Review: "Marshall"

Chadwick Boseman has played James Brown and Jackie Robinson on the big screen, superlative performances both, and completes a trifecta of historical biopics with "Marshall," an engaging look at Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall during an early point in his career when he was a rabble-rousing lawyer for the NAACP.

The movie is a straight-down-the-line "great man" drama that does everything very well without taking any chances or breaking new ground. The only unexpected turn is Boseman's take on the legal giant, portraying him as brash bordering on cocky, a two-fisted drinker who also uses those same knuckles against fat-faced racists when they inevitably come a-knockin', in a scene that's a bit of pure Hollywood hokum.

(Question: why are all the villains in historical racial injustice stories big, beefy guys? Didn't they have any lean racists back in the day?)

Josh Gad co-stars as Sam Friedman, a mousy insurance attorney in Bridgeport, Ct., who gets roped into being Marshall's partner in the trial, because the patrician judge (James Cromwell) doesn't want to approve any uppity (code word) out-of-town lawyers for the sensational case. He's also good friends and former law partners with the dad of the prosecutor, played by Dan Stevens in full flaring nostrils mode.

Set in 1941, the story (screenplay by Jacob and Michael Koskoff) centers on a rather unknown part of Marshall's life, when he acted as co-counsel in the defense of Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), an African-American chauffeur who was accused of brutally raping his master's... oops, excuse me, employer's wife, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson).

The case has enraged the entire community, the sort of thing we usually only see in Southern cinematic settings. Marshall is the only attorney for the legal defense fund of the NAACP, making it his business to travel around the country defending black people falsely accused of crimes because of their race.

"Marshall" is directed by Reginald Hudlin, who was one of Hollywood's busiest directors during the 1990s but hasn't made a feature film in 15 years. He gets terrific performances out of his cast, and shoots the film beautifully with vintage cars and costumes. (Boseman is decked out in gorgeously contrasting three-piece suits.)

The heart of the film is the relationship with Friedman. It's nice to see Gad doing a non-comedic, non-musical role for once. He plays Friedman as a timid man who comes to discover reservoirs of iron underneath his nebbish facade.

It's not a partnership of equals: because Marshall is forbidden to speak at trial by the judge, Friedman essentially acts as his co-counsel's puppet in the early going, gradually coming into his own as a lawyer and as a man because of Marshall's tutoring.

On the one hand, I recognize that "Marshall" is rather conventional filmmaking, setting us up with the usual surprises and changes in tempo. (You can practically count down to the moment when Marshall and Friedman, having come to gain a measure of respect for each other, are split by circumstance and renew their hostilities.)

But it's hard to deny this is a smartly acted, entertaining movie about one of the titans of the civil rights movement. What "Marshall" lacks in originality it more than makes up for with assured confidence and capability.

Review: "Deepwater Horizon"

There are a lot of ways you could have attacked the story of Deepwater Horizon: emblem of corporate corruption, biggest oil disaster in world history, one selfless hero saving the day, etc. Director Peter Berg and screenwriters Matthew Sand and Matthew Michael Carnahan took the most obvious, but probably also the most dramatically effective route, turning “Deepwater Horizon” into a big-budget disaster flick.

The 2010 explosion of the Transocean oil rig spewed 210 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in massive environmental catastrophe whose effects are still being felt today. Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell play the leaders who struggle to stop the crisis and save lives.

An effective crew of supporting actors make up the chorus of other victims, notably Ethan Suplee, Gina Rodriguez and Dylan O’Brien. John Malkovich and James DuMont provide the villains, sniveling corporate honchos hanging around behind the workers, demanding that safety measures by shortcut to maximize profits.

The film, which is based on a detailed reconstruction of events by the New York Times, is viscerally gripping -- once the action gets going.

Until then, it’s a barely comprehensible mishmash of industry jargon and manly chest-puffing. The sound mix on the version I saw was poor, so it’s often hard to comprehend the dialogue. (Malkovich’s Louisiana accent, slathered on heavy like sugar on beignets, doesn’t help.)

