Review: "Tag"

"Tag" is an amazing true story that got turned into a mediocre movie.

I think I'd rather have watched a documentary about the real group of 10 adult men who have spent decades playing a game of tag, which was chronicled in the Wall Street Journal in 2014. I imagine something like Michael Apted's "Up" series, in which he checks in with the same British folks every seven years. Instead we got a zany R-rated comedy with lots of f-words and pratfalls.

It's exactly what it sounds like: grown men sneaking up on each other, slapping a hand on the other to pass on the designation of who's "it." The idea is to never lose your sense of childhood by never ceasing to play. They limit the game to the month of May to keep things at least semi-sane.

"This game has given us a reason to stay in each other's lives," one says, summing up the theme beneath the mirth.

I really liked this cast: Ed Helms, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Hannibal Buress, Jeremy Renner, Isla Fisher, Jake Johnson. In fact, I'm afraid this movie fails Gene Siskel's test of whether you'd rather just watch the actors having lunch with each other. Definitely if the menu was all spicy food.

Helms is Hoagie, a dentist and the dweeby heart and soul of the game, or at least he says so; Buress is Sable, who's supposed to be the nervous nelly of the bunch but is very laid-back about it; Johnson is Chilli, a scruffy sort who does little but play tag and smoke pot; and Hamm is Callahan, the CEO of an insurance company who was supposed to be interviewed by the Journal before the tag game intruded and took over the story.

The setup is that one of their number, Jerry (Renner), has never been tagged in 30 years. Now he's decided to retire from the game, so they have three days left to get him -- which also happens coincide with his wedding on the last day of May.

He's the Jason Bourne to their Keystone Kops, pulling out elite hand-to-hand combat skills and parkour-style jumps to avoid the tag. The movie makes a joke of this, going into slo-mo while Jerry narrates his own badass moves.

The director, TV guy Jeff Tomsic, and screenwriters Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen struggle to find things for the characters to do other than just chase each other for a hundred minutes. So there's a lot of scenes of the guys just hanging out and cutting up, mugging for the camera and such.

The filmmakers also bring in all sorts of ill-fitting non-sequitars, like the hot girl (Rashida Jones) two of them used to be sweet on back in the day. She keeps flirting with them and then leaving abruptly; I'm not sure even she knows why she's in the movie.

The female characters in general do not fare well. Fisher plays Anna, Hoagie's wife, who acts as his wingman and coach. She's supercompetitive and screams a lot, and clearly is dying to play the game herself, and would probably be really good at it.

Annabelle Wallis is Rebecca, the Journal reporter who's following the boys around for their mission. She's often hanging around in the back of scenes, but on a number of occasions she just disappears entirely, as if she got tired of pretending to tag along. (It was also a male reporter who wrote the story in real life, so I was expecting some sort of romantic bloom to happen.)

Leslie Bibb plays Susan, Jerry's fiance, who's very toothy and effervescent. Super suspicious. Nora Dunn is Hoagie's mom, who keeps hitting on Chilli in a most creepy fashion.

There are a few decent laughs in the movie, just not enough to sustain any true humorous momentum. It's loud and talky and there's always something going on, so it's not exactly boring but not really engaging. Watching it is an exercise in just playing along.

Video review: "Wind River"

A half-step down from a masterpiece, “Wind River” didn’t quite get the attention or traction at the office as last year’s “Hell or High Water.” Both are thematically similar neo-Westerns written by Taylor Sheridan, who also steps behind the camera to direct. It’s a gripping tale of alienation, justice and revenge, and how those impulses mix together when a young girl turns up dead.

Jeremy Renner plays Cory Lambert, a hardscrabble man who is a hunter of hunters -- in his case, dangerous predators for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Though with his big bolt-action rifle, peerless outdoorsman skills and dead eye, it’s apparent to anyone that his capacity to kill is not limited to the four-legged.

His jurisdiction, and his home, is the Native American reserve in the cold, craggy reaches of Wyoming, where the snows blow year-round. When a local teen turns up frozen to death, having fled across the icy ground barefoot, an investigation is launched. The local lawman (Graham Greene) goes through the motions, but an FBI agent is sent to do the real snooping.

Played by Elizabeth Olsen, Jane Banner is green enough to immediately be in over her head, and smart enough to recognize it. She recruits Cory to be her tracker, and the two begin to sift through the barely buried dirt of the reservation, where pride and despair resound in equal measures.

The scene where they interview the victim’s father, played by Gil Birmingham, packs as big an emotional wallop as anything you’re apt to see at the cinema this year.

Filled with a bleak, despairing sort of beauty, “Wind River” is one drama that hits its storytelling targets with surefire accuracy.

Alas, video extras are sorely lacking for this film. They consist of a few deleted scenes and a gallery of still photos from the set.

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Review: "Wind River"

“I know you’re looking for clues, but you’re missing all the signs.”
                    --Cory Lambert

Last year’s “Hell or High Water” was my pick for the best movie in a very good film year, and writer Taylor Sheridan is back with another superlative crime drama for late summer, “Wind River,” which he also directed.

Sheridan, who also wrote the screenplay for “Sicario,” has quickly become the most authoritative voice of the modern Western. His stories are ones of revenge, the pioneer code, paying for old debts. They’re very old-school, male-centric films, yet this one also has a strong female character near the center.

