Review: "Human Capital"

"Human Capital" is a tale of leverage -- the invisible lines of influence and control we all have exerted upon us by others, and in turn use to manipulate people to our ends. It's a story of weaklings and bullies, lovers and enemies, and how quickly these roles can shift.

In an unnamed New York City wealthy suburb, two families are loosely joined by their children. Liev Schreiber is Drew, a middle-aged real estate broker looking for a piece of the better life. His teen daughter, Shannon (Maya Hawke), is dating Jamie (Fred Hechinger), the son of a major hedge fund tycoon. As the story opens, Drew offers to drop Shannon off at her boyfriend's house, but he has ulterior motives.

Peter Sarsgaard plays Quint Manning, the other father, with a pitch-perfect mix of arrogance and dismissive contempt. He invites Drew to play tennis with him, and he already seems to know it's a set-up to ask about investing in his hot new venture. It's a casual sort of neighborly corruption.

To Quint, everything and every person has a price tag on them.

Drew borrows the $300,000 to get in on the hedge fund (at the lowest "friends and family" entry) and falsifies his financial paperwork. Meanwhile, his younger wife Ronnie (Betty Gabriel), an idealistic therapist, has just learned she is pregnant. Drew, who used to have a problem with gambling, embraces the possibilities while pushing down the fear about the consequences -- especially when the deal starts to go south.

An accident on the road happens -- a car sideswipes a cyclist in the middle of the night, then drives on. Who was driving? What happened to the man on the bicycle? Will anyone be held to account in this world where seemingly sings go punished?

The story, based on the novel by Stephen Amidon and adapted by Oren Moverman, keeps shifting perspectives and gears on us. We think it'll be Drew's story, but then the movie rewinds and we see some of the same things from another point of view, and then another. It all builds to a confrontation that is inevitable but still remains surprising.

Director Marc Meyers ("My Friend Dahmer") keeps the pieces of the puzzle constantly moving, introducing new ones and setting aside others we thought would be pivotal. The novel was previously adapted into an Italian movie of the same name.

Marisa Tomei plays Carrie, Quint's wife and Jamie's mother, a kept woman who enjoys her immense privilege. Drew first spots her through a window in the opening scene, and we suspect they might have a romantic liaison. But their first meeting is awkward and off-putting, and seems to close the door on that.

Carrie has an idea to buy and restore a magnificent cinema in the nearby city, and Quint is content to indulge his wife's latest whim. She forms a board and sets about with the project, and dallies with her hand-picked artistic director (Paul Sparks), a professor who is as mesmerized by her as Quint is with his money.

The story turns again to Shannon, who mutually splits with Jamie while maintaining the pretense of their continued relationship in order to appease their parents. She is intrigued by Ian (an excellent Alex Wolff), one of Ronnie's patients who is a minor local celebrity for his drug-dealing. Shannon takes up with the dour young man, at first to fracture her goody-goody image but then for deeper reasons.

Ian tells her upfront that he is a broken person, and even seductively vows that he will never love her. But we'll see.

Things go from there. Even with its "Roshomon"-like structure, "Human Capital" is less interested in the twists of the storyline than the impact they have on the very human figures caught in the web of intrigue.

The cast is pretty uniformly terrific, with Hawke and Wolff standing out in particular. Their star-crossed relationship is the beating heart of the movie, the real romance hiding behind a fake one.

We all tell lies, and are lied to. It's one thing to betray another but quite another to be dishonest with yourself. Here's a tense, observant film that explores the authenticity of our own hearts.

Video review: "The Magnificent Seven"

There’s not a lot that’s quite magnificent about “The Magnificent Seven,” though there is plenty to like. It’s got great actions scenes, twinkly anti-heroes, scornful villains, memorable supporting characters and lots of eye candy.

What it doesn’t have is any reason for existing. A remake of the seminal 1960s Western, which itself was based on Akira Kurosawa’s landmark “Seven Samurai,” this film is essentially a PG-13 nostalgia romp for its own sake.

