Review: "Vice"

“Vice” comes not to illuminate, but eviscerate. Unlike other portraits of powerful men in the WHite House (“Nixon,” “W.”), there is no attempt to show nuance or pursue inquiry. The reason this film exists is to condemn former Vice President Dick Cheney, to call him out as an evil and corrupt man.

There’s nothing else to call it but a hatchet job. It’s a well-made, splendidly acted one, caustic and occasionally quite funny. But let’s call a spade a spade.

Three years ago writer/director Adam MacKay made “The Big Short,” which I marveled at its ability to be so angry and so funny at the same time. “Vice” does the same, although the proportions are way out of whack.

The thing people will talk most about is the transformation of Christian Bale. And it’s a knockout. The tall, lean actor of “Batman” is so physically and vocally spot-on as the late-middle-aged, bald and portly Cheney that they barely even needed to superimpose Bale’s image into historical photos and footage.

His Cheney is a growly bear of a man, one who speaks in a guttural monotone punctuated with odd pauses. He’s obsessed with power, gaining it and using it.

The portions covering his early life are rather flat and sketchy. Amy Adams plays his wife, Lynne, a powerful woman who demands that he reform his wayward path. After failing out of Yale, he became an electrical lineman in Wyoming who racked up two DUIs. But he turned things around, earned college degrees and became a congressional intern, eventually allying with a young Congressman named Donald Rumsfeld.

If Bale’s Cheney is the film’s dour yang, then Steve Carell’s exuberantly mercenary Rumsfeld is the giddy yang. Together they would move up to Nixon’s White House, and then become the youngest Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff, respectively, under the Ford administration.

The story bounces around in time somewhat, with Cheney’s relationship with former President George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) as the framing device. Like other Hollywood movies, “Vice” portrays the 43rd president as a bumbling yokel out of his element in the corridors of power. The Machiavellian Cheney sees this as his chance to remake the office of the vice presidency from a ceremonial BS job into a locus of dark, secretive power.

Much of MacKay’s story is taken from the historical record, but overlaid with a heavy slathering of showbiz razzmatazz that often crosses the line into outright mean-spirited fabrication. For instance, the controversial “outing” of CIA agent Valerie Plame is shown to be done explicitly at Cheney’s orders. (Even though a State Department official, Richard Armitage, admitted that he inadvertently slipped the info to columnist Robert Novak.)

Rather than just show Cheney to be a bad guy, MacKay goes for the whole hog: declaring that the blame for much of our problems today, from ISIS to the concentration of wealth, can be laid at Cheney’s feet.

The movie repeatedly throws up titles about the “unitary executive theory,” a bit of legal doctrine embraced by Cheney that has been interpreted by some to mean the president essentially has the powers of a dictator. There’s even a furtive flashback to the 1970s with a young Antonin Scalia, later a conservative stalwart on the Supreme Court, first introducing Cheney to the concept.

In the end “Vice” plays out as a conspiracy theorist’s dream, intercutting horrible war footage and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners with Cheney clomping along the hallways of the White House. I swear there’s even a snippet of the recent California Camp Fire in there -- I guess that’s Cheney’s fault, too?

It’s fine to loathe Dick Cheney and even make a whole movie to that effect. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good. Despite the masterful performance by Bale, “Vice” plays as a venomous takedown of a personality-challenged right-winger Hollywood loves to hate.

I didn’t have any particular sympathy for Cheney going into the movie, but it stacks the deck so badly I did afterward.

Video review: "Hostiles"

“Hostiles” was probably the best movie of 2017 that you never heard of, despite featuring some big names. It barely got a theatrical release, earning $29 million -- short of its $39 million production budget. But it’s a spare, bleak gem.

It’s a throwback-style Western that very much has Things to Say about this day and age.

Christian Bale plays Joseph Blocker, a famous Indian hunter who’s about to retire when he’s given the proverbial one last job. And it’s a doozy: escort his longtime enemy, a Comanche war chief named Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), back to his ancestral home in Montana so he can die in piece.

Blocker is racist, alcoholic and prone to violence. Yellow Hawk is proud and reserved. His son, Black Hawk (Adam Beach), tries to broach a peace between them, but old enmities die hard.

Along the winding journey they pick up other forlorn figures. Rosamund Pike plays a frontier woman who’s just had her entire family wiped out by native warriors. Yellow Hawk and his family take her in like an adopted daughter. Seeing this, Blocker recognizes human warmth in his old enemy, possibly for the first time in his life.

The inimitable character actor Ben Foster plays a disgraced former soldier, a former comrade of Blocker’s, who’s been sentenced to die. In him, Blocker sees a reflection of himself that isn’t easy to look at.

Writer/director Scott Cooper also made the wonderful “Crazy Heart” a few years ago. He’s a filmmaker who refuses to cram his characters into neat stereotypical holes, letting each person travel their own journey in a way that feels organic.

In a time when so many movies put service to the plot above building believable characters, “Hostiles” is the sturdy exception that sees the horizon beyond.