Once the blowout of the drill occurs, seeping gas that turns the entire rig into an inferno, the film finds its footing and its verve. The rest of the way is a moment-by-moment banquet of terror and bravery, as men (and a woman or two) struggle to keep the rig from floating off course, snapping the line sunk deep into the ocean floor.

Wahlberg’s Mike Williams is chief electric technician, which makes him the top safety advocate onboard. Russell plays Jimmy “Mr. Jimmy” Harrell, the revered rig chief who commands the respect of his blue-collar crew. They’re both old-school film hero types, taciturn and direct, who believe in doing a job right rather than half-assing it and leaving a mess for the next guy.

But the construction of this project is already 43 days past schedule -- “the well from hell,” the crew dubs it -- which means millions in lost profits to the BP executives, who have come to pay a “friendly” visit. Ostensibly they’re there to laud Harrell and his team for their exemplary safety record. (No Hollywood hoke here.) But their real purpose is to push things along and cut corners.

“Hope ain’t a tactic,” Mike warns, to deaf ears.

The conflict quickly leads to disaster, as a geyser of mud, oil and gas storms up the line, resulting in back-breaking explosions that killed 11 crew. Kate Hudson plays Wahlberg’s wife, doing the usual disaster-movie-wife thing, making frantic calls and providing an emotional presence amid the storm.

Berg fills his screen with impressive blooms of fire, and accompanied with the near-constant impact of shrapnel raining down like bullets, it makes for a truly harrowing hellscape of death and destruction.

“Deepwater Horizon” accomplishes several things well, including rendering how the accident unfolded understandable for a general audience. Investigations have concluded it was a scenario in which virtually everything that could go wrong, did.

The film also vividly chronicles the peril the crew members faced, including the often competing impulses to do their jobs or save their own necks. A lot of people have a negative view of the oil industry, often well-deserved, but the movie uncovers not a small measure of nobility underneath the grimy surface.

Review: "Nine"

As a musical, "Nine" is fairly enjoyable. There's a lot of pageantry, dancing, gorgeous costumes and equally gorgeous women wearing them. The songs aren't really strong enough to make you want to rush out and buy the soundtrack, but the actors, mostly non-professional singers, carry them off fairly well.

As a story, though, this film version of the Broadway show -- which, in turn, was adapted from Federico Fellini's seminal autobiographical film "8½" -- "Nine" leaves much to be desired.

It's the tale of Guido Contini, a successful Italian movie director struggling to make his 9th film, though he doesn't have a script or even a notion of what it's about. Nonetheless, sets are being built and costumes being stitched, and the flurry of activity at the studio has an undercurrent of panic because his last two flicks were flops.

Meanwhile, his personal life is a shambles as he juggles his wife, mistress and lead actress, all vying for attention.

Now, let me get my biases right off my chest here: I'm not a big fan of movies about tortured artists. Whenever a film endeavors to convince us how much people who paint or write or direct have to suffer for their art, it makes me want to watch them dig sewage ditches or teach at an inner-city high school, just so they'd know what real hardship is.

Filmmakers using their art medium to contemplate their own role in creating it just strikes me as wretchedly narcissistic.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Guido, who makes us like him a little bit by acknowledging in his opening song that he's a 10-year-old boy housed in the body of a man nearly 50. He knows he's headed for a cliff, creatively and romantically, but he just can't take his foot off the gas.

Day-Lewis nails the Italian accent, and makes for a striking figure with his head and shoulders perpetually hunched like he's expecting a blow. His singing is just so-so, though he only performs a couple of tunes.

The rest of the songs are sung by the various women in Guido's life, swirling through his imagined movie as they represent different aspects of his own fantasies and delusions.

The best song, and singer, is "Be Italian," sung by pop star Fergie (aka Stacy Ferguson) from the Black Eyed Peas. She plays Saraghina, a beach-dwelling prostitute who taught Guido a few things about love when he was a boy.