Still, what’s not to like about Denzel Washington as creased, calculating bounty hunter Sam Chisolm? Or Chris Pratt as wise-cracking gambler/shootist Josh Faraday? Add in Ethan Hawke as a genteel Civil War legend/sharpshooter, Vincent D’Onofrio as a weirdly amusing mountain man/lunatic and a passel of other wayward cowpokes, and you’ve got yourself a movie.

You know the story: evil power-monger (in this case, Peter Sarsgaard’s sneering cattle baron) puts his boot on the collective neck of a town of farmers, who decide to hire their own gunslingers to protect them. Our seven heroes are mercilessly outnumbered, but with a little luck and some careful planning, they make a battle of it.

Director Antoine Fuqua, who’s made some stellar movies with Washington, and screenwriters Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto don’t try to fancy things up beyond the essentials: stand-offs, wisecracks, a few lightly scary moments, a noble sacrifice or two. The last third of the movie is essentially one long action scene, and it’s harrowing stuff.

This film surely won’t be immortalized like the original was. But “The Magnificent Seven” has a job to do, and does it with skill.

Bonus features are decent if not especially expansive. The DVD edition comes with four making-of featurette documentaries. Upgrade to the Blu-ray version, and you add two more plus several deleted scenes.

The Blu-ray’s highlight is a “Vengeance Mode,” where you can watch the movie with key scenes broken down with comments from the director and cast.

Movie:



 Extras:

Review: "The Magnificent Seven"

“The Magnificent Seven” is a thoroughly enjoyable Western shoot-em-up that really has no purpose for existing. It’s a remake of the 1960 classic that itself is an Americanized version of a greater film, Japan’s “Seven Samurai.” But the basic tale has even deeper roots: a band of castoffs and deplorable is thrown together for a noble purpose in service to something greater than themselves.

So we watch this iteration of the familiar folklore, knowing full well what’s going to go down. There are no surprises to be unearthed, only admiration for the craftsmanship of the filmmakers and some finely drawn characters courtesy of the cast.

This is not the first rodeo together for director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington (“Training Day”), and their films always seem to have a hum of energy about them. There are no dull patches, though we don’t delve into the backstories of the seven gunmen too much, or the villain who besets them.

It is 1879 in the tiny mining town of Rose Creek somewhere in California. The opener is a slam-banger in which sneering robber baron Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) kills most of the tougher men in town and demands the rest of the farmers leave in exchange for $20 apiece for their plots. Sargaard brings a sort of feral sickliness to the man, a bit of Biblical brimstone married to some notions about capitalism that even Ayn Rand would find overly harsh.

It’s all designed to make us hate Bogue and his army of faceless mercenaries, and it does.

Haley Bennett plays Emma Cullen, wife to one of the murdered who takes it upon herself to find some hard men of their own to stand up to Bogue. The first she recruits is Sam Chisolm (Washington), who demonstrates his affinity with the six-shooter by waltzing into a saloon and taking out half the local miscreants.

Washington is obviously having fun with this role, the bounty hunter of dark deeds who carries a carefully hidden chip on his shoulder. Outfitted in black garb, black hat and black horse, he carries a classic sense of righteousness and a modern undertone of grievance. The scene where Chisolm emerges from the saloon with hands in the air while half the town has their guns on him, the only black man around, speaks silent volumes.

Next up is Josh Faraday, a smirking gambler played by Chris Pratt. He’s a self-described ladies’ man whom all the women turn their noses up at, though he’s fast with a gun and card tricks. I kept waiting for the movie to peel back more layers on him, but it never happens. Pratt gets a lot of the best one-liners, and milks them well.

The rest sort of blur together, as the movie hurries through the recruitment phase to get to the showdown.

Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) is a marksman whose accuracy made him a legend during the Civil War, but now the genteel Southerner seems to get by more on bluster than bullseyes. “Fame is a sarcophagus,” he opines over his whiskey, and he is overly fond of both his drink and his own voice.

His partner is Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), an Asian assassin of indeterminate origin who’s equally adept with guns and blades. Apparently Goodnight and Billy made some sort of pact to protect each other’s secrets, but they protect them too well.