Moving from West Texas to the Arapaho/Shoshone Indian reservation of hardscrabble Wyoming, “Wind River” is steeped in Native American culture but has two Caucasian main characters. I’m sure some people will find that politically objectionable for its own sake, but the very theme of the film is about strangers -- the interlopers who barge in, and the outsiders within our own midst.

This is not one of those reservations with a big casino and fat gold belt buckles. It’s a land of bitter cold and bleak mountains that keep people apart. They huddle in mobile homes against snows that pile deep even in spring, drowning in drink, drugs and despair. A fleeting shot shows some locals burning pieces of their house to stay warm.

Cory Lambert is very much integrated into this community. A hunter of predators for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, he roams the land on a snowmobile, tracking deadly beasts that prey on livestock and, occasionally, people. He’s searching for some lions that took down a steer on his father-in-law’s ranch when he finds a teenage girl’s body in the snow.

She’s beat up and barefoot, and the frostbite extends up to her ankles -- telling you how far she walked before finally falling. “That’s a warrior,” Cory intones.

This is the first role since “The Hurt Locker” that gives Jeremy Renner full rein to explore a character from the inside out. A f’real cowboy -- he trains his own horses, makes his own bullets and favors a lever-action rifle over modern snipers -- Cory doesn’t talk much but speaks volumes. There’s a lot of hurt in his own life, and his marriage to a Native woman (Julia Jones) has crumbled.

Elisabeth Olsen plays the intruder, Jane Banner, a young FBI agent sent out from Las Vegas to investigate the death. She’s resilient and smart -- shrewd enough to know she’s completely out of her element in a land where six reservation officers patrol a land the side of Rhode Island, and screaming winds and 20 degrees below zero can cause lungs to bleed, and then freeze.

“Luck don’t live out here,” Cory warns.

Jane recruits him to be her scout and tracker, though Cory clearly has his own ideas how the investigation is going to play out. Visiting the dead girl’s father (an amazing Gil Birmingham), Jane clumsily displays her privilege and presumption, seeing the man’s pride and stoicism, and interpreting that as hardheartedness.

When Cory shows up and the dad melts into his arms, we’re as astonished as she is. They share a connection no one else can.

Acting as facilitator is Graham Greene as the reservation police chief. He knows the people and wants to do the right thing, but also understands that his job will continue after the feds have gone back home. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m used to no help,” he says.

They follow the tracks in the snow, which leads to questions, which suggest possible answers.

If “Hell or High Water” was a bona fide masterpiece, then “Wind River” is just a half-step down. It doesn’t quite have the same narrative momentum, tending to pool in eddies of contemplation rather than driving a potboiler plot.

But this approach has its own rewards, as in a scene where Jane goes into Cory’s home, and we sense the pull between them and think we know what’s going to happen. But it’s another form of intimacy that takes place, where the leathery gunman opens up his heart in a way we can’t possibly imagine John Wayne doing.

Today’s cinematic cowboys kill, but can also weep.

Indy Film Fest: "Wind River"

“I know you’re looking for clues, but you’re missing all the signs.”
                    --Cory Lambert

Last year’s “Hell or High Water” was my pick for the best movie in a very good film year, and writer Taylor Sheridan is back with another superlative crime drama for late summer, “Wind River,” which he also directed.

Sheridan, who also wrote the screenplay for “Sicario,” has quickly become the most authoritative voice of the modern Western. His stories are ones of revenge, the pioneer code, paying for old debts. They’re very old-school, male-centric films, yet this one also has a strong female character near the center.

Moving from West Texas to the Arapaho/Shoshone Indian reservation of hardscrabble Wyoming, “Wind River” is steeped in Native American culture but has two Caucasian main characters. I’m sure some people will find that politically objectionable for its own sake, but the very theme of the film is about strangers -- the interlopers who barge in, and the outsiders within our own midst.

This is not one of those reservations with a big casino and fat gold belt buckles. It’s a land of bitter cold and bleak mountains that keep people apart. They huddle in mobile homes against snows that pile deep even in spring, drowning in drink, drugs and despair. A fleeting shot shows some locals burning pieces of their house to stay warm.

Cory Lambert is very much integrated into this community. A hunter of predators for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, he roams the land on a snowmobile, tracking deadline beasts that prey on livestock and, occasionally, people. He’s searching for some lions that took down a steer on his father-in-law’s ranch when he finds a teenage girl’s body in the snow.

She’s beat up and barefoot, and the frostbite extends up to her ankles -- telling you how far she walked before finally falling. “That’s a warrior,” Cory intones.

This is the first role since “The Hurt Locker” that gives Jeremy Renner full rein to explore a character from the inside out. A f’real cowboy -- he trains his own horses, makes his own bullets and favors a lever-action rifle over modern snipers -- Cory doesn’t talk much but speaks volumes. There’s a lot of hurt in his own life, and his marriage to a Native woman (Julia Jones) has crumbled.

Elisabeth Olsen plays the intruder, Jane Banner, a young FBI agent sent out from Las Vegas to investigate the death. She’s resilient and smart -- shrewd enough to know she’s completely out of her element in a land where six reservation officers patrol a land the side of Rhode Island, and screaming winds and 20 degrees below zero can cause lungs to bleed, and then freeze.

