Archive for March, 2004
155 – Intolerable Cruelty
Posted by frothy in Intolerable Cruelty on March 29, 2004
I like the Coen Brothers, really I do, but I think this one misfired. George Clooney plays a shark-like matrimony lawyer, author of a world-famous, ironclad prenuptial agreement. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a wily woman in the midst of divorcing her philandering husband (Edward Hermann). Oh, could these two possibly find romance together?
The plot’s not terribly tough to follow – Clooney’s Miles Massey represents Hermann’s Rex Rexroth and ensures that Zeta-Jones’ Marylin Rexroth gets nothing (rather than half of Rexroth’s considerable assets). Marylin, stinging from the loss, plots revenge. And so it goes, in a catty game of cat-and-mouse that leaves the viewer looking for better cheese.
It’s a movie that simply doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a romantic comedy? A caper movie? A character study? What?
Clooney and Zeta-Jones are more than handsome enough to make the movie work on an eye-candy level, but nothing more. Their performances are agreeable, but nothing approaching the level of actors in other Coen Brothers films. But I won’t place all the blame on the shoulders of the actors – this movie seems to have been written and directed out of a paper bag, with little substance and even insufficient style.
Intolerable Cruelty: **
154 – The Missing
Posted by frothy in Missing (2003) on March 29, 2004
Cate Blanchett is a tough-as-nails frontierwoman whose significant other (Aaron Eckhart) is slain and whose eldest daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by a savage tribe in 19th-century New Mexico. Reluctantly, Maggie Gilkerson (Blanchett) must ask her long-estranged father Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones) to help her track down her daughter. (Samuel shows up at the family homestead early in the film, having been absent from Maggie’s life since she was a very small girl.)
So there’s your basic story. Maggie and Samuel, with the younger daughter Dot in tow, attempt to recover eldest daughter Lily. On the surface, it sounds like any other rescue movie, but there are a couple of interesting elements that set this movie apart from others.
For one thing, there’s the relationship between Maggie and Samuel. As you can imagine, Maggie’s a little bitter at having been abandoned all those years ago, but she needs her father. Samuel, by contrast, isn’t the apologizing or type – yes, a recipe for disaster.
The other intriguing element is the theme of mysticism. Maggie is a pious God-fearin’ Christian, whereas Samuel is as close to being an American Indian as a white man can get – i.e., he’s well attuned to the powers of medicine men and shamans.
For me, this movie was carried quite ably by two towering polarizing performances, by Blanchett and Jones. In fact, I think Cate Blanchett was absolutely amazing in this movie. For a woman as beautiful and glamorous as Blanchett is – and can play – her Maggie was as down-and-dirty and multilayered as that of an Oscar-worthy performance. I believe this movie would have been nearly worthless had Blanchett not been cast.
The Missing: ***
153 – Open Range
Posted by frothy in Open Range on March 7, 2004
Open Range doesn’t have the grandeur of Dances with Wolves, but it’s still a fine flick. It’s about four free-range cowboys who run afoul of a local landowner. There are plenty of cliches in the movie, but evening the odds a bit are a trio of outstanding performances by Costner (the antihero, as always), Duvall (his boss and eminent sage), and Bening (as the woman with whom Costner falls in love. There’s a showdown with the bad guys in the middle of a muddy street, and even the saving of a lost puppy as it’s about to be washed away by a flood.
Costner was meant to play roles like this, roles in which the character doesn’t say a whole lot and hides his emotions well; see Dances, or Field of Dreams, for example. The quiet-on-the-outside, conflicted-on-the-inside is his idiom, and here he pulls it off marvelously. And, unlike some actor-directors, Costner doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time with closeups of himself. A plus, to be sure.
Bening is a strong counterweight to Costner here; she’s the sister of the town doc (initially mistaken for his wife), and she proves to be every bit as commanding in her performance as her character needed to be. It’s beautiful to see her and Costner’s characters fall gradually in love (well, as gradually as a two-hour movie can get).
Duvall is a real rock, too – and at past seventy, he often looks tougher than most men a third of his age. This is among his finest work in years.
Open Range: ***
-
You are currently browsing the archives for March, 2004
People Had This to Say