Vincet D’Onofrio is an oddball bearcat of a mountain man, Jack Horne, a lonely former scalp-hunter who warbles in a high-pitched voice, saying nonsensical things that bemuse and befuddle his compatriots. He seems more than slightly teched, killing brutally but always seeking assurance that he is justified in doing so.

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Martin Sensmeier are Vasquez and Red Harvest, rather generic warrior types of Mexican and Comanche heritage, respectively. Red Harvest at least gets some titular war paint to make him distinctive. Bogue has himself an evil Indian, so we just know it’s going to come down to a standoff with our good Indian.

The gunfight takes up almost the second half of the movie, and that’s the main attraction. It’s an orgy of choreographed PG-13-rated violence, in which blood flows after someone is shot but never spatters on impact. Our seven heroes manage to seem incredibly skilled but not superhuman. One guy gets shot full of arrows (bad Indian!) and we think he’s going to keep on coming, but… well, you’ll see.

If it’s possible to like a movie without really admiring it, that’s my take on “The Magnificent Seven.” I think the time and energy of cast and crew would’ve been better spent making any sort of original movie instead of remaking a remake. But the picture shoots straight.

Video review: "Green Lantern"

"Green Lantern" is one of the weakest comic book superhero adaptations we've had in awhile, but I still couldn't quite bring myself to hate it. Sigh with disappointment, maybe, but the strongest feeling I had was the lack of one: I was colossally indifferent to this movie.
Part of it is Ryan Reynolds. I've seen Reynolds do good work, but he's started down an unfortunate career path that I'm not sure he can pull out of. He always plays the glib, fast-talking charmer who comes to realize he's out of his depth, and (usually) rises to the occasion.

I've seen this guy many times now, and I don't like him.

Here he plays Hal Jordan, a reckless and cocky test pilot who encounters a dying alien who bequeaths him a ring of power. It seems the Green Lantern Corp patrols the farthest reaches of the universe, 3,600 of them in all, and Hal's been tapped to take over this neck of the woods.

Alas, Parallax -- the ancient enemy of the Corp -- is released and begins wreaking havoc, manifesting as a giant blob of space goo. Some of his space goo finds its way to Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a nerdy scientist and childhood friend of Hal's, causing his head to swell to melon size and gifting him with telekinetic powers.

With his ring Hal can fly and create objects out of green energy, which is the Force-like energy generated by the willpower of all living creatures.

I certainly don't have the willpower to sit through "Green Lantern" again.

Video extras are quite paltry for DVD, but improve quite a bit with Blu-ray. The DVD has only promotional pitches for you: a preview of a Justice League digital comic and another for the Green Lantern animated TV show.

The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack adds two making-of documentaries, one about the Green Lantern universe and another about casting Reynolds in the green-and-black suit. There's also an extended cut of the film and deleted scenes. The centerpiece is a picture-in-picture mode with video pods with tidbits about production.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Green Lantern"

"Green Lantern" is one of the weakest comic book superhero adaptations we've had in awhile, but I still couldn't quite bring myself to hate it. Sigh with disappointment, maybe, but the strongest feeling I had was the lack of one: I was colossally indifferent to this movie.

Part of it is Ryan Reynolds. I've seen Reynolds do good work -- he showed great comic timing in the first half of "The Proposal" -- but he's started down an unfortunate career path that I'm not sure he can pull out of. He always plays the glib, fast-talking charmer who comes to realize he's out of his depth, and (usually) rises to the occasion. I've seen this guy so many times now, and I don't like him.

After the screening -- held on a Wednesday night specifically to preclude most print reviews -- one of my fellow critics commented that in many ways "Green Lantern" is strikingly similar to "Iron Man." The protagonist is a hedonistic playboy who cares not a whit for the rest of the world, until circumstances and a really awesome super-suit force him to play hero. It's attractive as a story concept, but is so familiar now I kept thinking Lantern's costume looked moldy.

