Video review: "The Way Back"

You’ve probably heard that “The Way Back” is a sports movie, but that’s not really the best description. Certainly basketball is at the heart of the story, but that’s not what it’s about.

The meat of it is a tale of redemption, in which Ben Affleck plays a miserable drunk at the end of his string asked to return to the Catholic high school where he was a legend a quarter-century ago and take over as coach of the misfit team.

We’ve seen this sort of sports movie before: at first, the team is miserable and clash with their new coach. But they gradually start to put their doubts and acrimony aside, and start winning games. This all leads to the Big Game at the end.

It’s a story arc that’s been around forever, perfected by “Hoosiers,” replayed countless times since.

But as I say, Affleck, director Gavin O’Connor (“Miracle”) and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby really do focus on the coach, Jack Cunningham, more than the team. Jack works a mind-numbing construction job during the day and drinks himself into a stupor at the same crappy bar every night.

He’s still the same guy after taking up the coaching job, but it leaves less time for drinking, so he drinks less, and finds he’s a little better. He’s able to open up a little more with his sister and his ex-wife, and face the tragedy that weighs so hard on his life.

Even the “back” that he gets to probably isn’t going to be what you think it is.

There is plenty of basketball action and we do focus for a little while on one or two of the kids. Brandon (Brandon Wilson) is the quiet point guard who needs to step up and be more vocal. Chubbs (Charles Lott Jr.) is the heart of the team who cracks them up with his antics. Marcus (Melvin Gregg) is the most talented player but also a major head case.

This is one of Affleck’s best performances. There’s no young man’s pride here: he’s playing a middle-aged guy without much to show for his life sliding down a dark path. We see his self-hate, but also the drowned proud that lies underneath all that blackness, waiting for a chance to rise again toward the light.

Plus, the sports action is quite good.

Bonus features are a mite slim. There are only two making-of documentary shorts: “The Way Back: This Sporting Life” and “Every Loss Is Another Fight: The Road to Redemption.”

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Review: "Justice League"

All is forgiven for "Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice." The DC Comics supergroup franchise that seems like it's been teased for an eternity finally arrives with a peal of thunder.

"Justice League" is a huge, sprawling, action-packed film that also finds time to let each of the characters show a little of their heart. I know the fanboys may want wall-to-wall combat, but it's just meaningless fireworks unless we grasp what the stakes are. Director Zack Snyder and screenwriters Joss Whedon and Chris Terrio manage to find time for everything a good superhero film needs, and keep it just under two hours to boot.

Yes, it's a little goofy. Occasionally over-the-top so. Comic book movies have taken a decided turn toward comedy in recent years, and there's no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Most of it is centered around the Flash (Ezra Miller), the self-designated comedic relief. Every team needs a cutup, I guess. Miller accepts the role with enthusiasm and aplomb.

My only really major complaint with the movie is that the villain isn't terribly memorable. He's a pretty generic big ol' axe-swinging dude promising to bring about the end of the world named Steppenwolf -- and no, it's not terribly imposing to have a bad guy named after a middling Canadian rock band. Portrayed by Cirian Hinds via motion capture with an oversized horn helmet, he looks like he could have stepped right out of the most recent Thor movie without skipping a beat.

And OK, I'm not too keen on the latest iteration of Aquaman, played by Jason Momoa. And not just because yet another blond superhero has been turned brunette for the movies. (Though Momoa at least has now-you-see-em, now-you-don't highlights.) He's portrayed as a surly, tatted-up dude who likes to blow into fishing towns to gargle whiskey in between saving lives. He's like a benevolent biker meets Caine from "Kung Fu."

When "BvS" left off, Superman (Henry Cavill) had died battling Lex Luthor's monstrous creation, leaving the world without hope. Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) is still brooding, but he's committed to the idea of putting together a group of meta-humans to head off looming threats. Strange bug-like flying men have taken to popping up here and there, attracted by the smell of fear.

His only recruit thus far is Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), who he sees as the logical replacement for Superman's beacon of virtue. But she's hesitant to take up that mantle, for reasons we saw in her solo movie earlier this year.

Wayne's other targets are Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg. Flash's only power is the ability to run crazy fast, and also generate electrical impulses while doing so. As he himself says, he's no warrior: "I've just pushed people and run away." His super-speed sequences are depicted in slo-mo, much like they did with Quicksilver in the "X-Men" movies, and there's one great scene where Flash gets a surprise of his own.

Cyborg (Ray Fisher) is your classic man/machine hybrid, who doesn't understand the full of extent of his expanding powers and sometimes even struggles to control them.

The team also gets a late, unexpected addition to the roster in time for the third act, but I'll say no more.

The plot is the usual gobbledygook about cosmic doohickeys being rediscovered and fitted together somehow to create end times. In this case, three square Mother Stones that were hidden away eons ago to prevent them from being combined to create the Unity.

(It's disturbing how weapons of cosmic destruction are always given such soothing names in the movies. How about the Hellacious Doom-Bringer?)

The action is frenetic and sometimes a little hard to follow. It's interesting to watch the different fighting styles of the heroes. Batman is all about intricate moves and outsmarting your opponents -- a necessity as he's the only league member lacking super-powers -- while Wonder Woman is a straight-on badass warrior who uses her sword, shield and magical rope, which forces people to reveal the truth.

Aquaman does more than just speak to fishies, wielding a trident and his own measure of super-strength. Cyborg's body is basically one big Iron Man suit, with a new gadget to pull out for every situation.

