Review: "The Birth of a Nation"

The most surprising thing about “The Birth of a Nation” is the quiet lyricism it brings to the brutal depiction of American slavery. We’ve seen the cruelty before -- the flesh-tearing whippings, the use of women as sexual chattel, the everyday degradation of men -- most recently in “12 Years a Slave” and the television reprise of “Roots.”

But Nate Parker, who stars, wrote the screenplay and directed, offers both tenderness and righteous anger in the story of Nat Turner, a black slave preacher who led a violent rebellion in 1831 Virginia.

It’s a film of exquisite beauty exploring the ugliest chapter in the story of America.

This movie is perfectly posited for this moment in time in our national conversation about race and violence, with too many African-Americans gunned down by police under often questionable justification.

Parker’s approach is biblical in tone without ever becoming preachy. He does not present Turner’s revolt as “right” -- seeing as it included the deaths of some 60 whites, including women and children -- but the inevitable outcome of generations of suppressing a people’s liberty and very humanity.

Nat Turner begins as a normal kid, singled out for his intellect and raised inside the plantation house, growing up the playmate of the owner’s son, Samuel. Forced to return to the fields after the master’s death, Nat becomes the slaves’ spiritual leader, exhorting them to follow scripture and submit to the will of their masters.

He is, in essence, a “safe” slave in a culture where whites are constantly fearful of reprisal from their slaves, who often outnumber them. Nat is so effective at keeping the peace that Samuel (Armie Hammer), now the master, agrees to rent him out to other owners to preach to their slaves and soothe them.

Samuel is presented as a fairly tolerant master, an ineffectual drunkard who barely bothers with the upkeep of the farm, so Nat is horrified at the treatment he sees at other plantations. In one painful scene, the teeth of a slave refusing to eat are casually knocked out with a hammer and chisel so a nasty gruel can be forced down his throat.

We witness Nat begin to slowly change, from a man patiently awaiting his kingdom in heaven to one who resents the hell he’s being forced to live through on earth. He’s haunted by visions, blood pouring from the crops, and believes he’s being called upon by God.

That feeling is accelerated when his beloved wife, Cherry (Aja Naomi King), is ravaged by some bestial slave hunters, with Jackie Earle Haley playing the leader who has a personal past with Nat.

The movie mostly follows the historical record, while fiddling with some details. For instance, Samuel Turner was the brother, not the son, of Nat’s original owner. And Nat was sold to another slave owner, Giles Reese, by the time of the uprising. But these are largely quibbles that do not detract from the tale.

The imagery in the movie will haunt you -- the feet of men and women gracefully swinging after being lynched; a young slave child skipping merrily while a girl uses a noose as a leash for her plaything. Its very gracefulness makes the horrors stand out further. The cinematography by Elliot Davis and the spare musical score by Henry Jackman are both wonderful.

“The Birth of a Nation” shares a title with a seminal 1915 film by silent film master D.W. Griffith, which is a technical marvel that established much of the cinematic language we understand today -- but also celebrated the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Parker has made a conscious effort to reclaim the name from its racist past.

Normally I’d be inclined to call that an act of stupendous pomposity. Except that Nate Parker’s film truly is a rebirth, a new cinematic declaration for this young century. It is a chorus of rage, sung without malice but also without apology.

Video review: "Non-Stop"

There ought to be a name for this sort of movie, in which an aging star reestablishes his action-film cred by starring as a cantankerous oldster who puts a big hurt on some whippersnappers. Geezer’s Revenge? Oldsploitation?

Or perhaps we should just name the genre after Liam Neeson, who has become its current poster boy with the “Taken” series and now “Non-Stop,” in which he plays a federal air marshal squaring off against a mysterious killer in the skies. Neeson brings his usual crusty authority to the role as Bill Marks, a drinker and borderline loser who redeems himself through heroism.

The plot is more or less preposterous, with passengers dying every few minutes and the villain sending Marks clues and taunts via text message, as the latter tries to puzzle out the identity of the bad guy. Is it the quiet Muslim fellow? The obnoxious cop? Or maybe the amiable woman (Julianne Moore) chatting up Marks before the stuff hit the fan?

