Review: "End of Sentence"

If you're a follower of indie cinema then the name John Hawkes is well familiar to you, though if you're not it's entirely possible you never heard of him. He was robbed of a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his transformative performance in "The Sessions" a few years back, and continues to do consistently excellent work, mostly in little films most people don't get to see.

His newest, "End of Sentence," is another terrific turn for Hawkes. He's playing a very closed-in character, the sort of person where most of the emotional concerto is taking place on the interior. Frank Fogle seems like the kind of guy where there's not much there, until you gaze long enough to see past the still waters to the roiling depths beneath.

Frank is the father of Sean, played resonantly by Logan Lerman, and despite being blood relatives are as different as two men can be. As the story opens Sean is being released from prison after a stint for various crimes, car theft chief among them.  Frank's wife and Sean's mother, Anna (Andrea Irvine), has just passed away, and it seems like the last cord tying them together has been severed.

However, she had one last dying request: that Frank and Sean travel to her ancestral homeland in northern Ireland and scatter her ashes at a remote lake. Thus begins a prototypical cinematic road trip story.

Frank is an odd duck. He dresses primly, doesn't drink or swear, is painstakingly polite and deferential to everyone he meets. Sean considers him a pushover, who lets people walk all over him -- and the people he's supposed to protect. There's a family history of violence, and Sean blames his dad for not protecting him.

Sean has a job lined up in Los Angeles, but agrees to go to Ireland in return for a plane ticket to the West Coast. There's also the matter of some property his mother owned, which will become his if he complies. It is understood by both men that the culmination of their mission represents the end of their relationship.

Of course, events transpire to delay their progress, dig up buried feelings and renew old conflicts -- but also open up opportunities for rapprochement. The primary vehicle for this is the entrance of Jewel, a local Irish girl played by Sara Bolger, into the story. Sean makes eyes at her at a pub, they  hook up for seemingly a one-night stand, and she winds up accompanying them on their journey.

Bolger is terrific at displaying a woman who has tremendous stores of vulnerability but also steely armor. She says upfront that she's running away from an abusive boyfriend. Sean, with his brusque exterior but little-boy-lost soul, appeals to her in a way that surprises her. Bolger also gets to sing a couple of tunes during the movie, and has a lovely plaintive quality to her voice.

Things go on. Attending a wake for his wife's Irish friends who couldn't make the trip for the funeral, Frank is surprised to learn of her having a wild past, including running off with a handsome fellow on a motorcycle. His curiosity soon becomes an obsession in plumbing the depths of this mystery, causing more detours and delays.

Frank is man full of fears who has been kept upright for the last 30 years by the love of a good woman. Now his only support is gone and he is unmoored in life, so he finds it difficult to throw a lifeline to a son in search of his own identity and home plot.

Elfar Adalsteins, directing his first feature film, and screenwriter Michael Armbruster have given us a beautiful film that is both familiar and novel. It is a story of loss, isolation and betrayal. And yet, when this yarn is all wound up we feel a sense of calm and even joy.

Just as hurt is unavoidable in life -- "Sometimes you're the pigeon, sometimes you're the statue," Frank says -- it's never too late to start the healing process. Scar tissue is tougher than unmottled flesh.

Review: "Fury"

One of my favorite things to do as a critic is to point people to great movies they’ve probably never heard of. Case in point: “End of Watch,” which was in and out of theaters so fast in 2012 you probably missed it even if you didn’t blink.

Writer/director David Ayer’s next film, the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle “Sabotage,” similarly disappeared without a trace. I’m hoping that won’t be the case with his latest, “Fury,” a World War II action/drama starring Brad Pitt that mostly takes place inside a single Sherman tank.

Fair notice: this a grim, dark movie about the dank corners hidden away inside men’s souls. It makes “Saving Private Ryan” seem like a lullaby.

The battle scenes are gruesome, and what happens when the shooting stops is often even more troubling. American soldiers are portrayed not as decent men who sometimes commit evil deeds in the heat of combat, but killing machines who only want to murder the Germans before the krauts murder them.

What a pitiable world Ayers has drawn for us. Unlike most WWII movies that are set when the Nazis still have the upper hand, here it’s April 1945 and the Germans are offering their stiffest resistance before the collapse they know is inevitable.

The soldiers are all scarred, grimy beasts; the German landscape is an open wound, ripped and gasping; the detritus of war lies all around, smoking armored hulks like prehistoric behemoths brought low. It’s not so much that death and carnage are everywhere, but everywhere is death and carnage.