"Justice League" isn't nearly as good as the first Avengers movie, but it delivers a DC team flick that's undeniably entertaining. After the letdowns of "Man of Steel" and "BvS" -- and let's not even talk about that Green Lantern disaster -- the "other" comic book empire has finally put solid wood on the ball.

Post-script: Stick around during the credits for a couple of neat bonus scenes. The first recreates one of my favorite comic book events from my childhood, while the second demonstrates how out-of-touch I am with the modern comics scene.

Review: "Live By Night"

“Live By Night” is Ben Affleck’s conscious attempt to recreate the look and feel of an Old Hollywood crime drama with a modern frosting of sex and violence. It’s an overstuffed, messy narrative filled with a lot of terrific actors and strong scenes lacking connective tissue.

This movie is Full Boat Affleck: in addition to starring as a Boston Irish mobster transplanted to Tampa Bay to run their Prohibition Era operations, he also directs, produces and adapted the novel by Dennis Lehane.

All I can say is Affleck certainly knows how to shoot himself as a director, and how to shoot himself in the foot as a screenwriter.

Cary Grant himself would have to admit how dapper Affleck looks in this movie, his dark, chiseled features set off by 1920s costumes and backdrops. Robert Richardson’s photography recalls the best of the film noir tradition while employing diffuse colors and slanted light.

The story is… the sort of thing you get trying to cram a 400-page book into a two-hour movie. Though I haven’t read Lehane’s book, from what I’ve gathered it seems Affleck tried to follow the novel pretty closely, ejecting only a brief sojourn to Cuba. He would have done better to scale down the sheer number of secondary characters and tertiary plot lines.

Affleck plays Joe Coughlin, the son of a Boston police captain who went bad and became a thief. He runs into trouble when he romances the moll (Sienna Miller) of his boss, a pugnacious fellow named Albert White (Robert Glenister). A few hops and skips of the plot later, and after a stint in prison, Joe finds himself sent down to Ybor City, Fla., to take over the illicit liquor operations of his new Italian mob masters.

Joe and his partner, Dion (an excellent Chris Messina), soon put the locals on notice that there’s a new boss in town, offing some low-level hicks and even befriending the local sheriff (Chris Cooper), a deeply religious man who compartmentalizes his faith with the desire to keep the peace. Joe falls for a vivacious Cuban expat, Graciella (Zoe Saldana), and soon it seems like his snake-eyes luck is starting to change.

But challenges always abound, including pushback from a vicious local leader of the Klan (Matthew Maher), who just happens to be the sheriff’s kin. And the Italians up north aren’t satisfied that the booze business is booming, but want Joe to branch out into gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc. That means stepping on more toes in his new beachside paradise.

Elle Fanning plays the sheriff’s daughter, who gets used up in a bad way when she tries to make a go in showbiz, and returns to town preaching about the evils of men like Joe in a series of burgeoning tent revivals. One of the film’s main problems is that even though his character seems to be at the center of Joe’s thicket of problems, Chris Cooper doesn’t actually get a lot of screen time to flesh out his conflict.

We pretty much know where all this is heading, so it’s just a matter of drinking in the atmosphere and encounters before the movie winds up where it will. Lehane’s work tends to start in tragedy, then wander around a bit before returning home.

There are a lot of great puzzle pieces in “Live By Night,” but it feels like there’s too many and they don’t always fit together.

Video review: "The Accountant"

“The Accountant” is an entertaining film, but it could have been much more. It’s about a math whiz who has autism and has turned into some sort of “super spy CPA” type who cooks the books and then kills the bad guys. My best take on it is that star Ben Affleck was jealous of his buddy Matt Damon’s two most pivotal roles, Jason Bourne and Will Hunting, and decided to combine them into one movie.

The result is part character study, part romance, and a lot spy action that gradually devolves into more or a less comedy, with our hero offing villains and then tossing off quips. It doesn’t really all fit together, but there are some nice pieces to the equation.

Christian Wolff was a kid whose genius and social disability were both plain to see. Raised by a stern military dad and beset with tragedy, he’s turned into this mystery figure who runs a one-man accounting shop in a crummy strip mall, doing taxes for working class folks. On the side, though, he runs the numbers for all sorts of international bad guys, from the mafia to drug cartels.

On the hunt is Treasury agent Ray King (J.K. Simmons), who wants to bust the legendary shadow man before he’s forced to hang up his badge in a few months. Jeffrey Tambor plays another father figure, who schooled Christian on accounting while they were in prison together.

Providing the cute-n-spunky ingredient is Anna Kendrick as Dana, a junior accountant at a company that makes robotic limbs. She thinks she’s uncovered some malfeasance the CEO (John Lithgow) doesn’t know about, so Christian is brought in to work his magic. Soon the young CPAs are auditing each other’s bedsheets.

From there, things get weirder and weirder, with black ops types showing up (Jon Bernthal among them) to make dark threats and stage the deaths of minor characters. Director Gavin O’Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque let things slide further and further afield from the somber first half, until the movie virtually becomes a laugh riot -- sometimes intentional, sometimes not.

“The Accountant” isn’t a bad movie, it just forgets itself. In trying too hard to be both Jason and Will, Christian wanders into absurdity. It’s an entertaining train wreck, but still a mess.

Bonus features are so-so, and are limited to three making-of documentary shorts: “Inside the Man,” “Behavior Science” and “The Accountant in Action.”

