2021 Blindspot Pick #5: The Village (2004)

Tags

Drama, Thriller

The leafless woods’ alarming hem
Does greet our eyes on every side.
A wall for us but not for them,
Where those we do not speak of hide.

Branches hang low
But point to the sky
To silently show
Where we go when we die.

The elders say our safety’s sure
Within the glen the village claims,
But who can feel safe or secure
When watched by creatures without names?

Nobody sees,
And nobody hears,
But none disagrees,
And everyone fears.
_______________________

Since starting out his career as a director with three excellent films in my view (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs), M. Night Shyamalan has certainly had his ups and downs, with The Last Airbender being the low point. Nowadays his films are greeted with a mixture of optimism and misgivings, but back in 2004, there was still good reason to have high hopes for his fourth feature, The Village. Seen as a turning point between “good Shyamalan” and “bad Shyamalan,” The Village is indeed a middle-of-the-road effort with a plot that can’t help but buckle under its expected assumptions.

The titular village of Covington is home to a collection of folk living their best 19^th-century life, including Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard in her first major role), the blind daughter of the village’s Chief Elder (William Hurt), and Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), a young man who wants to leave the village and venture to the distant towns for medical supplies. Yet the elders forbid leaving the village due to the ever-present fear of what lies in the surrounding woods, red-cloaked creatures known as “Those We Don’t Speak Of.”

There are plenty of elements to admire about The Village, notably James Newton Howard’s haunting Oscar-nominated score, which I heard and loved long before I even considered seeing its source. Shyamalan’s adroit camerawork and use of color also add to the atmosphere, and as with his other films, the script and camera are careful to only reveal what he wants the audience to know. The problem is that a thinking audience who knows Shyamalan’s penchant for twists can fill in gaps. While I went in knowing what to expect, my VC did not and yet still guessed the main “twist” long before its reveal. Plus, it feels like it ends too soon, with one subplot regarding romantic tension between William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver’s characters going nowhere.

I can see how The Village can be mocked and defended in equal measure. Its story might be labeled “dumb” (and has), but it’s far more psychological than the horror tale it may seem like on the surface. I could see it as a short story from some acclaimed writer, with its character archetypes and old-timey dialogue. (By the way, the quaint dialogue is both a plus and a minus. Most of the actors make it work, but Judy Greer’s delivery of one line is especially cringe-worthy.) The Village is not necessarily a bad film, but it’s a very fragile one, liable to fall apart if you ask too many questions. It’s neither as scary nor as deep as it wants to be, but it’s still a far sight better than Shyamalan’s low points since.

Best line: (Ivy) “Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do so that others won’t know we want to do them.”

Rank:  Honorable Mention

© 2021 S.G. Liput
739 Followers and Counting

Black Widow (2021)

Tags

Action, Drama, Sci-fi, Superhero, Thriller

They say the greats will only get
Their due when they are dead,
Like artists buried deep in debt
Whose work is coveted
Once they are underground,
Too late to be renowned.

It’s inadvertent irony
That those who warrant praise
So often do not get to see
Their celebrated phase.
Not everyone’s endeavor
Is better late than never.
__________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

When I sat down to watch Black Widow in a theater, it felt surreal to realize that I hadn’t seen the Marvel montage and logo in about two years, before a certain virus turned the world upside down. I know we’ve had the privilege of MCU TV shows like WandaVision and Falcon and Winter Soldier, but it was a surprisingly heart-warming feeling to once more see a Marvel film on the big screen, especially one that had been so long-awaited. I still remember seeing the first trailer back in 2019 and having no idea it would take so long to finally be released.

Many have said that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) should have gotten her own movie years ago, and they’re right. We’ve gotten scattered implications about her checkered past, mainly in relation to her bond with Hawkeye, but it was far too long before Marvel seemed confident enough that a female-led origin story was worthwhile. Captain Marvel proved it could be done, but (spoiler alert) it certainly should have happened before Romanoff’s self-sacrificial death in Endgame.  Reflecting that scheduling awkwardness is the film’s timeline, set mainly after the events of Civil War when Black Widow was a fugitive for assisting Captain America’s band of super-rebels.