In this case, the hero's powers do not actually reside in the suit, but in the ring that is bequeathed to him by a dying member of the Green Lantern Corp. There are 3,600 of them split up to guard the entire universe against evil, and the greatest of them, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison), is fatally wounded in a clash with the Corp's ancient enemy, Parallax (voice by Clancy Brown). Parallax is released from his imprisonment on a distant planet, and turns into some sort of wandering space blob with a head that looks like one of the aliens from "Mars Attacks!"

Meanwhile, Abin Sur crash lands on Earth and orders his ring to find a suitable replacement, and Hal Jordan (Reynolds) is selected. He's a cocky test pilot haunted by the death of his father, another pilot who was consumed in a fiery blaze before Hal's eyes when he was a boy. This has given him, needless to say, issues.

There's an inevitable scene where Hal discovers his powers after getting jumped by some toughs outside a bar. As soon as the scene shifted to the bar, I knew some thugs would appear shortly to serve as Lantern tenderizer. It's practically encoded in the DNA of movies like this.

Then there's a long, unnecessary sequence where Hal travels to the Lanter Corp's home planet for training, and to be told by head cheese Sinestro (Mark Strong) that he's not good enough to wear the ring. A big burly Lantern appears to teach him "ring slinging 101," which seems like an  unlikely name from such a hallowed crew.

In the grand tradition of poor super-hero movies that can't come up with a worthy antagonist, there is a second villain to buttress  the space goo guy. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) is an introspective scientist brought in to examine Abin Sur's corpse, but he gets zapped with a bit of the space goo and his head swells to melon proportions. Oh, and he can move stuff with his mind.

The powers of Green Lantern are vague. He can create anything he can imagine out of the green energy harnessed by the ring, which is supposed to consist of the willpower of every living creature in existence. It's like The Force, except for some reason willpower manifests itself as neon-green energy on the Corps home planet of Oa. Even more powerful, but less stable is yellow energy, which comes from fear. That's space goo guy's stock in trade.

So Green Lantern conjures race cars, machine guns, swords, shields and all sorts of other things in combat. He can also fly and fire energy bolts.

The totally unneeded love interest is played by Blake Lively, a childhood friend of Hal's who now runs the big corporation he worked for (until he shoots down two of their super-duper new drone fighter planes). She does have one great line where Hal, after first appearing in the Green Lantern outfit, immediately recognizes him because he only wears a tiny mask covering his eyes. "What, did you think I wouldn't recognize you just because I can't see your cheekbones?" Fourth wall humor, but still funny stuff.

So space blog guy keeps getting closer to Earth, Hector's noggin keeps growing bigger, and Hal learns to focus his willpower and overcome his fears.

I'm bored writing about this movie, just as I was while watching it, so I'll stop now.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Knight and Day"

Audiences were unkind to "Knight and Day." Maybe it's because they've collectively decided they're so over Tom Cruise. If so, I wouldn't blame them.

If someone were to construct a how-to guide for the world's biggest movie star to systematically alienate most of Hollywood and ticket-buyers, Cruise's actions over the last few years would look shockingly familiar.

But that doesn't diminish the fact that this is his most purely entertaining movie since "Jerry Maguire." He's a suave, dangerous and mesmerizing onscreen presence. As I wrote in my review at the time, "Tom Cruise reminds us why we used to like Tom Cruise so much."

He plays Roy Miller, a rogue super-spy on the run. He hooks up with June Evans (Cameron Diaz), a mechanic from Boston, to help get through airport security. Later, he flirts with her on the plane, and while she excuses herself to the lavatory, he assassinates everyone aboard.

Soon they're hopping all over the globe, with Roy's loyalties constantly in question. The never-mind plot has something to do with a new type of battery that can power an entire city, forever.

It's a classic movie MacGuffin -- it doesn't matter what it is, other than everybody wants it.

It's a fun thrill ride of a movie, with a tight, clever script by rookie screenwriter Patrick O'Neill. Director James Mangold ("Walk the Line") keeps the tone light, and stages the action scenes impressively without going over the top.

Give Cruise, and "Knight and Day," a second chance on video.

The movie is available as a single-disc DVD version or a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

The DVD comes with modest extras: A making-of documentary, a couple of featurettes and a Black Eyed Peas music video.