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Review: "The Accountant"

 There’s a lot of things to like about “The Accountant,” but tonally the film is a sloppy, gloppy mess.

It starts out as a serious character examination of a high-functioning autistic man played by Ben Affleck who works as an accountant for some very bad people -- terrorists, drug cartels, repressive regimes, etc. Then he quickly morphs into a Jason Bourne-like character who can bullseye people a mile away and chop-socky them to death up close.

It begins on a very somber note, and by the end has more or less turned into a full-out action/comedy. Somewhere in here is a romance that gets dropped down a well, and a redemptive tale of a shiftless bureaucrat who found his calling late in life.

Director Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”) and script man Bill Dubuque gather an interesting cast of characters and story elements, but can’t assemble them into a coherent piece. Still, if you look at it purely as popcorn entertainment, there’s a lot of assets in the ledger.

The story opens with Christian Wolff as a kid (played by Seth Lee), prone to fits and cut off from the rest of the world. But he’s got brilliance beneath the behavior, as evidenced by his ability to put together a huge puzzle in minutes -- with the picture facing upside down -- while waiting to talk to a therapist. His father (Robert C. Treveiler) is a stern Army man, and gives him a brutal upbringing of tough love and combat training so he can survive.

“You’re different. Sooner or later, different scares people,” Dad instructs.

Now in his late 30s or so, Christian is a CPA with a dingy one-man practice, ZZZ Accounting, south of Chicago. Affleck does a wonderful bit of technical acting, showing us all of his quirks and obsessions. He blows on his fingers before starting a new task, and becomes distracted to the point of conniption if interrupted before he’s finished.

He does tax returns and such for farmers and the small storefronts around his in the strip mall. But on the side he takes high-dollar gigs from disreputable types, finding out who’s been skimming in operations like the drug lords who, as one law enforcement type puts it, “count their money by weighing semis full of cash.”

That LEO is Ray King (J.K. Simmons), a legendary Treasury agent with lots of huge busts to his name. He’s got a few months until forced retirement, and is determined to spend that time tracking down this ghost accountant. He recruits a young analyst with a troublesome past (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) as his paladin. She learns about a troubled young man who was in and out of institutions, including a federal prison stint where he learned at the knee of an elderly mafia numbers man (Jeffrey Tambor).

Now Christian has been recruited to check out a prominent firm that makes robotic limbs for amputees, led by a visionary leader (John Lithgow) who’s not so good with numbers. There Christian meets Dana, an adorably dorky company accountant who first found the discrepancy. They negotiate a delicate little dance, with her trying to figure out this puzzle of a man and him trying to break through decades of imposed discipline.

(Beautiful, smart and vibrant women are often attracted to awkward, socially clumsy men in the movies – which, completely coincidentally, tend to be written by awkward, socially clumsy men.)

Things go bad when a team of assassins (led by Jon Bernthal) come after Dana and Christian. He quickly makes short work of them, and the pair are in the wind.

Things are more or less fine to this point, but then the film keeps tipping over into unexpectedly funny moments that break the mood. Some are obviously intentional, such as Affleck’s affectless responses to Kendrick’s emotional outbursts. But the compounding effect is to undermine the tense atmosphere the movie has worked so hard for.

The plotting is rather obvious -- if you can’t figure out who’s the person pushing all the buttons, or the nature of the third act’s “big surprise” a long way off, you haven’t been paying much attention.

If “The Accountant” had just presented itself as a straightforward action/drama -- “Superspy CPA” -- then we could just sit back and enjoy it for its own sake. By seeking higher ground, and then settling for cheaper thrills, it’s only marginally worth an investment.

Video review: "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"

I remember when it was first announced a couple of years ago that Ben Affleck would play Batman in the epic throwdown between him and Superman, the fanboys lit up the Web with their ire. Turns out he’s the best thing about “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

Indeed, he’s just about the only good thing.

The D.C. Comics folks, poring over the box office grosses of the last 15 years of Marvel movies, were desperate to get their super heroes back into flicks. Really, this film is the set-up to a bunch of Justice League and solo hero movies they have planned. That’s great, but they were in too much of a hurry to get the ball rolling that they don’t properly set up this universe.

“BvS” feels like it’s in too much of a hurry, even at 2½ hours.

The premise is that Batman/Bruce Wayne is enraged over the thousands of people killed during Superman’s fight with General Zod (as chronicled in “Man of Steel”) -- including some of his own employees -- and comes to view the boy in blue as too much of a threat to have around. Of course, he’s also being manipulated by Lex Luthor, here presented as a conniving boy billionaire played by Jesse Eisenberg, who knows of such things. Imagine his Mark Zuckerberg from “The Social Network” but (slightly) more malevolent.

Soon enough the boys are at each other’s throats. It’s a fight that by any reckoning should last two seconds or less, as Superman is an immortal demi-god with laser eyes and Batman is just a regular guy with determination and a good tailor. Director Zach Snyder and scriptmen Chris Terrio David S. Goyer labor to make their combat believable.

Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as loyal Wayne butler Alfred and Laurence Fishburne as Daily Planet editor Perry White are all pretty well wasted, showing up to move the plot along as needed and then disappearing for long stretches. The razzle-dazzle introduction of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is a high point; I look forward to her having her own film.

If it weren’t for Affleck, I’d call the movie a total disaster.

He’s brooding and self-doubting and tragic. He shows us a Batman who’s aging and losing faith, so we understand when he lashes out with anger. Frankly, I’ll take Affleck over Christian Bale, Michael Keaton or any other actor who’s worn the pointy ears.

