REVIEW: “In the Tall Grass” (2019)

October 15, 2019 by Keith Garlington

There has been a small wave of recent Netflix Originals adapted from the works of Stephen King. The most recent is “In the Tall Grass”, an unusual little horror-thriller based on a 2012 novella King co-wrote with Joe Hill, the pen name of his oldest son. It’s built around an interesting premise but unfortunately it’s one of the cases of there not being enough material to see the movie through to the end.

Writer-director Vincenzo Natali does what he can to stretch King’s short story to feature length. The entire film takes place in one rural location and features lots of tall grass, lots of yelling, and a huge mysterious rock at the center of it all. It throws out a cool idea or two and the cast is game but the whole thing eventually runs out of gas.

The film opens with Cal (Avery Whitted) driving his pregnant sister Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) to San Diego where they are to meet with a family interested in adopting her baby. Along the way Becky gets nauseous so they pull over near a church in a remote area resembling the Midwest. Outside she hears the scared pleas of a young boy named Tobin (Will Buie Jr.) crying out of an endless field of (you guessed it) tall grass.

Unable to lead the boy to the road Becky and Cal make the cardinal mistake of venturing into the grass. Of course they get separated and their voices prove to be unworthy guides. It quickly becomes apparent there is something off with this field. Cal bumps into the wide-eyed Tobin while Becky crosses paths with Ross (Patrick Wilson), Tobin’s father who says he and his wife Natalie (Rachel Wilson) got separated in the grass searching for their son.

The final piece of the human puzzle (and the only other cast member) is Becky’s ex and the father of her baby Travis (Harrison Gilbertson). He’s been looking for the siblings and finds their vehicle near the field. He too ventures into the grass getting lost in its haze of creepy hallucinations, disorienting sounds, and confusing time twists. Once he has everyone in, Natali begins unfurling his mystery. It includes unpacking old family baggage and throwing out some weird supernatural twists.

When everything finally comes together you can’t help but appreciate what Natali is doing. The storytelling can be a little thorny, but it’s pieces finally fit together in a pretty clever way. Still, there is only so much you can do with such a small amount of source material and in compensating for that “In the Tall Grass” repeats itself too much. And without any really compelling characters to latch onto, you’re left appreciating the idea while wishing there was more to it.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

REVIEW: “Gemini Man”

October 14, 2019 by Keith Garlington

While Will Smith’s star may not shine as bright as it once did, the usually bankable actor is still showing up in plenty of projects. But over the last several years it’s safe to say he has had more misses than hits. Movies like “Suicide Squad”, “Collateral Beauty”, “Focus”, and “Bright” were each ambitiously different yet they all missed their mark.

Unfortunately “Gemini Man” doesn’t exactly upend that trend. Smith’s latest isn’t a bad movie. It’s just aggressively average. It can be quite stunning especially during a couple of Oscar-winning director Ang Lee’s dazzling action sequences. But Lee’s reputation as a visionary filmmaker can only take the movie so far, and it can’t save “Gemini Man” from scattered bouts with blandness.

The story is held up by several familiar pillars. Smith plays a former special-ops soldier turned government assassin named Henry Brogan. As you might expect he’s the best in the world at what he does. But at 51-years-old his reflexes are slower, his body is tiring, and the ghosts of those he has killed are catching up to him. Needless to say, it’s time for retirement.

But you know these shady government types. They can’t let one of their greatest assets live happily ever after, especially when (unbeknownst to Henry) it turns out he is the genetic blueprint for the Super Soldier Progr….errr, Gemini Project. Clive Owen plays the ruthless director of the rogue program who sends his prized experiment, a younger and faster clone of Henry, to take out and replace his older self.

With the help of some often great but too often obvious CGI, Smith plays both his character’s older and younger versions. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is given an initially interesting but eventually thankless role as intelligence officer Danny Zakarweski. She is tasked with secretly keeping tabs on Henry until her cover is blown and she’s deemed to be a “loose end” by the government. She ends up partnering with Henry, helping him in his globetrotting search for answers and unavoidable face-off with his younger self.

There’s a strangely casual pacing to “Gemini Man”, not lethargic but not peppy either. There are a couple of exceptions, namely an exhilarating motorcycle chase in Columbia and a particularly good fight scene in some Budapest catacombs. Otherwise Lee pretty much strolls towards his inevitable action-packed finale. It’s also a very restrained action picture with Lee often pulling his camera away from the violence in strict PG-13 fashion. I’m not saying it needed grittier action, just maybe a few less obvious cuts.

“Gemini Man” ends up being a serviceable action thriller but not an especially fresh one. It does a lot of things simply okay and leaves you wishing for more in other areas (a snappier pace, some emotional heft from elder Henry, more for Winstead to do past the first act). By the time its nice and tidy ending hits you’re left with a fairly fun but unremarkable experience. I’m glad I saw it, but will I remember it next week? Probably not.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

Reading “Joker” and its Audacious Ending

October 11, 2019 by Keith Garlington

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen “Joker” be warned.