Bonus features are limited to a single item, a comprehensive making-of documentary, “A Journey to the Soul: The Making of Hostiles.” It includes three parts: “Provenance,” “Removing the Binds” and “Don’t Look Back.”

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Review: "Hostiles"

There is dour. Then there is grim. Then there is bleak. Then there is despair. Then there is "Hostiles."

Last year's film slate (of which this is technically part) was noted for its raft of downbeat, depressing movies. Even against that yardstick, though, "Hostiles" still must be assessed as one of the most intensely melancholic. If it's possible to have an uplifting cinematic experience while mired in tragedy, then here it is.

Christian Bale plays Captain Joseph Blocker, a weary cavalry soldier and legendary Indian hunter who is about to retire. He's virulently racist, alcoholic, burnt out. Absent circumstances presented in the course of the story, he'd probably drink himself into a lonely, hateful death within a year or two.

But his commander orders him to perform one last service: escorting Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), a Comanche war chief who is now dying of cancer, and has received permission to take his family to their ancestral home in Montana to be at final piece. The kicker: Blocker and Yellow Hawk were bitter enemies during the Indian wars, and each can count many friends and loved ones who perished at the other's hand.

Their journey begins in silence and defiance. Others are picked up along the way. Ben Foster plays Charles Wills, a disgraced soldier who has been sentenced to be hanged for his crimes. Blocker knows him, too, from the old days.

More affecting is the presence of Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike), a frontier woman whose husband and children were just slaughtered in front of her eyes. When the group first encounters her, Rosalie is squatting in the burned-out wreckage of her home, the cold corpse of her baby clutched to her chest. Slowly-- very slowly -- she comes out of her shell of despair, and starts to make meaningful new connections.

Adam Beach shines as Black Hawk, son of Yellow Hawk, who is always his father's son but also reaches out to the bitter white man who hates his kind. The rest of the background players fill their places with conviction and purity, among them Jesse Plemons and Timothee Chalamet.

Writer/director Scott Cooper ("Crazy Heart") has given us a beautiful, spare vision of the American West on the cusp of the 20th century. Though it is a story of specific people, they are dealing with many of the issues we still face today: tribal conflict, racial enmity, gendered roles, etc.

In many ways, "Hostiles" is a portrait of all the capacities America holds, both for greatness and for wretchedness. This story, of two men who have every reason to hate each other, finally grants us a tiny nugget of hope.

Review: "The Promise"

“The Promise” is a film of startling authority and ravishing power. It has all the elements of classic epic: a sweeping historical backdrop with a very intimate human story at the center. It’s one of those rare fiction movies that has the weight of truth behind it.

Oscar Isaac, recalling a young Omar Sharif in looks and screen presence, plays an Armenian medical student who is caught up in the Armenian Genocide during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. To this day its successor nation, Turkey, refuses to acknowledge the systematic murder of 1.5 million children, women and men.

Not apologize or make reparations -- just say that it happened.

If the film harbors a reservoir of rage about this at its core, then director Terry George, who co-wrote the script with Robin Swicord, takes great pains to conceal it. Instead, the focus is on the love triangle at the center, with Christian Bale playing an American journalist who also romances Charlotte Le Bon.

Rather than an angry polemic, “The Promise” takes on the tone of an elegy -- a wistful tribute to a people who were wronged but still endure, continuing a story that goes back thousands of years.

Isaac plays Mikael, an apothecary from a small town who wants to be a doctor. He can’t afford the tuition to the Imperial Medical School in Constantinople, so he agrees to an arranged marriage to the daughter (Angela Sarafyan) of the wealthiest man in the city, using the dowry of 400 gold coins to pay his fees. The betrothed pair is pragmatic about the arrangement, content to build a life together and hope that affection can grow there.

In the capital, Mikael is awed by the trappings and possibilities of one of the great cities of the world. He falls in with Emre (Marwan Kenzari), a wealthy playboy and son of a high Turkish mercantilist. He stays with his well-to-do cousin, befriending his family and their tutor, a spirited young woman named Ana (Le Bon). Like him, she is from a small Armenian town, but has spent the last few years touring the world with her boyfriend.

Her relationship with Chris Myers (Bale), a noted reporter for the Associated press, is difficult but stable. He fearlessly insults the Turkish leaders’ cozying up to the Germans, and when war breaks out he becomes the leading chronicler of the genocide for the West. Chris is hardly an objective observer, instilling his outrage into every dispatch and telegram.

The love between Mikael and Ana slowly grows, apparent to them both but something they are reluctant to pursue. He has promised himself to another, a vow that seems less and less viable as entire towns and populations are displaced or murdered outright. She feels a duty to stand by Chris, even as his work becomes all-consuming.

Shohreh Aghdashloo is a memorable presence as Mikael’s mother, who pushes him to put his romance aside and remain faithful to his family and traditions. Rade Serbedzija turns up as a leader of Armenian refugees, who is willing to run from the Turks -- but only so far.

