Review: "Miss Sloane"

Elizabeth Sloane is, by universal assent (including her own estimation), “a real piece of work.”

As played magnificently by Jessica Chastain, “Miss Sloane” is the ultimate Washington D.C. insider – a famed lobbyist who uses all the considerable skills at her disposal, along with a host of nefarious methods, to get what she wants for her clients. Bullying, (barely) legal bribery, non-profit fronts, toadying, outright espionage, bald-faced lying – Sloane sees these things as merely tools in her dark arsenal.

Sloane labels herself a “conviction lobbyist,” meaning she’ll only advocate on behalf of groups or causes she personally supports. But after years gleefully fighting in the trenches and corridors of power, all that really matters for her is getting the win.

At one point her boss, Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), just stands outside her office, stunned by Sloane’s latest act of brazen manipulation upon the body politic. I just want to know, he says, how somebody like you comes to be – how you grew up, what events shaped your personality, and so on. Because Sloane’s actions often seem to indicate the operation of a brilliant mind without even an ounce of conscience.

The story opens with a framing device of Sloane being grilled by a U.S. Senate committee chaired by a glowering politico (John Lithgow) demanding answers about her unseemly methods. So we assume her nefarious history has finally caught up with her.

But as the story goes deeper and we learn more about Sloane and her skillful machinations, we start to wonder whether she’s sitting in the hot seat by choice.

Sloane is the star player at the biggest lobbying firm in town, run by a patriarchal figure (Sam Waterson) who’s been dying to land the gun lobby as a client for years. A new bill is coming up for a vote that would require universal background checks, and they want Sloane to send it down in flames by appealing to women. Sloane literally laughs in their faces, and bolts to a much smaller company backing the measure.

About half her team defects with her, including protégé Jane Molloy (Alison Pill), who regards Sloane as both mentor and cautionary tale. Meanwhile, she’s facing off with her conniving old partner Pat Connors, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays key new ally Esme Manucharian, a passionate gun control advocate with a personal history.

It all plays out in the high-stakes world of the media, as various forces and circumstances align themselves to help or hurt the cause.

Director John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), working with rookie screenwriter Jonathan Perera, give us an intricately plotted political thriller, a drawn-out game of cat and mouse, with a character study in the middle.

Sloane is so busy training her high-powered vision upon her adversaries and allies, there’s not much time for self-exploration of the person behind the façade. She literally doesn’t sleep, subsisting on pills and food from the same Korean BBQ place every night. Sloane even arranges trysts with male escorts to satisfy her basic primal urges; when an urban cowboy type (Jake Lacy) shows up in place of her usual faux beau, it leaves her both miffed and intrigued.

The film touches on the current debate about gun rights vs. control, and there’s certainly a bit of Hollywood moralizing, but it isn’t really about that. It’s just the backdrop for a larger tale about the rot in our political system, and a portrait of one of its chief schemers.

Can one have a noble heart but wallow in corruption? Just how bad do the ends have to get before they cease justifying the means? “Miss Sloane” explores these questions in a slick but probing way.

Review: "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"

"The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" lives up to its name, a pale shadow of its vivacious 2012 predecessor about silver-haired Brits finding new life at a dilapidated hotel in India.

Of course, the filmmakers meant the title as a clever play, as young Indian entrepreneur Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) aims to open a second hotel in the course of the (overly jumbled) story. But still, a movie sequel that seems to declare itself "second best" should at least gain points for honesty.

"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" was a smart and lively dramedy from director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") and screenwriter Ol Parker, who return for the sequel. The basic gist was about English pensioners who find they can't afford a life of quiet ease in their home country, and decamp for the lavishly overpraised Exotic Marigold.

In the end the grimy little hotel got fixed up, as did the lives of the aging Westerners who came here expecting something, and found something quite else. All their storylines got tied up in nice little bows ... and would've stayed that way, except when your $10 million film grosses $137 million worldwide.

Sequels, unnecessary except on an accountant's ledger, become a foregone conclusion.

The main players all return, with new challenges or extensions of their old ones. Widow Evelyn (Judi Dench) is happy doing a little work for a clothing company, until they offer her a full-time job with a team to manage. Her heart's with Douglas (Bill Nighy), an amiable tour guide who split up with his wife at the end of the last movie. But in the classic quandary that befalls only movie characters, neither will simply admit their feelings until the right moment and swell of music comes along.

Persnickety spinster Muriel (Maggie Smith) is busy running the hotel with Sonny, who is soon to be wed to the lovely Sunaina (Tena Desae), if he can keep his jealousy toward an old friend and competitor in check long enough. Sonny wants to buy another nearby hotel and expand the Marigold business model ("Why not die here?"), and needs backing from an American hotel chain, for some reason.

