Review: "Captain Fantastic"

“Captain Fantastic” is about a rebel who learns the limits of rebellion. Viggo Mortensen plays Ben Cash, who long ago gave up on Western civilization and is raising his six kids in the woods like primitive American Indians.

They grow or hunt their own food -- the opening scene is of his eldest son tackling a deer and slitting its throat, thereby marking his ascension into manhood. They keep some books and musical instruments to feed their minds and souls, and have an old tour bus for rare trips into town for mail, phone calls and to barter their handmade goods.

Otherwise, they’re doing the Thoreau thing to such an extreme even Bernie Sanders might find their liberalism in need of watering down. They celebrate Noam Chomsky’s birthday instead of Christmas, for God’s sake.

Then Ben’s wife, who has been hospitalized for some time with mental illness, dies, and he and the children undertake an adventure to attend the funeral in New Mexico and see that her last wishes are honored -- namely, cremation and flushing down the nearest toilet. Mom (Trin Miller, glimpsed only in flashbacks and visions) may have been schizophrenic and depressed, but she did not lack a sense of humor.

This means confronting modern American society, which to the kids is as alien as Jupiter, with its heffalump-sized people, violent video games and obsession with material stuff. Representing the epitome of The Man is Ben’s father-in-law (Frank Langella), a rich and connected fellow who has forbidden the motley clan from attending the burial ceremony.

The two men, representing arch extremes of the American Dream, are set up for an inevitable showdown.

If this were all there was to the movie, then I doubt I would’ve admired “Captain Fantastic” as much as I did. Sure, Mortensen has a sly, dry charisma to his performance, the kids are distinctive and authentic, and there’s plenty of comedic material in their encounters with everyday awfulness.

“What’s cola?” one munchkin asks during an impromptu (and abortive) visit to a diner. “Poison water,” Ben deadpans.

But writer/director Matt Ross -- who won the director award at the Cannes Film Festival -- takes the next, more ambitious steps. Without giving too much away, the movie shows the supremely confident Ben confronted with his own ego. He’s forced to recognize that the super-kids he’s raising are still just children, and have needs beyond the intense home-schooling and survival skills he imparts with a stern hand.

The relationship between Ben and his children is at the heart of the movie. Each child actor shines, creating a distinct personality that stands out while assimilating into the group’s commune existence.

George MacKay plays Bodevan, the eldest. (All the children have unique names, so they’re the only one of them in the world.) Though he’s smart enough to get into every Ivy League school -- applications made without his father’s knowledge -- Bo finds he knows little of the real world, especially young women.

Kielyr and Vespyr (Samantha Isler and Annalise Basso) are the red-haired voices of reason and contemplation. Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) is the tween and resident rebel, and the most eager to leave the cloistered home. Zaja (Shree Crooks) is 8 years old but can already give an insightful overview of the Citizens United Supreme Court case. Nai (Charlie Shotwell) is the youngest and most mercurial, having to be reminded to wear clothes at meals.

(Though Dad also needs such reminders, as we see in a brief encounter with Mortensen breaking his fast.)

“Captain Fantastic” is a very entertaining film, but I was impressed by its willingness to question its own premise. Here is a family with its own very radical interpretation of independence, finding that true wisdom isn’t relegated to a single place or creed.

Review: "Draft Day"

"Draft Day" has a reliable veteran star (Kevin Costner) and an old-hand director (Ivan Reitman) but a pair of rookie screenwriters, and it shows.

Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman fall into the newbie trap of thinking more is more. They've got a great, uncomplicated premise: the general manager of the Cleveland Browns football team is desperately scrambling to make a splash on NFL Draft Day, furiously working the phones and making seemingly desperate trades as the minutes tick by.

Made with the full cooperation of the National Football League and ESPN, plus the participation of dozens of football luminaries and media figures, it has the authentic feel of a peek behind doors than remain largely closed to fans. Now, that's an intriguing enough premise out of which to milk plenty of drama, laughs and tears.

But the screenwriters keep going, and going ... and then they go a little further. They pile challenge after interpersonal challenge atop the head of their protagonist, Sonny Weaver Jr. (Costner). It's supposed to ratchet up the tension, but the story ends up with so many distractions it's hard for the main narrative to gain traction till the end.