It’s a terrific, career-defining performance by Isaac, playing a man of innate gentleness and decency trying to negotiate an age of madness and hatred. It reminded me in a lot of ways of Sharif’s character in “Doctor Zhivago.” I hope his turn will be remembered when the next awards season rolls around.

I should note that “The Promise” has been targeted by genocide deniers for their bile. Among other things, they’re plastering negative ratings on movie websites like IMDb.com. Laughably, it received more than 80,000 ratings after debuting at the Toronto Film Festival with just three screenings, with most of those being one-star scores.

I’ve always said that anyone can be a critic, but the one sacrosanct requirement is that you have to have seen the movie before you’re allowed to offer your opinion on it.

I have seen “The Promise,” and my opinion is it’s the best film so far in 2017.

Video review: "The Big Short"

Fresh off its Oscar win for Best Adapted Screenplay (and a strong late bid for Best Picture), I’m hoping more people will give “The Big Short” a look. I’ve no doubt many potential ticket buyers took one look at the subject matter – high finance rebels who foresaw the real estate bubble bursting – and said, “No, thanks.”

What they need to know is how smart, funny and downright entertaining this movie is. While its primary fuel is anger at a rigged system, the film uses comedy as its entry point.

Consider Adam McKay, director and co-writer, whose previous credits include lowbrow comedies “Anchorman,” “Step Brothers” and “The Other Guys.” And Steve Carell as Mike Baum, a cartoonishly loud and obnoxious money manager. Even Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt and Christian Bale, actors not normally known for eliciting laughs, are funny and engaging in an ensemble cast with no real traditional lead.

What’s most astounding is how the film takes a complex subject and breaks it down into digestible bites. The problem began when financial institutions started packaging risky mortgages as assets to be traded and sold. There’s no real single villain, just a system in which everyone looked the other way -- including the government’s watchdogs -- in order to maintain the appearance of financial stability.

Hilarious and bitter, “The Big Short” is a heist movie in which we’re the ones getting fleeced, and the good guys are the ones pointing to the crime who get dismissed as loons.

Bonus features are pretty decent, though you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray upgrade to get them: the DVD contains none.

These include five making-of documentary shorts: “In the Trenches: Casting,” “The Big Leap: Adam McKay,” “Unlikely Heroes: The Characters of The Big Short,” “The House of Cards: The Rise of the Fall” and “Getting Rea: Recreating an Era.” There are also several deleted scenes.

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Review: "The Big Short"

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a movie as simultaneously funny and angry as “The Big Short.”

Ostensibly a dramatic, spit-flecked tirade against the real estate crash and the widespread financial shenanigans that caused it, the film is also wickedly hilarious, dripping in black humor and rife with sharp one-liners. It’s a smart, insightful howl against a system that was rigged -- and, the movie argues, still is.

Here is a sure Oscar contender, and one of the year’s best films.

Director and co-writer Adam McKay, known for lowbrow comedies often starring Will Ferrell (“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”) unbeloved by me, makes the unlikeliest left turn in Hollywood history. He and Charles Randolph deftly adapt the book by Michael Lewis, celebrating a disparate band of anti-heroes who bet against the real estate market when the rest of the world of high finance, from the most junior broker to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, viewed it as Gibraltar solid.

The most amazing accomplishment of the film, beyond maintaining that bravura blend of wit and fury, is making the complicated world of mortgage financing not only understandable, but turning it into the villain of the piece. We glimpse a few smarmy manipulators, a handful of real estate brokers writing mortgages they know their clients won’t be able to pay, etc. – but they’re cogs in the machine.

Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, a former M.D. who founded his own hedge fund. It was he who first looked at how banks were packaging subprime mortgages and selling the debt as an asset, using volume to hide the millions of cracks in what appeared to most observers to be an unassailable wall of strength. Burry, a kook who runs his office barefoot, bet early and bet big that it would all come tumbling down.

Others took his cue and ran with it, further uncovering pieces of the jumbled puzzle. Steve Carell is terrific as Mark Baum, a money manager operating his own shop under the umbrella of Morgan Stanley. A provocateur who lashes out at those who seek to take advantage of others – an odd disposition for an investor, obviously – Baum sees the looming crisis as less an opportunity than a fount of outrage.

Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett, a slick operator who helps put the pieces together for others and acts as our snide narrator. Brad Pitt turns up as Ben Rickert, a dispossessed trader brought in to act as mentor/facilitator by a pair of young hotshots (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock) who sniff out the opportunity. Pure mercenaries looking for a score at first, they slowly become educated that those numbers on a spreadsheet represent real homes, families, lives.

The story essentially moves forward as a triad, each of the three investor groups experiencing pushback and pressure from their colleagues. Just when we think the house of cards must come tumbling down, it magically stays afloat through the sorcery of confidence and delusion.

Like “Spotlight,” this is an ensemble film that essentially has no central character or leading performances. Only with Carell’s Baum do we learn much about him outside of the office, which provides a little illumination into how somebody dedicated to making money could wear his conscious so plainly on his sleeve. As good as he was in “Foxcatcher,” Carell is even better here.

