CURSING THE DARKNESS: Patrick (Casey Affleck), Bressant (Ed Harris), Angie (Michelle Monaghan) and Poole (John Ashton) shine light on a dire situation in Gone Baby Gone
Page 3 of 3
Phoenix and Wahlberg (who previously co-starred in Gray's The Yards and serve as producers here) are solid but unremarkable, and even a great actor like Duvall can't do much with his threadbare role. Far more interesting than the casting are Gray's choices for the songs overheard at a trendy N.Y.C. nightclub in 1988: Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and "Rapture," both from 1979. Presumably, Gray couldn't secure the rights for actual 1988 tunes like New Kids on the Block's "Please Don't Go Girl" and Tiffany's "All This Time" -- either that, or good taste simply overtook chronological consistency.
WHAT'S THE POINT of tackling a real-life hot-button issue if everything about it is presented in an only-in-Hollywood style of fantasy filmmaking?
Rendition, a perceived Oscar contender that instead should prove to be an Oscar also-ran, follows United 93, In the Valley of Elah and several other post-9/11 titles that tackle the immediacy and anguish of the troubled world in which we live; here, the topic on hand is "extraordinary rendition," which allows the U.S. government to send suspected terrorists to other countries in order to be "interrogated." Since the Bush administration has no qualms about torturing any foreigner (guilty or innocent) whose skin is darker than, say, Nicole Kidman's, it's a viable and volatile subject for a movie to tackle, but Rendition does so in the most simplistic manner possible.
Reese Witherspoon plays Isabella, a pregnant suburban mom whose Egyptian-born, U.S.-raised husband (Omar Metwally) has disappeared without a trace, snatched at the Washington, D.C. airport for his suspected part in a bombing that killed a CIA operative. The U.S. government's evidence is feeble -- a cell phone number linking the man to the terrorist outfit -- but foaming-at-the-mouth Senator Whitman (Meryl Streep, not particularly effective) decides that's all the proof she needs to ship him off to be subjected to all manner of pain. The American analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) assigned to preside over the torture finds the treatment shocking, especially since it's clear that the man's innocent; meanwhile, Isabella seeks help from a former college fling (Peter Sarsgaard), who just happens to be (imagine an audible groan here) the assistant to a senator (Alan Arkin) who works closely with Whitman.
As if all this weren't convenient enough for the sake of tidy storytelling and tentative armchair liberalism, there's also a plot thread involving a taboo love affair between a young terrorist and the daughter of the head of the torture unit. Coupled with a narrative "Gotcha!" more suited to Memento, it all adds up to a dilution of the real issues at hand and stalls a serious discussion concerning possible solutions. With friends like this movie, who needs Dick Cheney?
SEQUELS TO MULTIPLEX fodder like Saw and Daddy Day Care are givens, but a follow-up to an art-house endeavor set in a century far, far away?
Indeed, that's the case with Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a sequel to the 1998 historical drama that proved to be a surprise box office performer and recipient of seven Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture). But like most sequels, E:TGA proves to be markedly inferior to its predecessor, which was a more original piece in that it examined the life of the Queen of England (played by Cate Blanchett) as she came into her own as both a woman and a ruler. With interesting characters flitting about in the shadows (most notably Geoffrey Rush's loyal but lethal advisor, Sir Francis Walsingham) and an unsettling sense of menace lurking around every corner (after all, it was hard being Protestant in a Catholic world order), the first film deserved much of the lavish praise heaped upon it.
By comparison, Elizabeth's second coming feels less like a royal offering than a common period biopic which mistakes stuffiness for stateliness. Here, Elizabeth must cope with an assassination plot approved by the jailed Mary Stuart (an effective Samantha Morton) and the King of Spain (Jordi Molla, whose sneering turn would be more at home in a Monty Python spoof). At the same time, she grows fond of the rakish explorer Sir Walter Raleigh (a coasting Clive Owen), leading to a romantic subplot nearly identical to the one already presented more zestfully by Bette Davis and Errol Flynn in 1939's The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex.
Rush returns as Walsingham, but his role has been neutered and therefore his services are largely wasted. And while Blanchett delivers another first-rate performance as The Virgin Queen, she's ultimately defeated by a languorous script that makes court intrigue about as exciting as jury duty.
GONE BABY GONE
***1/2
DIRECTED BY Ben Affleck
STARS Casey Affleck, Ed Harris
INTO THE WILD
***
DIRECTED BY Sean Penn
STARS Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden
GREAT WORLD OF SOUND
***
DIRECTED BY Craig Zobel
STARS Pat Healy, Kene Holliday
WE OWN THE NIGHT
** 1/2
DIRECTED BY James Gray
STARS Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg
RENDITION
**
DIRECTED BY Gavin Hood
STARS Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
**
DIRECTED BY Shekhar Kapur
STARS Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush
Mobile