To wit: when the fresh young recruit, Norman (Logan Lerman), is assigned to the crew of the “Fury,” the battered tank that has survived many battles, his first duty is to clean out the bloody mess left by his predecessor. While doing so, he finds part of the man’s face, perfectly intact, staring at him.

So again I say: not for the squeamish, this.

Pitt has a stout, merciless role as Don, aka “Wardaddy,” the sergeant who commands the Fury. His face done up with scars and hair chopped in a deliberately unattractive fop with shaved sides, Don is sure-handed and unrelenting with the enemy, and the same with his crew. He’ll let them bicker and bitch, but when it’s time for them to perform he will brook no hesitation.

When Norman fails to spot and kill a German soldier with an anti-tank gun, and absolutely horrific results ensue, Don makes personally sure that the lad will not flinch next time, using brutal but effective means. He’ll let the Neanderthal gunner, Grady (Jon Bernthal), indulge his base instincts, but only up to a point.

Don takes a softer hand with Bible, a thoughtful young man played thoughtfully by Shia LaBeouf, and Gordo (Michael Peña), the rock-solid tank driver. The sergeant has promised all his men he will keep them alive, but their latest mission will test that pledge.

The Fury is assigned to a platoon of five tanks to guard a crossroads against a force of fresh German troops, who are threatening the advancing division’s supply line. If they fail, the entire Allied advance will ground to a halt and the war could last months longer.

Ayer shows an expert hand for the battle scenes, keeping the focus on the men inside the Fury while giving a pulse-jumping view of the action outside. Tracer bullets and ordnance flash at the screen like lasers, lending the proceedings an eerie stuck-out-of-time feeling. An encounter with a technologically superior Panzer Tiger is especially effective.

The movie works better as a war picture than a character piece. We never quite get all the way inside the heads of the characters, so their peril doesn’t carry as much emotional freight as you’d expect. And a scene inside the apartment of a German woman and her cousin goes in many different directions at once, like a grenade, rather than focused, like a sniper’s bullet.

Still, this is one depiction of war destined to linger in our memory. At times this movie almost seems like a pugnacious middle finger to the classic war epics, in which disparate men come together for a violent but altruistic cause. “Fury” crushes the notion of the nobility of war under its grinding, pitiless treads.

Video review: "Noah"

Darren Aronofsky is not the sort of filmmaker who punts.

He makes dizzyingly complex movies that charter a course through the interior minds of his characters, who often descend into madness or despair. He broke onto the scene with “Pi,” and more recent efforts include “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan,” both of which got the attention of Oscar voters.

For his latest effort Aronofsky literally reached back to his childhood and a poem he wrote about Noah, the Biblical savior who builds an ark to save his family and two of every creature on Earth from God’s destructive flood. Religious literalists may be offended by the modernist reimagining of scripture by Aronosfsky, who also co-wrote the script with Ari Handel.

In this version of the tale, Noah (Russell Crowe) is a temperamental eco-warrior, a vegetarian who carefully harvests the bounty of the land, as opposed to the meat-eating descendants of Cain, who mine for precious metals, wage constant wars, and worse.

He receives dream-visions from the Creator (the word “God” is never used) indicating He plans to destroy the world, and Noah is charged with saving all his creatures. In Noah’s interpretation, he, his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), their three sons and adopted daughter (Emma Watson) are merely caretakers for the animals, and are expected to die out afterward.

His enemy is Tucal-Cain (a snarly Ray Winstone), who thinks his right of free will includes displacing Noah and his clan from the ark. Lending a hand are the Watchers, golem-like giants made of stone who are actually the souls of fallen angels, trapped for helping the descendants of Adam and Eve.

Also hanging around is Noah’s grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), the last of the great Biblical patriarchs endowed with magical powers. A major subplot involves a rivalry between Noah and his middle son Ham (Logan Lerman), who resents that his father refuses to let them choose wives to take along on the ark.

“Noah” represents a bold vision, unintentionally goofy at times, but one still engaging and illuminating.

Extra features are a tad disappointing, especially if you buy the DVD version, which contains exactly nothing. Upgrade to the Blu-ray, and you add three making-of featurettes: “Iceland: Extreme Beauty,” “The Ark Exterior: A Battle for 300 Cubits” and “The Ark Interior: Animals Two by Two.”

Movie:

Extras:

Video review: "The Sessions" and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

I’ve never attempted a double video review before, but the simultaneous release of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “The Sessions” make for a perfect opportunity. Both are small, heartfelt, exquisitely acted dramas about people living on the margins of their community. And each film was virtually ignored in the Academy Award nominations.

