DUPLICITY (2009). Duplicity is a jet-setting romp that proves to be as bright as it is brainy. Writer-director Tony Gilroy, flush from his Michael Clayton success, retains that film’s examination of corporate malfeasance yet replaces the sense of dread with a sense of style. After all, when a movie showcases a Caribbean hotel where rooms cost $10,000 per night, it’s clear that the protagonists won’t be cut from the same cloth as us po’ folks who have to worry about trifling matters like soaring unemployment rates and obstructionist Republican Congressmen. Indeed, the leads are played by Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, the sort of high-wattage movie stars so glamorous that it’s easy to believe even their bath tissues are Armani-designed. She’s former CIA agent Claire Stenwick; he’s ex-MI6 operative Ray Koval. Having both left their jobs to take lucrative assignments with rival corporations (the company CEOs are played in amusing fashion by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti), Claire and Ray end up pooling their talents in order to swindle both companies and steal the formula for a new cosmetic product that will revolutionize the industry. But all the time, they each wonder whether they can really trust the other person. If there’s a fault with Duplicity, it’s that Gilroy relies far too heavily on flashbacks to the point that the first half-hour is often impenetrable – telling the story in linear fashion would have still produced enough narrative twists to keep audiences happily engaged. Fortunately, as the movie continues, plot basics become more digestible, and it all pans out with a climactic “gotcha” that should invoke happy memories of The Sting.
The only DVD extra is audio commentary by Tony Gilroy and editor/co-producer John Gilroy.
Movie: ***
Extras: **
EARTH (2009). This feature-length spinoff of the BBC series Planet Earth has been playing Europe since the summer of 2007, yet it was only released theatrically in the U.S. on April 22, 2009 (Earth Day). Perhaps its British creators deemed it pointless to release such a pro-environment documentary in a country then ruled by a heinous Republican administration bent on the destruction of our natural resources? At any rate, the picture was finally released stateside by Walt Disney Studios under its new Disneynature label, a welcome throwback to the days when Walt himself would personally supervise such Earth-friendly fare as The Living Desert and The Vanishing Prairie. The film has now made its way to DVD, and while there’s no denying that the magnificence of the images on display were even more impressive when presented on the big screen, they still look lovely on TV monitors, like a finely polished Discovery Channel show. With his majestic voice, narrator James Earl Jones introduces us to the animal protagonists of this globe-spanning piece – among them polar bears, elephants, humpback whales and a particularly scary shark – and discusses the various challenges most of them face, whether from other animals or from global warming. Earth is an enjoyable experience, but it would be wrong to simply digest the picture as a complacent couch potato. So here’s my contribution to the cause: Wolves continue to be placed at risk by a much-maligned Bush administration plan approved by Obama’s compromised Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Protest his actions at www.doi.gov/feedback.html or make a contribution at www.savewolves.org.
DVD extras include a 43-minute making-of featurette and several trailers.
Movie: ***
Extras: **
THE INFORMERS (2009). The main problem with this awful adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel (co-scripted by the author himself) isn’t that Ellis enjoys focusing all his attention on vacuous, detestable people – after all, cinema is full of great Feel-Bad Bummers about life’s losers. No, the problem is that he makes his characters boring and their actions pointless, both unpardonable sins in any medium. Set in 1983, this follows the (mis)fortunes of various Los Angelenos whose paths keep crossing. Among the players are a movie executive (Billy Bob Thornton) who returns to his fragile wife (Kim Basinger) even though he still carries a torch for his mistress (Winona Ryder); a coked-up rock star (Mel Raido) constantly sleeping with jailbait (both male and female); a career criminal (Mickey Rourke, instantly squandering all that Wrestler goodwill) who kidnaps a young boy and plans to sell him to the highest bidder (read: wealthiest sexual predator); a lecherous father (singer Chris Isaak) who takes his disgusted son (Lou Taylor Pucci) on vacation to Hawaii, hoping they can tag-team young hotties; and a wealthy layabout (Jon Foster) who engages in risky threesomes with his girlfriend (Amber Heard) and his best friend (Austin Nichols). Director Gregor Jordan attempts to establish the time frame by occasionally showing ’80s-era music videos in the background, but overall, the picture rarely exudes the aura of a past period. The script is equally clubfooted, filled with narcissistic twits who never say or do anything of consequence or interest. The only creative acting comes from singer Isaak, who seems to be the only one having any fun with this thin material. Unfortunately, that’s a privilege that won’t be shared by anyone shelling out to rent this desultory disaster.