“Non-Stop” isn’t terribly original … OK, let’s be honest, it’s pretty much a rip-off of “Die Hard,” “Speed” and several other superior thrillers. But it does what it does well, with a reasonable amount of action and intrigue, plus Neeson backing it all up with his craggy solidity.

Call it what you like, but this old-school action/thriller delivers the goods.

Video extras are so-so. The DVD comes with a comprehensive making-of documentary, “Suspense at 40,000 Feet” that includes the participation of all the key cast and crew. The Blu-ray version adds a single featurettes with director Jaume Collet-Serra focusing on the creation of the movie’s many action scenes.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Non-Stop"

"Non-Stop" takes two recent staples of the action/thriller genre and mashes them agreeably, if preposterously, together.

You've got the high-stakes terrorist event in a confined space with an imposed deadline, a la "Die Hard," "Speed" and many rip-offs, in which a group of innocents are trapped in a place with a diabolical enemy willing to sacrifice them all. And you've got the taunting killer communicating with the cop trying to stop him, dropping hints and continually outflanking the do-gooder until the very end.

The movie also boasts an older guy showing he's still got the right stuff. Harrison Ford did this in "Air Force One" and Clint Eastwood with "In the Line of Fire." But even they've aged out of that sort of thing, so a new crop of geezers have come to the fore, with Liam Neeson leading the way. He established his action cred with "Taken," and since then has mostly done badass roles.

"Non-Stop" is a bit of a twist, since Bill Marks doesn't seem much like a hero at first. A federal air marshal, he's a drinker with a bit of a temper who, among other challenges, goes white-knuckled at the prospect of flying. But it's the job, and he does it well, if not with much enthusiasm.

Bill receives the ultimate challenge during a six-hour flight from New York to London. He starts receiving text messages on his (supposedly) secure device that a passenger on the plane is going to die if $150 million isn't wired to a bank in the next 20 minutes. Sure enough, someone ends up dead at the end of that time, though not in the way we, or Bill, expects it.

The rest of the movie becomes one long cat-and-mouse game as various potential suspects present themselves and are weeded out.

There's a taciturn Muslim guy (Omar Metwally), a loudmouth Bronx type (Corey Stoll), a nervous bespectacled guy (Scoot McNairy), a brash young black dude (Travis Mitchell), an uptight businessman, a distracted computer programmer (Nate Parker) and more. Even the captain (Linus Roache) and flight attendants (Michelle Dockery, Lupita Nyong'o) are not above suspicion.

Gliding in and out of Bill's baleful eye is Jen (Julianne), the gregarious woman who sat next to him on the plane before all hell broke loose. She's an X-factor, likeable but not entirely trustworthy, and Bill seems to weigh his doubts and hopes for her.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra and his quartet of screenwriters keep things coming fast at the audience, including an audacious effort by the terrorist to convince everyone that Bill himself is actually the one pulling all the strings. Now he has to fend off an unruly mob of passengers and hostility from the pilots and crew.

The whole thing is utterly ridiculous, including ham-handed attempts to insert some maudlin sentiment into the proceedings, represented by a timid young girl and some disturbing news about Bill's past.

But "Non-Stop" is just that, a giddy and reckless thrill ride from start to finish. It's only after you climb off that you realize how silly it all was, but by then you've had your fun.

Review: "Ain't Them Bodies Saints"

Lyrical and bare bones, “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” is the sort of movie Terrence Malick made early in his career, where mood and imagery trump narrative and dialogue. Writer/director David Lowery is already more than a dozen years deep into his feature film career, but this movie has the aspect of a debut -- of a voice that is not new but now comes to the fore with a confident, compelling tone.

“Saints” is the sort of story we’ve heard before: a desperate man driven to extreme acts in the pursuit of something good and pure. In this case, a convict breaks out of prison so he can be reunited with his wife and the daughter he’s never met. But the way Lowery invests the tale with emotional weight and a lingering sense of portent, it takes on the feel of a small Homeric epic.

