Quick takes on 5 films

The Best of Enemies is awfully paint-by-numbers, but it is a nice film, based on some true events. The community of Durham, NC, is right in the thick of the civil rights movement. Local activist Ann Atwater (Taraji P Henson) has been bullishly fighting for equality for years, to the distress of the local chapter of the Klu Klux Klan, and especially its leader CP Ellis (Sam Rockwell). When a fire burns half the local black kids’ school, the black parents get the attention of the NAACP to let their kids be integrated into the white school. They send a mediator to hold a charette to get both sides talking to each other. The mediator (Bill Riddick, played by Babou Ceesay) does the best he can to get the white and black members of the community to open communication, and real discussion takes place, but the sticking point of school integration remains a hard case to win for Atwater. CP thinks he is on the side of right and he has a just cause, but when he sees the other folks in the KKK put pressure on the more liberal white members on the panel to vote against segregation, he begins to have doubts. The film is predictable and maybe even guilty of being heavy handed, but it is still stirring. Henson is good, and Rockwell is great. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, and it’s nice to see him finally get some recognition over the last couple years.

I gave Mortal Engines a chance despite horrible reviews, because it falls in my wheelhouse of geekdom: sci-fi post-apocalyptic. Should have listened to the reviews. Despite some decent computer graphics, its a real bore, with some truly eye-rolling dialogue. The film takes place in the far future when civilization has nearly wiped itself out in world war. People have survived by literally making their cities mobile, traveling around on huge metal wheels. This has given rise to “municipal darwinism,” where larger cities overtake and “consume” smaller cities for their resources. One of the biggest and meanest cities around is London, whose citizens cheer whenever they destroy a smaller city. A young woman named Hester seems bent on killing Valentine, the head of historians of London, supposedly because he killed her mom when she was a child. Hester wounds Valentine, but he survives, and sends a cyborg out to hunt her down. The crazy level just goes up from there. There is one scene where just about every piece of imaginable bad dialogue is uttered within the same conversation: “You sure you want to go on? There’s no going back.” “I have to, I don’t have a choice. I have to do this for my mother.” Unfortunately that’s not even the worst of it. A cast full of no-names except for Valentine (Hugo Weaving, who as we know, doesn’t have the best track record), and while Hester (Hera Hilmar) is passable, the bulk of the rest are downright awful.

Sobibor is a Russian film, based on the true story of an uprising at the Nazi Sobibor extermination camp during World War II. I’m not a World War II historian and unfortunately I’d never heard of Sobibor, and I think it doesn’t get the attention of the more infamous camps at Auschwitz and Treblinka. The film takes place over a 2 week time period in 1943, beginning with the arrival of a fresh train of detainees. The Jews are separated, with those able to work put in one group, and the others sent immediately to be gassed. In the camp, there is an underground without a leader. Many look for ways to escape, but attempts are always thwarted, and not only are those who made the attempt killed, but as punishment, the Germans kill 1 out of 10 prisoners in the camp. Finally, a Jewish-Russian prisoner in the camp agrees to use his military training to plan an escape, but he insists that the whole camp be freed, not just those willing to participate in the coup. It sounds very daring, and the film does a decent job of showing the insurmountable odds facing our heroes, but unfortunately it just isn’t a great movie overall. I never felt really attached to most of the characters, and there’s a fine line between eliciting grief from the viewer (see Schindler’s List) and beating them over the head with images, practically screaming at us, “Doesn’t this disturb you!” For me, it didn’t reach the heights that the filmmakers wanted.

High Life, from director Claire Denis, stars one of my favorite actors of today, Robert Pattinson. And that’s not because I was a Twilight fan, but if you haven’t seen his independent film work in the last 5 or so years, you’re missing out. He’s good here again, even if the film is a bit lackluster. The film starts with just him and a baby girl on a spaceship far from earth, and systems are starting to fail. The other crew are dead, but we don’t know why. Before long, we learn that it was a penal ship sent out on a mission to attempt to harness energy from a black hole. On board, one of the criminals is a former doctor, and she’s made it her goal to produce a viable fetus from artificial insemination despite the radiation of space. So far, her experiments have failed, with no babies born alive, and just dead woman to show from the experiments. How Pattinson’s character came to be alone with a baby is left for the final half, where we learn the fate of the rest of the crew. The film starts very mysterious, and I don’t mind films that are purposefully obtuse in the beginning (many art films are), but when they ultimately spoon feed you all the answers, the original mystery is left feeling stale. This film could have been really good, and has plenty of good moments, but for the reasons I’ve mentioned, it never gets great. How often do you watch a movie and wished it was longer? I think this movie left a lot unexplored, and it really could have been something.

The best comedies have a heartfelt story too, and into this category falls Late Night. Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) plays an aging late night television host whose best ratings are far behind her. She’s facing getting the ax by the network execs, who want to replace her with the newest, hottest comedian. Of course she doesn’t want to go, but somehow she needs to find a way to reach a new generation of viewers. Enter Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), initially only hired to help diversity in the all-white male crew of writers for Newbury’s show. Molly has no experience in comedy or writing, but she knows what the younger crowd wants. The show starts doing better, but a catastrophe of Newbury’s own making strikes before the end of the season, and it looks like nothing will help save the show. Ultimately the movie becomes about what is most important in life, professional success or personal relationships. I generally don’t re-watch comedies, because often the jokes (for me) are only funny the first time, but this one is both funny and emotional, and I’d probably watch it again.