So call it just a partial disaster.

Bonus features are pretty meaty. Although there’s no commentary track, there are 11 making-of featurettes: “Uniting the World’s Finest,” “Gods and Men: A Meeting of Giants,” “The Warrior, The Myth, The Wonder,” “Accelerating Design: The New Batmobile,” “Superman: Complexity & Truth,” “Batman: Austerity & Rage,” “Wonder Woman: Grace & Power,” “Batcave: Legacy of the Lair,” “The Might and the Power of a Punch,” “The Empire of Luthor” and “Save the Bats.”

In addition to the usual versions on DVD, Blu-ray and 3D, there’s an “Ultimate Edition” – also available via digital retailers -- that contains about 30 minutes of new footage.

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Reeling Backward: "Good Will Hunting" (1997)

One of my best indications of how well a film truly impacted me is how much of it stays with me after many years. I only saw "Good Will Hunting" a single time when it came out 17 years ago. But my recall of its characters, specific passages of dialogue and visual cues has remained startlingly clear.

Perhaps that's because it became a pop culture touchstone, launching the careers of Matt Damon and Paul Affleck, solidifying those of Robin Williams and Gus Van Sant -- and inspiring a thousand conspiracy theories about the true authorship of its Oscar-winning script.

My favorite of these is a "Family Guy" riff in which a young Damon sits at a typewriting musing on the result of many months of hard work, and a lounging, pot-smoking Affleck cheekily insists he be given a writing credit, too. More insidious was the one that screenwriting legend William Goldman had heavily doctored the script, or even made it up out of whole cloth. (Goldman, along with everyone involved, has denied this, and I believe them.)

Watching it for the second time so many years later, I'm struck what a truly great rookie screenplay it is -- still a bit rough around the edges, and one of the few movies you can say could stand to be a little longer. But as a piece of cinematic intelligence, it proved the wunderkinds -- both still in their mid-20s when the film was made -- knew a lot about storytelling.

Perhaps my favorite part of the script is when one of the characters points out the central conceit of Will Hunting's story. Namely that, as a blue-collar math genius working as a janitor at MIT, anonymously solving complex theorems on chalkboards in the dead of night, Will was trying to be discovered by the eggheads and offered a route out of his life of poverty and abuse. Even though he spends the entire movie hurling insults at anyone who tries to get close to him, and pledges eternal allegiance with his two-fisted Southie (South Boston) roots.

The guy who has this insight is, of course, Robin Williams, playing Sean Maguire, a little-heralded psychologist who takes on the court-ordered therapy of Will after five higher-profile head shrinkers demure in the wake of the patient's invective. The heart of the movie is the gentle aura of trust and love that slowly grows between these two characters -- even more so than that between Will and Skylar (Minnie Driver), a British pre-med student about to graduate Harvard.

Sean is a fellow Southie, who was college roommates with Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård), the brilliant and renowned MIT math professor -- did he mention his Fields Medal? -- who "discovers" Will's genius. The former roomies share a natural affinity but also resent each other, as Gerry feels Sean allowed himself to be tied down by domestic concerns and a lack of ambition, resulting in his present (as he sees it) career mediocrity, teaching at tiny Bunker Hill Community College. Sean, naturally, is inclined to tell him to go eff himself.

The good doctor wears drab sweater-jackets, an indifferent and unflattering hairstyle, and seems barely connected to the life he's living. As we see in a brief classroom scene, he isn't even a passionate (or very good) teacher. We soon learn his beloved wife died two years earlier, and he's been afraid to "put some skin in the game" since then. He actually stopped treating patients years ago during his wife's long decline from cancer, but agrees to see Will as a favor to Gerry.

Their first session is less than auspicious. Will does a better job of psychoanalyzing Sean than vice-versa, perusing his shabby office furnishings, especially a glum painting Sean made, and predicting that he's one step away from cutting off his ear, Van Gogh-like. Sean doesn't necessarily disagree with the diagnosis, but takes affront when the lad edges up to insulting his wife, and clamps his hand around Will's throat, threatening memorably to "end" him. Talk about a doctor/patient conflict of interest.

It's an incredibly vulnerable performance by Williams, who deservedly won an Oscar for the role. I think almost any other actor, even every good ones, would have been tempted to try to render the character tougher, stronger, more proactive. Among its many other attributes, "Good Will Hunting" stands now as a monument to what a beautiful, beautiful man Robin Williams was.

As Chuckie, Will's unwavering best friend, Affleck did not get nominated for a supporting actor Oscar -- doubtless the studio didn't want him competing against Williams -- but he should have. It's one of those tough-guy roles in which the character's soft heart and grace only slightly leak out between the cracks of his hard-bitten veneer. He gets to deliver a great speech about waking up one day and being 50, and if he still sees Will busting his hump at construction or janitorial work, he'll murder him despite his fierce love.

Casey Affleck and Cole Hauser also have small but distinct roles as other members of Will and Chuckie's crew. Casey's character, Morgan, is the cutup who seemingly can't hold onto a job for more than two hours, or resist masturbating for the same span of time. Possibly these are connected.

I love how they always ride in the exact same spots in Chuckie's car, a rusting land yacht of indeterminate 1970s Detroit vintage. Their last moment in the film is great: going to pick up Will, Chuckie returns with a smile after Will has finally taken his advice to vamoose out of town. Without a word, Morgan gleefully cruises around from his back seat to claim Will's place in the shotgun position. The low man on this totem pole of declarative masculinity, Morgan is thrilled at a chance to move up, and Chuckie, magnanimous, accedes to the new configuration. Life will go on.