Even at a sleek 96 minutes, the movie has a sense of sprawl and languidness. While some might find the film indulgent, I hardly ever felt like the cast and crew were treading water.

Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara bring a genuine, sad quality to their performances as Bob and Ruth, two lovers separated for nearly five years while Bob is imprisoned. It’s endemic to Lowery’s style of storytelling that we never learn precisely what crime was committed, other than it involved a suitcase full of cash and the involvement of some shady characters, who will later return.

What we do know is that during a shootout with police, Bob’s partner was killed and Ruth shot and wounded a sheriff’s deputy. Bob takes the rap so she and their unborn daughter can remain free.

Their relationship continues as something heartfelt and almost mystical, in that it survives only through their imagination. Bob pens daily, emphatic letters declaring his everlasting love – both for her sake and his own. His sense of himself as more than just another outlaw is what sustains him.

In many ways Ruth’s sentence is harsher than his, since she must continue living in the same small dusty Texas town they came from, raising a little girl in the midst of a community that looks askance upon them.

Brooding right next door is Skerritt (Keith Carradine), a local shopkeeper and father figure to both Bob and Ruth. It was his own son who was killed during the botched getaway that sent Bob to prison, so he isn’t thrilled at the prospect of his return.

Complicating things further is that wounded deputy, Patrick Wheeler (the always-excellent Ben Foster), who looks in on Ruth out of a sense of duty and finds himself drawn in by her tragic gravity. As word of Bob’s escape makes the rounds, it appears as if their trio of fates are hurtling toward each other like runaway steam engines.

“Saints” is simply a gorgeous picture of sights and sounds, and full credit goes to cinematographer Bradford Young and composer Daniel Hart for their craftsmanship. There are long, nearly wordless stretches in the film where the photography and music carry us, and there’s a rhythmic cadence to these sequences that is infectious.

Set in the late 1960s to early ‘70s, the movie seems both defined by its era and timeless. This tale could just as easily be transplanted to the 1920s with a quick change of cars and clothes.

Some movies are pushed along by their plot, while a few are content to lay back and explore characters and settings. “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” is noteworthy less for what it says than the evocative way it goes about saying it.

Video review: "Red Tails"

 World War II movies are something I just can't get enough of, and well-done films that focus on the war in the air are few and far between. Aviation films made during and in the years after the war tended to rely on stock footage for the combat scenes, with results that felt constrained by their eras.

Strange that now that Hollywood has all sorts of computer-generated tricks up their sleeves, they haven't tried very often to go back and tell some of these stories with more engaging fighting scenes. "Red Tails" attempts exactly that.

This movie, produced by George Lucas and with CGI provided by his legendary Lucasfilm special effects studio, contains some of the best air combat scenes ever captured on film. Imagine the best video game every made, and "Red Tails" puts you in the cockpit as American pilots engage in dogfights and bombing runs.

It's pulse-pounding, engaging stuff.

Alas, the characters and storyline have all the depth of a video game, too. Ostensibly the tale of the all-black pilots from the Tuskegee training program, "Red Tails" in actuality is an amalgamation of seemingly every cliché ever contained in a war movie.

The troubled squadron leader with a drinking problem? Check. The bed-hopping lothario who thinks he's fallen for The One? Check. The wild hot dog ace who suddenly loses his nerve? The racist white general trying to keep the African-American heroes from earning their glory? Check, check and check.

It's too bad that anytime the movie isn't in the air, the audience will want to check out.

Say what you will about Lucas' wobbly instincts as a filmmaker, but the man knows how to load up a video release with goodies. The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack of "Red Tails" is stuffed with all sorts of extras, including "Double Victory," a documentary on the actual Tuskegee Airmen.

There are also featurettes on director Anthony Hemingway, composer Terence Blanchard, the entire cast and Lucas himself. Other features focus on the creation of those amazing air combat scenes.

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras:3 stars