In “The Sessions,” John Hawkes plays Mark, a man in his late 30s who is paralyzed and lives inside an iron lung. Frustrated with his virginity, he retains a sex therapist named Cheryl (Helen Hunt) to help bring him into adulthood, as he puts it.

Their story goes on from there, with unintended emotional attachments growing. The film contains a lot of flesh, but writer/director Ben Lewin grabs the audience in the heart, not clutches the loins.

“Perks” may just be the best high school movie of the last two decades. Writer/director Stephen Chbosky, who adapted the film from his own novel, perfectly captures the moods and fears of the teenage soul. Charlie (Logan Lerman) is a smart, outcast underclassman who gets taken under the wing of Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), a pair of popular but misfit seniors.

Charlie slowly starts to come out of his shell, while Sam and Patrick are beset by their own respective problems. "Perks" is a wonderfully observant portrait of young people forging their identity in the crucible of high school.

In a film year of highs and lows, these two stood head and shoulders above the crowd … despite Oscar’s snub.

Video extras for "Perks" are decent, including a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and some unedited footage. It also boasts two separate commentary tracks, one with Chbosky alone and a second joined by his cast. Commentaries with both the principle actors and filmmakers tend to be the most engaging.

Video details for "The Sessions" were unavailable at press time.

Movie (both films): 3.5 stars out of four
Extras ("Perks"): 3 stars

Review: "Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief"

The studio would not screen "Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief" for critics here in Indianapolis. It's something that's been happening more and more lately. Once, it was only tiny little indie films. Now, mainstream movies like this are skipped.

In this case, it was especially curious because several weeks ago they contacted several local critics and offered interviews with the cast. We took them up on it -- you can read the Q&A here -- but still no screening. Exasperating.

Usually when a film is not screened, it's because the studio knows it has a dog on its hands. "Percy" is not a dog of a movie; it's actually a pretty good one. It's a pleasant enough action/adventure story for the preteen crowd -- sort of a Greek mythology version of "Harry Potter."

Instead of spells, Percy Jackson (a winning Logan Lerman -- one to watch) and his cohorts have gods for parents: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Athena, Hermes, etc. This makes them demi-gods -- humans with magical powers.

Percy thinks he's a regular kid with dyslexia and ADHD, a loser whose mother (Catherine Keener) is married to a slob of a step-father. His only friend is Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), a cripple on crutches.

But when minotaurs and furies start materializing out of thin air to attack him, it's a clue that his daddy is actually Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). It seems some miscreant has stolen Zeus' lightning bolt, and he thinks it's Percy. Unless the lightning is returned, the gods of Olympus are going to war.

The movie is based on a popular series of books by Rick Riordan. Screenwriter Craig Titley and kid-centric director Chris Columbus -- who directed the first two "Harry Potter" movies -- aim for a slapdash of PG-rated mayhem mixed in with some Greek Mythology 101.

In their reckoning, the Earth is populated by hundreds of offspring of the gods, who have a tendency to visit and "hook up" with mortals and then skedaddle. Percy and his ilk think they've been abandoned by their parents -- a none-too-subtle metaphor for the divorce epidemic.

Percy is taken to Camp Half-Blood -- think Hogwarts as a summer retreat -- to train and learn about his destiny.

Grover is revealed as a satyr, half-man, half-goat and all girl-loving horndog. The headmaster is a centaur who had been posing as a wheelchair-bound professor at his school, played by Pierce Brosnan. Luke (Jake Abel) is the friendly son of Hermes who takes Percy into his confidence. Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), daughter of Athena, is the baddest warrior in camp.

(No hint as to why all the demigod students happen to be between 16 and 18 years of age -- was the early 1990s the Summer of Love for gods coming to Earth to knock boots?)

The plot is fairly simplistic and silly, something involving finding their way into Hell to confront Hades, who's taken Percy's mother hostage. First they have to find three magical pearls that will allow them to return from the fiery depths.

This, of course, involves fighting increasingly dangerous critters pulled from the pages of Greek and Roman lore. Uma Thurman has a nice cameo as a sunglasses-wearing medusa. Other star turns include Sean Bean as Zeus, Rosario Dawson as the spouse of Hades, and Steve Coogan as the original man in black himself.

"Percy Jackson" is certainly not a great film, but it's well-executed family entertainment that will keep even parents reasonably entertained.

The only supernatural mystery is why the studio didn't want critics to see it.

3 stars