Like other films that deal with math geniuses, especially mathematics ones -- "A Beautiful Mind," "The Theory of Everything" -- "Good Will Hunting" wisely stays away from the specifics of the discipline. The equations on the boards are surely gibberish to almost everyone watching the film, so Van Sant focuses on the power these hieroglyphics have over the characters, rather than the nomenclature and what they really mean. Would the movie be helped by having a character droning an explanation of the basics of chaos math or high order differential equations? I think not.

Films tend to like to introduce characters who are proclaimed as geniuses, and then proceed to have them do very dumb things. "Good Will Hunting" never makes that mistake, careful to depict how Will is always intellectually a few steps ahead of everyone else, while vividly showing us how emotionally stunted he is. He's repeatedly referred to as "the boy," something helped by Damon's foppy, quintessentially 1990s haircut.

A few amateurish moments aside -- Bill Plimpton as a very Plimpton-esque therapist Will ferrets out as  unknowingly gay after two minutes; Chuckie posing as Will at a job interview so he can scam the suits out of $73 in cash as a "retainer" -- "Good Will Hunting" shines as one of the strongest original stories of the 1990s. Good on ya, boys.

Review: "Argo"

"Argo" is not a deep movie, but it is an extraordinarily well-crafted one. It's a political thriller in which we go in knowing the outcome, but the film continually surprises us and keeps us dancing on a razor's edge of suspense.

After "Gone Baby Gone," "The Town" and this film, director/star Ben Affleck has established himself as a serious artist behind the camera -- a weighty counterpart to the flighty star-making roles of his youth and tabloid twisting of his personal life. His direction is subtle yet impactful, touching the audience's emotions without seeming like he's trying to wow us.

Everyone knows the story of the 1979 uprising in Iran that deposed the U.S.-installed despotic shah in favor of a Muslim theocracy. The American embassy was overrun and dozens of diplomats held hostage for 444 days, being released on the day of the inauguration of Ronald Reagan (whom the Iranians feared would turn their country into a parking lot).

A largely forgotten footnote is that a half-dozen diplomats escaped the embassy and hid out in the home of the Canadian ambassador. They were smuggled out in January 1980 by the CIA, which concocted a convoluted and seemingly ludicrous cover story.

To wit: the American spies faked the commissioning of a science fiction adventure movie titled "Argo" -- such cheap knockoffs of "Star Wars" were not uncommon in those days -- even going so far as to option an existing screenplay, hire some veteran Hollywood figures as faux producers and stage a media event to announce their plan to shoot in Iran.

Then Tony Mendez (Affleck), the agency's top "exfil" man, would fly into Tehran, meet with the Iranian culture ministers, and fly out with the ambassador's "houseguests" posing as a Canadian film crew.

Even Mendez himself, a laconic sort not given to hyperbole or excessive speech, acknowledges that it's a long shot. But it beats the other plans on the table: having the diplomats ride bicycles 300 miles to the border, or pose as agricultural officials come to help the local farmers grow crops -- in the dead of winter.

"This is the best bad idea we have," Mendez' boss (Bryan Cranston) announces to the top brass.

The story segues into a fun 'n' games section, where John Goodman and Alan Arkin play showbiz old-timers who are just cynical enough about moviemaking to sign on. Goodman's character, John Chambers, was a real Oscar-winning makeup artist -- he did Spock's ears on "Star Trek" and the gorilla masks on "Planet of the Apes" -- who also helped out the CIA from time to time by disguising spies.

Arkin's character is a composite, but he gets some of the movie's best lines. "John Wayne's in the ground six months, and this is what's left of America," he snorts while watching TV footage of the American hostages.

Screenwriter Chris Terrio, adapting Mendez' book about the operation, shuttles back and forth between the action taking place in Tehran, Washington D.C. and Hollywood, building tension block by block. Especially effective is the cross-cutting between two press conferences, one in which the producers announce the production of "Argo" and the other where the revolutionaries spew vitriol, labeling all of the diplomatic staffers spies. (In fact, only three were.)

Also compelling is the painstaking reconstruction of secret documents that were shredded in the moments before the embassy fell, which are stitched together piece by piece by a small army of Iranian children and female weavers. We watch as these papers, including photographs of the missing diplomats, are slowly reconstituted, and it serves as the sands of an hourglass counting down the time they have left before discovery.

"Argo" is visually arresting, both for cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto's washed-out colors and the grooming styles of the Americans. It's a litany of Cheetos mustaches, huge owlish eyeglasses and bowl haircuts that would seem like exaggeration -- until we see photos of the actual people during the end credits and discover the resemblance is spot-on.

Everything in "Argo" fits together with clockwork precision; there is not a second of flab in its two-hour running time. The award season's first lock for a Best Picture Oscar nomination has announced itself.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Mallrats" (1995)

I have finally completed my Kevin Smith oeuvre. Somehow I had missed "Mallrats," his sophomore effort that is generally regarded as his worst film. Although they may not be counting "Red State," which I hear is the challenger to the throne.

Smith is a multi-pronged artist who's almost as well-known these days for his live stage performances, "An Evening with Kevin Smith," his comic book writing and considerable pop-culture presence as his movies. He hasn't had a hit movie since ... well, ever. He tends to make lower-budget films, $30 million or less, that gross a little more than they cost.

