Review: "Seberg"

Jean Seberg was an "It Girl" before we really had a name for that. She was a struggling American actress who went overseas and became an overnight success in the French New Wave, with an iconic role in "Breathless."

With her short pixie blonde haircut and torrent of real-life affairs and marriages, Seberg was also on the bleeding edge of the sexual revolution. Her career stalled in the late 1960s and early '70s, and by 1979 she was dead at the age of 40 in an apparent suicide.

Her story has largely been forgotten, but the biopic "Seberg" gives us a fuller telling, including the reason for her disgrace: a vicious and deliberate campaign by the FBI to discredit Seberg for her alliance with the Black Panthers, including her relationship with leader Hakim Jamal.

Kristen Stewart plays Seberg in a nuanced role that reflects her long, slow slide into paranoia and dispiritedness. At the start of the story she is so powerful and independent, driving her expensive sports car into hostile black neighborhoods without any fear of reprisal. She is in command of her own choices.

By the end, she has been withered down to a fearful, spiteful creature who feels very much at the mercy of circumstances beyond her control.

Anthony Mackie plays Jamal, and their early romance -- while both are married -- is quite torrid and erotic. There's one red-hot scene where they practice her acting lines with a real gun as Seberg casually flaunts her body to him: part enticement, part declaration of her sole ownership of her womanhood.

Otto Preminger picked Seberg from obscurity as a teenager to star in "Saint Joan," a traumatic experience both emotionally and physically. She learned to move past her victimhood, using men as they seek to use her.

But then the feds get their hooks into her, for really the slimmest of reasons. It was their (illegal) practice in those days to infiltrate and discredit upstart political organizations that threatened the status quo. Their surveillance of Jamal reveals their affair, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (never seen but felt) seeks to use it to sow dissention among the Panthers.

Jack O'Connell plays Jack Solomon, the young FBI agent put in charge of the case. At first he sees it as part of the job, but comes to resist the hard tactics against a woman choosing her own causes and associations. He eventually takes steps to warn her, though they are not accepted for obvious reasons.

Vince Vaughn plays the mercenary partner, drinking hard and caring little about anything except following orders. His ethos is simple: do the job, reap the rewards. Colm Meaney plays a higher-up who has to crack the whip on Solomon's waffling.

Zazie Beetz plays Dorothy Jamal, Hakim's wife, who can accept a certain amount of philandering from her revolutionary spouse but draws the line at a famous white (in her eyes) dilettante. The women's eventual clash is bone-deep in its impact.

It's a well-acted movie, a slow-burn dramatic thriller than some may need time to warm up to. Director Benedict Andrews and screenwriters Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel opt for mood and lingering moments over move-the-ball plotting.

My main complaint about the film is it becomes too much the story of a G-man's conflict about participating in a starlet's destruction than the psychological terror she is experiencing. The movie needed to keep the focus on Seberg with Solomon as a tertiary character, but instead the middle section in particular almost feels like "The Lives of Others."

The revelation of the campaign against Seberg was actually revealed by the FBI literally days after her death, and figured into Congressional investigations of the time. her memory was pretty well mislaid after that, until now.

A disclaimer: I saw "Seberg" almost three months ago during the busy runup to the awards cycle. I didn't have time to rewatch it before writing this review, so my recollection for details may have frayed though I think my emotional memory is solid enough to write about it. Do with this information as you will.

Review: "Detroit"

Political correctness is a sordid game I refuse to play. But even I admit I’m uncomfortable with a feature film about the 1967 Detroit riots with an almost entirely white creative team.

Director Kathryn Bigelow reteams with her “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker” screenwriter, Mark Boal, in a film that attempts to look at the watershed civic unrest from the perspective of African-Americans who suffered at the hands of brutal police tactics. While most of the cast is black, the movie struggles to get over a sense of existing more to soothe white guilt than chronicle a racist tragedy.

Indeed, the first words we see or hear refer to the 1967 riots, also known as the 12th Street riots, as “the Detroit Rebellion.” I don’t know any serious historian who would use that term, which refers to an organized uprising designed to topple the power hierarchy, either by replacing the exiting government or splitting off from it.

Somehow, I doubt even the people who took to the streets, throwing rocks and setting storefronts on fire, would have called their actions a rebellion. They were simply enraged at being continually abused and stepped upon, and reached a point where they didn’t want to take it anymore.

I admired the film but got stuck on the fact this wasn’t the movie I was expecting. This is not a comprehensive look at the root causes of the unrest, the tactics undertaken by authorities to quell the violence, or the aftermath suffered by a community that struggles to this day to overcome that dark moment in history.

Indeed, if any moment can be pinpointed as the tipping point of when the great modern divide in America began -- between cities and suburbs, whites and those of color, blue and red -- the ’67 riot is it.

Although Bigelow and Boal start their story in the streets, this is really the tale of the Algiers Motel incident. Largely forgotten now amidst the bigger backdrop of the riots, this was the case of Detroit police officers, state police and national guardsmen detaining a group of young black men and two 18-year-old white women after gunshots were heard from the annex of the motel, a party spot a few blocks away from the mayhem.