The combo pack ups the ante with several more behind-the-scenes features, and a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "Knight and Day"

What a fun, fun ride "Knight and Day" is. Yes, it's totally a summer popcorn movie, empty cinematic calories forgotten almost as soon as they're consumed. But Tom Cruise reminds us why we used to like Tom Cruise so much -- before the couch-jumping and the creepy interviews and all the other stuff that gave his star a sour taint.

This new action-comedy features Cruise doing the stuff he was born to do on the big screen: Seeming larger than life, dangerous but charming, flashing that Klieg light smile and making a girl's eyes positively twinkle at his attentions.

The girl in question is Cameron Diaz, whose own career has seemed on autopilot lately. She plays June Havens, a sweet gal from Boston who restores old cars for a living. June is traveling through the Kansas City airport with a suitcase full of carburetors and other parts, which makes her a perfect target for Roy Miller, the mystery man of the hour.

(By the way, I'd like to believe that a woman who looks like Diaz could be a mechanic, but I just didn't buy it. First of all, her hands are too smooth and clean to have had them inside the guts of a Pontiac on a daily basis. Ever looked at a mechanic's hands? They look like gorilla mitts. And who flies across the country to pick up car parts when UPS will ship them for a fraction of the cost?)

It turns out Roy and June are on the same flight back to Beantown. When it appears she'll be bumped from the flight, he comments that maybe some things are for the best. Then she gets on at the last minute, and he seems kind of disappointed. They talk, flirt some, and when she decamps to the lavatory to freshen up, Roy kills everybody on the plane, including the pilots.

Turns out Roy's a super-agent gone rogue -- or at least that's what the authorities tell June when she wakes up the next day back at home. Roy landed the plane safely (well, they both survived) and then promptly drugged her.

The rest of the movie is a nearly non-stop game of chase-chase, kiss-kiss. It seems Roy is in possession of a new kind of battery that can run an entire city, forever -- "the first source of perpetual energy since the sun." Various parties, including a Spanish arms dealer and the U.S. government, want it for themselves.

The battery is a classic MacGuffin -- an object that is critical to the plot despite remaining a total mystery. How the battery was built or how it works are unimportant (it sort of resembles an old camera film roll, before everything went digital) except to say that everyone wants to get their hands on it.

Rookie screenwriter Patrick O'Neill obviously understands about MacGuffins, and treats it as such. His clever script plays with the conventions of the action/thriller genre, throwing winking nods to the audience -- especially in the playful banter between Cruise and Diaz, who manage to invest their characters with a little soul in between the many car chases and gun battles.

Director James Mangold, not exactly known for lighter fare ("Walk the Line," "3:10 to Yuma"), does a nice job of keeping things in happy-time mode. His action scenes are crisp and stupendous without seeming totally implausible.

I admired how Mangold and O'Neill treat theirs stars like stars, but still invest the minor characters with distinctive presences. Paul Dano has a deer-like innocent quality as the brilliant young inventor of the battery, and Peter Sarsgaard sneers admirably as the heavy. Marc Blucas has a tiny but hilarious turn as June's doofy-but-decent ex.

But mostly, "Knight and Day" will be seen as Tom Cruise's comeback role -- though I doubt he'd acknowledge he went anywhere. He'll turn 48 a couple of weeks after this movie comes out, but if he wasn't Tom Cruise, just a guy on the street, I think most people would peg him at about 32.

Based on this flick, his career is certainly looking fresh again.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "An Education"

A good though not great film, "An Education" will be most remembered as the coming-out party for Carey Mulligan.

Previously a virtual unknown, she delivered a career-launching performance -- and earned an Oscar nomination -- in this drama about a young English girl who gets caught up in a whirlwind of romance with a dubious character in 1961 London.

Although the film didn't light any fires in its theatrical run, movie lovers are poised to discover Mulligan's nuanced, layered turn as "An Education" hits video stores.

Mulligan plays Jenny, a working-class girl whose entire existence seems to revolve around meeting her parents' expectations that she get into Oxford. She dreams of escaping her bourgeois confines and seeing the world, and meeting people "who know lots about lots."