Quality is another matter. I don't think Smith has made an out-and-out good movie since 1999's "Dogma," and even that was a bit of a mess narratively. His ultra-indie debut, "Clerks," was a brash and brainy exploration of mid-90s slacker culture, a portrait of my generation just as it was exiting college and finding its prospects meager -- not unlike today's kids.

And then there was "Chasing Amy," Smith's third film and masterpiece. I won't spend our time burying "Amy" in praises, other than to say it seems with "Mallrats" Smith was building up to that wonderfully edgy take on modern relationships and stunted youth. Many of the same actors appear, including Jason Lee, a professional skateboarder with zero acting experience who Smith cast in this movie despite resistance from the studio hacks.

That's how I prefer to think of "Mallrats" -- as Smith honing his storytelling skills and gift for sharp characters in preparation for other, better work. Whereas "Clerks" exists as its own piece, "Mallrats" is mere throat-clearing for "Chasing Amy" and "Dogma."

The plot is a lame excuse for a whole bunch of hanging around at the Eden Prairie Mall in Minnesota. Two college-age guys are dumped by their girlfriends, and spend a day trying to win them back ... after a fashion.

For Brodie (Lee), a slacker who lives in his mom's basement and plays Sega video games as a vocation, this involves insulting nearly anyone and everyone he encounters. Brodie is a walking cauldron of bile spewing all over everything in its path, but he's also wickedly funny while doing it.

His ex is Rene, played by Shannen Doherty. Doherty was a hot commodity coming off the "Beverly Hills, 90210" show, and in fact received top billing in the film despite having a rather small part. Smith's female characters in his early films tend to be underwritten, until he cast his real-life girlfriend, Joey Lauren Adams, as the lead in "Chasing Amy."

Adams also has a small part here, memorably being shown topless for a split second when drug dealer/mystic Silent Bob (played by Smith himself) smashes through the door of her store changing booth.

Claire Forlani plays the other ex-girlfriend, Brandi, who has just dumped T.S. (Jeremy London). Unlike Brodie, T.S. attends college and seems to have a plan in life, even if at this point it mostly seems to be playing Brodie's wing-man.

Jason Mewes returns as the other half of the Jay and Silent Bob team, still peddling drugs and hitting on women who don't respond. Together they act as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the action and jumping into the fray when it suits them.

Ben Affleck also turns up as the villain, the manager of the Fashionable Male store named Shannon, who puts the moves on Rene. Ethan Suplee plays Willam, a stoner who can't see the sailboat in one of those 3-D paintings, despite an epic attempt. Stan Lee makes a cameo, lending advice to comic book uber-fan Brodie.

Michael Rooker plays Brandi's dad, the host of a low-rent television dating show that's supposed to shoot inside the mall, with his daughter as the semi-willing contestant. Brodie and T.S. enlist Jay and Silent Bob to ruin it during live taping.

I enjoyed Priscilla Barnes, the former "Three's Company" star, as a topless fortune teller with three nipples. I suspect Smith only cast her because he, like me, had a boyhood crush on her and endeavored to see her naked. No complaints here.

I also liked the little touch of naming the wordless, scary head of security La Fours -- a nod to the barely-seen lawman who chases the main characters in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." They share a white straw hat and an imposing reputation.

Smith's strength as a filmmaker has always been creating distinctive characters, and working with actors to make them even more so. And, of course, crackling dialogue with lots of funny throwaway lines and quips.

Tying it all together into a satisfying story has always been his challenge, though, and he fails to make the sale with "Mallrats."

2 stars out of four

Review: "The Company Men"

Something has gone seriously askew in America.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the heads of a company would be ashamed to show their faces if it performed so poorly they were forced to let workers go. CEOs were well paid, but did not earn 700 times his or her average employee. When times were lean, sacrifices were shared around -- as were the fruits when money rolled in.

Now, companies still making a decent profit  lay off 30-year employees to jigger the stock price a little bit higher. The top dogs demand and receive bonuses that could've paid the salaries of hundreds of people let go. Executives decorate their offices in mahogany and Degas paintings, while working stiffs watch as their houses are foreclosed.

"The Company Men" is about the big and the little guys. It's a searing portrait of a corporate culture utterly lacking in human values and the people who are rolled over by it. It's an effective drama, even if writer/director John Wells is occasionally a bit heavy-handed with his us-versus-them shtick.

But in these dark times a lot of people who have lost jobs will see this movie, and recognize those feelings of resentfulness, anger and -- most excruciatingly -- sudden anonymity.

"You know the worst part? The world didn't stop," one canned veteran wails. "My life ended and nobody noticed."

Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is a rising star, the regional sales director for GTX, a former shipbuilding company that has diversified into a behemoth. He is 37 years old, makes $160,000 a year, drives a Porsche, has the prototypical mini-mansion in the Boston suburbs and a wife and two kids.

Bobby thought he'd be safe from the latest round of cuts, after having been given the personal assurance of a patron high up in the company. But he gets pink-slipped, and the scene where he carries his belongings to the parking lot, and sees a dozen others holding the same cardboard boxes, is a punch in the gut.

At first, Bobby is in denial about his situation. He thinks he'll have another job lined up long before his severance runs out. He insists on paying exorbitant golf club fees and dry cleaning bills while the mortgage teeters because, as he tells his wife Maggie (Rosemarie DeWitt), "I need to look successful."