Over the course of several hours, the suspects -- who were never charged with anything -- were beaten, abused, assaulted. It became clear the white officers were angered by white girls dallying with black boys. Three black men were fatally shot, with trumped-up excuses after the fact to justify self-defense by the officers. It was, as depicted in the film, essentially torture.

Anthony Mackie plays one of the victims, a recently discharged Army soldier, and Hannah Murray plays the mouthy girl. Algee Smith is Larry, lead singer of an up-and-coming Motown group called The Dramatics, who gets caught up along with his manager (Jacob Latimore).

Baby-faced Will Poulter is the central villain as the police officer directing the interrogation; earlier in the day we watched him pump two shotgun blasts into the back of a looter carrying groceries. Jay Reynor and Ben O’Toole are his wing men, dim and deliberate, respectively.

John Beyega is more or less the central character as Mel Dismukes, an African-American man working as a private security officer protecting a nearby business. He continually inserts himself into situations, using his uniform and officious demeanor to stave off some of the worst law enforcement abuses of black folks.

The film unequivocally presents Dismukes as a hero, when in fact he was charged with abusing the Algiers suspects along with the three police. All were found not guilty (though not, as the movie condenses, in the same trial).

Exactly what happened in the motel remains sketchy even today, though the movie carelessly presents its own version with crisp black-and-white lines, knowing this is what will be etched into the public consciousness.

From a narrative and technical standpoint, “Detroit” is a very well-crafted film that strings the audience’s emotions along with an expert hand. What’s less clear is who this movie is about, or for.

Video review: "Captain America: Civil War"

If it’s possible to enjoy a movie while simultaneously being disappointed by it, then that’s my take on “Captain America: Civil War.” The third in the series with fresh-faced Chris Evans as the revived World War II warrior in the ostensible lead role, what it really is is the third Avengers movie -- the one in which they’ve finally gotten on each other’s nerves enough to trade blows instead of quips.

I kid, I kid. The motivation for the conflict is that the U.S. government has decided to start registering and controlling super-powered beings. People are very nervous and angry about the collateral damage the Avenges incurred while saving the world (twice). This leads to a McCarthyite atmosphere where the lauded heroes are now mocked and feared.

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who’s been very ambivalent about continuing in his super-suit anyway, quickly signs on. But Cap argues the patriotic route, saying the Avengers should be free to make their own choices about what is best for the common good. Sides quickly form up, leading to an inevitable showdown.

Because the two heaviest hitters, the Hulk and Thor, are inexplicably nowhere in sight, it’s incumbent upon the filmmakers to bring in some scabs … er, I mean, add-on heroes … to round out the squads.

Many of them we’ve seen before, like Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and the Vision (Paul Bettany). Spider-Man shows up, rebooted for a second time with Tom Holland in the role, and Chadwick Boseman is a muscular presence as Black Panther, an African prince with some animalistic super-duds.

“Captain America: Civil War” contains thrills aplenty, but is miserly when it comes to surprises. You go into it knowing what you’re going to get, but also that you won’t get anything else.

Bonus features are as good as we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Comics adaptations.

There’s a feature-length commentary track with directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; deleted and extended scenes; gag reel; sneak peek at “Doctor Strange”; featurettes following the character development of Captain America and Iron Man leading up to civil war; and “United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” a feature-length making-of documentary.

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Review: "Captain America: Civil War"

"Captain America: Civil War” delivers everything you expect, and little more.

Oh, it’s a fun movie, with a grim undertone, the main attraction of which is we get to see super-heroes square off into sides and smack each other around. Marvel Comics did this from their very inception 50+ years ago because they knew fans loved to argue about who would win in a fight between two favorites, such as the Thing and Wolverine.

(Uh, the Thing, of course! H’doy!!)

This is the sort of movie that hits its marks, gives you the gleeful battles between supes, but doesn’t really challenge our expectations or raise the stakes. It belongs in the second tier of Marvel movies, along with both previous “Captain America” films.

The setup is based on a huge storyline Marvel did a while back that essentially engulfed all of their titles, in which the government decided to register and control all super-powered beings. Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) headed up the different factions, one in favor and the other opposed.

For narrative cohesion and budgetary purposes, here the civil war is restricted to just the Avengers and a few new recruits. (Hey, even a $200 budget and a 2½-hour running time can only encompass so much.)

Cap, being a law and order sort, would side with the government, you’d think, and freebooting billionaire Stark is a natural fit to lead the rebels. But it actually goes the other way, and directors Anthony and Joe Russo, plus screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus -- all holdovers from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- spend a lot of time mapping out the psychological battle of wills between the two men.

Too much, really. If the movie has a flaw it’s that it’s too much talkie-talkie and not enough punchy-punchy. Though there is plenty of the latter, to be fair.