“Luck don’t live out here,” Cory warns.

Jane recruits him to be her scout and tracker, though Cory clearly has his own ideas how the investigation is going to play out. Visiting the dead girl’s father (an amazing Gil Birmingham), Jane clumsily displays her privilege and presumption, seeing the man’s pride and stoicism, and interpreting that as hardheartedness.

When Cory shows up and the dad melts into his arms, we’re as astonished as she is. They share a connection no one else can.

Acting as facilitator is Graham Greene as the reservation police chief. He knows the people and wants to do the right thing, but also understands that his job will continue after the feds have gone back home. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m used to no help,” he says.

They follow the tracks in the snow, which leads to questions, which suggest possible answers.

If “Hell or High Water” was a bona fide masterpiece, then “Wind River” is just a half-step down. It doesn’t quite have the same narrative momentum, tending to pool in eddies of contemplation rather than driving a potboiler plot.

But this approach has its own rewards, as in a scene where Jane goes into Cory’s home, and we sense the pull between them and think we know what’s going to happen. But it’s another form of intimacy that takes place, where the leathery gunman opens up his heart in a way we can’t possibly imagine John Wayne doing.

Today’s cinematic cowboys kill, but can also weep.

Video review: "Arrival"

“Arrival” is a fine science fiction drama, more contemplative and imaginative than we usually see. But a Best Picture Oscar nominee? Please.

(In this regard it shares a lot of company, up to and including the runaway favorite, “La La Land.”)

Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a scientist specializing in languages. When giant black ebony space ships suddenly appear out of the sky, silently taking up station at random points around the globe, she’s brought in to try to communicate with the invaders.

The “heptapods” allow the humans into their ships once every 18 hours. We see some massive tentacles through a clear wall, but the only sounds they make are grunts and screeches that none of the other big brains can make sense of.

Louise, working with fellow egghead Ian (Jeremy Renner), try to use visual aids to make a breakthrough. Meanwhile, military leaders (including Forest Whitaker) are barking orders and international leaders are stoking fears, believing that the aliens came to provoke a war.

The pivotal role falls to Louise, who discovers that the extraterrestrials do not view time in the same linear line as humans.

I don’t mean to deplore “Arrival.” My chief criticism is that it’s a movie that works very much on an intellectual level and not so much on an emotional one. Most films go the other way, so it’s refreshing to see one aim more for the mind than the heart.

The truly best films, though – the kind nominated for Best Picture – should do both.

Bonus features are a bit lacking, especially if you buy the DVD edition, which contains none.

The Blu-ray comes with five making-of featurettes: “Xenolinguistincs: Understanding Arrival,” “Acoustic Signatures: The Sound Design,” “Eternal Recurrence: The Score,” “Nonlinear Thinking: The Editorial Process” and “Principles of Time, Memory & Language.”

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Review: "Arrival"

We don’t often see science fiction movies as cerebral as “Arrival.”

Even “Interstellar” relied on a certain amount of action scenes and contrived peril to keep the narrative moving. This film, directed by Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners”) from a screenplay by Eric Heisserer, based on a short story by Ted Chiang, is largely a rumination on how language affects our thoughts and perceptions. It’s an often exhilarating experience that largely eschews obvious thriller-movie moments.

If it’s possible to do a film on an alien invasion of Earth that’s the polar opposite of the “Independence Day” flicks, then here it is.

Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a language genius brought in by the military to help communicate with the extraterrestrials. Their ebony ships, shaped like large concave discs, suddenly appear one day, looming over a dozen spots on Earth. Banks is assigned to the team working the Montana ship, headed up by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker, doing an annoying and entirely unnecessary accent of vaguely New England vintage).

She’s partnered up with Ian, a physicist played by Jeremy Renner. Normally in these types of movies the male character is the focus and the woman is relegated to the moon that reflects his light. Here it’s pretty much the opposite; Ian is constantly around and supportive, but he’s there to facilitate her journey.

They’re both lonely academic types, but she’s further burdened by some memories of a failed marriage and daughter, about which I’ll say no more.

The aliens are left deliberately vague. Described as “heptapods,” they appear to be giant seven-tentacled creatures with no visible faces. They are viewed only in shadowy fog through a glass wall inside their ship, into which the humans are permitted once every 18 hours. The aliens don’t appear to be violent, but nobody’s been able to get through to them. Their language appears to be a wave of rumbles and screeches that no one can figure out.

Louise determines to use visual aids, reckoning that written communication doesn’t always stand in for how it’s pronounced. The heptapods can produce strange, inky spirals that she and Ian begin to puzzle out.

Meanwhile, other nations are leery of the alien threat, egged on by a populace riven with paranoia. Are the aliens here to ask something of the humans? To give something? To provide a test of some sorts?

“Arrival” is the sort of the movie that’s challenging to review without giving too big a peek behind the curtain. It’s a slow-moving film that some people will find dreamy and intoxicating, and others may become bored with it. It stimulates the mind more than the heart, and that’s a nice change of pace.

Video review: "Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation"

"Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation" is one of the better installments in the TV-to-cinema series centered on superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise). It can't hold a handle to the previous film, "Ghost Protocol," but that's more an indication of tht movie's strength than any lagging quality in its successor.