Even as it lauds the rebels who went against the grain and said ‘no’ when everyone else said ‘yes,’ “The Big Short” never lets us forget that the accounting chicanery that caused the worst recession since the 1930s is the real story. Burry, Baum and company may have won a pile of money for their insight. But we all lost in the big game we didn’t even know was being played.

Video review: "Exodus: Gods and Kings"

Ridley Scott is one of my favorite movie directors, but it’s hard to deny the man is responsible for his fair share of duds. He’s had a bit of a string of them lately, usually as a result of trying to redo previous films that didn’t really need another iteration: 2010’s lackluster “Robin Hood,” the bewildering “Prometheus” from 2012.

“Exodus: Gods and Kings” is essentially Scott’s version of “The Ten Commandments,” with Moses and pharaoh Ramesses duking it out over the fate of the Jewish people, with plagues and miracles descending on high with equal fervor.

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic hasn’t aged well – it plays now as a remarkable artifact of old-Hollywood hokum. But it wasn’t exactly crying out for a remake.

The result is a rather dull affair, with Christian Bale as Moses, a prince of Egypt revealed to be a Jew, spending years in his desert exile communing with the Lord, who takes the form of a small boy. Eventually he returns to Egypt and the predictable special effects fireworks crank up, along with plenty of battles. Here Moses wears armor and comes off closer to Spartacus than the robed holy man of scripture.

We’re further distracted by the heavily mascaraed presence of Joel Edgerton as Ramesses. Gosh knows I am not one to kowtow to politically correct imperatives. But casting an Australian as an Egyptian pharaoh is at least a 9.4 on the scale of White People Screwing Up Historical Stuff.

It’s a nice-looking film, with terrific costumes and sets and CG backdrops. As you’d expect of a Ridley Scott flick, the action scenes are staged crisply and energetically. But the characters all seem so glum and lifeless, as if they’ve been drained of their vital essence. Bale is so dirge-like in his disposition he makes his Bruce Wayne seem like a party animal.

Ultimately, “Exodus” fails the first test of filmmaking: why does this movie need to exist? It doesn’t, and we needn’t bother.

The movie is being given an excellent video release with a spate of bonus features, though you’ll have to pay more for the best stuff.

The DVD comes with eight deleted and extended scenes, plus a feature-length audio commentary track by Scott and co-screenwriter Jeffrey Caine. Upgrade to the Blu-ray, and you add another deleted scene and “The Exodus Historical Guide,” a feature-length trivia track.

Go for the 3-D collector’s edition combo pack, and you add an entire blu-ray disc of bonus features. These include “Keepers of the Covenant,” a feature-length documentary on the making of the film, a historical perspective on Moses, photo galleries, promotional featurettes and more.

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Review: "American Hustle"

In one of his final reviews, the incomparable Roger Ebert declared a film “fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air.” I felt much the same way about “American Hustle,” which boasts an entire crowd of Academy Award-winning and -nominated thespians, one of Hollywood’s most lauded writer/directors, a buzzy historical subject, and a crushing identity crisis.

What the heck is this movie about? Ostensibly, it’s a fictionalized version of the Abscam scandal of 30-odd years ago that led to the conviction of a bunch of Congressmen and other government officials on corruption charges. But in the sprawling, unwieldy adaptation, it seems like merely an excuse for a bunch of actors to dress up in horrid ‘70s fashions and exchange frenetic volleys of dialogue that often make not a lick of sense.

Eric Singer’s screenplay exploring some little-known peculiarities of the imbroglio had languished around Hollywood for years, turning up on lists of the best non-produced scripts. Director David O. Russell did his own rewrite to intentionally turn the real-life characters into caricatures, and make the shenanigans even crazier than they actually were.

(Fittingly, Singer’s original title was “American Bullpucky,” though he used a different word.)

The cast is led by Christian Bale as Irving Rosenfeld, a brilliant but complex con man. Outwardly the role is showy, with Bale putting on weight to gain a big belly, and wearing an elaborate comb-over hairdo, tinted glasses and cheesy facial hair. But Irving lives mostly inside his own head, and sometimes has difficulty putting his schemes into action.

Bale never quite breaks through the wall between an actor’s creation and the audience, and Irving largely remains a sphinx to us.

Irving’s muse and partner in crime is Sydney Prosser, played by Amy Adams, who adopted the persona and lilt of a refined British woman so long ago, it’s taken over her identity. She cares deeply for Irving, for reasons that are unclear to her, and us. Adams gets her own makeover with a poodle perm and necklines that perpetually plunge down to her navel.

The third, and unsteadiest leg of the triad of leading characters is Richie DiMaso, played by Bradley Cooper, who is the FBI agent who busts Sydney and Irving and forces them to become his operatives.

They entrap politicians (including a sharp Jeremy Renner as a New Jersey mayor) with promises of a massive casino financed by a mysterious Arab sheikh. Richie lets the power go to his head, and convinces himself he and Sydney are soul mates.

If you thought this was yet another story about a love triangle, then you’d be wrong, because it’s actually a quadrangle.