The plot is just a series of excuses to set up conflict. It starts with the premise that people worldwide are enraged by the innocent bystanders who have been killed while the Avengers were busy saving the world from one intergalactic threat or another. Many, including the U.S. secretary of defense (William Hurt), seem incapable of adding up the millions who otherwise would’ve been killed.

Stark, who’s been wobbly on staying in the super business, quickly signs on, while Cap trusts in the Avengers to make the right choices rather than bureaucrats. Sides quickly form up, with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the Vision (Paul Bettany) going with Stark and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) sticking to Cap.

(The big green guy is conspicuously absent, other than a brief shout-out, and Thor’s neither seen nor heard of.)

Three-on-three’s not really a very exciting fight, so other characters are pulled in, including Iron Man knockoff War Machine (Don Cheadle), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), fresh off his own movie, and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), fresh out of retirement.

The new guy on the block is Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), an African king with a feline super-suit. The new-ish guy is teen webslinger Spider-Man, now rebooted for the third time, with Tom Holland taking over the role of nerdy high-schooler Peter Parker. Both fellows will soon headline their own solo pictures, so you know they’re not in any serious danger.

The action centerpiece of the movie is a full-out battle between the two sides on an airport tarmac. It’s more about egos than anger, and with all the quipping we get the distinct sense punches are being pulled. Ant-Man plays an unexpectedly outsized role in the fight.

The bad guy’s a bit of a low-key dude, a non-super guy played by Daniel Brühl, who holds a lot of cards up his sleeve. He soon gains control of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Captain America’s old war buddy, who had his mind seized by villainous forces long ago.

I enjoyed “Captain America: Civil War,” even if they’ve micro-sized the conflict for easier audience consumption. I wouldn’t call the movie lazy, but it seems to start with a presumption of limits -- places characters won’t go and things that aren’t going to happen. This movie entertains, but never surprises.

Review: "Our Brand Is Crisis"

Forty years ago we made movies like "The Candidate" about well-meaning people who get sucked up into the dirty tide of electioneering that comes with democracy. Ours was portrayed as a corrupt system with political operates whispering dark counsel into candidates' gullible ears.

Now we've moved on from idolizing the candidates to embracing the mercenary advisers themselves. Dark money? How about dark Hollywood.

"Our Brand Is Crisis" is based on a documentary of the same name made a decade ago based on the true story of some veteran American political operatives, including Clintonistas Bob Shrum and James Carville, who were recruited to help a candidate for President of Bolivia. They made a bunch of money and their guy won the election, but not much changed in the poverty-stricken South American country.

Instead of paunchy middle-aged guys going south of the border, it's a wan but steely woman named Jane Bodine, aka "Calamity Jane" for her tendency to blow things up with her erratic behavior. It's a showcase role for Sandra Bullock, who is the best thing about the movie, along with Billy Bob Thornton as Pat Candy -- love that name! -- as her slithery nemesis.

They're also about all that works about the film. The pair like to sidle up to each other in the middle of campaign events, softly and delicately threaten each other and the opposing candidate, and then walk off with the upper hand. Candy even takes the hotel room directly opposite Jane's so he can intimidate her, leering at her and even putting his hand down his pants to adjust his package.

Jane was the best of the best but hit a string of failures, most at Candy's hands, and gave up the political racket six years ago to make pottery in a cabin in the mountains. She gets recruited by Ann Dowd and Anthony Mackie as Nell and Ben, who need help because their guy is down 28 points, and alsy because they want someone to blame if they don't win.

The problem is the candidate, Castilla (Joaquim de Almeida). He's a symbol of the oligarchs who have ruled the nation but are resented by the mostly poor and uneducated indigenous people. Castillo actually briefly was president 15 years ago, and is mostly remembered for having the police open fire on protesters. He's arrogant, aloof and resentful -- of his upstart opponent, Rivera (Louis Arcella), but also at having had to bring in Americans.

Our crew slowly brings things around, through a combination of negative campaigning and teaching Castillo to push the idea that the country is in crisis. Of course, Candy's got a few tricks up his sleeve, and the underhanded plays go back and forth.

Directed by David Gordon Green ("Pineapple Express") from a script by Pete Straughan ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), "Our Brand Is Crisis" has the classy veneer of an awards contender. It was produced by George Clooney and partner Grant Heslov, and Straughan is one of their go-to screenwriters.

The film's main problem is trying to do too much with too little.

For awhile it's a character study of Jane, who's so checked out when first arriving in Bolivia that she throws up at her first meeting with the candidate. Then it seems to want to be about the fraught relationship between Jane and Candy, which contains a dangerous undertone of unacknowledged sexual attraction. Then there's Jane's approach to Castillo, which zigzags from dismissing him as a total loser to seeing him as her last hope for redemption.

Scoot McNairy, one of my favorite character actors working today, is ill-used as a self-deluded media flack. Zoe Kazan turns up as LeBlanc, Jane's pet opposition research whiz kid.

The movie leaves the politics as vague as possible, only alluding to the IMF as a playing card to be dealt and shuffled as the need suits.