Story-wise, the plot bears a great deal of resemblance to the recent James Bond film "Spectre," or should I say the latter takes after the former. It seems a shadowy global criminal syndicate -- called, simply the Syndicate -- has been behind much of the troubles seen in the last few "MI" movies. Hunt is out to get them, with the help of loyal retainers Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), the gadget guy; Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), comms and muscle; and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), the man on the inside at Impossible Missions Force (IMF).

The CIA director (Alec Baldwin) wants to shut down IMF as an embarrassment and a waste of resources. So Ethan & Co. have to take the fight to the bad guys while also evading, or conscripting the unwitting assistance of, the good ones.

It's a smorgasbord of cool chases, clever reversals and fiendish villains. It doesn't really amount to much, but it's a whole lot of forgettable fun. And, as it turns out, Ethan Hunt does this story better than James Bond does.

Bonus features are good, though you'll have to ante up for the Blu-ray edition to get them: the DVD contains zilcho.

With the Blu-ray you get a feature length commentary track by writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise; plus seven making-of featurettes.

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Video review: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

As sequels go, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” delivered everything it had to.

It brought the gang of Marvel superheroes back together for another round of computer-generated mayhem and quips. It added some new wrinkles to the characters’ background stories and continuing evolution. A few new key super-powered folk were added to the mix. And a really crafty and charismatic villain emerged to steal the show.

The heavy here is Ultron, an artificial intelligence program created by Tony Stark aka Ironman (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to protect the world, since they’re each anxious to get out of the caped crusader game. (Yes, I know neither one actually wears a cape; work with me, people!)

Ultron, menacingly voiced and motion-captured by James Spader, quickly decides that the Avengers themselves are the biggest thread to Earth. Thus their battle is joined, with Ultron jumping from robot body to body, like a virus that’s impossible to care.

Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor, (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are here, too. The new kids are mutant siblings Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who have mind powers and super-speed, respectively.

The supes race about the world trying to contain Ultron’s misdeeds, with a few character-driven subplots to keep the human angle fresh. We learn Hawkeye isn’t just a deadeye loner, and that Banner and Widow have feelings for each other.

It’s a rip-roaring time, not quite as good as the original, but what is?

Extras include deleted scenes, several making-of featurettes, feature-length audio commentary track and a gag reel.

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Review: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

No, it's not quite the same thrill as watching the first Avengers movie. Really, how could it be?

Marvel spent years putting together the first super-hero supergroup movie, patiently setting up characters in their own solo flicks. So finally seeing a bunch of mini-gods in spandex fighting for a common cause was the ultimate payoff.

We're built to like what's shiny and new, so anything after that is bound to be a letdown. Still, "Avengers: Age of Ultron" is a worthy successor, managing to layer in plenty of incredible action scenes while also exploring what the whole "hero" concept means to those behind the masks.

(I say "masks" pejoratively, since only Iron Man wears one, and only then because it's not wise to leave obvious holes in your armor. Most comic book heroes keep their identities concealed, but Hollywood prefers not to spend big bucks on pretty faces and then hide them.)

Writer/director Joss Whedon combines a fanboy's appreciation for the intricacies of super-hero mythology with a cineaste's head for fast-paced mayhem. The result is a fun, giddy movie that occasionally rambles off the narrative tracks, but always manages to land its emotional punches.

If you'll recall from last time, the gang -- Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.); Thor (Chris Hemsworth); Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson); Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner); and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) -- had successfully fought off an alien invasion led by Loki, Thor's wayward brother. Half of New York was destroyed in the process, but hey, that helped set up Marvel's "Daredevil" show on Netflix.

"Ultron" opens with the Avengers stamping out the last traces of Hydra, a Nazi holdover that had captured Loki's magical staff.  Instead of returning it to Thor's home world for safekeeping, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner -- that's Iron Man and Hulk's nerdy scientist alter egos, of course -- decide to use it to build an artificial intelligence capable of safeguarding Earth from all threats.

Alas, their creation, Ultron -- wonderfully voiced and motion captured by James Spader -- decides that the biggest threat to the planet is humans. So he sets about on a nefarious plan to wipe out the Avengers and the regular folks they protect.

The hard part about defeating Ultron is that he can replicate himself, so he creates an army of robots -- all variations on Iron Man's suit -- which means you have to destroy every one of them to eradicate his mind.

Adding spice to the mix are Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, wayward young mutants who become Ultron's apprentices. He can run as fast as a bullet, hence his code name Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). She's the trickier of the two, capable of telekinesis as well as a limited degree of mind control. Aptly named Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), she invades the inner psyche of each of the Avengers, forcing them to face their darkest fears.

The upshot of all of this is that being a hero isn't always that super. Stark and Banner in particular would like to hang up their mantles -- especially Banner, who can't control the Hulk and views his time in that form as a kind of madness. Black Widow is the only one who can calm him down, and that leads to the beginnings of a romance.

There's plenty of other cool stuff, too. We learn that Iron Man has a fail-safe option for when the Hulk goes berserk, and it's an even bigger iron suit that goes on top of his regular one, and comes with the absurd codename of "Veronica." We also get to meet the Vision (Paul Bettany), an artificial creation that ... well, best to discover on your own.

