Passion Play (2010)

Shaky Foundation, Kind of Nice Exterior

by Silence Do_nothing

     Although the last I followed pro wrestling was way back in the heyday of Andre the Giant, the twentieth century's greatest Frenchman, I can't help being intrigued by an Oscar nominated actor willing to have a match in Wrestlemania. Mickey Rourke ultimately limited it to a cameo appearance, but that he seriously considered going through with the whole thing was entertaining enough. So I decided to give Passion Play, one of his more recent movies, a try. His work in such things as The Wrestler (2008), Rumble Fish (1983), Year of the Dragon (1985), Diner (1982), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) and The Informers (2008) might have also influenced my choice.
     Rourke gets yet another stab at playing a seedy character (I'm surprised no casting director has seen fit to pair him with Fairuza Balk in any project), this time in an ex-junkie musician by the name of Nate Poole. He rescues angel winged beauty Lilly Luster (Megan Fox) from her involuntary place in a carnival freak show. Happy Shannon (Bill Murray), a powerful criminal at odds with Nate, also has designs on Lilly. Nate realizes that he loves her and must protect her from Happy, even if it means risking his life.
     The movie alludes to her possibly being an angel, but I saw her wings as relating more to Lilly's body image. She posses the same kind of insecurities about her looks which other women can have regardless how pretty they are. Lilly has a lower opinion of her appearance than the guys do of her. The wings are a burden she dreams of losing someday. A feature of herself which she particularly hates is what draws men to her.
     I previously knew of Megan Fox only from the Transformers live action movies. My impression from those was that she seemed indistinguishable from the actresses you might see in beer commercials. Maybe it's just a case of low expectations being easy to exceed, but she wasn't that bad in Passion Play. She was wooden in some scenes, but there were others that got across a genuine sadness. It's too much to expect her to add color to a character that was lacking depth on the page. Some actors can help hide a sub-par script. Fox is more likely to magnify it. I hold the writing and directing more responsible than her for criticisms the character deserves.
     Lilly's wings were easier to accept than the love triangle. I could somewhat understand Nate and Happy's infatuation with her. She is something beautiful in their otherwise ugly gutter world, but even so, it was too rushed to be believable. Her love for Nate was even harder to take. I can understand gratitude for saving her, but it's surprising that goodwill wasn't depleted when he practically acts the pimp by introducing her into another situation to be exploited. The movie tries to make him more worthy of her feelings through his willingness to put his life on the line for her, but I think Nate is simply reckless. If not over her, he would have found some other avenue to endanger himself.
     The only way the relationship seems plausible is from the idea of her self-loathing and low self-esteem running deep enough to make her grateful for anyone's love. Even a fairly undesirable guy like myself couldn't pull for the creepy dude getting the pretty lady when it's under circumstances like this. Their love is too dysfunctional for me to become emotionally invested in it.
     The movie's weak love story undercuts a workmanlike performance by Rourke. On the surface, he looks fine portraying the anguish of separation, but because I was unconvinced of the romance, it lacked any impact. It registers as the character feigning a greater affliction than he has, rather than Nate actually being devastated.
     Some of the film's events are jarring in their suddenness. Lilly has very reasonable suspicions of Nate, caught peering through her trailer window, but quickly drops them to allow him entrance. At one point, she desperately wants to have her wings removed, but when Nate barges in to stop the procedure she immediately shifts to gratitude for his interference. Moments like these were hard to believe.
     I am a casual fan of the look of the movie, though. It successfully mixed funky styles of different eras. There is some striking scenery towards the beginning. The criminals' outfits reminded me of the degenerates from Blue Velvet (1986). Cool knick-knacks and decorations from interiors caught my eye. But it's not like it could rival the art direction of Mad Men.
     None of the visuals were good enough to offset the work's deficiencies. The effects for Lilly's wings are a good example. They were competent, but nothing spectacular. Maybe if they had been something special, it could have presented her in a way that would have made it easier to feel the same sense of awe that Nate and Happy had for her.
     Despite its flaws, I preferred Passion Play to some generic romantic comedy. Its blemishes weren't enough to dissuade me from giving a future effort by director Mitch Glazer a look. Given that its domestic gross was listed by IMDB as $3,669 on a fourteen million dollar budget, I can't say if I will have that opportunity anytime soon.
     When the end credits rolled, my reaction wasn't "There's ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back." But it still left me feeling that maybe whether one of the lead actors can do a flying elbow drop off the turnbuckle isn't the best criteria for picking movies.

