STRAWBERRY KILLING FIELDS FOREVER: Max (Joe Anderson) sees red after he's sent to Vietnam in Across the Universe
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Unlike The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, which wears its identical 160-minute running time with greater ease, Lust, Caution is fatally overlong, with much of the story's inherent tension drained through protracted setups and select sequences that extend rather than deepen the storyline. Still, the spy-game maneuverings provide some dramatic heft, and Tang Wei is a luminous actress who, if she plays her cards right, could end up being the next Gong Li -- or at least Zhang Ziyi.
ONE LOOK AT the coming attraction preview for Dan In Real Life reveals that here's a movie that's going to try to milk audience emotions for all they're worth. You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll sing! You'll reflect! You'll hug the moviegoer sitting next to you, even if he smells like an NFL wide receiver's socks after a particularly grueling Sunday match-up!
The trailer doesn't lie: Dan In Real Life wants to offer it all -- a fine sentiment when a movie can pull it off, an example of trying too hard when it doesn't. This one falls somewhere in the middle: There are individual scenes that work nicely, even if the finished product doesn't produce the flood of emotions one might have reasonably expected.
Writer-director Peter Hedges, whose past scripts (including About a Boy and Pieces of April) were far more fine-tuned to the give-and-take dynamics of testy relationships between people, soft-pedals this material, offering a warm and fuzzy tale of a popular newspaper writer (Steve Carell) whose column, "Dan In Real Life," offers practical advice that he can't seem to apply to his own life. A widower with three daughters, Dan travels to Rhode Island for the annual family get-together with his parents (Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney), his siblings and their significant others. He falls for Marie (Juliette Binoche), a Frenchwoman he meets in a book store, only to be devastated when he learns that she's the present girlfriend of his brother Mitch (Dane Cook). As Marie tries to sort out her feelings and Dan suffers in silence, the other family members parade through the story offering their own nuggets of advice to the downtrodden columnist.
It's nice to see this normal a family on screen, but the movie pays a price for its politeness, since there's never any sense that feelings might be hurt or egos bruised -- this is especially true at the conclusion, which basically ignores conflicts that have already been established in order to send everyone home smiling. Dan In Real Life is the equivalent of a glass of warm milk, and that's meant neither as a compliment nor a criticism, merely a stated fact.
RAY MCKINNON ISN'T one of those pampered Hollywood suits who makes faux-Southern pictures like The Dukes of Hazzard and Sweet Home Alabama; a Georgia native, he followed his 2001 film The Accountant (which won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short) with the impressive but little-seen 2004 drama Chrystal, with Billy Bob Thornton and Lisa Blount (McKinnon's wife and producing partner) as an estranged Ozarkian couple mourning the loss of their child. Deep-fried in Southern heritage, it evoked a specific landscape and its people, and only the participation of an A-list star like Thornton prevented it from completely qualifying as an example of low-budget regional filmmaking.
This is why Randy and the Mob comes off as such a disappointment. Arch in a way that his previous feature was honest, it's a clumsy attempt to lay an overcoat of forced cornpone whimsy on a drab storyline involving mobsters. I didn't buy a minute of its sit-com set-ups.
McKinnon plays two roles: Randy, an irresponsible good-ole-boy stereotype, and Cecil, his flaming twin brother. As the title hints, Randy owes a large sum to buffoonish gangsters, who decide to work out a deal by sending one of their enforcers, Tino (Walter Goggins), to stay with Randy for a while. Tino, an odd character who speaks with robotic inflections and enjoys dancing and cooking, ends up endearing himself to the residents of this small town, including Randy's depressed wife (Blount) and their young son, who (much to his dad's dismay) prefers sissy soccer over manly football.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
***1/2
DIRECTED BY Julie Taymor
STARS Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
***1/2
DIRECTED BY Andrew Dominik
STARS Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck
THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE
***
DIRECTED BY Susanne Bier
STARS Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro
THE DARJEELING LIMITED
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Wes Anderson
STARS Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody
LUST, CAUTION
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Ang Lee
STARS Tony Leung, Tang Wei.
DAN IN REAL LIFE
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Peter Hedges
STARS Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche
RANDY AND THE MOB
*1/2
DIRECTED BY Ray McKinnon
STARS Ray McKinnon, Lisa Blount
ON THE WEB
TRAILER/PHOTOS: For trailers of the reviewed movies, as well as additional photos, go to www.theclogblog.com.
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