Start with the fact that he's got an overbearing team owner (Frank Langella) who'd like nothing better than to can his GM if the day doesn't play out right. And Sonny's dad, the legendary coach of the Browns, died last week ... after Sonny fired him the previous season. He's got his brittle mother (Ellen Burstyn) butting into his affairs. Plus he's been having an affair on the sly with an underling (Jennifer Garner), and now she wants to be more than the secret girlfriend ... oh, and they've just learned they're having a baby, too.

And that's before we even get into the minutia of the actual football draft, with the various potential players, their parents and agents, and assorted intrigues.

Sonny suspects the sure-fire #1 quarterback (Josh Pence) is a bust. He's rather pick the lower-profile defensive player of proven character (Chadwick Boseman). There's also pressure to choose a sleek running back (Arian Foster) who's the son of a favorite Browns player.

The movie finally comes through after a very slow start, and the last 45 minutes or so are extremely engaging as the actual draft drama plays out. Just when you think he's done, Sonny whips out another card from up his sleeve.

Frankly, Costner is probably about 15 years too old for this role. (A maverick guy in his mid-40s contemplating fatherhood and putting down roots is fascinating; pushing 60, it's just pathetic.) But he brings a well-worn, no-nonsense solidity to the role. His Sonny feels put-upon and doesn't carry a big ego, but there's a well-tended fire in his belly. He's a naturally cautious guy desperate to throw one long bomb and hope for the best.

I also enjoyed Denis Leary as Vince Penn, the new-ish coach of the Browns who's constantly knocking heads with his boss. Puckish and manipulative, a guy who clearly thinks he's the big fish in what he considers a small pond, Vince has his own ideas about who to draft. And if that means throwing his GM under the bus to get his way, then that's what winners do.

Reitman, better known for comedy and lacking a genuine hit for 20 years, hits his stride just when the material does, when the actual draft starts. You've got that built-in pressure of having to make your pick before the time runs out or getting leapfrogged by other teams, a tension that Reitman uses well to his advantage.

(That made sound like showbiz hooey, but it's actually happened a couple of times in recent years.)

This movie would have been much better served, though, by winnowing down the side characters and subplots and focusing on the meat of what is a really compelling story. That's playing to your strengths, something every good veteran should know.

Review: "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" starts out as a big-stakes film attempting a grand statement about the rift lines in the machine of American capitalism. It ends up going small-time, as a miserly story about people we do not understand behaving in ways we don't believe.

It has been 23 years since Oliver Stone solidified the image of the Decade of Greed in the pop culture zeitgeist, and the sequel wants to be an update of how things have changed -- for the worse. It's set in 2008, when our entire financial system nearly sputtered to a standstill, and instead of being the merchant of inside information, this time Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) has positioned himself as the oracle of fiscal sanity.

Or is he?

After spending eight years in prison for insider trading and other crimes, Gekko is out hocking his book, "Is Greed Good?" He gives speeches to rapt audiences talking about how the leveraged debt and other shady dealings carried on now put anything he did to shame.

"While I was away it seems greed got greedier, with a little bit of envy mixed in," he says.

His would-be protege this time is Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a hungry young trader with a passion for green technology. He's also engaged to one Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), the estranged daughter of Gordon. She won't speak to her dad, and runs an anti-Wall Street web site called Frozen Truth.

Now, think about that for a minute. Here's a principled young woman who despises her father, despises the abuses of the financial markets, and has centered her career around denigrating them both. And yet she would fall for a young shark like Jake who relishes making deals and cutting the throats of the competition? The sort of guy who buys her an engagement ring worth a house in the suburbs?

Winnie remains an unbelievable figure throughout. She's supposed to be smart, but a few words from Jake and she's ready to turn over the keys to her family legacy (amortizing in a Swiss bank) to him. A few words from Gordon and she's ready to forgive him, too.

Stone was never very good with centered, plausible female characters, and Winnie is just another in a long line of women who exist merely to further the plot.

The heavy is Bretton James (Josh Brolin), head of the powerful firm of Churchill-Schwartz. There's bad blood between him and Gekko, and Gordon's looking to use Jake to exact a little revenge -- some for himself, and some for sending Jake's company down the tubes, and his beloved mentor (Frank Langella) along with it.

But Bretton throws them a surprise, by offering Jake a job instead of crushing him. Soon the idealistic young Jake is inside the enemy's camp, carrying water for Gekko and keeping secrets from Winnie. At this point, a little more than halfway through, the movie has no more secrets that we haven't already guessed.

Stone displays his usual visual flair, sending his camera spinning around stock tickers and up and down the sleek walls of Wall Street, showing us the environment of steel dedicated to the hoarding of wealth for its own sake. "Money is a one-eyed bitch who lays in bed staring at you ... if you're not careful, in the morning she'll be gone," is how Gekko puts it.