Sonny is living in fear that the would-be partner has sent an evaluator to check out his establishment, and who should show up on his doorstep just in time but a fetching American named Guy (Richard Gere), who claims to be writing a novel by mostly has eyes for Sonny's mother (Lillete Dubey), for reasons that remain mysterious to her, and us.

"The man is so handsome, he has me urgently questioning my own sexuality!" Sonny exclaims, in a typical over-the-top bit of Indian bebop.

Other characters' troubles mostly concern matters of the heart, with former ladies man Norman (Ronald Pickup) worried that his lady friend is stepping out on him. And on-the-make Madge (Celia Imrie) has not one but two rich older Indian gentlemen ready to propose to her, yet seems to hold the most meaningful conversations with her humble driver.

"The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is a pretty transparent attempt to capture lightning in a bottle twice. It's not a bad little flick, and with Dames Smith and Dench around there's no shortage of tart retorts and looks freighted with meaning.

But it's a retread that's tired out of the gate, a contrivance of characters we know will arrive at their fated destinations promptly at the two-hour mark. Predestined, that is, unless this one does well enough to demand a third-best iteration.

Review: "The Debt"

"The Debt" is one of those "problem" movies about which you hear ill tidings. It was supposed to be released in 2010, and purportedly was one of the serious, somber-toned films that was expected to vie for Oscar nominations. But then its release was delayed. And then, it was delayed again.

Sometimes these sorts of films are never heard from again, until finally being pushed out onto video without fanfare. In the case of "The Debt," it's being dumped into theaters at the end of the summer, which is only a slightly kinder fate.

Usually when a movie is handled this way, it's a clear indication the studio thinks the movie has serious problems. Perhaps reshoots or ordered, or a massive re-editing. In any case, a pushed-back release is never a good sign.

So I was pleasantly surprised to encounter a gripping, well-told drama with splendid acting by some seasoned performers as well as younger thespians playing the same characters 30 years earlier.

It's the tale of a trio of Israeli Mossad agents sent  in 1965 to track down and arrest a Nazi doctor who committed unspeakable atrocities during the war. Complications arise, the mission is compromised, and decades later they're still dealing with the consequences of their actions.

No, "The Debt" is not worthy of any Oscar talk, and the last third or so wades into a tar pit of melodrama which bogs down the narrative somewhat. But the film never failed to engage me, and I am the better for having seen it.
The story opens with young Rachel (Jessica Chastain), an untried interpreter-turned-agent. She is guarding a man tied up and gagged in a dingy apartment. From the kitchen, she hears a noise, and returns to find the prisoner gone. He attacks her from the shadows, tearing her cheek open with a sharp object, and after a struggle escapes and flees into the night.

Despite her wounds, Rachel staggers to the window and manages to shoot the man dead with her pistol.
But is this really the whole story? Director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") and a trio of screenwriters -- Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan -- are just winding up. The tale grows deeper, and more twisted in a labyrinth of emotions and morality conflicts.

We soon meet Rachel's older self in the 1990s, played by Helen Mirren. With the twisted scar on her face and disqueting mien, she's become a hardened woman not to be trifled with.

We also learn that Rachel eventually married, and then divorced, the leader of her team, Stefan, played by Marton Csokas in 1965 and Tom Wilkinson later in life. Stefan was a supremely ambitious young agent, who purused Rachel more out of arrogance than affection, and has become a powerful figure in Israeli government.

The coupling of Rachel and Stefan is perplexing, because from their first meeting it's apparent that Rachel is powerfully drawn to David (Sam Worthington), the third member of their team. Whereas Stefan is boastful and domineering, David is quiet and reticent in displaying his feelings.

Stefan wants to capture Vogel, the so-called Surgeon of Birkinauw, because it was be a major feather in his cap career-wise. David, though, is motivated by a burning desire to capture those who persecuted Jews and see them punished.

Cirian Hinds plays the older David, long missing from the scene and suddenly reapparing with an request that could turn all their lives upside down.

Vogel is played by Jesper Christensen in a mesmerizing performance that's a mix of loathsomeness and charm. Rachel first seems him by posing as a patient with a fertility problem, and the doctor seems genuinely kind and concerned for her (fake) dilemma. But then when things go awry with the plant to smuggle him out of East Berlin, he slowly reveals the blackest of hearts to the trio holding him. With his taunts and his needling questions, in many ways Vogel becomes the captor of the agents, rather than the other way around.

The romantic entanglements of the three main characters detracts rather than adds to the story, in my opinion. The scenes where Stefan makes his moves on Rachel, as David quietly seethes, have an obligatory feel to them.

Still, "The Debt" is a well-made film, featuring two trios of fine actors and a seventh memorably playing their quarry. This is a worthy movie, despite how it's being treated.

3 stars