spend more time on daddy issues than gunning down bad guys. Nicholas Pinnock has a convincing swagger and wears the mantle of flawed moral authority quite well as the senior Ellis. However, Lisa Vicari consistently kills any momentum the series might have built up with her whiny portrayal of Sarah. Noomi Rapace maybe fairs even worse. She is cartoony in the wrong kind of way as Lady Elizabeth.

The Command: The Kursk Russian Submarine Disaster

Although it only had a fracture of the death toll, Russia’s Kursk submarine disaster was sort of a mini-Chernobyl. It exposed the incompetence of the Russian Navy and the utter indifference of its leadership for all the world to see. NATO could have helped, but Putin waited five days to ask for help, while still enjoying his seaside vacation. It is a cold, claustrophobic tragedy that unfolds in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Command (a.k.a. Kursk), which opens today in New York.

Hopefully, we all know this will end badly, but if you didn’t, Putin likes the way you consume news and media. The Kursk, an Oscar class Soviet-designed submarine loaded with nuclear cruise missiles was participating in a large-scale naval operation intended to intimidate the West. Well, so much for that. The sub captain was warned their Big Bertha missile was running a little too hot, but he chose to continue anyway—and then boom.

Mikhail Averin will try to keep the rag tag remnant of survivors alive in the aft chambers, in the vain hope a rescue party will reach them in time. Admiral Vyacheslav Grudzinsky is willing to do whatever it takes to save the Kursk crewmembers, including accepting the help of British and Norwegian recovery specialists. Unfortunately, the top brass above him drags their feet, hoping a barely sea-worthy Russian submersible can get the job done instead, for reasons of propaganda ad paranoia. Of course, Grudzinsky understands better than anyone how badly the Russian rescue teams have been equipped and maintained in recent years.

What happened to the men of the Kursk (and the 71 children they left behind) was a disgrace, but it inspires some of the films most intense scenes, like when Averin’s wife Tanya publicly shames Grudzinsky’s commanding officer at a media op. Frankly, it is hard to believe Putin was subsequently re-elected, but then again, its always been hard to believe, hasn’t it?

The Flemish Matthias Schoenaerts makes a credible Russian, but he is way too big to believe as a submariner. Regardless, his character is definitely a strong, silent stereotype. In fact, none of the Kursk crewmembers really stand out. In contrast. Peter Simonischek (Mr. Toni Erdmann) is terrific as Grudzinsky, conveying all his prickly contradictions as an old school loyalist, who also always happened to be a reformer by inclination. Likewise, Colin Firth adds some heft and authority as Commodore David Russell, Grudzinsky’s old friendly rival. Of course, Max Von Sydow effortlessly projects sophisticated menace as the sinister, obfuscating Russian Navy chief.

The scenes aboard the Kursk look appropriately dark, dank, and confined, but the film is still a long way removed from the dogme95 movement of which Vinterberg was once considered a leader. Some of his old admirers might find it satisfying to see him doing some interesting things here with aspect ratio shifts. Yet, this is one of the rare submarine films that has its best moments above water (sort of making it the polar opposite of Das Boot, the series). Recommended for fans of military drama, The Command opens today (6/21) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Suite Française: American Viewers Finally Get to See the Irene Nemorivsky Film

Irène Némirovsky was an international bestseller in her own lifetime, but today she is best known for an unfinished posthumous publication. Of Russian-Jewish heritage, Némirovsky was denied citizenship by France and ultimately deported to Auschwitz, despite her fame and status as a Catholic convert and political conservative. Her tragic fate echoes throughout the pages of the incomplete novella sequence belatedly published in 2004. Ironically, the film adaptation has had a circuitous fate as well. Two years after Saul Dibb’s Suite Française (trailer here) opened throughout most of Europe, the Weinstein production finally bows this Monday on Lifetime.

Dibb and co-screenwriter solely adapted Dolce, the second novella set in the provincial village of Bussy, but if viewers want to get a sense of the “French Exodus” depicted in Tempête en Juin, they can check out Christian Carion’s admirable Come What May. Lucille Angellier and her stern mother-in-law Madame Angellier are surprised by the sudden arrival of domestic war migrants from the cities, but the property-holding Madame quickly moves to exploit it. The next wave of visitors are even more disruptive. Those would be the occupying National Socialist military forces.

Like every large household, the Angelliers are forced to quarter a German officer. In their case, they are relatively fortunate to host Commander Bruno van Falk, a music composer somewhat suspect among his comrades for his perceived lack of enthusiasm for their Nazi business. However, as the heretofore loyal wife develops an ambiguous friendship with her boarder, it leads to friction with her suspicious mother-in-law and their resentful neighbors. Yet, their sort of affair will give the younger Madame Angellier cover for sheltering a rebellious fugitive.