Bullock and Thornton have a lot of snap in their shared screen moments, but they're fleeting and ultimately lack any real meat. "Our Brand Is Crisis" needed a rethink from the grass roots on up.

Review: "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

Captain America really is a walking anachronism.

Oh, of course there's the literal man-stuck-out-of-time thing, with a World War II super-soldier put on ice for 70 years to reawaken and pummel bad guys again. If you liked the last go-round of action-filled mayhem, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" offers more of the same.

No, what I mean is that Captain America, aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), isn't like the other more recent iterations of comic book superheroes on celluloid. Lately it seems like we want our Batmen and Spider-Men filled with dark thoughts and forbidding back-stories.

Rogers is exactly what he seems: a straightforward, honest and terribly uncomplicated man who just wants to do right. After undergoing a secret experiment that turned him from a 90-pound weakling into the apex of manhood, he's increasingly concerned that his work for the spy/military agency S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't on the up-and-up.

It's a difficult thing to make a boring, bland guy into an engaging hero, but directors/brothers Anthony and Joe Russo -- TV guys making the transition to big-screen spectacle -- manage it well enough. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, making a return engagement, learn their lessons and keep things focused on the action-adventure without any unnecessary romantic entanglements.

The secret when your main character doesn't have a lot of layers is to dress up the background with interesting personalities, and there are plenty here. Scarlett Johansson is back as the Black Widow, a former KGB spy with a mysterious past and not a trace of a Russian accent. She and Rogers dance around each other the whole movie, trying to figure out if the other one is trustworthy.

Also returning is Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. chief Nick Fury, who prefers to keep his agents in the dark as much as possible while confabbing with high-level international muckety-mucks, who hold video conferences and sneer at each other. Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), an old friend of Fury's, mans the politics and leaves him free to build a new fleet of deadly hovercraft.

Fury has plans to identify and wipe out terrorists and the like even before they hatch their plots, which strikes Rogers as a bit un-American. He wears a U.S. flag on his indestructible shield and goes by the surname "America," so he should know from patriotism.

Serving as the able new wingman is Falcon (Anthony Mackie), a burnt-out military veteran with a very specialized type of aeronautical expertise. One thing I like about the Marvel universe as it's been depicted in movies is that the line between super-hero and guys who just have nifty gear and some gumption is rather fuzzy.

Of course, we also have to mention that other guy in the title, who happens to be Captain America's nemesis for the sequel. With long black hair, a snarly uncommunicative 'tude and a super-strong robotic left arm, the Winter Soldier is a mystery man whose story parallels Rogers' in some rather discomfiting ways.

At 2¼ hours, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is a bit too long for its own good -- I feel like a broken record these days; most new movies seem too long to me. But it's an agreeable mash-up of spy thriller intrigue and CG-assisted battles. It's a popcorn movie with enough kickin' spices to make things interesting.

Review: "The Fifth Estate"

Sometimes we whisper.

As a journalist, my first instinct is always toward transparency and holding governments and other institutions of power accountable. As a citizen, though, I understand that some things a group of people does must be kept secret in order for their aims to succeed.

The lines can grow fuzzy, but fundamentally most people understand that in communicating with each other, sometimes we have to shout, and sometimes we must whisper.

The problem with Julian Assange and his website WikiLeaks is they do not make this distinction. While claiming transparency for the whistleblower as its ultimate calling, the group is happy to trample on the rights of individuals and nations in pursuit of what it deems the common good. Sometimes what the site publishes is helpful; sometimes it smacks of leaking secret documents as an end unto itself.

The film version of WikiLeaks’ rise and fall, “The Fifth Estate,” portrays the operation as an amalgamation of journalistic enterprise and gleeful computer hacker playground. The central figure, of course, is Julian Assange, the oddly charismatic leader with long white hair played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

In Cumberbatch’s quicksilver portrayal, Assange is part visionary, part con man and all manipulative bully. We start out admiring his brio and style. But over time it becomes clear that Assange is less concerned with disseminating the truth than making himself the oracle of a new technological age where information flows like water wherever it wants – with a little engineering assistance from Assange and his merry band of groupies.

Director Bill Condon and screenwriter Josh Singer based their film on a book by Daniel Berg, Assange’s former right-hand man who split off at the moment of WikiLeaks’ greatest triumph – the mass publication of thousands of American diplomatic cables leaked by Army Pfc. Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning – who was recently in the news being sentenced to prison.

As played by Daniel Brühl, Berg is a fairly apolitical programmer who gives up his cushy job in the corporate world to help Assange take down a major bank. They come up with a method to protect the identity of their whistleblowers so foolproof they themselves don’t know who is giving them information.

At first, Berg sees this as a strength. He’s all-in on Assange’s method of publishing everything their leakers give them, without alteration. “Editing reflects bias,” he insists.

But over time Berg begins to see how Assange has manipulated him, the mainstream media and the rest of the world.