But the hiring market is a bleak slog of unreturned phone calls, long waits in waiting rooms, and interviewers who don't even bother to stop eating while they talk to you.

"The Company Men" is sprinkled with a raft of strong supporting performances. Tommy Lee Jones give an Oscar-worthy turn as Gene McClary, who helped built GTX from the ground up but has become disillusioned by its dehumanizing slide. His partner, James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson), insists they're not responsible for employees losing their jobs because the market demands it.

"We work for the stockholders now!" he thunders.

Chris Cooper has an almost feral energy as an upper-level exec who clawed his way up from the factory floor, only to face professional extinction. A job placement consultant coldly advises him to dye his gray hair and omit any mention of his Vietnam military service from his resume.

Maria Bello plays the seemingly heartless human resources chief, who main job seems to be telling people theirs no longer exists.

I especially liked Kevin Costner as Jack, Bobby's brother-in-law. A blue-collar contractor who used to needle Bobby about assisting in the corporate migration of jobs overseas, it's the sort of small, un-showy role that forms the connective tissue of movies like this, and which stars usually take a pass on.

Will people be too depressed this winter to go see a movie that depicts what a soul-crushing affair it is to lose your job? If a solid, worthy film like "The Company Men" fails to get hired by audiences, we're all doomed.

3 stars out of four

Review: "The Town"

"The Town" is such a well-executed cops-and-robbers drama dripping with Boston flavor, it takes us a while before we realize it's built on a mountain of Hollywood clichés.

Ben Affleck, who also directed and co-wrote the screenplay, plays a careful bank robber who tosses his professional detachment out the window for the damsel-in-distress: The manager (Rebecca Hall) at the last bank he robbed.

Throw in a headstrong FBI agent (Jon Hamm) hot on his tail, a trigger-happy partner in crime (Jeremy Renner) and a local mob boss (Pete Postlethwaite) who won't let him walk away from the "family business," and the film practically churns itself out of a Screenwriting 101 class.

Oh, I almost forgot: This is the Affleck character's "one last job" before he calls it quits and heads to Florida.

(The film could have been even more pat -- I haven't read the novel on which it was based, Chuck Hogan's "Prince of Thieves," but I understand in the book the cop falls for the same girl.)

This review is sounding like a pan, but read the first half of the first sentence again: Affleck gives such a confident, authentic performance -- both in front of and behind the camera -- that these familiar tropes take on a lively, at times electric quality that make us feel like we're discovering them anew.

Renner is particularly good as Jim Coughlin, a crook and killer with two strikes against him, and swears there won't be a third. He accepts who he is, and is resigned to whatever fate a life of a crime holds for him. "If something goes down, we'll be holding court in the streets," he vows before a big heist.

When they were teenagers, Jim killed a guy to protect his best friend Doug MacRay (Affleck), doing nine years in prison without a peep. Maybe that's why Doug keeps him around as a wingman, despite Jim's tendency to shoot first, and ask no questions at all.

Affleck and his co-writers, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard, take pains to make Doug a sympathetic character. He methodically plans out his robberies, right down to knowing the biographies of the bank guards and nuking the surveillance video tapes in the microwave, so we respect his attention to detail -- especially his efforts to prevent violence.

Things go awry when Jim kidnaps Claire (Hall). She's released unharmed, but Jim is jumpy that she might gives clues to the feds. She cooperates with Special Agent Frawley (does the FBI have regular, un-special Agents?) but fails to pass on a key detail.

Doug agrees to shadow Claire, ends up bumping into her, and finds the attraction powerful, and mutual. Though they don't have a lot of scenes together, Affleck and Hall make the romance seem fleshy and real. I especially liked the undercurrent of class rivalry between them, with Doug a palooka Townie and Claire a yuppie interloper, or "Toonie."

That brings us to the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown, whose rough-hewn, cloistered personality bleeds into every scene. Affleck and the rest of the cast nail the Beantown accent -- with such success, in fact, that I occasionally had trouble understanding them -- and the great cinematography (by Robert Elswit) captures the hardscrabble charm of the mean streets.

Affleck's always had screen presence, and with his hair starting to gray a little, it gives him a bit of authority he didn't have during his matinee idol days. "The Town" isn't quite as good as Affleck's directorial debut, the terrific "Gone Baby Gone," but clearly this is the work of a guy who knows how to tell stories.

Imagine what he could do with something a bit more original.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Extract"

If you were to turn in "Extract" for a screenwriting class, it probably wouldn't get a very good grade.

The latest from writer/director Mike Judge ("Office Space") doesn't really have much of a structure. The characters just sort of flit in and out of the story, appearing when they have something amusing to offer, and disappearing when they don't. Nobody learns any important lessons, or changes fundamentally as a person.

As the film opens, a bunch of misfit characters are working at an extract factory, and at the end they're still plugging away making vanilla, cherry and root beer flavoring.

And yet, they're an entertaining enough bunch that we feel like the visit was worth stopping by. The movie doesn't have a huge number of gut-busting laughs, but plenty of gregarious chuckles.

Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of Reynold's Extracts. He's got a nice car, a big McMansion and even the possibility of General Mills making a bid on his company, which would allow him to retire early with a nice pile.

On the negative side, Joel's love life isn't going so well. His wife (the wonderful Kristen Wiig, who's not given enough to do here) has set an unofficial 8 p.m. sweatpants deadline: If he doesn't get home by 8 to make his move, on go her frumpy sweatpants and out goes any chance of amore for the evening. It's become a pattern, so Joel spends most of his nights down at the local bar, venting his frustration to Dean (Ben Affleck), the slightly crunchy bartender.