“Joker” has been out in wide release for a week and it remains an intensely hot topic. From moviegoers to Academy voters, “Joker” has provoked strong conversations and reactions have included everything from vitriol to the highest praise. Unfortunately misguided “controversies” of all shapes and sizes have popped up leading some people to talk more about them than this outstanding film.

The loudest of the “controversies” is the one claiming “Joker” celebrates, condones, encourages, inspires or at the very least gives a pass to the violence it depicts. This either comes from a strict and literal reading of the film or a negligence when it comes to examining the movie as a whole and wrestling with the themes it puts out there. Plainly put, “Joker” in no way promotes, champions, or excuses the violence it shows. Quite the opposite actually. It may be unsettling and difficult to digest. It may be too much for some audiences (which is understandable and respectable). But those things do not equal a pro-violence stance.

I’m convinced that much of this is drawn from the film’s ending and the different ways people have read it. Without question the way you interpret the ending of “Joker” can have a huge impact on how see the movie as a whole. For me there are several compelling ways of reading it (interestingly none of them condones or inspires violence). Here are three interpretations that I not only find highly plausible, but also critical to understanding what “Joker” is going for.

Reading 1 – This is the probably the most comic-booky reading but there is credibility to it. There have been several iterations of the Joker’s gang of henchman in the comics, the animated series, even the Batman films. At the end of “Joker” the battered Clown Prince is lifted up by a raucous crowd of violent protesters all donning clown masks. They place him on the hood of a car where he stands up like a messianic figure to their rapturous applause.

It makes sense to say this adoring group surrounding him is the first manifestation of Joker’s notorious gang. Everything about them fits the bill. It’s also important to note that Joker’s gang was never made up of fine upstanding individuals. They were thugs, murderers, the criminally insane, etc. So it goes without saying that these kinds of individuals lifting Joker up as their hero doesn’t mean the movie is doing the same thing. So in this reading Arthur is gone, Joker has taken over, and his gang of dangerous goons are ready to follow.

Reading 2 – Many have viewed the movie as heralding Joker as a hero, not just to the aforementioned miscreants who would become members of his gang, but to the disenfranchised and downtrodden of Gotham City. But does the hero interpretation really hold up? Toss aside the Joker Gang reading completely and look at it through a more psychological lens. Joker is no hero. Yes our sympathies are with him early on, but he crosses line after line on his road to villainy. In a nutshell our sympathies can only go so far and the idea of someone worshiping Joker should be terrifying and repulsive.

That is a very reasonable way of looking at the scene where Joker stands on the car bathing in the cheers of his idolizers. The movie doesn’t join in on the celebration. It paints a frighteningly grim picture of human depravity, one much different than the vile apathy of the rich elite, but just as heinous. This is how I initially viewed that scene – as an effective image of absolute moral decay and how far a society can spiral. And along with that comes a wickedly clever way in which the film makes our responses to it either indict or exonerate us.

Reading 3 – This one may be the most fun to consider and it’s the interpretation that lately I’ve been leaning towards the most. Simply put, what if it’s all in Arthur’s head? What if the entire movie is Arthur telling his story to the psychiatrist we see in the final scene? We already know the entire movie is told from his point-of-view and he has proven to be an unreliable narrator. Over the course of the film we learn that some of what we see didn’t actually happen. This makes questioning the validity of certain story beats completely fair game.

This also answers any potential questions (whether fair or not) that the movie venerates Joker. If Arthur grows to see himself as a hero and an inspiration, it makes sense that the movie would show it and it would be part of his storytelling. In his mind he is a leader and the one who inspired the uprising. Interestingly, you could say he’s even wrong there. Early in the film Thomas Wayne refers to protesters as “clowns”. That statement is what triggered the clown mask protests. Arthur’s subway killings happen to intersect with it, not cause it. It’s yet another delusion born out of his growing desire to be noticed.

So we’re back to the conversation with the psychiatrist where Arthur references a handful of things including a specific joke he’s certain the doctor wouldn’t get. It comes across as a perfect ending to a story he would believably be telling. It’s not a seamless theory but it makes sense of the sometimes hazy storytelling.

These are just three of the many ideas floating out there in the wild. What do you think of “Joker” and is intriguing ending. Hit the comments section below and tell me how you read this provocative movie.

And to read my proper review hit the link below. https://keithandthemovies.com/2019/10/06/review-joker-2019/

REVIEW: “Snakes on a Plane” (2006)

October 10, 2019 by Keith Garlington

Let’s be honest, the very title “Snakes on a Plane” tells you all you need to know. And if you went into this 2006 thriller thinking it would be anything other than a wacky and absurd B-movie romp, you really have no one to blame but yourself. Now whether or not you find it entertaining is another question altogether, but don’t expect anything profound. This is silly big screen escapism through and through.

“Snakes on a Plane” gained an enthusiastic internet fanbase well before the movie even hit theaters. Story goes that David Dalessandro, a college administrator at the time, wrote the script which taps into two common fears – snakes and flying. After the title began circulating online a big web following developed giving rise to all sorts of fan fiction, parodies, and art.