Condon and Singer opt for way, way too many scenes of men (few women in this club) hunched over laptop computers, typing away furiously as bright beams of colorful gibberish splash across the screens. I can’t help but compare this movie to “The Social Network,” which eschewed the guts of geekery in favor of focusing on the personalities behind the code.

Instead, we’re given recognizable actors (Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci) in small roles where they pop up from time to time and spout something apocryphal for the benefit of the audience, like a British newspaper editor (David Thewlis) bellowing: “He’s the head of a huge global media empire who’s accountable to no one. And we put him there!”

The result is a jangled mess of a movie, Deep Throat meets “War Games.”

Today, WikiLeaks and Assange are largely neutralized. He is essentially a captive inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, subject to immediate arrest and extradition should he ever leave. A visit to the WikiLeaks site shows only four new leak articles posted in the last year, and those restricted to rather obscure matters.

The obsession with leaks continues, with Edward Snowden aided and abetted by mainstream media who ought to know better.

We’ve reached an age where we have substituted the principled whistleblower who leaks a piece of information they think the world needs to know in favor of anarchists who believe the very concept of secrets represents tyranny. So they spill everything in hopes of finding a few drops of insight in a vat of brew. They literally know not what they leak.

“The Fifth Estate” is a better idea for a film than the one they made.

Review: "Pain & Gain"

Here is a movie that is just one painful-to-watch misfire after another. It's about a trio of lunkhead bodybuilders who stumble through a series of increasingly grisly crimes under the hot Miami sun. And it's directed by Michael Bay -- you know, "Transformers, "Armageddon," etc.? And it's a comedy.

Well, at least in theory.

In actuality, there's barely a titter in this overlong, dull and dimwitted tale. I like to brag that I've never walked out of a movie, but "Pain & Gain" tested my mettle to the max.

I am glad I hung around, because the last 15 minutes or so actually manages to find some kind of groove, where the comedy is mostly intentional and the satire of the 1990s up-with-me movement plucks a few ironical notes. It hardly makes the joyless couple of hours that came before any less tolerable.

Mark Wahlberg plays Daniel Lugo, who sees physical perfection as the answer to a life of disappointment and second-tier status. He spends his days as a personal trainer to the rich and obnoxious, yearning to join them. His sidekicks are Paul and Adrian (Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie), fellow iron-pumpers without a plan, until Daniel supplies a homicidal one.

At first we think this might be a send-up of the muscle craze of the last few decades, particularly the steroid-happy era when bigger was always considered better, not matter what sort of strange chemicals people shot into their bodies to achieve freakishly oversized pecs and biceps.

When we first see Lugo, he's doing upside-down stomach crunches on the roof of the Sun Gym. "I'm hot!" he shouts to himself as encouragement. "I'm big!"

But Bay and his screenwriters, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, end up fetishizing the very warped culture they're trying to mock. Wahlberg, Johnson and to a lesser extent Mackie are pumped up to a ridiculous degree, and Bay's camera lovingly caresses every bulge and curve.

Between this movie and "Magic Mike," it's been a banner year for engorged, tanned and waxed male flesh.

Lugo and his crew hatch a plan to kidnap slimy local businessman Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) and force him to sign over his beachside mansion, big boat and bank accounts to them. Despite, rather than because of, their best efforts they eventually succeed, and find life in the fast lane isn't as advertised.

The actors spend a lot of time doing motor-mouthed deliveries of dialogue that are supposed to be funny but just occupy time and space. For Lugo, his tirades are mash-ups of get-rich motivational gimmicks and sports mumbo-jumbo. Adrian dreams of landing a big, beautiful girlfriend despite the, uh, diminutive effects juicing has wrought on his body.

Paul is the most interesting of the trio, a brutal-looking ex-con who's recently sobered up and found Jesus. He ends up bonding with Victor while purportedly guarding him, which leads to complications when their scheme reaches its only logical denouement.

The most unbelievable thing about "Pain & Gain" is that it's actually based on a true story. The fact that they managed to make a movie based on such a wacky premise so limp is almost impressive in a twisted way.

Review: "Man on a Ledge"

So there he is, that man out here on the ledge. From the very first moments we glimpse him, we know that the hero in "Man on a Ledge" does not intend to jump off the 21st floor of a swanky Manhattan hotel. He's up to something, that man, whose name turns out to be Nick Cassidy, and is played by Sam Worthington. That something involves making everyone think he's suicidal, including the cops trying to talk him down and the people on the street, who would also like him to come down -- but quicker.

This is not some deep-think drama or character study. "Man on a Ledge" wants to be a fun and zippy thriller, part heist flick and part revenge catharsis. And it mostly carries out its intentions adeptly, under the direction of Asger Leth, a novice to feature films, and screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves, a television veteran.

Despite the static location of its protagonist, the story is constantly on the move. "Man" is a movie that is plot, plot and more plot. Eventually Nick gets to go places -- otherwise things would get really dull, since the ledge routine is merely a diversion. The real action is across the street, where Nick's brother Joey (Jamie Bell) is breaking into a rich guy's vault with the help of his girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez). The girlfriend milks every existing cliché for the fiery cinematic Latina, including the liberal use of the word "puta," and creates a few new ones.

