Review: "Patriots Day"

The Boston Marathon bombing was less than four years ago, but already it seems a deeply embedded piece of our national lore, like a piece of shrapnel in our collective soul. Two Chechen brothers with radical Islamist sympathies planted a pair of improvised bombs along the race route, killing three people, including a child, and injuring hundreds of others.

The sight of Boylston Street spattered with blood and limbs is not something any of us should soon forget -- or want to.

“Patriots Day” is a painstaking recreation of that fateful day, from the early morning hours leading up to the attack to the time the Tsarnaev brothers were captured and killed. It takes the form of a police procedural, following parallel paths of the domestic terrorists and the army of law enforcement chasing them.

Director Peter Berg, who co-wrote the script with Matt Cook and Joshua Zetumer, based on the book “Boston Strong” by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, has delivered an unrelentingly grim film that somehow leaves us with a sense of hope and community. It takes pains not to depict the perpetrators as soulless vessels, the victims as mere statistics or the cops as faceless automatons.

There are many powerful images and moments that will linger for me. Such as a young bride waking up after the blast, seeing that both her and her husband’s legs have been torn to pieces, and choosing to bind up his wounds before her own. Or a father, his body similarly shredded, trying to prevent a rescue worker from whisking his toddler son to safety.

Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Kevin Bacon and J. K. Simmons play the main roles as police officers on the chase, and are all resolute and effective. Wahlberg plays Boston Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders, while John Goodman is Police Commissioner Ed Davis. Bacon plays the FBI guy, Richard DesLauriers, brought in to lead the investigation, and Simmons is Jeffrey Pugliese, the sergeant in nearby Watertown who become involved when the chase led to his sleepy burg.

It’s a fine and realistic portrait of dedicated men with strong personalities trying to do an important job, and occasionally getting into beefs with each other. The feds-versus-locals is a common theme in crime stories, and we also get to see how politics plays into events like these, with Michael Beach as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, pushing for more information to be released to the public.

Alex Wolff and Themo Melikidze play Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan. It’s essentially an abusive relationship, with the older married Tamerlan constantly bullying his 19-year-old brother, a seemingly normal college student who’d probably be spending his days smoking weed and cutting classes if not for his radicalized sibling’s harassment.

Like the best historical reenactments, I learned things about a wildly publicized event that I hadn’t previously known. Like the Tsarnaevs kidnapping a young Chinese-American businessman (Jimmy O. Yang) and forcing him to ride around with them in his brand-new SUV for hours. Or the assassination of an MIT cop sitting in his vehicle. Or the extent of the firefight they engaged in with Watertown cops, complete with pipe bombs and vehicles rocketed into the air.

Wahlberg is the biggest star in the movie, but there’s no real main character in this ensemble cast. His police sergeant is an amalgam of several different officers, which I might normally find objectionable but I think works narratively here.

This way the audience can experience a continuous face from the scene of the bombing to the behind-the-scenes forensic investigation that quickly pinpointed the Tsarnaevs to the actual manhunt. He serves as the locus of the story, a source of constancy amid a tumult of faces and details.

His character has a bum knee that he aggravates right before the marathon, so he spends the whole movie hobbling around. The fact that he’s already wounded on the outside gives him a connection to the victims we comprehend at a visceral level.

“Patriots Day” is a hard movie to watch, but ultimately an extremely rewarding one. It’s only at their worst that people show us their best.

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: "Lone Survivor"

Imagine you find yourself stuck in a situation where you must take innocent lives, or risk your own. Not only that, but an evil man lives while your comrades perish.

That was the plight facing four Navy SEALs in 2005 while hunting a Taliban leader in remote Afghanistan. Ultimately they made the moral choice, but it sealed the fate of all but one of them.

That’s the based-on-a-true-story premise of “Lone Survivor,” a powerful new action-drama starring Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster as the soldiers. Expertly crafted and harrowing, it’s not an especially deep film, falling back on firefights and familiar “band of brothers” tropes.

But in capturing the horror and confusion of modern combat, it’s as good as anything that has come along since “Black Hawk Down.”

Wahlberg plays Marcus Luttrell, the survivor who wrote the book upon which the movie is based. He’s an older, more seasoned SEAL, the voice of moderation and the guy the rest of the company turns to advice, whether it’s about mission equipment or what type of horse he should buy his fiancée as a wedding present.

Kitsch is Michael Murphy, the lieutenant and squad leader. He’s something of a legend among the SEALs, and lives up to his rep. Ben Foster, the excellent character actor, is terrific as Matt “Axe” Axelson, the hardcase sniper. And Emile Hirsch plays Danny Dietz, the youngest team member and communications man.