You can't put lightning back in a bottle, and you can't entirely recapture the spark of cinema's first super-hero team. But you can have a helluva good time trying.

Review: "Kill the Messenger"

Gary Webb's career was killed not so much by the CIA as by professional jealousy. His stories, first published in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996, alleged that the CIA engineered, or at least willingly allowed, money from drug trafficking in the U.S. to support the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration.

These facts would be largely corroborated by subsequent government investigations. But Webb, first hailed as a journalistic hero, was systematically torn apart by the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times. The new film about Webb's story and its aftermath, "Kill the Messenger," portrays the editors at the big national papers as incensed that they had been scooped by a perceived inferior competitor.

If this sounds far-fetched, then you've never worked at a newspaper. They can be insular, fiercely protective enclaves, both internally and especially in dealing with rivals. When you beat them on a moderately big story, they try to ignore it -- as if the very fact that they didn't run anything about it diminishes its importance.

If you beat the other team at a really big story, the story often becomes about you. Webb found himself celebrated, then targeted, then summarily drummed out of the business. He committed suicide seven years later.

But the wider availability of information in the Internet age prompted many to follow up on his big story and legacy, including Nick Schou, who wrote the book "Kill the Messenger" upon which this movie is based, along with Webb's own tome, "Dark Alliance."

Jeremy Renner plays Webb as a prototypically normal family man, who likes to hang out with his kids and tinker with motorcycles. Except, that is, when he gets a bite of a good story -- then he becomes a Rottweiler, not just unwilling but biologically incapable of letting go.

The film, directed by Michael Cuesta from a screenplay by Peter Landesman, is firmly in Webb's corner as a righteous journalist done wrong by the powers that be. Oliver Platt and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who play his editors, practically leak air as turncoats who have their reporter's back, until they don't.

The movie similarly starts stronger and then grows fuzzy around the edges. The first half, as Webb meticulously hunts down leads, most of them from the underworld of South and Central America cocaine traffickers, shows the drudgery of investigative journalism, sparked by occasional electricity when connections are made.

The second half gets a little repetitive and dreary, as the backlash against Webb grows, reputedly inspired by a concerted effort by the CIA itself. Shadowy figures start hanging out around Webb's home, and mute men in suits paw through his papers without even a by-your-leave.

The relationship between Webb and his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) follows the traditional line in these sorts of movies, where the loving, understanding spouse grows concerned about how invested their partner is in their work, pushes back, and eventually dire choices must be made. They seem to fall in and out of love in just a few ticks on the clock.

The good outweighs the bad in "Kill the Messenger," but like Webb's reporting -- prone to exaggeration and theatricality, but essentially true -- it tries too hard at embellishing a good tale that needed no help.

Review: "American Hustle"

In one of his final reviews, the incomparable Roger Ebert declared a film “fabulously well-acted and crafted, but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air.” I felt much the same way about “American Hustle,” which boasts an entire crowd of Academy Award-winning and -nominated thespians, one of Hollywood’s most lauded writer/directors, a buzzy historical subject, and a crushing identity crisis.

What the heck is this movie about? Ostensibly, it’s a fictionalized version of the Abscam scandal of 30-odd years ago that led to the conviction of a bunch of Congressmen and other government officials on corruption charges. But in the sprawling, unwieldy adaptation, it seems like merely an excuse for a bunch of actors to dress up in horrid ‘70s fashions and exchange frenetic volleys of dialogue that often make not a lick of sense.

Eric Singer’s screenplay exploring some little-known peculiarities of the imbroglio had languished around Hollywood for years, turning up on lists of the best non-produced scripts. Director David O. Russell did his own rewrite to intentionally turn the real-life characters into caricatures, and make the shenanigans even crazier than they actually were.

(Fittingly, Singer’s original title was “American Bullpucky,” though he used a different word.)

The cast is led by Christian Bale as Irving Rosenfeld, a brilliant but complex con man. Outwardly the role is showy, with Bale putting on weight to gain a big belly, and wearing an elaborate comb-over hairdo, tinted glasses and cheesy facial hair. But Irving lives mostly inside his own head, and sometimes has difficulty putting his schemes into action.

Bale never quite breaks through the wall between an actor’s creation and the audience, and Irving largely remains a sphinx to us.

Irving’s muse and partner in crime is Sydney Prosser, played by Amy Adams, who adopted the persona and lilt of a refined British woman so long ago, it’s taken over her identity. She cares deeply for Irving, for reasons that are unclear to her, and us. Adams gets her own makeover with a poodle perm and necklines that perpetually plunge down to her navel.

The third, and unsteadiest leg of the triad of leading characters is Richie DiMaso, played by Bradley Cooper, who is the FBI agent who busts Sydney and Irving and forces them to become his operatives.

They entrap politicians (including a sharp Jeremy Renner as a New Jersey mayor) with promises of a massive casino financed by a mysterious Arab sheikh. Richie lets the power go to his head, and convinces himself he and Sydney are soul mates.

If you thought this was yet another story about a love triangle, then you’d be wrong, because it’s actually a quadrangle.