The movie opens in Hawaii where a Red Bull chugging dirt biker named Sean (Nathan Phillips) witnesses a brutal murder at the hands of powerful crime boss Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). With a contract on his head, Sean is rescued by FBI Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) and convinced to fly back to Los Angeles to testify against Kim in federal court.

As a diversion a private government plane is used as a decoy while Agent Flynn and Sean take a commercial airliner, commandeering the first-class section much to the chagrin of the flight attendants and some passengers. But wouldn’t you know it, Eddie Kim has eyes everywhere and enacts a plan to sabotage their flight. Not by tampering with the mechanics or planting a bomb. No, instead he smuggles hundreds of deadly snakes into the cargo bay and rigs a pheromone to be unleashed once the plane hits 30,000 feet sending them into a lethal frenzy. I’m not making this up.

Before the flight takes off we get one of those tried-and-true survival movie sequences – a scene briefly introducing an array of characters (in this case passengers) many of whom will amount to nothing more than snake fodder. We get a rap mogul/germaphobe, a single mother and her baby, a low-rent Paris Hilton clone, a jerky businessman, and so on. They all are pretty paper-thin but there are a couple you can’t help but root for (or in some cases against).

Once the high altitude mayhem kicks in you can see the movie trying to one-up itself on how preposterous it can get. Believe or not that’s the film’s one big strength. I admit, I laughed quite a bit. We get ridiculous lines like “Well that’s good news, snakes on crack.” And numerous CGI snake kills that are almost as goofy as the dimwitted victims. I’m sure all of this sounds like a slam but it’s actually what keeps the movie in the air.

So as a thriller/comedy/horror/survival mashup “Snakes on a Plane” squeaks by simply because it unashamedly embraces its cheesiness and absurdity. Obviously that doesn’t make it a good movie, but it does make it entertaining. And sometimes that’s all you’re really looking for.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

Denzel Day #6 : “Out of Time” (2003)

October 9, 2019 by Keith Garlington

Over a span of two months each Wednesday will be Denzel Day at Keith & the Movies. This silly little bit of ceremony offers me a chance to celebrate the movies of a truly great modern day actor – Denzel Washington.

Alfred Hitchcock was fascinated with the idea of innocent men trying to clear their names of an assortment of offenses they didn’t commit. It’s a theme he revisited numerous times often adding his own twist to the scenario. Innocence, guilt, mistaken identity – all elements Hitchcock loved to explore. You can’t help but see that influence in director Carl Franklin’s “Out of Time”.

Franklin and screenwriter David Collard tell a story thick with Hitchcockian flavor and more twists than a classic 1940’s noir. In their film Denzel Washington plays the man with the deck stacked against him but with a small caveat. He’s not what you would call a squeaky clean victim with a spotless moral record.

Washington plays Matt Whitlock, police chief of the sleepy little town of Banyan Key which is nestled about an hour’s drive from Miami. This easy going Florida Keys community of around 1,300 people is rocked when a suspicious house fire takes the life of a local husband and wife Chris and Anne Harrison. The fire chief rules it to be arson and a homicide investigation begins.

Now enter the twists. Matt has been having an affair with Anne (Sanaa Lathan), an old flame from high school, and the abusive Chris (Dean Cain) is suspicious. Things get more complicated when a cancer diagnosis, a life insurance policy, and $485,000 in seized drug money all come into play. Oh, and toss in Matt’s estranged wife Alex (Eva Mendes), recently promoted to detective and brought in to assist with the case.

Matt finds himself doing everything he can to hide his connections to the case while also carrying out a secret investigation of his own. Collard’s script has a field day putting the character through the ringer as he constantly heads off new evidence to keep the police off his trail only to avoid being caught by the skin of his teeth. The sheer lack of plausibility would make it easy to dismiss if not for Franklin’s swift pacing which never allows us too much time to dwell on any of it.

Of course it helps to have Denzel Washington as your lead. Despite the ramped up tension (especially in the second half) Washington gives what you could call a laid-back performance. Aside from a few beads of sweat and a couple of concerned looks, Washington and his character maneuvers through the many twists and turns confidently and relaxed yet (as always) with plenty of charisma. It’s only at the very end that we see Matt lose the control he has held (though at times precariously) through the entire film.

Washington and Franklin previously worked together in the exceptional 1995 neo-noir “Devil in a Blue Dress”, a film I hold in high regard. “Out of Time” doesn’t quite reach that level but it’s a much different movie despite sharing some of the same elements. It works best as a sugar-rush thriller, light and undeniably absurd. But to be honest that’s a big part of what makes it so much fun.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

My Guest Appearance on Tavern Talk…

October 8, 2019 by Keith Garlington

Last week I had the pleasure of appearing on Tavern Talk to chat about “Joker”. The show is from Initial Reaction and the idea is that the host Phillip and his guest watches the newest release of the week and then immediately share their raw first impressions. We had a ton of fun.

Check it out below and let me know what you think.