DVD extras include audio commentary by Jordan, Foster and Pucci, and a 15-minute making-of featurette.
Movie: *
Extras: *1/2
RUDO Y CURSI (2009). Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien made international stars out of Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and here the pair are reunited for another rowdy and often rude movie in which the subject of male competitiveness is addressed. Yet while this new release doesn’t come close to matching its predecessor – for one thing, that film’s sensuality and sociopolitical context are both in short supply here – it still makes for a cheeky viewing experience, as the lads play brothers who hope that their soccer skills can carry them away from their impoverished village and straight into the big time. Beto (Luna) is the more focused of the two, wishing to devote his life to the sport, while Tato (Bernal) basically sees it as a stepping stone to his real desire: carving out a career as a singer. Separately, both make it to the top, but their own flaws – to say nothing of their heated rivalry – threaten to dismantle everything they’ve achieved. Writer-director Carlos Cuaron (who shared a writing Oscar nom with brother Alfonso for Y Tu Mama Tambien) arrives at the same destination as most other sports flicks – yes, there is a climactic “big game” – but his skewered vision makes the journey along the way more interesting than most.
DVD extras include audio commentary by Carlos Cuaron, Bernal and Luna; a half-hour making-of featurette; six deleted scenes; and the music video of Bernal’s Spanish rendition of “I Want You to Want Me.”
Movie: ***
Extras: ***
SIN NOMBRE (2009). Winner of two awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (Best Director and Best Cinematography), Sin Nombre marks an impressive feature-film debut for Cary Joji Fukunaga, albeit more as a director than a writer. Certainly, his screenplay is strong enough, showing how two lost souls intersect as they journey northward atop a train toward what they hope will be better lives. Casper (Edgar Flores) is a Mexican teenager who’s a member of the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang; more conscientious than his peers, he turns his back on the outfit and soon becomes their hunted prey. Meanwhile, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is a Honduran teen who’s immigrating with her father and uncle as they plot to eventually cross the Mexico-U.S. border and make it up to the dad’s new home in New Jersey. Circumstances lead to the two youths meeting and developing a mutually respectful relationship that, when all is said and done, complicates their respective flights from their past lives. The gangland material is often intriguing to watch, even if Fukunaga can’t quite escape from the shadows of films that feature similar situations (City of God and Once Were Warriors spring to mind). And while Sayra is a completely believable character, it’s difficult to imagine someone with Casper’s sensitivity ever getting mixed up with the Mara Salvatrucha in the first place. But as a director, Fukunaga displays a keen eye, both for expansive compositions (he’s aided immeasurably by cameraman Adriano Goldman) and for the small details that define the existence of these struggling people.
DVD extras include audio commentary by Fukunaga and producer Amy Kaufman, and 10 minutes of deleted scenes.
Movie: ***
Extras: **
STATE OF PLAY (2009). The American adaptation of the six-hour BBC-TV miniseries that aired back in 2003, State of Play is a movie that effectively operates on two levels. On one hand, it’s the latest addition to the “conspiracy theory” sub-genre, a proud movie tradition that houses such dynamic entries as The Manchurian Candidate, Three Days of the Condor and The Constant Gardener. Yet on the other, it’s a representative of the type of film that might eventually go the way of the dodo: the newspaper yarn. As a thriller, State of Play is crackling entertainment, even if its pieces don’t always fit together after all is said and done. Russell Crowe, in his best performance since A Beautiful Mind, stars as Cal McAffrey, an old-school news reporter for the Washington Globe. Once the roommate of rising Senator Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) back in their college years, Cal is disturbed when he learns that his friend’s comely assistant, who died after falling in front of a subway car, was also his mistress, a fact that threatens to derail Collins’ political career. But as Cal and the paper’s political blogger, Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), dig deeper, they unearth a cover-up with far-reaching implications. For all its success in the thriller arena, State of Play‘s real worth can be found in its attitude toward the newspaper industry. In an era in which any basement-dwelling hack with a keyboard and Web site can call himself a “journalist” (Cal has a great line about how the industry has been taken over by “bloggers and bloodsuckers”), and in which profit-driven publishers serve their shareholders rather than their readers, it’s invigorating to see a motion picture that recalls the importance of the ink-stained newspaper as a tireless watchdog and champions the dedication of its honest reporters to relay all the news that’s fit to print. Fit to print, people, not fit to Twitter.
DVD extras include four minutes of deleted scenes and a 19-minute making-of featurette.
Movie: ***1/2
Extras: **
This article appears in Sep 1-8, 2009.
