Review: "Push"

There are super-heroes among us -- scuzzy heroes with amazing powers and bad hair.

"Push" is the latest in a line of movies not directly based on a comic book, but with a comic book vibe. In my preview of what I was going to review this week, I referred to "Push" as "this year's 'Jumper'" -- typical of my snarky sense of humor. Turns out I was pretty spot-on with my assessment. This movie starring Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning plays out in much the same style, and with about the same modest level of success.

The set-up is in the "X-Men" vein -- strangers walk among us who have strange and terrible abilities that they were born with. A shadowy government division -- named, simply, The Division -- hunts them down so they can experiment on them and exploit their powers. For some strange reason known only to Hollywood casting agents, all the heroes are under the age of 25 and really good-looking.

The interesting twist here (from screenwriter David Bourla) is that the super-powered fall into many specific categories. For instance, Chris Evans plays Nick, who is a Mover -- meaning he can move stuff around through telekinesis. His sidekick is Cassie (Fanning), a Watcher who can foretell the future, with varying reliability. Both have hair that looks like it hasn't seen any Pert in a few months, with Fanning's decked out in an array of pink and blue stripes.

A Pusher, by the way, is someone who can control other people's minds by pushing, or implanting thoughts in their head. For example, they can approach a total stranger and get their help by making them think they're old friends. They can even convince the weak-minded that they can put a loaded gun in their mouth and pull the trigger without any ill consequences.

There are two Pushers in the story: Kira (Camilla Belle), who escaped from The Division after getting injected with a power-boosting drug that killed all the other guinea pigs; and Carver (Djimon Hounsou), the Division chief who hunts her. Carver's right-hand man (Neil Jackson) is a Mover who's so talented he can even stop bullets.

This begs two questions. First: Since neither of the main characters is a Pusher, why isn't this movie titled "Mover" or "Watcher"? (Probably because they're not as catchy.) Second: Since The Division seems to be populated entirely by people who have the same powers as the people they're hunting, what is their ultimate aim? There's no talk about taking over the world, etc. All they seem to do is recruit or hunt other Movers, Pushers, etc. Are they just going for the biggest all-mutant list of Facebook friends?

The action takes place in Hong Kong, with Nick and Cassie trying to find Kira while avoiding Carver and a family of Chinese criminals who all have powers. It's a lot of chase-chase, with the future shifting as their actions do. Cassie keeps foreseeing their deaths, so they're trying to do something, anything, to keep that from happening.

At first I liked the idea of an underground society of mutants with different castes divided by powers. You've got Stitchers who can heal the wounded, Screamers who emit deadly sonic waves, Shifters who can temporarily change objects into other things; Sniffers who can track people by the things they've touched, and even Shadows who can keep people from being detected by Sniffers. It goes on and on.

But then I realized the limitless array of powers is essentially a storytelling crutch. It's like the ever-expanding list of spells and magical objects in the "Harry Potter" series. Whenever Harry & Co. encounter a new obstacle, there's always some new spell we've never heard of before, or some magical trinket, to solve their problems. There are no horizons on their abilities, which allows the storyteller to get into and out of sticky spots with minimal effort.

The same goes here. As soon as Nick and Cassie are in trouble, a new type of mutant is introduced to save the day. I half expected them to introduce a guy called The Plot Thickener whenever the action slows down.

1.5 stars out of four.

Review: "The Pink Panther 2"

For those strong of heart and bladder, movie end credits are an endless source of entertainment. In watching those for “The Pink Panther 2,” I learn that Jean Reno, who plays Inspector Clouseau’s right-hand man Ponton, had a dialect coach. This is hilarious, in that he is the only French actor with a starring role in the movie.

This would be like a Western made with an all-Chinese cast except for a single native of Wyoming, and everyone felt he was the one who needed help sounding like an authentic cowboy.

This movie is a linguist’s dream, or nightmare. You’ve got an American star (Steve Martin) doing an intentionally awful French accent, and an English actress (Emily Mortimer) doing the same. Brit comedy legend John Cleese plays the head of the French police, but sounds exactly like he did in “Fawlty Towers.” Then Clouseau joins an international dream team of detectives, except the Italian is played by a Cuban (Andy Garcia) and the Cambridge don is played by Alfred Molina, who actually is half Italian.

Oh, and India’s Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai turns up as a detective from … actually, I’m not sure if they ever said where she was from. At least the Japanese detective (Yuki Matsuzaki) actually is from Japan, and sounds like it.

And so I ask again: Jean Reno was the one who needed dialect help?

Anyway, I walked into “Pink Panther 2” fully expecting to despise it, and came out pleasantly surprised. It’s a moderately entertaining bit of piffle, with a few clever laugh-out-loud spots.