We already knew Marion Cotillard (who plays Guido's wife Luisa) could sing from her Oscar-winning performance in "La Vie En Rose." So it's no surprise that she pulls off her two songs quite well, particularly the raging emotions of "Take It All."

Nicole Kidman (as Guido's leading lady) also does well with "Unusual Way," as does Penelope Cruz (as Guido's desperately needy mistress) with the torch song "A Call From the Vatican."

Judi Dench, as Guido's longtime costume designer and confidant, is less impressive with her tune, and Sophia Loren's lullaby as Guido's mother is so short it seems tacked on just to give an excuse to include the Italian screen legend.

Kate Hudson, playing a nosy American journalist, has fun with the upbeat "Cinema Italiano," which was not in the stage version but was written exclusively for this film.

Director Rob Marshall ("Chicago") is a dazzling visualist, and the musical scenes hum along under their own energy and momentum. Whenever the music stops, though, "Nine" is revealed as a silly story in need of a chair.

2.5 stars

Review: "Bride Wars"

Catching up with a flick that came out a couple of Fridays ago. I had a chance to see it early and post a review on opening day, but that was in the middle of my gout bout.

"Bride Wars" is the sort of movie that seeing the preview pretty much gives you a two-minute version of the whole movie. Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play friends since childhood who have always dreamed of getting married in June at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Lo and behold, they both get engaged at the same time, but a screw-up by the world's most powerful wedding planner (Candice Bergen, who seems consigned to these sorts of brittle old battle axe roles now) leads to them being booked on the same day. Neither will budge their dream wedding date, so it's all-out war where these BFFs turn into bridezillas from hell.

If you've seen the preview, then you already know the terrible tortures they inflict on each other in order to convince the other to blink. Rich treats are sent to one's office to make her pork up so much she can't fit into her Vera Wang dress. A sabotaged tanning booth turns Hathaway into a carrot-colored disaster. Hudson's hair gets turned blue. And so on.

Of course, in the process both terribly miss their close friend, even as they resort to the nastiest of tactics, and re-examine their relationships with their grooms-to-be -- remember them? The movie barely does.

As someone who recently went through this process himself, I have many thoughts on over-indulgent weddings. The first is that anyone who would spend six figures on a wedding has entirely too much money, and needs to be smacked. The second is that while it's OK for a woman to dream about her wedding day, obsessively planning it for years is psychotic. Anybody who would run into their beloved's office and loudly demand to be married, as Hudson character's does, deserves to be alone forever.

Finally, the obvious solution of a double wedding is presented and then pitched overboard without any reasonable justification -- other than the filmmakers' need for this bride war to happen, logic be damned.

Whenever people ask me how a male critic can review a chick flick, I respond that I have no objection to good chick flicks. "Bride Wars" is not one of them.

Hurray for ... January?

January used to be the absolute pits for movies. All the big holiday movies came out in November and December, and the studios didn't start rolling out their good stuff until Spring.

Changes in recent years, though, have led to January becoming one of the better months for new movies, apart from the summer and holiday seasons.

First, the Academy Awards got moved up to February, which ended up compressing the time frame where ambitious films could get noticed. Some Oscar hopefuls started opting out of the crush, debuting in just a few cities in December to qualify, then waiting until January for their big roll-out. "Million Dollar Baby" followed this strategy a few years ago with virtually no hype, had January essentially to itself, and the money and golden statues rolled in.

Now many of the big Oscar wannabes are waiting until January to hit most markets, including "Gran Torino," "The Reader," "Defiance," "The Wrestler," "Revolutionary Road" and several others.

More importantly, studios have discovered that if you put out good movies during what is normally considered a slow time, avid movie-goers will show up.

So this month, in addition to those other movies mentioned above, some high-profile releases are slated. They include "Notorious," a biopic of rapper Biggie Smalls; "Bride Wars" with Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson; the third installment in the "Underworld" franchise; and the Rene Zellwegger romcom "New in Town."

Worthwhile movies in January ... whoda thunk it?