Jennifer Lawrence turns up as Irving’s wife, Rosalyn, a walking electric ball of neuroses. Feeling abandoned by her husband’s criminal antics and his attentions for Sydney, Rosalyn inserts herself into the mix by sheer force of will, which proves troublesome when their business dealings wander into the purview of the mafia.

Narratively, Rosalyn doesn’t really serve much purpose in the story, other than to gum up the works and generate chaos. Lawrence is so crackling good, though, that the film goes into a torpor whenever she walks off-screen.

Rounding out the cast is Louis C.K. as Richie’s put-upon boss and Michael Peña as a Mexican-American fed who gets tapped to portray the sheikh. Robert De Niro also makes an uncredited appearance in a familiar role.

The experience of seeing “American Hustle” is like being at a wild party where you don’t know anybody, and find yourself shoved into a corner watching the mayhem happening all around. You never really understand the whats and the whys of it all, and you stroll out the door unchanged from how you were when you walked in, mostly trying to remember who sent the invitation and why you accepted it.

Video review: "The Bourne Legacy"

Jason Bourne is back! ...well, sorta.

The superspy franchise returns for a fourth outing, but the amnesiac hero played by Matt Damon is nowhere to be found. Instead, it's about a new agent named Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner). Like Bourne, he was an elite member of a CIA assassin squad that the bureaucrats have now decided is too dangerous to exist.

So all of the spook outfit's energies are devoted toward taking out their own spies, with new, even more dangerous wetboys assigned to do the dirty work. Based on the Bourne movies, apparently all the CIA does is kill its own agents, with each new batch taking out the last. It's a wonder they ever found bin Laden.

Director Tony Gilroy, who also co-wrote the screenplay, sets up a movie that is almost nonstop chases. Maybe that's a good thing, because whenever the action stops long enough for the characters to talk to each other, it's pure death.

Rachel Weisz plays a doctor whose job it was to keep Cross and his chums doped up on pills that dramatically boosted their intelligence and physical abilities. He swoops into save her, and soon both are on the run.

"The Bourne Legacy" isn't boring, but it is pretty brain dead.

The video does come nicely stocked with extras. If you choose either the solo DVD or Blu-ray edition, you get deleted scenes, feature-length commentary by Gilroy and his production team, a making-of documentary and a breakdown of the motorbike chase sequence.

Upgrade to the combo pack, and you add a number of cool featurettes, including one about Cross' battle with wolves, and a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Video review: "The Avengers"

Even if you're not a fan of superhero movies, you've got to appreciate "The Avengers" for its near-perfect execution of everything great about the genre.

Start with the obvious: instead of one person wielding super-awesome powers and abilities, this flick's got six: Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow, Captain American and Hawkeye. Four of them have already been featured in their own solo movies, so "The Avengers" represents one big honkin' pot of hero gumbo where they get thrown into the mix together.

Their investigable clashes result in a movie that's a helluva lot funnier than you'd expect.

Then add in a terrific villain, Thor's half-brother Loki, who has recruited a mysterious race of alien creatures to attack Earth at his behest. Loki snivels and pouts, boasts and taunts, and is wonderfully delicious to hate.

Finally, give credit to director Joss Whedon for delivering a film that's packed with action, but doesn't seem overwhelmed by computer-generated effects. The fight scenes are crisply and clearly staged, so even though the characters are doing extraordinary things they remain entirely comprehensible.

Just as movies based on comic books seem to have hit middle age, with many franchises falling back on reboots and tired storylines, "The Avengers" are hitting their stride.

The movie is available on home video in four iterations: a single-disc DVD, two-disc DVD combo pack, two-disc Blu-ray or four-disc "Super Set" with both formats.

Video features are good, though you have to pay for the higher-end sets to get the really good stuff. The DVD comes with a feature-length commentary track by Whedon, plus a making-of feature about assembling the team of heroes and the actors who played them.

The centerpiece of the Blu-ray edition is "A Second Screen Experience," an interactive database of images and video that take you deep in the Marvel Comics universe. Unfortunately, it's only accessible with a Blu-ray-equipped laptop computer, iPhone or iPad.
Other goodies bridge the gap. There's "Marvel One-Shoot: Item 47," an original short film, a featurette on the visual effects in the film, gag reel, deleted scenes and "Live To Rise" music video.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras:3 stars

Review: "The Bourne Legacy"

At 2¼ hours, "The Bourne Legacy" is essentially one big long chase scene that never wants to stop, and with good reason. Because whenever it does, the audience starts thinking about the characters and the plot -- how thinly-drawn the former are, and how the story structure crumbles to ashes with even a cursory examination.

As you probably know, this is the fourth movie in the Bourne super-spy franchise, and it's missing one notable quantity: Jason Bourne. Matt Damon is out, and Jeremy Renner is in, but it's not just a cynical recasting of the same character by a different actor. Instead, it's an entirely different guy, but set in the same universe and caught in the same situation.

Jason Bourne is apparently still around -- at one point, we hear he's spotted in Manhattan. But the CIA spooks cooped up in their now-ubiquitous high-tech control rooms are instead focused on Aaron Cross (Renner) instead. They peer at computer screens, which seem to be wired into every video camera on the planet, plus satellites up above, and shout urgent orders at each other that seem to have no real-world effects whatsoever.

One wonders if across town, another group of spymasters are jammed into another room barking their own orders in pursuit of Bourne.