We first get a glimpse at Natasha’s childhood, when she was one of several Russian agents posing as a suburban American family in the ‘90s. Fast forward then to her post-Civil War hideout where her murderous past catches up to her faster than the American government. Targeted by a masked assassin known as Taskmaster, Romanoff must team up with her “sister” spy Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), as well as her former fake parents (David Harbour, Rachel Weisz), to bring down the Red Room spy organization that trained them all to be killers.

It’s very easy for Black Widow as a film to be overshadowed by many things:  the pandemic that delayed its release, the expectations for Marvel’s first Phase 4 film, the messy lawsuit that has pitted Johansson against Disney for how they released the film simultaneously on Disney+. All that aside, I quite enjoyed this return to the MCU, putting a spotlight on a character that has largely been part of the supporting cast. Of course, since we know Natasha’s eventual fate, there is also the feeling that this is just as much an origin story for her adopted “family” as for her, and Pugh, Harbour, and Weisz do a great job in their introduction to the Marvel universe, all of them with a more ruthless edge than Natasha. Pugh especially succeeds in mixing self-aware “little sister” charm with hand-to-hand prowess, making her a perfect fit to step into the hole left by Natasha’s death.

Beyond all the expectations and controversies, it does seem like Black Widow is destined to be a middling entry in the MCU, boasting little in the way of gossip-worthy cameos or universe-building. Compared with other entries, it’s relatively down-to-earth with no actual superpowers involved, even though the characters repeatedly manage to survive things that would kill a normal person many times over. Yet I consider the more human-level conflict a good thing, since cosmos-ending cataclysms can easily lose their impact if done too often, and there are still plenty of outstanding fights and action set pieces to give Marvel fans their expected thrills. Black Widow perhaps stumbles a bit in glossing over the moral murkiness of its characters’ decisions, but it is also proof that Marvel has no shortage of entertaining stories to tell.

Best line: (Yelena) “The truth rarely makes sense when you omit key details.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2021 S.G. Liput
737 Followers and Counting

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Sci-fi, Thriller

Behold, I am still alive! After getting through NaPoWriMo, it was certainly not my intention to take a hiatus for over a month and a half. Schoolwork has kept me crazy busy, and I will still likely post infrequently until I finish classes in September. Hold tight in the meantime; I can’t wait to return to my former posting schedule, but for now, here’s an overdue poem and review:

There are rumors in the shadows
Cast by whispers in the light
Of a coup that cannot happen
From the silent out of sight.

We were made to be compliant
And designed for docile duty,
Having never tasted freedom
Nor assayed a glimpse at beauty.

Humankind need not be worried
By the pawns they oversee.
They arranged that and believe it.
How surprised they soon will be!
___________________________

MPA rating:  R

Blade Runner was one of my Blindspot picks back in 2017. I wanted to see it before the sequel came out, but I remember being largely disappointed by its dreary vision of the future, punctuated by random weirdness, rather dull characterization, and too many loose threads. It made me lose interest in Blade Runner 2049 until just recently, as my curiosity for director Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune has grown. I loved Arrival, which heralded Villeneuve as a sci-fi visionary, and Blade Runner 2049 proves that once again, showing he can handle existing material with both respect and artistry.

If I haven’t made myself clear, I consider Blade Runner 2049 superior to its predecessor in almost every way, even if that may be an unpopular opinion. Blade Runner’s own dystopian originality was its greatest asset, but it failed to tell an interesting story, in my opinion. This sequel set 30 years afterward isn’t just a futuristic noir about Blade Runners tracking down rogue replicants; it also plays as a reality-questioning mystery and features enough compelling sci-fi concepts to fill several episodes of Black Mirror.