The mission was to drop into a hostile zone in Afghanistan where Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami) is known to be staying, and take him out. But while waiting for nightfall, three goat herders stumble across the soldiers, one an old man and another a young boy.

An argument breaks out over their options: kill the shepherds? Tie them up and face certain death from wolves or freezing temperatures? Or let them go, risking they’ll run right to Shah and bring down a small army of Taliban fighters on their head?

Ultimately, they made the third choice. Tellingly, writer/director Peter Berg makes these soldiers self-aware men who are cognizant of their place in a media-saturated world. Killing the shepherds, who are in possession of a satellite phone and almost certainly are pawns of the enemy, is undoubtedly the smartest movie from a Machiavellian standpoint. But, as Marcus points out, word will get out: “‘SEALs kill kids.’ That’ll be what they say on CNN,” he predicts.

From there, the film moves straight into action mode, with the ranging battle between the Americans and Taliban taking on a frightening verisimilitude. The SEALs have the superior experience and training, but they’re still four men up against dozens.

All the soldiers are grievously wounded, both by bullets and the necessity of throwing themselves off not one, but two cliffs to escape. It’s a testament to how much punishment the human body can take in extreme circumstances.

Eventually the only one left alive, Marcus makes his way to a nearby village, where he encounters a tribal leader (Ali Suliman) and more peril, but also a sort of bravery that rivals that of the SEALs.

Ultimately, “Lone Survivor” is an action-drama that lays more emphasis on the action part than the drama. But the firefight scenes are realistic and unnerving, and all four actors draw distinct portraits of young men at war.

Video review: "Battleship"

A light-in-the-loafers action flick with pretensions of becoming a serious drama, "Battleship" is half of a decent summer movie.

The second hour, in which Navy sailors go toe-to-toe with some evil creatures from outer space, is entertaining in a carefree way, even if it is totally preposterous. It ends with them pulling a retired World War II battleship out of retirement to turn its big guns on the alien ships -- which can fly but for some reason stay entirely over the ocean, making for convenient targets.

This film flopped here in the U.S. but did terrific business overseas. Perhaps foreign folks learned the secret to "Battleship" -- skip the first 45 minutes and you'll have a good time.

Liam Neeson was in all the trailers, but Taylor Kitsch is the star, playing a standard-issue bad boy who learns to calm his rebellious nature and work as part of a team. Somehow, despite being in the Navy for what seems like a minute and a half, he winds up commanding the battle against the buggy bad guys.

If only director Peter Berg and screenwriting siblings Erich and Jon Hoeber had been content to crank out a simple fun shoot-em-up instead of boring us with an overlong windup, "Battleship" would have packed more punch.

For the film's few fans, they'll at least be pleased to know it has been given a top-notch video release, especially if you opt for the Blu-ray edition.

The DVD version comes with two making-of featurettes focusing on how to turn a board game into a blockbuster. These include cast interviews with actors talking about how it felt to be in the middle of a (simulated) firefight.

Upgrade to Blu-ray, and you get plenty more goodies, including "Second Screen," an interactive viewing experience that works with a networked tablet or computer. This includes 3D modeling of aliens, spaceships and explosions.

Other extras include a tour of the U.S.S. Missouri, behind-the-scenes humor and a featurette on visual effects.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Battleship"

I don't have a problem with video game movies. I like video games, and I like movies, and despite the protestations of some cinematic purists, it's a natural fit for flicks that just want to give a good time.

The problem with "Battleship" is that it spends so much time denying that it's a video game before turning on the fireworks that everyone came to see. Yes, yes, the movie is actually based on the classic Hasbro board game, in which opponents try to blindly guess where their enemy's battleship is. (And, at least in my case, attempt to stave off mind-numbing boredom while playing it.)

But it's a big-budget special effects summer movie, make no mistake.

To those wondering what the heck the game has to do with the film: yes, there is a sequence about halfway through where the good guys use a clever trick using a grid-like pattern to track the alien boogums they're fighting. And, of course, nearly all the mayhem takes place aboard Navy vessels.

If you're looking for metaphysical ruminations about the first contact between man and an alien race, you won't find them here. The aliens come to Earth for purposes never really made clear, other than they're here to give humans something to shoot at.

They come out of the ocean in big seafaring hovercraft-y things that sort of jump around the water's surface and cfhange shape. Think "Transformers" meets "Independence Day" meets "War of the Worlds," and you've got a pretty good handle.