Those who were offended that Steve Martin would try to step into Peter Sellers’ shoes may have avoided the first remake in 2006 (as I did), but Martin comes off much better here than when he tried to reboot the Sgt. Bilko franchise.

Besides, for those wearing Rose-colored glasses about Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther movies, don’t forget that he wasn’t so inconvenienced by Sellers’ death as to stop making them. Edwards managed to crank out a Pink Panther movie entirely using Sellers’ clips from the earlier flicks, and then yet another installment where his disappearance is the big mystery. And then he got really classy and cast Robert Benigni as the Pink Panther’s son.

Sellers’ indelible character had long ago been pimped out to keep the cash flowing, so Steve Martin really had no where to go but up.

His Jacques Clouseau is a bit more lecherous than his predecessor, casting a covetous eye toward his assistant Nicole. He also takes a classic French stance on complimenting and ogling women, which draws the ire of the police’s new political correctness enforcer (Lily Tomlin).

Oh, the plot. Yes, there is one: Infamous thief The Tornado has come out of retirement to steal the world’s greatest treasures, such as the Magda Carta and Shroud of Turin. Fearful that he will go after France’s beloved Pink Panther diamond next, Clouseau is put in charge of the international detectives, which leads to some predictable head-butting, and wooing of Nicole by the Italian.

It’s all just a sham to set up outrageous slapstick, at which Martin (or at least his stunt double) proves a gifted physical comedian. One bit where falling wine bottles become a juggling act involving every waiter in the restaurant is particularly inspired. I also loved this screaming French newspaper headline: “Entire nation loses panache!”

Is “Pink Panther 2” the funniest movie ever? Far from it. But my guess is that its existence would not leave Peter Sellers miffed. That’s more than I can say for the Benigni one.

2.5 stars out of four

Baby, it's cold inside

Our list of leaking appliances goes on. After our recent go-round with our new refrigerator leaking water into our basement was licked, our furnace started spewing a few days ago. It seemed to work fine, but water was dripping out of the bottom of the unit.

The thing's close to 20 years old, which is about 105 in furnace years, so no surprises.

Anyway, the repair guy says it's some box that retains water, and he's out getting a new one. In the mean time, the heat has been off for about an hour now and the temperature in the house has plummeted.

Jean kids me about wearing shorts around the house, even in winter -- an old Florida habit. I may have to break down and put some jeans on until it's fixed.

Christopher Lloyd, business reporter

Those of you checking up on my links to published material will notice the latest one is in the Indianapolis Business Journal. It's a piece about patient advocates, a relatively new wrinkle to the health care industry.

Some might find it odd that a movie guy is out writing business stories, but that's the world of freelance. You take whatever you can get. Besides, like all reporters I did a little of everything early in my career, including plenty of business stories.

Check it out; it's actually a fascinating piece.

P.S. The link was broken earlier today, but seems to be fixed now.

P.P.S. The link is down again, and I'm not sure why. I pasted the url in and it works fine right after I check it, but then when I come back to the blog and try the link again, it's not working.

Anywhere, here's the link:
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=1261C658A2894F00&p_docnum=1

P.P.P.S. Still doesn't work. OK, this thing has officially defeated my Web skills. Just go to IBJ.com and type "patient advocate" in the search field, and you'll find it.

Reeling backward: "Arsenic and Old Lace"

Cary Grant was such a controlled performer. He was the Barack Obama of his time -- Mr. Cool, whose feathers never got ruffled. He tended to work with small gestures and modest changes of facial expression. He played it close to the vest.

That's why it was such a shock to see him mugging and doing pratfalls and double-takes and other big, theatrical tricks in "Arsenic and Old Lace." Frank Capra directed it based on the classic stage play by Joseph Kesselring, and I'm guessing he instructed Grant and the rest of his actors to "go big." Stage acting is very different from film acting, of course, because as they say you have to be bold enough so the people in the back seat of the theater can react.

It's an amusing farce, with lots of slamming doors and people overhearing each other and so forth. Grant plays a drama critic who learns his kindly old aunts have been poisoning elderly gentlemen to put them out of their misery. This discovery happens, of course, on his wedding day. And the same day his criminally insane brother Jonathan returns home after 20 years. And his other brother is a nutcase who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt.

There are plenty of close-ups of Grant reacting to all the shenanigans, something I'd never seen from him before. Grant did plenty of comedies, of course, but never played so directly to the audience.

One moment I just absolutely loved. Peter Lorre plays a plastic surgeon who is Jonathan's partner in crime, and keeps rearranging his face to keep the cops off their trail. (His most recent effort makes Jonathan a dead ringer for Boris Karloff, which sends him into a murderous rage whenever someone comments on the resemblance.) Anyway, Jonathan has been caught be a trio of cops, and the police captain is on the phone reading aloud a description of the wanted suspects just as the good doctor is trying to slink unnoticed out the front door.