The Whole Wide World (1996)

     With the 2011 version of Conan the Barbarian fresh in my recollection, I thought it would be fitting to get around to seeing the movie that dealt with the Cimmerian's creator, Robert E. Howard.  That film would be the nearly forgotten The Whole Wide World (1996), directed by Dan Ireland.  I have a feeling that fans of the Conan character would not be very much enamored with the often quiet, emotionally grounded tale of a troubled writer from West Texas; to make the brutal warrior little more than an escapist fantasy for a social misfit robs Conan of his power.
     I don't know that there is terribly much to say about the movie without getting into the elements of the plot.  It is shot in a style more frequently seen in the late 1970s or early 1980s; it is clear that Ireland was not going for anything innovative in his feature length film.  The music, while quite effective, occasionally booms when it doesn't have to.  I will also note that the West Texas of the movie looks much greener than than I imagined the real 1930s West Texas to be, but it may be that my preconceptions are based upon nothing but confusing West Texas with Oklahoma.  Renée Zellweger is a little more restrained than I would have prefered, and Vincent D'Onofrio sometimes plays his role as though he were on stage, but both are fully invested in their characters.  The supporting cast is equally strong, and provide for great moments of humor and levity to break the tension of the relationship between the leads.
     I do think that the story does give some proper credit to what it means to be a writer who has to produce on a regular basis.  Howard (the character) lives inside his fantasy worlds so he can understand them and bring them to life.  He knows that what he is doing is work, same as any other kind, but one that allows him the freedom to call as many shots as he can.  He opines that a person cannot have a job and write; you can only do one.  I think he has that well identified, but I think the underlying notions that he needed to have a receptive fan and inspiration – in his case, his mother – is more telling of an author willing to be very critical of his works.
     This isn't the kind of film that would make me want to go out and read the collected works of Robert E. Howard.  I have been working through a short list of American authors I must read, and he is not on that list.  What it did do, however, was make me want to get back to writing.  And made me grateful that I have – at the very least – a passing understanding of the emotional state (and its construction) that led Howard to his ultimate end.
     I recommend the movie for those who are looking for something involving human interaction and not just special effects with a loose story to connect them.  I will also encourage people to give it a second viewing with the commentary track; that has more to do with the making of the film and staging of the shots, but it quite informative. 

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

     It strikes me that this story would have been more compelling if it had been set in the late 1940s to early 1950s.  I don't know Dick set his short story, but I honestly feel that the story works better in a time when people may have felt more (or as) tied to the hand of God or fate than to modern technology.  As it was, I thought that it made little use of modern day New York as a backdrop to the story.
     It may be my own short-sightedness, but I don't see why Emily Blunt has been snagging some lead roles lately.  I liked her fine as Ruthie "Pignosed" Draper in Dan in Real Life (2007), and I am aware that she can act, but she seems to lack a certain sense of weight in scenes that demand them.  Otherwise, Matt Damon and a cast of well-dressed men walk, walk quickly, and run at the a relatively slow pace (except when running through the rain) and this serves as a type of action. 
     The lack of depth in the philosophical implications of the story aside, I think this is a fine film.  It looks okay – I would have preferred a grittier look for a modern day setting, or an overripe color-flushed version if it had been more retro – and stays on point as much as it can.  Damon's character doesn't seem to have enough of a sense of self to fit in with his projected destiny, but that doesn't make it unrealistic or unlikeable.
     A fine rental, I would give The Adjustment Bureau (2011) a strong B-, almost a B.  It was fun watching John Slattery and Terence Stamp strut about in the Bureau's outfits, delivering restrained (but not cryptic enough) readings.  I just would have preferred a few changes to keep me more engrossed in the story, and to make me really care about the characters.

The Next Three Days (2010)

     I am going to do everything in my power to keep this brief.  The Next Three Days (2010) is an old-school kind of caper movie, with an attempt at some high energy moments in the final act.  It is not entirely successful, largely because the characters – save Liam Neeson's brief appearance as jailbird-turned-author Damon Pennington and Daniel Stern's turn as attorney Meyer Fisk – are all are presented as wooden, mostly unemotional beings.  It is not unlike the restrained manner Daniel Craig affected in Enduring Love (2004), but it applies to all of the character, with Russel Crowe's John Brennan only given three scenes where he has some human level of emotion showing.
     There is a certain level of non-commitment to the whole thing.  Brennan doesn't know how to go about doing what he wants to do, but figures it out in time to keep the movie going.  The police officers are neither the bad guys or co-sympathetic protagonists, but cut-scene filler.  The action is almost – with the exception of a ridiculous FX sequence on the road – as restrained as the emotion in the film.  Sometimes that really works and gives it a grounded feel, and it never draws stark contrast against the play of the characters.
      I feel kind of ambivalent about this movie.  I think that Pittsburgh deserves better than this, Striking Distance (1993) and Sudden Death (1995); maybe that is Taylor Lautner's new movie.  Yes, I know who Taylor Lautner is (the shirtless guy from the Twilight movie commercials, and thus presumably the movies as well).  Back to the point.  This is a decent, consistently paced movie that delivers a mildly interesting story in a competent manner.  Yes, it could have been much better, but it isn't bad enough for me to bad mouth it.  I'd say C+, and think that if it were allowed to drift a little more towards the melodramatic it could have been a solid B.