One day she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard), who represents everything she desires: He wears sleek suits, drives a rare sports car, goes to mod parties and whisks her off to Paris for romantic getaways. Though at least twice her age, the charismatic David convinces Jenny's parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) to condone the affair.

As Jenny edges closer to ditching her future -- despite the warnings of her English teacher (Olivia Williams) and headmistress (Emma Thompson) -- some cracks appear in the attractive pedestal upon which David is placing her.

Danish director Lone Scherfig brings an outsider's touch to this very British tale, showing the allure of both worlds in which Jenny rests a foot.

Extras are the same for both DVD and Blu-ray.

There is a rather conventional 9-minute making-of documentary, consisting of the usual collection of actors and filmmakers complimenting one another. Another 8-minute featurette, "Walking the Red Carpet," covers the film's Los Angeles premiere.

Eleven deleted scenes totaling 16 minutes are generally non-essential but interesting.

The most consequential is an alternate ending in which David confronts Jenny one last time and tries to woo her back. I'm glad I saw it, but at the same time, watching it only reinforces the wisdom of leaving it out of the final cut.

Scherfig, Mulligan and Sarsgaard team up for a lively and entertaining commentary track. It's so rare to see a director and her principal cast members engaging one another, and this engaging trio offer plenty of insights, and laughs.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "An Education"

I had never heard of Carey Mulligan before seeing "An Education." But I'm quite sure many people will know her name after her breakthrough performance in this film, one of the finest onscreen portrayals of 2009.

Mulligan has been in a few things, most notably one of the younger sisters in 2005's "Pride & Prejudice." But in her role as Jenny, a British teen girl who finds herself unexpectedly romanced by an older man, Mulligan blooms like a flower opening its petals to newfound light.

It's like watching Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," or Angelina Jolie in "Girl, Interrupted" -- you know you're witnessing the arrival of a major new acting talent.

I'm not quite over the moon about the movie as a whole, however.

It's based on the autobiographical novel by Lynn Barber, adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby and directed by Danish director Lone Sherfig. It's the sort of movie that's enjoyable for the excellent execution by the cast and filmmakers, and not because of the freshness of an innovative story.

As much as I was thrilled by Mulligan's performance, the film suffers for the predictability of its conclusion. Think of it as a well-worn path, expertly navigated.

It's 1961, and Jenny is a hard-working, smart girl of working-class origins whose entire life is ordered around getting into Oxford to study English. Her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) follow her grades and extracurricular activities as if they have no other interests in life.

One rainy day she bumps into David (Peter Sarsgaard), a suave man about 20 years older who drives a sleek sports car and gives her a ride. He's intrigued by the witty girl so eager to discover the world -- especially France -- and arranges to bump into her again. Soon they're dating.

It's really interesting how David slyly ingratiates himself with Jenny's parents. If you just presented them with the idea of their beloved girl dating a man twice her years (and a Jew to boot), they would probably react with horror. But because David presents himself as smart, well-connected, affluent -- in other words, the epitome of their aspirations for Jenny -- they practically glom onto him.

The teachers (notably Olivia Williams) and headmistress (Emma Thompson) at Jenny's school assail her with warnings about throwing away her future, but she's enraptured by the opportunity to travel, wear fancy dresses and hobnob with David's chic friends (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike).

There's a great scene where Jenny demands her instructors tell why she must spend the next few years doing something "hard and boring," if her only reward is a job like theirs that continues the drudgery. It's a rebel yell in lilting British tones, an outcry against Jenny's own situation and the societal limitations placed on mid-century women with brains and gumption.

Inevitably, Jenny's fling with David replaces her textbooks as her crucible of learning. She gets a hint of dark tidings when he and his pal steal a painting, revealing themselves as rogues who appreciate art for its monetary rather than spiritual value.

And without overtly giving away the ending ... well, think of the most obvious outcome possible, and you've got it.

Still, "An Education" is a worthwhile film because it will be remembered as Carey Mulligan's coming-out party. Audiences, like teachers, always revel when a star pupil announces herself.

3 stars