The description goes something like this: "About 40 years old, 5-foot-3, 140 pounds, speaks with a German accent, pop eyes..." Right when they get to the "pop eyes" part, Lorre -- whose signature feature, of course, was those big, googly eyes -- sags noticeably, like a man who's already heaving a bad day when his hat blows into a sewer.

I tend to love little non-dialogue comedic moments like that. Laughed so hard I had to stop the video.

"Arsenic" is somewhat dated, of course, but was still a hoot. I've never seen it staged live; after watching this movie, I'll have to check our local theaters in case somebody stages it.

Catching up with "The Visitor"

Even the most ardent film fan cannot get to everything, so it's no surprise that there are a few movies nominated for major Oscars that I have not seen. (The exception to "major" being in the foreign language, documentary and short film categories, since these movies often do not get a wide theatrical release.)

First up was "The Visitor," starring Richard Jenkins as a lonely Connecticut College professor who befriends a couple of illegal immigrants living in his New York apartment. Next I'll review "Vicky Christie Barcelona," as soon as I can track down a DVD copy. NetFlix has me in a long backlog.

Richard Jenkins does not have a household name, but he's very well-respected in Hollywood as a character actor. The guy's been around for decades, putting in memorable performances in sometimes tiny roles, which has started to translate into bigger roles. He has one of those faces that are so quintessentially American -- sad eyes, pockmarked cheeks, indistinct features -- that he gets cast in a lot of roles of fathers and men of authority.

In "The Visitor" he plays Walter Vale, a man so withdrawn and internalized that a lesser actor could easily have disappeared and left us with a movie that didn't connect emotionally. Jenkins packs a powerhouse without ever really coming out of his shell. But in his shy glances and perfunctory conversations, he lets us see the pain and loneliness of the man. Walter's wife has recently died, and even his attempts to learn to play the piano in her memory (she was a famous pianist) results in him canceling the instructor after one lesson.

Walter comes to New York to present a paper that he's ostensibly co-written with a colleague when she falls ill. I saw "ostensibly" because Walter admits to his boss that he had little to do with actually writing it, signing his name to give a younger professor a leg up. Walter is only teaching one class this semester so he can concentrate on his book. The way he sits in his office, gazing out the window at students talking and cavorting, like a starving man presented with a porterhouse, lets us know that no book is actually forthcoming.

When he arrives at his apartment, he finds Tarek and Zainab living there. They are Muslim immigrants from Syria and Senegal, respectively, and have been duped into believing the apartment was free to rent. After nearly coming to blows with Tarek, Walter allows them to stay while they look for other arrangements.

At this point I am obliged to go into my persnickety critic mode about Walter's apartment. It is huge by normal standards, with several bedrooms and a large common area, and by New York City standards it is nearly a palace. There is no way this place rents for less than $3,000 a month. Why Walter would pay to maintain an expensive residence he rarely visits is beyond me. My guess is that his wife kept the place for frequent performances in the city, and the fact that he has not disposed of it is another indication of his own isolation. If so, the filmmakers needed to give us a hint along these lines. Supposition is not sufficient for good storytelling.

Anyway, back to our new friends. Walter bonds with Tarek, although Zainab remains distant. Tarek teaches Walter to play the African drum, and soon they're performing together in drum circles in Washington Square Park (which I often passed through while attending NYU).

Tragedy strikes when Tarek is arrested for jumping the ticket line at the subway, and he's soon put in immigration limbo and threatened with deportment. The second half of the movie consists of Walter visiting Tarek in confinement, dealing with an attorney to help him, and playing host to Tarek's mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass), who has come from Michigan to await his release.

This second act is where the movie breaks down a little. It plays mostly as an indictment of the U.S. immigration system, with Mouna even commenting that her son's treatment reminds her of law enforcement in Syria. The emotional high point is supposed to be when Walter finally breaks loose of his emotional coil and screams at some unresponsive INS agents that Tarek doesn't deserve to be deported because he's a good person. As if someone with a kind heart who broke the law is morally superior to one who's a jerk.

Writer/director Thomas McCarthy, an actor who made quite a directorial debut several years ago with "The Station Agent," wrote this part specifically for Richard Jenkins, which indicates what an excellent eye he has for the possibilities of actors who aren't big stars. In structuring the second half of "The Visitor" as a sometimes preachy morality tale, though, he fails to realize all of those possibilities.

Three stars out of four.

New reviews this week: "Push," and maybe "Pink Panther 2"

This week I'll have a review of "Push," a telekinesis thriller that looks a lot like this year's "Jumper" to me, and maybe "Pink Panther 2," if I can get to that screening.