Jennifer Lawrence turns up as Irving’s wife, Rosalyn, a walking electric ball of neuroses. Feeling abandoned by her husband’s criminal antics and his attentions for Sydney, Rosalyn inserts herself into the mix by sheer force of will, which proves troublesome when their business dealings wander into the purview of the mafia.

Narratively, Rosalyn doesn’t really serve much purpose in the story, other than to gum up the works and generate chaos. Lawrence is so crackling good, though, that the film goes into a torpor whenever she walks off-screen.

Rounding out the cast is Louis C.K. as Richie’s put-upon boss and Michael Peña as a Mexican-American fed who gets tapped to portray the sheikh. Robert De Niro also makes an uncredited appearance in a familiar role.

The experience of seeing “American Hustle” is like being at a wild party where you don’t know anybody, and find yourself shoved into a corner watching the mayhem happening all around. You never really understand the whats and the whys of it all, and you stroll out the door unchanged from how you were when you walked in, mostly trying to remember who sent the invitation and why you accepted it.

Video review: "The Dark Knight Rises"

The conclusion of the Batman collaboration between director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale is a big, ambitious film just like "The Dark Knight." And also like its predecessor, "The Dark Knight Rises" is overburdened with too many supporting characters and secondary plot lines.

As the story opens, it has been eight years since Bruce Wayne last donned the caped crusader's cowl. Peace has reigned throughout the land, but then a mysterious terrorist named Bane (Thomas Hardy) arrives. He handily defeats Batman in personal combat and takes the reins of Gotham City.

Meanwhile, super-thief Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) plays the lines of loyalty between the two, whispering ominously about a storm brewing to wipe the city's veil of security away.

The biggest problem with Bane, other than the fact that he pales in comparison to Heath Ledger's Joker, is that his motivations never really come into clear relief. Hardy's choice to play him with an odd speech cadence, coupled with Bane's metallic face mask, also make him difficult to understand.

Familiar faces return, including police commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman), loyal Wayne family butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and weapons guru Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). New on the block is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young police detective whose importance becomes clearer late in the going.

It's still a worthy piece of filmmaking, especially for those who like their superhero tales in the dark-and-portentous mode. But I can't help thinking the finale would've been better stripped down and sleeker.

In terms of extras, Blu-ray is the only way to go for the serious videophile. The DVD comes only with a single featurette chronicling Bruce Wayne's journey from zero to hero.

The highlight of the Blu-ray edition is "Ending the Knight," a comprehensive making-of documentary examining virtually every aspect of the filmmaking process, from the story concept to special effects. It also includes a gallery of images and a documentary on the Batmobile, chronicling all five of the dark knight's motorized chariots.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "The Dark Knight Rises"

And so the Batman saga ends, not with a bang but an allegory. Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan has made it clear "The Dark Knight Rises" will be the last movie about the caped crusader -- at least that he will make -- and this knowledge seems to have freed him to make a superhero movie that's different from any other in the genre, one in which the superhero has grown tired of the mask and has to be convinced to put it on again.

It's notable that Christian Bale spends far more screen time out of the Batman costume than in.

It's a big, epic, sprawling movie that, like the last entry four years ago, is too overstuffed with tertiary plot lines and secondary characters for its own good.

And, of course, nothing can replace Heath Ledger's unique, disturbing presence as the Joker. Even though he was captured at the end of the last movie, and at one point Gotham City's prison is busted open for all the criminals to escape, there's no half-hearted (and misguided) attempt to cast another actor in that now-iconic role.

As the story opens, eight years have passed since the events in "The Dark Knight." Wayne has not donned Batman's cowl since then, with the populace mistakenly believing that he killed Harvey Dent, who actually went mad and became Two-Face. Dent has become a symbol of the peaceful good times that have endured since -- thanks in part to some draconian laws put in place in Dent's name.

When we first see Bruce Wayne, he seems to have aged 20 years. He has graying hair and a lined face, and walks around with a cane and a severe limp. He's become a recluse, rarely leaving his mansion despite the urging of loyal butler/henchman Alfred (Michael Caine) to do so. You quit being Batman, Alfred tells him, but you didn't start a new life.

The villain here is Bane, played by Tom Hardy underneath a strange metal mask of tubes and 30 pounds of muscle he put on for the role. Bane is a brilliant terrorist who's utterly unnerving, but whose motives never really come into clear relief. He emerges from a mysterious past, supposedly growing up in darkness inside a pit of a prison, and seems to have dedicated his entire life to destroying Batman and the city he loves. Why? We're never really sure.

When Bane first appears on the scene, Bruce resolves to get back in the game. He is cocky and confident in his gadgets and combat abilities, despite a doctor's assessment that he has no cartilage in his knees and scarred internal organs. He shouldn't even be skiing, let alone tangling with super-strong madmen.

Bane easily defeats Batman in personal combat and exiles him. Bane then steals something really, really powerful that belongs to Bruce Wayne and turns it against Gotham. And then he ... waits five months to unleash the destruction. Which just happens to be enough time for Bruce to convalesce and return to foil his plans.