Eventually they do emerge from their ships, and are surprisingly un-buggy and humanoid. They could be first cousins to the blue dudes in "Avatar," but they favor mechanistic armor and weaponry over a biometric hair hookup.

Liam Neeson is featured prominently in the film's trailers, but it's just a walk-on role as the stern admiral, who promptly gets sidelined as soon as the sea spray hits the fan. The real star is Taylor Kitsch as Alex Hopper, a ne'er-do-well rebel who joins the Navy as a last resort, and somehow ends up commanding the battle against the aliens.

Kitsch has presence as an action star, but the wind-up involving Alex's transformation from zero to hero takes way, way too long. It's 45 minutes or so into the movie before the critters from outer space show up, and until then it's a bunch of familiar pabulum about learning to grow up, work as a team, etc.

Director Peter Berg and screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber cling so desperately to the idea that their movie is about the human element, when Alex and all the rest (including singer Rihanna) are really just arcade avatars ready to be put through their paces.

Brooklyn Decker plays Alex's love interest, who just so happens -- gosh! -- to be the daughter of the mean ol' admiral. Decker has the notable luck to be featured in two big Hollywood releases this week (the other is "What To Expect When You're Expecting"), but neither one is much to brag about.

Gregory D. Gadson, an actual Army veteran who lost both his legs in Iraq, has a solid turn as a disgruntled war veteran who rediscovers his inner warrior battling the aliens.

Now, the movie is named "Battleship," but of course battleships are military anachronisms -- huge, hulking behemoths designed to batter the enemy with its huge guns. The Navy prefers fast, nimble destroyers these days. There's a turn of events late in the going that rectifies the discrepancy, which is both extraordinarily unlikely and a cheap applause moment.

There are a few times in this movie to cheer and thrill, but the filmmakers don't seem to want to own up to its bubblegum nature. The worst kind of video game movies are those that pretend not to be.

2 stars out of four

Review: "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold"

"The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is a documentary along the lines of director/co-writer/star Morgan Spurlock's breakout hit, "Super Size Me." It's a gimmick, but a pretty clever one.

Instead of gorging on McDonald's food and discovering that it makes you fat, Spurlock jumps headlong into the world of product placement in movies, television and so on. He doesn't do so in the most obvious way, by showing some of the most egregious examples and allowing us to laugh at the clumsy, naked crassness of it all (although there is a little of that, like the toadying employee offering his boss a Subway chicken teriyaki foot-long).

No, Spurlock -- whose filmmaking sensibilities run more to the arm-twisting of Michael Moore crossed with the look-at-me showmanship of a P.T. Barnum -- wants to illustrate the evils of marketing by loading his movie up with advertising messages and product placements.

The entire film is, in fact, about its own making. Spurlock goes around to advertising agencies and corporate headquarters to pitch them to sign on as a sponsor of the documentary he's shooting about product placement. For instance, he tells POM Wonderful (a pomegranate juice maker) that if they sign on as the signature sponsor for a cool million bucks, he'll never been seen drinking anything else in the movie. And he's true to his word.

(Thus, for technical and contractual reasons, the film's actual title is "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.")

Other sponsors, willing to risk Spurlock's reputation as a rabble-rouser -- albeit a smiling, apple-cheeked one -- come onboard. There are even actual 30-second commercials woven into the film starring Spurlock schlepping for companies like JetBlue, Old Navy and the Hyatt hotel chain.

In essence, he's selling out to find out what it's like to be a sellout.

There aren't really any profound truths or surprising insights to be found along this journey. By allowing the audience to tag along into the pitch meetings and listen in on the phone calls, we learn that most companies are fanatical about protecting their brand names, and that there are a whole lot of kooky and egotistical people involved in the marketing of these products.

But like "Super Size Me," it's an undeniably entertaining ride, with Spurlock as our engaging, impish host who brings a giddy enthusiasm to his merrymaking-slash-pranksterism.

The movie is less interesting in the (perhaps inevitable) sections where Spurlock questions himself and his project, and whether he's just becoming part of the problem he was trying to lampoon, and asks celebrities like Donald Trump to weigh in.

It's just an unnecessary downbeat to include things like professional scold Ralph Nader telling us how advertising is basically just professional-grade lying. But then, Spurlock punctures the sour mood by trying to hock a pair of shoes to Nader, who obliges.

Ultimately, the thing Spurlock sells best in "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is himself.

3 stars out of four