This all probably would have continued as is, except for two new developments. A freak accident at the factory causes Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), the bossy sorter harboring dreams of promotion to floor manager, to lose a testicle (actually both, but they manage to reattach one). And Cindy (Mila Kunis), a sexy girl grifter, takes a job at Joel's factory in search of a score.

Joel pines for Cindy, but is too much of a mensch to cheat on his wife, so one night in a drug-induced haze courtesy of Dean, they launch a scheme to hire a gigolo to seduce Joel's wife, thus freeing him up from any guilt trip about having his own affair. Meanwhile, Cindy shacks up with Step and convinces him to sue the company. And things get progressively more daffy from there.

There's a wacky and yet somehow plausible host of minor characters. J.K. Simmons plays Joel's right-hand man, who can't remember the employees' names so he refers to everybody as "dingus." Gene Simmons shows up as Step's slimy TV lawyer, who offers to drop the lawsuit if Joel will allow his own manhood to be slammed in a door.

For anybody who's ever worked in a blue-collar setting, Judge's collection of prickly personalities and overblown conflicts feels spot-on. Tying it all together is Bateman, playing a basically decent guy who accidentally drives his life off a cliff one day.

Here's a warning: If a really hot girl acts like she's interested in something extremely boring, watch your wallet.

3 stars

DVD review: "State of Play"

An above-average political thriller, "State of Play" also offers one of the most authentic portrayals of newspaper journalists since "All the President's Men."

With his frumpy clothes fitting poorly over a pudgy body, paper-strewn cubicle, studied nonchalance and scruffy beard decorated with Cheetos crumbs, Russell Crowe appears every inch the grizzled, veteran reporter. His Cal McAffrey is an old-school digger for the fictional Washington Globe.

His best friend also happens to be Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a young, Kennedy-esque Congressman who gets caught up in a sex-and-murder imbroglio that Cal has been assigned to investigate.

Tagging along is an idealistic young blogger (Rachel McAdams) who Cal initially treats dismissively. In time, he sees that the kid's got chops, and they become partners in the biggest story in Washington, D.C.

Helen Mirren also has a nice turn as the ball-busting editor trying to get a juicy story where her star reporter has a personal connection that could lead to a big scoop, but also backfire if he tries to protect his friend rather than the facts. She also has to deal with impersonal new corporate owners who value profit over news.

Director Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") and his trio of screenwriters stir the pot expertly at first, allowing the players and pieces of the puzzle to assemble themselves. The second half turns too much to conventional thriller tropes, including the unlikely scenario of both Cal and his young partner having shots taken at them in separate incidents.

DVD extras are rather miserly: Two deleted scenes and a making-of featurette that consists of more hype than insight. The only interesting thing I found in the latter was cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto's decision to shoot Crowe's scenes on film with an anthropomorphic lens to give them a gritty, shallow look while using digital video with a deep focus for Affleck's scenes to make Washington's corridors of power seem sleek and expansive.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 2 stars

Catching up with "State of Play"

They did not screen "State of Play" here in Indianapolis, which I confess is mightily irksome to myself and the other local critics. One has to fight the urge to let one's opinion of a movie sour when those behind it don't think enough of their own film to let the critics see it beforehand.

That's especially true of movies about journalists. There's a long and mostly noble history of films about newsmen and newswomen, from "His Girl Friday" up to "All the President's Men," which is generally agreed to be the most accurate depiction of journalists. So the idea that they're reluctant to show a flick about journalists to journalists leaves a bitter taste.

"State of Play" slides confidently into the second tier of newspaper movies. It's a good, solid engrossing portrait of a scruffy reporter (Russell Crowe) digging into a sex scandal story surrounding an old friend of his, a young congressman played by Ben Affleck. It's directed by Kevin McDonald, who broke out a couple years back with "The Last King of Scotland."

What I liked most about it was the authenticity of the newsroom, the studied nonchalance of grizzled journalists, the ball-busting of the editor (played by Helen Mirren), who has to balance the desire to land the big scoop with the new faceless corporate owners who have taken over and value profits over quality.

Crowe has a relationship with a young blogger (played by Rachel McAdams) that is hostile at first, but slowly becomes more nurturing as she demonstrates she's got chops. At one point he complains to his boss, "I've been here 15 years and I've got a 16-year-old computer, and she's been here 15 minutes and has enough gear to launch a Russian satellite." I've heard very similar lines in newsrooms, where grousing is raised to an art form. Astonishingly, I learn from an article by a Washington Post reporter who served as a consultant on the movie that Russell Crowe ad-libbed that line himself.

The Ben Affleck character is leading an investigation of private military contractor that's gaining more and more control of the security job in Iraq, Afghanistan and at home, so the reporter is convinced he's being set up. But as he keeps digging, the story keeps showing more and more angles, and more and more people keep dying.

At some point the movie kind of gets lost in its own vortex of energy, with confrontational scenes with an expanding array of supporting characters (Jason Bateman has a brief but effective turn as a soulless but very human PR flack caught in the middle.) It becomes less about journalism and merely a potboiler. I also found it unlikely that both Crowe and McAdams get shot at in separate instances.

Still, it's never a dull moment, and gives viewers a little taste of the life of a newspaper journalist in 2009.

3 stars out of four