Frankly, it is utterly baffling how an adaptation of a legit bestseller related to the Holocaust starring Michelle Williams, Kirstin Scott Thomas, and a pre-Wolf of Wall Street Margot Robbie in a small supporting role could be shelved for so long. If the Weinstein Company were publicly traded, we’d say dump your stock now, because if they can’t market a film like this, they are in serious trouble.

Granted, Dibb’s Suite is not a likely Oscar contender, but it is solidly presentable. As a point of comparison, Carion’s film is probably half a star better, but solely due to Matthew Rhys’s standout supporting turn, for which there is no equivalent in Suite. Still, Scott Thomas is absolutely pitch-perfect as Madame Angellier, for reasons that ought to be intuitively obvious. Nobody does upper-crust snobbery better than her, but she also makes her redemptive moments exquisitely poignant.

As her daughter-in-law, Michelle Williams is not exactly dazzling in any respect, but she develops some effective chemistry with Matthias Schoenaerts. Robbie actually makes a bit of an impression as Celine, the village trollop, but it is Sam Riley who really lost out from the film’s dithering non-release. He does some of his best, most intense work as Benoit, the resentful tenant farmer itching to join the resistance. On the other hand, it is frustrating to see Claire Holman (the under-recognized X-factor, who made Inspector Lewis such a reliable viewing pleasure) woefully under-utilized as Marthe, the loyal servant.

During a slow week, Suite would have been a valid option in theaters, so it is well worth watching on basic cable. It has high production values and big name cast-members (also including Lambert Wilson, switching from French to English at a moment’s notice and Luther’s Ruth Wilson). Most importantly, it has Scott Thomas, who is just about enough to recommend any film on her own. There is intrigue and romance, but Dibb always treats the macro historical tragedies in a respectful manner. Easily recommended for mainstream audiences, Suite Française premieres (finally) this Monday night (5/22) on Lifetime.

Disorder: Matthias Schoenaerts Provides Home Security

There is a long and dishonorable tradition of demonizing shell-shocked veterans in exploitation films (see Carnage Park, or rather don’t see it). However, the PTSD-afflicted Vincent Loreau is a different case entirely. Yes, he is paranoid and sometimes violent, but those will be useful traits in Alice Winocour’s Disorder (a.k.a. Maryland, trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Loreau is on an extended medical from the French Special Forces, with no real expectation of reinstatement anytime soon. He is generally quite high-functioning, but he endures semi-regular episodes that leave him immobilized by flashbacks from the past. Regardless of his stability, Loreau will pick up some freelance armed security work, thanks to his former comrade Denis. Their first gig together will be the swanky party thrown by shady Lebanese-French businessman Imad Whalid at the luxurious villa he dubbed “Maryland.”

As he patrols the halls and grounds, Loreau overhears enough to suspect Whalid is in the arms trade and his business has taken a dangerous downward turn. Those suspicions seem to be borne out by Whalid’s precipitous departure on a secret business trip the following day. Wanting protection for his wife Jessie and young son Ali, Whalid contracts with Denis for some on-site protection. Thinking it will be an easy temp gig, he gives it to Loreau. Of course, Loreau is painfully awkward around Jessie Whalid, especially when his manic impulses kick in, but his hyper-vigilance is soon vindicated. Eventually he will have to dig in at Maryland, with only the reliable Denis for back-up.

Disorder is a pretty lean and mean home invasion-slash-[relative]-innocents-in-jeopardy thriller with Euro-techno flavoring layered on top and a dash of political paranoia added for garnish. In a welcome departure from her over-heralded feature debut Augustine, Winocour keeps the action tight and tense. Of course, her co-leads are clearly playing to their strengths. Nobody better embodies a big hulk with a big hurt inside than Bullhead’s Matthias Schoenaerts. He has instant action cred, but also acutely expresses Loreau’s socially stunted vulnerability. 

Similarly, the German-born Diane Kruger is no stranger to polyglot ice queens, but she also connects with Madame Whalid’s mothering side and gilded alienation. Paul Hamy’s Denis also adds a few shots of energy and attitude without compromising the film’s hothouse atmosphere.

Like Loreau, Disorder gets the job done. It is sleek and stylish in the Michael Mann tradition, but the wounded psyche of its flawed hero makes it more compelling than most bodyguarding dramas. Highly recommended for fans of French thrillers, Disorder opens this Friday (8/12) in New York, at the IFC Center.