No matter. Director Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote the screenplay with brother Dan, is less concerned with the whys and wherefores of the story than just keeping the action moving.

Cross first appears in a snowy mountain range, stalked by wolves and other dangers. Why is he stranded out there? Neither he, or we, are ever really sure. But it seems that Outcome, the ultra-secret program of which he was an agent, has been deemed too dangerous to continue to exist. To wit: the CIA is busy killing all the spies, and Cross is the last one left.

It's a bit of a cheap ploy that all the Bourne movies have recycled. Bourne was in a program called Treadstone, but when its cover was blown they initiated another program, Briarpatch, to clean up the mess of Treadstone. Now it's Outcome that is the target and -- yes, you guessed, there's another program beyond that one that's supposed to be even more extreme.

Based on these movies, it seems the CIA doesn't do anything but create and then shut down super-soldier operations, and all of its agents die trying to kill the "dangerous" agents.

The control method the spies have over the Outcome recruits is that they're genetically enhanced, and must continually take drugs to maintain their physical and intellectual boost. Thus Cross and his fellows can jump across mountain ravines, take out drone airplanes with a hunting rifle, and be shot, stabbed and pummeled and keep on going. But only if they keep taking their little blue and green pills.

Rachel Weisz plays Marta Shearing, a doctor who administers the drugs to the agents, but is willfully ignorant of what they do. Until, of course, she becomes a target herself. Cross rides to her rescue, and they're on the run across the Eastern seaboard, and then the action jumps to Manila in the Philippines.

With the original Bourne movies, there at least was the conceit of Jason's amnesia to keep the narrative momentum rolling, as he labored to find out who he was, why people were trying to kill him, and who was behind it all. Here, the chase is the first, and only thing.

The action is engaging and daring, including a motorcycle chase that's positively rousing, as the two-wheeler carrying our heroes skitters and screeches all around the mayhem.

Gilroy, though, has a tendency to place his camera too close to the action, especially the hand-to-hand fight scenes, so we're never quite aware of exactly what's happening. Gilroy's previous credits behind the camera were "Michael Clayton" and "Duplicity," and his lack of action-movie experience is glaring.

"The Bourne Legacy" isn't a bad movie, and those just wanting a couple hours of mindless diversion may find it suits the bill. As spy thrillers go, this one's dumber than the average bear.

2 stars out of four

Review: "The Avengers"

Critics are not supposed to be dispassionate – we are, after all, in the business of offering opinions – but there is an expectation of a certain level of restraint, of being the impartial observer as opposed to the slobbering fanboy. So I regret to inform you of my failing, a moment during “The Avengers” when my fist pumped the air jubilantly and I bellowed, “Oh, YEAH!!!”

Even worse: I do not regret my outburst.

The long-awaited superhero supergroup is finally assembled, and their film does not disappoint. It’s a smashmouth extravaganza of outsized proportions, six heroes reluctantly brought together to battle a deliciously hateful villain who’s got an army of hideous alien boogums in tow.

The fight scenes are frequent, frenetic and tremendously well-done. For once, the action is not sliced and diced into an incomprehensible flurry of edited morsels -- cinematic death by a thousand cuts. How wonderful it is to watch someone capable of doing things that are otherworldly, and yet it remains perfectly comprehensible.

In addition to battling the bad guys, the supes often tangle with each other. It’s a delicious carryover from the Marvel Comics universe, whose creators knew entire generations of kids grew up arguing over how a throw-down between Iron Man and Thor would play out.

Now we know. And it’s a helluva a lot of fun finding out.

Writer/director Joss Whedon does a yeoman’s job of balancing a sprawling cast of heroes, giving each of them enough scenes and character moments to make them register as more than CGI-assisted brawlers.
He’s helped by the fact that four of the six were previously featured in their own solo films. (Though the Hulk only partially counts, since two previous iterations of the green behemoth in the past decade – each starring a different actor than this movie – have been quasi-disowned.)

In case you weren’t up to speed already, here’s the roll call:

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is billionaire Tony Stark wrapped in a metal super-suit that allows him to fly and blow things up. A boozy rebel, Stark has a hard time playing well with others.

The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is brilliant scientist in self-imposed exile, because when angered he turns into a raging green beast of destruction. Ruffalo brings a brittle tension under the placid surface, forever worried about letting "the other guy" out.

Captain America (Chris Evans) is literally a bygone relic of long ago, a World War II Nazi-kicker who was frozen and revived. The sole successful result of the Super Soldier experiment, Captain represents the peak of human physical perfection, though he feels rootless in a strange new world.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is, literally, a god -- the Norse god of thunder. And he has the ego of a god, along with incredible strength, the weather at his command and a magic hammer made for smiting. He also views the Earth as his own private protectorate, and isn't terribly pleased when others start mussing it up.

The other two members of the team are, by definition, B-listers since they've only previously shown up as supporting characters in the other flicks. They're also regular humans with no special powers but their incredible skills: Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is a super-spy legend, pairing hand-to-hand combat skills with unparalleled subterfuge; Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is a master bowman whose quarrel always has some new tricks at the ready.