Set thirty years after the first film, as indicated by the title, Blade Runner 2049 features Ryan Gosling as K, a Blade Runner who knows he is also a replicant, part of a more stable and compliant brand of artificial humans introduced by mysterious businessman Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) some years after replicants had been banned. (There’s a larger history from the last thirty years that is touched on in the excellent anime midquel titled Blade Runner Blackout 2022 and a couple other live-action shorts, the events of which are vaguely mentioned in this film but are still optional viewing.) After taking down an older model replicant in hiding (Dave Bautista), K discovers evidence that a replicant defied its biological design and apparently gave birth many years prior. With this news comes fear over its implications, so K’s boss (Robin Wright) orders him to hunt down this child to dispose of it, while Wallace’s henchwoman (Sylvia Hoeks) follows his progress with other intentions.

Like its predecessor, Blade Runner 2049 excels in its own sci-fi stylishness, replicating the original’s dark, grimy cityscapes and augmenting them with visits to out-of-town wastelands and ruins that make the film’s world feel bigger and, I suppose, more depressing. Cinematographer Roger Deakins has deserved many Oscars he didn’t receive in his long career, but at least the Academy recognized his artistry here. Paired with Villeneuve’s direction, scenes like a fist fight amid a holographic light show or a peaceful end under a light snowfall are visually arresting and a wonder to behold. Plus, as with Arrival, Villeneuve succeeds in setting a very deliberate pace that somehow never left me bored through the film’s 2-hour-and-44-minute runtime.

As for the actors, Gosling is a little too deadpan as a protagonist, though his status as a replicant makes that understandable, and he still delivers some subtle emotion at the right moments. One of the most fascinating subplots was K’s relationship with his holographic girlfriend Joi (an extremely attractive Ana de Armas). Her efforts to please him seem to go beyond mere programming, making us wonder whether there’s real love between the two artificial beings, even as advertisements for Joi proclaim she can be whatever you want. While the original Blade Runner reserved the smallest bit of pathos for its antagonist’s final moments, this film manages more heart, not only for K and Joi but for the returning Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who gets far less screen time than he deserves.

Blade Runner 2049 is not above reproach. Despite being the apparent main character, K’s ultimate story arc is rather unsatisfying overall, while Jared Leto’s villain is at once mysteriously eccentric for no apparent reason and largely forgettable. The film also indulges in several instances of upper female nudity, adding to the perceived misogyny highlighted by some critics. Yet, as a fan of most science fiction, I was left quite impressed with how it was able to continue the legacy of a classic film and build on it as a true successor rather than a mere cash grab. It felt like a fuller experience than the first film and increased my opinion of the series, which can’t be said for many other decades-spanning sequels.

Best line: (a rebel replicant) “Our lives mean nothing next to a storm that’s coming. Dying for the right cause. It’s the most human thing we can do.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
736 Followers and Counting

2021 Blindspot Pick #1: Total Recall (1990)

Tags

Sci-fi, Thriller

(It seems I’m too busy to consider midnight as a deadline, so I’ll simply take part in this home stretch of NaPoWriMo as I can. For Day 26, the prompt was to write a parody poem, so I decided to imitate “Paul Revere’s Ride,” one of my favorite poems and meters, and merge it with this movie’s plot.)

Listen, dear viewers, and you shall be played
The bewildering story of Douglas Quaid.
‘Twas some future date in Two Thousand Eight Four,
(This isn’t the remake that many abhor
But Verhoeven’s version that Ahnold portrayed).

He said to his wife, “It would awesome be
If you and I could go visit Mars.”
But because she responded with apathy,
He sought out the next best way to the stars.
No one would care if he were to deign
To have memories planted into his brain,
Maybe to match his curious dreams
Of mystery women and Martian extremes.
But life, he soon found, is not quite what it seems.

