Quick takes on 5 films

Often when a film gets sterling reviews from professional critics but is lambasted by the general audience, I side with the audience. The exception is The Souvenir. It is currently rocking a 90% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 33% audience score. But it is a lovely film, the story of a girl doing all that she can to save her love from himself. Julie is a talented film school student when she meets a charming man named Anthony. They fall for each other pretty quickly, move in together, and it is a typical, loving relationship. They have the same kind of conversations we all have, things like who is taking more space on the bed. When she sees bruises on his arm, she asks if he hurt himself and he says he did, but it is healing well. She doesn’t think twice when he asks to borrow money now and again. But when they have dinner with some of Anthony’s friends, and he gets up to get more wine, the friend privately asks her if dating a heroine user has been hard. Of course Julie had never put two and two together, and is shocked, but still doesn’t confront him about it. She starts to pay his bills on top of her own, borrowing money from her mom. She even is unsuspecting when their apartment is robbed and all the valuables stolen. It only gets worse from there, as Anthony succumbs to his sickness and Julie continues to enable him. As an outside viewer, you want to scream at Julie to wake up and see what is right in front of her eyes. I can see why people say the film is boring; there are a lot of conversations that take place throughout which are just normal conversations, which don’t seem to further the plot or develop any of the characters, but I found they added rather than subtracted from the movie. It created real, breathable people that anyone could relate to. A heartbreaking look at what a person can put up with to try to hold on to love that was once there, but is sadly long destroyed.

I usually do newer (or much older) movies on this blog, but I’ve never seen Léon, the Professional, and a coworker said I needed to remedy that. Directed by Luc Besson, it tells the story of a hitman (Jean Reno) whose carefully orchestrated life is upended when he takes in an orphan. Léon lives alone at an apartment at the end of the hall when his neighbor and the entire family is killed in a drug deal gone bad. The only survivor is 12 year old Mathilda (Natalie Portman in her debut role). She wants to learn Léon’s trade in order to take down her family’s killers, but it turns out, the killers are corrupt DEA agents, headed by a sleazy drug addict himself named Norman Stansfield (a mesmerizing Gary Oldman). There are some absolutely terrific moments in this film. The camerawork is fantastic and the gun fights are intense, but the whole creepy vibe of an adult man and a 12 year old girl (the movie hints at more of a romantic relationship than a father/daughter one) is off-putting. And from what I read online, it was even toned down a bit from the original script at Portman’s parents’ wishes. Still, a good, fun, action flick.

The Mustang is a beautiful film about a man finding his way back to peace. Roman is in jail, and you get the impression that it is for something really bad, and that he has been there a very long time. He’s been transferred to a prison where the inmates train wild horses as part of a program that raises money for the state (in the sale of the horses) but also as a rehabilitation for the prisoners. Roman is completely closed off emotionally; he cannot communicate with anyone, even the counselors on staff to help. When he starts working outside though, he immediately becomes attached to a wild mustang named Marquis, a horse no one has been able to tame. When he finds he cannot force the horse to listen, he has to finally open up to the animal and to himself, freeing emotions that he’s had buried for over a decade. In the process, he reaches out to his estranged daughter (a daughter he doesn’t even recognize on her first visit to the jail, it has been so long) and is finally able to move on from the crime he committed long ago. Tremendous acting by Matthias Schoenaerts in the lead; he’s been around a long time but has had several acclaimed roles in the last 5 or so years.

Hotel Mumbai is based on the attacks on that city in 2008, and focus specifically and the long standoff at the famous and luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. It begins with a group of radical Muslims beginning their coordinated attacks throughout the city, and then shifts to the twelve hour siege at the hotel. The young killers target everyone, but try to take any Americans or foreigners hostage. The story of the siege revolves around a few key people. There’s a family: a rich Indian wife and her American husband, with their baby; and a local worker at the hotel who bravely spends the day saving people despite numerous chances to make his own escape. The film has a great cast including Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, and Jason Isaacs, and while it has some assuredly tense and exciting moments, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing felt a little too “Hollywood” in dramatizing such a horrific day. There was even a moment when one of the guests pointed out how young the attackers were. That may be true, they were depicted as young men who had been horribly swayed to commit these crimes, but they were killers nonetheless, and things that like irk me.

The Kid features a good cast showing off their chops, but the film falls short due to a lackluster, and frankly boring, story. It isn’t quite an action flick, and isn’t smart enough to be a good art film. Rio and his sister are chased by their uncle (Chris Pratt in a rare bad-guy role) after Rio has killed his own dad (the uncle’s brother) for beating his mom. They run into Billy the Kid (Dane DeHaan) who is on the lamb, running from Sheriff Garrett (Ethan Hawke). Garrett catches Billy and takes him in to town to be hung, and in the meantime, the uncle catches up the Rio and kidnaps the sister, warning Rio that he’ll kill her if Rio tries to follow them. Rio sets out to rescue Billy for some help in getting his sister back, but the easy-going Billy is more interested in doing whatever he wants than helping Rio. The movie tries to create tension, but it never feels like it’s going anywhere. The whole thing is a wasted opportunity for the people involved, including director Vincent D’Onofrio.