Loki, Thor's evil brother, returns from exile to seize the Tesseract, a mysterious object capable of limitless power. He plans to use it to open a portal to bring through the Chitauri, a chitinous alien race that ostensibly are his allies. Tom Hiddleston plays Loki with zest and glee, smiling and sneering.

Loki is also the reason for that "Oh, yeah!" moment -- you'll know it when you see it.

The movie is also surprisingly funny at times, with Stark providing most of the comic relief via snappy one-liners. After his fight with Thor: "No hard feelings, Point Break. You pack a mean swing."

What a way to kick off the summer. "The Avengers" is everything you've been hoping for, and more.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol"

The "Mission: Impossible" movie franchise had grown moribund, and Tom Cruise's career along with it. Even when he made light, crowd-pleasing movies like "Knight and Day," audiences stayed away in droves. Luckily for both, the newest film, "M:I -- Ghost Protocol" was not only the best in the series and a huge international box office hit, it was quite possibly the best action/thriller in all of 2011.

The big question mark surrounding the movie -- other than audiences' recent disinclination to buy tickets to any movie with Cruise in it -- was whether director Brad Bird, having conquered the field of animation ("The Incredibles"), could translate his skills to live-action filmmaking.

One only has to watch any one of the several stunning action sequences in "Ghost" to end any uncertainty. My favorite was the scene where Cruise climbs the tallest building in the world using only a pair of high-tech magnetic gloves, one of which only functions intermittently. Meanwhile, inside the rest of his team intervenes in the sale of nuclear secrets between two sets of bad guys, simultaneously.

The plot is the usual spy-movie bramble of international intrigue and double-crosses, and bears little relevance to the enjoyment of this excellent flick.

On the downside, video extras for "MI -- Ghost Protocol" are a little underwhelming.

There are two featurettes about the making of the movie, focusing heavily on the fantastic stunt sequences and special-effects creations. There are also several deleted scenes with commentary by Bird.

That's not a bad haul, but compared to the movie accompanying them, these goodies aren't so good.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol"

"Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol" marks the end of the road for Tom Cruise -- or a new beginning.

Cruise, whose star persona is so associated with youthful vitality, will turn 50 next summer. He's blessed to be aging in the Cary Grant mold -- the harder planes and few cracks that have appeared in his features only seem to accentuate his rugged handsomeness, and his physique resembles an Olympic gymnast's.

A star for 30 years now, Cruise has grown older in a way that is much more detrimental to his career than any physical signs: audiences have grown tired of him.

Whether it's the couch jumping, leaving one beautiful wife for another, proselytizing his religion or some other off-putting aspect of his personal life, people have largely been turned off by Cruise. Fair or not, we want to believe the person we see onscreen is a reflection of real life.

Certainly, Cruise has not experienced a precipitous drop in the quality of movies he's been making. He made a hilarious turn into comedy with a supporting role in "Tropic Thunder," and then made the overly sturdy but effective World War II drama, "Valkyrie."

His next film, "Knight and Day," was most instructive. It was a fun, breezy, largely tongue-in-cheek action/romance in which he got to poke fun at his action hero image while wooing Cameron Diaz. Even though it showcased all of his best attributes as a movie star, it was a huge flop domestically -- though it cleaned up overseas; his enduring appeal on foreign shores is a cautionary to those eager to write the epitaph on his career.

If the third film in the "Mission: Impossible" series bombs, too, then I think it will be time for the tombstone engravers to get out their chisels. It's easily the best of the series, filled with extravagant international locations and fantastical action set-pieces, at least two of which are genuinely jaw-dropping.

(Programming note: seeing the film in IMAX is well worth the ticket up-sell, even more so because there's no distracting 3-D.)

The scene where super spy Ethan Hunt scales the tallest building in the world, using only a pair of magnetic gloves (which soon prove sketchy), is likely to induce acrophobia in those who don't already have it. (I do, and was left squirmy.) A fight with the villain in a huge robot-controlled parking garage comes in a close second.

The big question surrounding "Ghost Protocol," other than its star's fate, was whether animation wizard Brad Bird ("The Incredibles") could prove as adept at staging live action. Short answer: hellyeah.

Unlike so many directors whose action scenes are muddled and confusing, Bird is crisp and economical with his direction, showing the audience just enough to thrill without bombarding us with imagery and special effects.

The plot is ... as unrelated to the success of the movie as other "Mission" movies. The super-secret government agency Hunt works for, IMF, is disbanded when an explosion at the Kremlin is staged to look like a covert American attack. Hunt and a small band of outliers are left to stop a nuclear extremist (Michael Nyqvist) who wants to blow up the world.

It's all just an excuse to set up high-tension scenarios and let them play out, usually with a bang.

Screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec bring the clever, too, especially one terrific bit where the team attempts to intervene in a sale of nuclear secrets between two sets of bad guys simultaneously, without tipping either one off.

Jeremy Renner joins the franchise as Brandt, a former field hand with regrets, and Paula Patton is a hit as Jane Carter, a fiery agent who has something personal in the game. Simon Pegg returns as Benji, the chirpy, nerdy tech whiz who's moved out from behind a computer terminal at HQ to get into the action.

"Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol" is a top-notch spy thriller, but its biggest mystery is whether audiences have gotten over enough of their Tom Cruise phobia to plunk down for a ticket. From my end, here's hoping.

3.5 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

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