At first the break-in appears to be a straight high-tech infiltration/robbery, with people dangling from ropes to avoid laser alarms, faking out sophisticated security cameras with simple ruses, etc. We've seen it all before, and other than a few clever twists, it doesn't hold our attention long.

But there's obviously more going on here. The guy they're robbing, David Englander, is an evil real estate tycoon played by Ed Harris, who exploits his steely blue eyes and creased visage with expert, if overly familiar, flair. Nick is looking to get back at Englander for something, but what?

It's the job of Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) to find out. A police negotiator who recently had a high-profile failure on the job, she's specifically requested by Nick to be the one talking to him. Her semi-willing partner is played by Edward Burns, in standard tough-New Yorker mode.

Nick and Lydia establish a connection, but she senses that she's being played. First her mission is merely to learn his real name and identity. Later, it will be to decide who to trust.

Rounding out the cast are Titus Welliver as the officer in command of the scene, Anthony Mackie as a cop who's an old friend of Nick's, William Sadler as a curiously omnipresent hotel worker and Kyra Sedgwick as a TV reporter with an incongruous surname and accent.

I didn't dislike "Man on a Ledge," but its moving parts all fit together a little too neatly and predictably for me to really enjoy.

2.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Real Steel"

Every year spawns a few movies that fall into the "love-it-or-hate-it" category, or in the case of "Real Steel," the "like-it-or-hate-it" flick of 2011. Several of my local film critic colleagues have even seen fit to toss it onto their "Worst of the Year" list.

Though hardly a cinematic knockout, I found it to be an amusing, if admittedly overly sappy father/son redemption story with impressively cool robots -- "The Champ" with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.

Actually, since the movie came I finally figured out why the boxing robots in the movie are so evocative: they bear a startling resemblance to the iron football goon used in promotional bits for NFL games on Fox. People who might abhor the visceral thrill of boxing and other human blood sport can safely revel in watching two automatons turn each other into scrap metal.

Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a former contender in the ring who became a manager of robots when human boxing was outlawed. (The story is set in the near future.) Through a series of unlikely circumstances, Charlie is forced to take Max (Dakota Goya), the son he never met, on the road with him, where they bond through a sequence of misadventures.

Their fortunes take a turn for the better when they uncover a mysterious robot fighter buried in a junkyard, dub him Atom, and before long they're headed to the championship bout.

The CGI battles hit that sweet spot where the robots are just humanistic enough that the audience feels like it has a stake in the outcome, but can safely cheer on the mayhem. We certainly feel more for Atom than we did any of the Transformers in their movies.

"Real Steel" may be overly maudlin, but as lightweight entertainment with a little heart, it's the real deal.

Extras for DVD are fairly OK: a blooper reel, two making-of featurettes, and audio commentary by director Shawn Levy.

The blu-ray edition includes a few upgrades, the centerpiece of which is an interactive "second screen" with videos and behind-the-scenes tidbits. Plus deleted and extended scenes and two more featurettes, including one about Sugar Ray Leonard, who served as boxing consultant on the production.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Real Steel"

With "Real Steel," I was expecting a slick and soulless bit of computer-generated mayhem. The story is set about a decade or so in the future, where regular human boxing has been outlawed and the only kind allowed is between 2,000-pound robots.

In other words, "Rocky" meets "Transformers."

What I got instead was a tender and treacly tale about a no-account father bonding with his long-lost (well, abandoned) son. If anything, the movie went too far in the other direction from my expectations . Instead of being overly reliant on special effects for cheap action thrills, it's really a somewhat maudlin story with an excess of gooey emotions.

So, "Transformers" meets "The Champ."

Hugh Jackman plays the dad, Charlie Kenton, a former fighter who always went for the knockout -- and got it a lot, but also ended up on the mat a lot. He's much the same as a robot owner/manager, always seeking the big payoff in the big fight when what he really needs is a few sure things under his belt.

Dakota Goyo plays Max, the son he's barely even met. When his mother dies, it's up to the courts to decide if Max goes with Charlie or with his rich aunt (Hope Davis). Charlie extorts 50 grand out of his sister-in-law's husband to give up custody, but not until the end of summer so they can enjoy a swanky European vacation.

It's all just an excuse to get Charlie on the road with Max, hustling fights and trying to keep their last aging robot on its feet. Charlie uses the extortion money to buy a fancy, famous robot named Noisy Boy, but doesn't even bother to learn the functions of the gizmo's voice command system before pitting him against an opponent against which he's clearly overmatched.

Soon Charlie and Max are out of robots, with a killer cowboy named Ricky on their tail for the money he's owed. Ricky is played by Kevin Durand, who can just look into the camera for three seconds and be scary.

Then Max stumbles upon an old rust-bucket robot buried in a junkyard, names him Atom and proceeds to train him with his dad's reluctant help, putting them on an unlikely path to the championship fight.