Hardy makes a few bold performance choices, some of which pay off and some don't. Much has been made about his voice, which can be difficult to understand behind the metallic echo of his mask, which resembles a shark's maw coming at  you. Beyond the comprehension issues, Bane speaks in an oddly-inflected pattern with a stiff sort of formality to it. He also has a habit of placing his hands on the lapels of his coat or armor, like a Dickensian barrister puffing himself up.

The other big addition is Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, a slyly seductive jewel thief who tries to walk a risky line between loyalty to Bane and Batman. Neither really trusts her, or her either of them, but there's a connection between her and Bruce Wayne. He represents the 1% and she makes Occupy Wall Street-ish threats about "a storm coming" to wash away the privileged, which supplies an edge to their banter.

I should mention that no one ever actually calls her Catwoman, and she doesn't wear a costume, other than some minimalist sartorial adornment. It's a surprisingly beefier role than you'd expect, and Hathaway has a strong presence in it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is another important new character as young police detective John Blake -- or, at least, seemingly important. Blake seems to be everywhere during the movie, popping up to assist Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) with a key bit of evidence or even fight alongside Batman. But after the movie I started thinking about what purpose Blake plays in the story, and decided he's really not that pivotal at all, except for that part at the end where ... well, you'll see.

Matthew Modine is another new add as Gordon's right-hand man, Ben Mendelsohn plays a mercenary-minded industrialist making a play for Wayne Enterprises, and Marion Cotillard plays Miranda Tate, a former business partner of Wayne's who got burned on a bad business deal.

Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Bruce Wayne's R&D man, returns to the fold, and apparently has spare Batman suits and gear stuffed in just about every corner of Gotham. Most notably is a flying machine that's part helicopter, part jet and all seriously badass.

I saw this film in a genuine IMAX theater at the Indiana State Museum. More than an hour of the 165-minute film was shot on special IMAX film, and when that entire picture opens up from widescreen to a massive six-story wall of spectacle, it's quite tremendous. This one is definitely worth the ticket upsell.

"The Dark Knight Rises" isn't as good as the last film, but I wouldn't call it a disappointment. If anything, its faults arise from being too ambitious, too big and too much. A shorter film that focused on the dynamic between Batman, Bane and Selina Kyle might've been a better fit for this material. But that's the sort of movie you make when you're starting out something big, not wrapping it up.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "The Fighter"

It's interesting, though perhaps not surprising, that three-quarters of the main cast members of "The Fighter" received Oscar nominations, but not its star, Mark Wahlberg. This despite the fact that the biopic of boxer Micky Ward was Wahlberg's dream project that he'd been trying to put together for the better part of a decade.

Micky was simply not a dominating personality -- as hilarious footage that runs over the end credits proved. Wahlberg reflected this in an understated performance that exists mostly to allow Amy Adams, Melissa Leo and Christian Bale to chew the scenery as (respectively) his brash girlfriend, his dominating mother Alice, and his colossal screw-up of a brother, Dickie.

It's this last dynamic between the brothers that provides the film's rough-and-tumble heart and soul. Most boxing movies fake the tender stuff, preferring to feature the mayhem in the ring. But "The Fighter" truly puts family first.

Dickie was once the pride of Lowell, their hardscrabble hometown, for his own exploits between the ropes. But he's devolved into a loud-mouthed drug addict, who's ostensibly Micky's trainer but mostly rambles around town looking to score.

Bale and Leo both won Oscar statues for their authentic, resonant performances, and Adams showed the world she can play more than princesses and sweet girls-next-door.

But it's Wahlberg, both behind the camera and in front of it, who sacrificed showiness to set up his supporting cast for a knockout. In a business ruled by egos, that's the ultimate rope-a-dope.

Extras are decent for the DVD version, and get better in upgrading to Blu-ray.

The DVD includes a feature-length commentary track by director David O. Russell, as well as "The Warrior's Code," a making-of doc. It also comes with a digital copy of the film, which most DVD releases shamefully lack.

The Blu-ray includes these features plus several deleted scenes with commentary and "Keeping the Faith," a feature that focuses on the real lives of the characters depicted.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

The Year of the Whippersnapper

We're still more than a month away from the announcement of the 2010 Academy Award nominations. Many of the top-contending films have not yet been released in most markets. But I'm making a bold prediction: This year's acting nominations will be notable for the number of young actors given an Oscar nod.

James Franco (age 32) of "127 Hours," Ryan Gosling of "Blue Valentine" (30) and Jesse Eisenberg of "The Social Network" (27) seem like locks to earn Best Actor nominations. In the Best Actress category, Natalie Portman (29) for "Black Swan," Jennifer Lawrence of "Winter's Bone" (20), Michelle Williams (30) of "Blue Valentine" and Carey Mulligan for "Never Let Me Go" -- at age 25, it would be her second nomination in two years -- all appear to have very strong chances.

And in the supporting categories, more youngsters can be expected to compete: Christian Bale (36) for "The Fighter," Andrew Garfield for "The Social Network" (27), Hailee Steinfeld (14) of "True Grit," Amy Adams for "The Fighter" (36) ... and maybe Andrew Garfield again for "Never Let Me Go."