The screenplay by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff is filled with zippy dialogue and crisp scenes. I especially liked one where Gekko, having dinner with Winnie and Jake at a swank Manhattan restaurant, greets one of the Wall Street titans and the guy blows him off, not even recognizing him. Douglas gives a terrific reaction that reveals his mortification -- not at the social faux pas, but at the fact it demonstrates he's not a player anymore.

I also loved when Gekko calls a bunch of college students the "Ninja generation": No income, no jobs or assets.

But despite these slick elements, the movie is a confused mix of personal story and indictment of the financial sector that never really tie together. The central dynamic seems to be whether Gekko has truly reformed or not, but he's really a secondary character who flits in and out of the background for most of the film, until he takes on a sudden importance close to the end.

The Bretton James angle holds no mystery -- the way Brolin snorts and glares, we know it's just a matter of time before he's buried under a mountain of his own arrogant missteps.

Fairly or not, "Wall Street" nailed the culture of avarice that undeniably existed in the 1980s ... but so it did in the '90s, '00s and every decade before (and will after). Stone's haphazard sequel reshuffles the deck, but relies on the same old cinematic card tricks.

2 stars out of four

"Frost/Nixon"

I've finally seen all the big contenders. "Frost/Nixon" was the only Oscar hopeful that I was not able to see in advance, and we rectified it with an afternoon screening at AMC Castleton.

(A couple of quick asides before I get to the meat of the review. Why was this movie playing exclusively at Castleton instead of the Landmark "art cinema" a few miles to the west? By playing more mainstream fare and now letting some of the bigger indie films be booked elsewhere, Landmark is in danger of losing its reputation as the place to go for alternative cinema in Indianapolis. Also, AMC charged us the full admission price of $19 to attend a 4:20 p.m. show. Before long they'll be claiming that a 2:30 show is not a matinee.)

"Frost/Nixon" would not have made my Top 10 List had I seen it in time, but it would be very close -- let's call it No. 11. It's a solid political/media drama, nowhere in the class of heavyweights like "All the President's Men," but comfortably ensconced in that second tier of worthy efforts like "Primary Colors." It's not to be missed mainly because of Frank Langella's powerhouse performance as Richard Nixon.

Now, Langella looks and sounds absolutely nothing like Nixon. But in his mannerisms and the way he pitches his voice, we believe that he could be the 37th president, who resigned in disgrace after the Watergate cover-up. Langella has gotten to the essence of the man -- the grandeur, the venality, the puckish impudence against those who looked down on his humble origins. The actor has captured the man, in a way that I think Josh Brolin did not do with George W. Bush in "W." Watching that film, I never thought I was looking at anything other than Oliver Stone's own green-eyed interpretation of a president he despises. Frank Langella's Nixon carries a piece of the real man's spirit in his pocket.

Less successful as a performance and as a character is Michael Sheen as David Frost, the British talk show fop who somehow managed to be the one who gave Nixon the only real grilling he ever got over his crimes. Frost is depicted as a man who always had a genial, lightweight front put up before him. If that is true, they were too successful in portraying him, since we never get to see behind the facade. Oh, there are scenes of him pleading with an advertiser or network honcho and calling friends for cash to make the Nixon interview happen, but they center more on the process than the man. David Frost remains an affable, good-looking enigma, which is perhaps appropriate since he his role was to ask the questions, not exist as the answer.

The film, written by Peter Morgan and based on his play, is beautifully shot by Ron Howard, whose visual style has grown admirably from his early beginnings. The scenes of Nixon at his retirement estate at San Clemente are hauntingly evocative -- the fallen king doomed to dole out his remaining years in powerless exile, chewing the bitter root of his failings. It reminds me of some of the later scenes in "Citizen Kane," and the real man it was based on, William Randolph Hearst, stewing in his own overblown castle a few hundred miles north on the California coast.

The story reaches a crescendo with the actual tapings of the interview, which start out horribly for Frost, before he finally gets his licks in when discussing Watergate.

Nixon comes across more charismatic than you'd think, a man who ascended the ladder of power by sheer grit and ruthless determination, and was brought down by the vindictive things he did to get and retain power. In many ways, the qualities that got Richard Nixon to the White House determined that he would exit it so ignobly. "Frost/Nixon" is a compelling peek at his legacy, and his shame.

3.5 stars out of four