The best thing about "Real Steel" are the robots, which seem to convincingly occupy the same space as the humans. Using a combination of CGI and animatronics, they're hefty, clanky behemoths that not coincidentally resemble giant versions of the old Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.

Robot boxing is perhaps the logical evolution of cinematic boxing. People have often complained that more punches are landed in a single round of a movie bout than a dozen real ones -- no human can take such punishment. With mammoth metal automatons, it stands to reason they can take a licking.

Especially Atom. One of the curious things about the story (screenplay by John Gatins, based on a sci-fi story from the 1950s by Richard Matheson) is that Atom's origins remain stubbornly mysterious. He's an older-generation robot, but boasts a few cutting-edge tricks like a "shadow function" that allows him to mimic Charlie's boxing moves. Built as a sparring robot, Atom can take a ton of hits, but is relatively small and weak on offense.

The top champ is a fearsome robot named Zeus, who not only has never lost a fight, but never had an opponent last beyond the first round. Yet Zeus' Russian oligarch owner, Farra Lemcova (Olga Fonda), and Japanese programmer, Tak Mashido (Karl Yune), exchange troubled looks when they lay eyes on Atom, as if a mechanical ghost had just lumbered across their grave.

Director Shawn Levy is a certified lightweight ("Night at the Museum") who always goes for the easiest emotional payoff. But Jackman's lovable as a loser, Goyo has spunk and charm, and the robot battles are genuinely thrilling.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "The Adjustment Bureau"

"The Adjustment Bureau" is Existentialism Lite. It's less a meditation on free will than a science fiction potboiler-slash-romance.

Still, it's an entertaining thrill ride with intellectual pretensions that are never explored too deeply.

Based on a story by Philip K. Dick -- whose writings have inspired other sci-fi movies like "Minority Report" and "Blade Runner" -- "Bureau" focuses on David Norris, an ambitious young politician ably played by Matt Damon. David is a politician from New York who's about to run for the U.S. Senate when he stumbles upon the secret of the Adjustment Bureau.

It seems free will is not actually so free. Cosmic do-gooders intervene in human events to nudge them back toward a predetermined path favored by an unknown entity called The Chairman. Using the ability to stop time and gizmos to zap brains, the Bureau's "case workers" -- think angels in 1950s fedora hats -- can actually change people's minds, and make them think it was their choice all along.

In David's case, they want him to abandon a budding romance with dancer Elise (Emily Blunt) that is inexplicably dangerous to the Chairman's designs. Because he discovers their secret, he's offered a chance to follow the path laid before him. He refuses, and spends the rest of the movie on the run from the celestial bureaucracy.

What the film lacks in thematic depths, it makes up for in sheer entertainment value: It's a trippy good time.

Video goodies are rather good, and you don't have to pay top price for the Blu-ray version to get a lot of extras.

The DVD comes with a feature-length commentary track by director/writer George Nolfi, deleted/extended scenes and three featurettes. One is a making-of documentary that looks at how the filmmakers shot the chase through New York's in-between spaces, while the other two focus on Damon and Blunt's respective preparation for their roles.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray, and you add "Labyrinth of Doors," an interactive map of the Big Apple with videos linked to various locations.

Movie:  3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "The Adjustment Bureau"

It's no wonder the work of Philip K. Dick has proven such fertile ground for filmmakers, forming the seed for movies like "Blade Runner" and "Minority Report."

The science fiction writer, who died young nearly 30 years ago, specialized in stories with an existentialist bent, where the integrity of the human mind has been compromised by technology or some sort of outside control. The recurring question posed in Dick's stories boils down to, "What if my thoughts are not really my own?"

"The Adjustment Bureau," based on a short story by Dick, is a middlebrow mind trip wearing the clothes of psychological thriller. It's an effective, engaging picture, thought not on par with the other Dick films just mentioned.

Matt Damon plays David Norris, an ambitious young politician who stumbles upon the secret of the Adjustment Bureau, a team of celestial meddlers -- or do-gooders, from their perspective -- who can alter reality, even people's decisions.

David spends the rest of the movie on the run trying to thwart the schemes of the bureau, all in the name of love for a woman he once bumped into by chance.

Or was it chance? As a senior honcho for the bureau (Terence Stamp) informs David, letting humans make their own choices isn't considered safe: "We tried free will ... you gave us the Dark Ages for five centuries."

After four terms in the U.S. House as its youngest elected member ever, David stages a bid for the New York Senate seat that ends disastrously. The only good thing about it is bumping into Elise (Emily Blunt) in the men's room while he's rehearsing his concession speech. It's a quirky, electric meeting in which Blunt and Damon throw off some real romantic sparks.

A few weeks later David is starting a new job at his best friend's (Michael Kelly) law firm when he walks into the board room and finds it filled with men wearing old-fashioned suits and fedora hats zapping his buddy's brain with some kind of gizmo as he stands motionless like a frozen statue.