Longer shots out there also lack wrinkled brows or gray hairs: Leonardo DiCaprio (36) for "Inception," Noomi Rapace from "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (31) and maybe even the amazing 13-year-old Chloe Moretz for either of her standout performances of the year: "Kick-Ass" or "Let Me In."

So, tossing all caution aside, I'm ready to declare 2010 the Year of the Whippersnapper.

To understand how this is a break from regular Oscar trends, consider last year's winners: Jeff Bridges (age 60), Sandra Bullock (45), Christopher Waltz (53) and Mo'Nique (42). That's an average age of an even half-century.

The truth is that, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has deigned from time to time to smile upon actors under the age of 40, the broader trend is for its voters to favor veteran thespians with some snow on the roof and a lengthy body of work to cement their reputations.

(In this predilection they would be reflecting ... themselves: The Hollywood Reporter says the average age of Oscar voters is 57.)

And even when younger performers do get nominations, they're usually the exception: One or two youngsters sandwiched between mature actors in their 40s, 50s and beyond.

But what's notable about 2010 is how performers in their teens, 20s and 30s are expected to make not just token appearances when the nominations are announced, but actually dominate the acting categories.

(For the purposes of this article, I'm using the age actors turned the year their film came out, whether or not the movie had been released by their birthday. Thus Matt Damon, a contender in the supporting actor category for "True Grit," was excluded because he turned 40 in October.)

It's true that in addition to the youths listed above, some seasoned names are expected to be read when the nominations are announced Jan. 25. Most notably: Colin Firth, the 50-year-old star of "The King's Speech" who's shaping up as the Best Actor front-runner; and Annette Bening (52), who will make a strong showing for her nuanced turn in "The Kids Are All Right." (Bening's equally strong work in "Mother and Child" has, alas, been mostly overlooked.)

But consider that if all those names at the top of this article did get nominated: Firth would be competing with a field whose average age is a hair under 30 -- while Bening would be surrounded by nominees who, on average, are exactly half her age!

All this is not to disparage the contributions of older actors and actresses. Personally, Hollywood's bias against actors over 60 and actresses older than 40 is something I continually bemoan. (The discrepancy between the genders is another article.)

As I look back on the year in film, though, what strikes me is the cinematic performances that really bowled me over, the ones that made me stand up and take notice, almost invariably came from someone under 40.

Consider young Hailee Steinfeld, who commands the first 30 minutes or so of "True Grit" with such gumption and fire that some observers are claiming her performance belongs in the leading role category of Best Actress. Or Chloe Moretz, whose incredibly foul-mouthed Hit Girl of "Kick-Ass" was the YouTube sensation of this past spring.

James Franco's turn in "127 Hours" was the most emotionally vibrant thing I saw on a screen in 2010, and although I'm not a fan of "Black Swan," even I admit that Natalie Portman gave the performance of her already lengthy career as a fractured ballet dancer.

Jennifer Lawrence, heretofore best known for TV's "The Bill Engvall Show," gave her teen character in "Winter's Bone" a tired inner wisdom that bespoke the maturity of someone in their twilight days.

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling offered us a heartbreaking, detailed portrait of a couple falling and and then out of love in "Blue Valentine." Christian Bale's screwy, squirrelly bravado as a crack addict ex-boxer stole the show in "The Fighter." From the same film, who knew fresh-faced Amy Adams could come off so brassy, yet vulnerable?

And Jesse Eisenberg managed to create a character -- which may or may not resemble the real "Social Network" founder, Mark Zuckerberg -- who was reptilian and mercenary and yet, somehow, charismatic and sympathetic.

Yes, performers nearly always get better as they get older, with the ironic reality that the parts available to them grow correspondingly scarcer. But there's nothing like the thrill of seeing a new face making an impression for the first time, or a relatively familiar one surprising us with a role we never knew they were capable of pulling off.

In 2010, the youngsters led the parade.

Review: "The Fighter"

A lot of boxing movies profess to be about human relationships, when all they really care about is staging mayhem in the ring. Take a look at the "Rocky" movies, in which the fighter's personal life became more and more of a sideshow to the bloodletting.

"The Fighter" is a true anomaly, then: A moving drama about two brothers in which boxing is merely a backdrop for their familial tussles.

Mark Wahlberg plays Micky Ward, a welterweight legendary for his ability to withstand punishment, and Christian Bale is his brother Dickie Eklund, a former contender turned crack addict. Dickie is "The Pride of Lowell," their rough-hewn hometown, skating by on the past glory of having once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard (but lost the fight).

Wahlberg is a solid, emotionally resonant presence as Micky, the little brother perpetually in the shadow who learns to step into the light. But Bale is lights out as Dickie, in a vibrant performance as a skeevy, squirrely screw-up who knows he's a burden on others, but can't shake his bad habits.