At first I thought the 1960s-era clothing the bureau men (they all seem to be male) wear is meant to underline the association to "Mad Men" star John Slattery, who plays Richardson, the bureau boss assigned to clean up David's messes. But it could also be a nod to Dick's mid-century heyday.

It seems the case worker (Anthony Mackie) assigned to David fell asleep on the job, allowing him to walk in on the bureau's mind-zapping, as well as stumble upon Elise again on the bus. After a brief chase, Richardson decides to lay it out for him: The Bureau are the enforcers of a cosmic Plan written by an entity referred to only as The Chairman. Events are meant to arrive at a prescribed destination, and any time humanity makes the wrong choice, the bureau is sent in to nudge things in the right direction.

For reasons these heavenly bureaucrats won't reveal, David and Elise are not meant to be together, despite the strong pull they feel. Richardson also hints that if David is willing to play ball, great things lie in his future.

George Nolfi, a veteran screenwriter making his directorial debut, crafts a fine-looking film with enough emotional coloring to paper over the sinkholes of logic the plot keeps swerving around. (For example, aren't the case workers also part of the Plan? In which case, wouldn't they be infallible?)

Less a rumination on free will than a potboiler with some intellectual pretensions, "The Adjustment Bureau" is a pleasant enough diversion that takes a pass on grander ambitions. At least, that's what I think I think.

3 stars out of four

Catching up with "The Hurt Locker"

"The Hurt Locker" is possibly the best-reviewed film of 2009, and it finally opened in Indianapolis last Friday. Alas, no screening was made available to local critics.

I caught it today and it's a fine, fine film, though perhaps some reviewers have overinflated their opinions a bit. It happens all the time -- a few early influential critics in New York and LA rave about a film, it slowly creeps out to the marketplace, and more and more people feel compelled to pile on the bandwagon.

I'll certainly add it to my watch list for Top 10 movies of the year (if you're interested, the others currently on that list are "The Soloist," "Adventureland," "Moon," "Watchmen" and "Up"). But I wouldn't say it's at the top.

Perhaps the reason people are reacting to it with such enthusiasm is that "The Hurt Locker" is the first movie about the war in Iraq that doesn't seem to be playing politics or simply using the conflict as a backdrop to make a larger point. It's the "Platoon" for this generation -- a film about this war, these soldiers, their particular life-and-death challenges.

The story is set in 2004, the height of the insurgency and when sober minds on all sides of the political spectrum thought the whole thing might devolve into chaos. Into this blend of paranoia and fear steps Will James (Jeremy Renner, in a terrific performance), a bomb specialist who lives on the edge of insanity, and thrives on the adrenalin rush of risking his life every day to prevent things from blowing up.

Under his bed at barracks he keeps a large crate of electronic gizmos -- everyday stuff you could buy at Radio Shack, is how a fellow soldier puts it. These are parts of bombs that James has defused, ones that were especially challenging. He hates these contraptions designed to take life, but he also admires cleverly-designed bombs.

James is assigned to a bomb squad after their last specialist was killed in the film's opening sequence. (The dead bomb expert is played by Guy Pearce, one of several prominent actors who appear in small roles, including Ralph Fiennes, David Morse and Evangaline Lilly.) Anthony Mackie plays Sanborn, whose job is keep James safe, and is put off by his reckless ways. Some people would call the risks James constantly takes bravery, but Sanborn is the careful, seasoned soldier who knows they're just foolhardy.

The third member of the team is Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), a young soldier who's worried about whether he has the mettle to do what it takes in the field. Eldridge blames himself for his former bomb expert's death -- he saw the bomber waiting to set off the explosion with a cell phone, but failed to act -- and is receiving counseling from an Army psychiatrist. Eldridge challenges the doctor to come out in the field and witness what they have to put up with every day, which leads to tragic results.

The scenes that stick out most in audiences' minds will probably be the sequences that take place with James working in a special suit designed to protect him from a bomb blast. With its layers of Kevlar and helmet, it resembles an astronaut's gear. As James walks alone down dusty streets, checking piles of junk for bombs, it seems like he is traveling through an almost alien landscape. Director Kathryn Bigelow, a master of kinetic action scenes, keeps the audience on edge, expecting an attack or explosion from any angle.

For me, though, the scene that will stay with me is a firefight the bomb team gets into out in the middle of the desert. They meet up with some British intelligence officers and get pinned down by sniper fire. There's a long stretch where James and Sanborn are waiting to see if all the enemies are dead, with Sanborn manning a massive scoped rifle and James acting as his spotter. It's a reversal of their normal roles, where James is the showboat and Sanborn is there to back him up. James, choking on the heat and dust, asks for the last juice pack. Slowly and methodically, he opens it up and punctures the juice with a straw, then leans over and puts it to Sanborn's lips so he can drink without taking his eyes off the scope. These two soldiers have been at odds up till now, even exchanged blows, but it's in this moment that they truly become comrades.

"The Hurt Locker" is a tough, unsparing and brutally honest portrait of the war in Iraq. Let's hope there are more to come.

3.5 stars