With his face leaned out to almost emaciated, broken smile and patchy hair, Bale is a striking, pitiable figure who nevertheless seems to have boundless reserves of energy and cockiness. He's a walking car wreck, and we can't look away.

David O. Russell directs -- his first feature in six years; payback for nasty run-ins with George Clooney and Lily Tomlin? -- with a steady, sure hand. At first glance the Ward/Eklund clan seems like a ridiculous caricature of blue-collar resentfulness and big, awful hairdos. But over time we come to care about this screeching, warring clan.

Melissa Leo, in a terrific performance of her own, plays their mother Alice, whose love for her children is so deep that doesn't see how she strangles them. She insists on acting as Micky's manager and keeping Dickie as the trainer, despite the fact his career is languishing, and Dickie doesn't even show up to workouts.

An HBO camera crew is following Dickie around, and he loudly tells everyone it's for a documentary about his comeback -- despite the fact that he is 40 years old and, as Micky observes, "doesn't have a tooth in his head that's his own." Later, he will be embarrassed by the reflection it shows.

After a promising start, Micky's had a bad run of losses. His situation isn't helped by Dickie cajoling him into a last-minute bout against a fighter who's 20 pounds heavier -- in a sport where ounces and inches are carefully measured and leveraged.

Micky doesn't even have the confidence to approach Charlene (Amy Adams), the plucky bartender at the local hangout, without a shot in the arm from his father (Jack McGee). He takes her to see a subtitled movie on the snobby side of town, not because he's trying to impress her but because he's ashamed to show his battered face in Lowell.

Charlene and Alice are like oil and water -- not to mention Micky's seemingly endless gaggle of sisters, who label Charlene "MTV girl" and see her as pulling their brother away from the family. These women seem silly at first, but you realize the bond they zealously protect is the most important thing in their world.

I kept expecting "The Fighter" to spill into the boxing ring and stay there, but screenwriters Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson wisely keep the focus on the braying, barking family. If you take out the big fight at the end -- which, tellingly, isn't among those Ward fought that sportswriters have dubbed the greatest contests ever -- I doubt there's even 10 minutes of boxing action.

Here's a gut-punch lesson: Sometimes those closest to you can be a poison. And sometimes you've swallowed so much of that venom, you can't stand to have it out of your bloodstream.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Public Enemies"

"Public Enemies" is a slick and stylish drama about John Dillinger and a few other infamous gangsters of the Great Depression era, and the G-men who hunted them down. I'm not sure it really adds up to much, but director Michael Mann ("Heat," "The Insider") spews out such a dense and enchanting cloud of period atmosphere, we don't mind so much that the story occasionally gets lost in the fog.

Johnny Depp gives a fairly straitlaced (for him) performance as Dillinger, playing the Indianapolis-born bank robber as man who (in his own words) likes spending money, movies, fast cars and women. He has an almost icy confidence, brushing aside lawmen and their schemes to catch him as if they were minor annoyances.

The script, by Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, strives to preserve the bulk of historical accuracy regarding Dillinger, but takes a few liberties. For instance, there's a scene right at the height of the manhunt for him when Dillinger is dropping a girl off to get her waitressing license, which happens to be at Chicago police headquarters. So he decides to go in and wander around -- even popping in at the FBI office dedicated to capturing him.

Such a thing is part of Dillinger's legend, and adds to the cinematic version of Dillinger as a man who thought he could always skate by on guts and smarts. And Dillinger really did hide out in the open, bribing police to protect him and making little attempt to conceal his identify from everyday folks.

One day while enjoying the fruits of a recent heist at a nightclub, he spots Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard). While having their first dance, she lets him know she is part American Indian and a mere coat-check girl, facts which put some men off. He returns her honesty by telling her he's John Dillinger, public enemy numero uno.

Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the FBI man assigned to bring Dillinger in. It's not really a mano-e-mano type of relationship like Elliot Ness vs. Al Capone in "The Untouchables." Bale and Depp share only a single scene together, after Dillinger has already been captured (temporarily) by some other lawmen, and taunts Purvis for killing Pretty Boy Floyd with a shot in the back.

Much of the movie's charm comes in crisply-edited depictions of actual Dillinger exploits, such as when he escaped from a Crown Point, Indiana, jail with the use of a wooden gun. There's a terrific scene where Dillinger, having stolen the female sheriff's personal Ford, is idling at a stoplight as a small army of soldiers guards the area. Mann just languidly cuts between Depp, the red light and the soldiers, and lets the moment simmer.

Other capers are just as enjoyable, though clearly pure fiction. One bit has Dillinger and his gang sitting in a movie theater when an announcement comes up about them, warning that Dillinger could be sitting right next to you, and imploring the audience to look around.

The G-men parts of the movie aren't nearly as enticing, with Billy Crudup as a power-hungry J. Edgar Hoover using the press to garner support for increased federal crime fighting power. There's also a subplot about Dillinger getting spurned by the organized mob that's mostly dead end.

At 139 minutes, "Public Enemies" is a bit long-winded. It may not be anything more than a good cops-and-robbers yarn, but the parts that do sing, sing brightly and smart.

3 stars