When he left Rekall, he recalled very little,
Yet he soon found he was right in the middle
Of murderous Martian Machiavels
And mutants revolting beneath glass shells,
Which most would agree were far too brittle.
Was all this real, or another dream?
Was Quaid a player, and for which team?
I would tell you more, but you must agree
That reviews are best when they’re spoiler-free.
____________________________________

MPA rating:  R (strong violence, language, and nudity)

Like 2020, I’m finally getting started on my Blindspot list for the year in April, so I’ll have to double up a few times in the coming months to finish before the end of 2021. Kicking off the list is 1990’s Total Recall, a sci-fi mind-bender featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his popularity, along with Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, and Ronny Cox. It certainly represents a niche of its era that Hollywood is unlikely to resurrect successfully now that CGI is so prevalent: the hyper-violent, futuristic thriller with cheesy dialogue and effects that were amazing (and Oscar-winning) for the time and now have almost a quaint, unpolished roughness to them that somehow doesn’t detract from their quality. I’m thinking of movies like Outland, The Running Man, and director Paul Verhoeven’s own Robocop, and Total Recall is a prime example that I had somehow missed until now.

My opinion of Total Recall is split. On the one hand, I love science fiction, and being based on a Philip K. Dick short story, the film is able to delve into a lot of fascinating subjects: questions about the nature of memories and reality, the dirty populism of a future Mars settlement, even the dependency of one’s identity on one’s memories. Plus, there are concepts that were clearly borrowed by later films, such as a red pill being offered to wake Quaid back to “reality,” not unlike The Matrix. Yet for all its impressive themes and gleefully convoluted plotline, ultra-violence has never been my cup of tea, and this movie definitely earns its R rating. Beyond the space brothels and headshots, it also gets very weird with its psychic mutants and whatnot, all of which I suppose should be no surprise considering the time period and Verhoeven’s involvement.

So Total Recall is a mixed bag for me, an unabashed sci-fi thrill ride that finds a balance between philosophizing and tearing bad guys’ arms off. It’s the kind of film I think is dragged down by its R-rated content even as I know that’s part of the appeal for its fans. I’m glad still to have watched it, even if I’d prefer to see it on a cut TV channel in the future. Take the grain and leave the chaff, as they say.

Best line: (Kuato the mutant) “You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Cloverfield (2008)

Tags

Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Late again, I know, but for Day 25 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem celebrating an occasion. Thus, the occasion is the end of the world, with the monster responsible speaking.)

Hello, all you humans and lovely to meet you,
And what an enchanting doomsday!
I hope you don’t mind it too much if I eat you,
The whole giant monster cliché.
I see you down there;
You can’t help but stare,
And I cannot blame you,
For I’m come to claim you
And wipe your whole species away.

You’ve had a good run for a few thousand years.
You’ve come a long way from the caves.
But civilization is fragile with fears
When nature no longer behaves.
Don’t cry since it’s done;
You’re wiser to run.
It won’t do much good,
But you did what you could.
I’ll be sure to dance on your graves.
_________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

Considering I have already seen and reviewed 10 Cloverfield Lane, an in-universe sequel with no direct connection to this film, I figured I ought to actually watch the original Cloverfield. Yet while the later film was presented in typical movie style, Cloverfield is a prime example of the found footage genre, with all the first-person interactions and disorienting shaky cam that goes along with it. The plot is paper thin as five New Yorkers (among them T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, and Lizzy Caplan) are interrupted from their party-going and relationship drama by the sudden appearance of a giant rampaging monster.

Cloverfield doesn’t reinvent its genre, but it’s still serviceably entertaining, with the best moments involving the horrifying beasts tearing through the city, shrewdly keeping them off-screen as much as possible to tap into that monster-you-barely-see tension. Yet its chosen format also comes off as hard-to-believe, as Miller’s character Hud continues to film every little thing long after any sane person would have put the camera down. For comparison, I thought The Dinosaur Project handled that well by making the cameras small and wearable rather than the eye-level camcorder here. I can appreciate Cloverfield’s best moments, such as the iconic Statue of Liberty head, but its repetitive, dizzying camerawork and grim ending make it less appealing than 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is a better film on every level.

Rank:  Honorable Mention

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Don’t Let Go (2019)

Tags

Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller

(For Day 20 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a sijo, a Korean form similar to haiku but with three longer 14-to-16-syllable lines and ending with a twist.)

I received a call from my niece. Yet I’m afraid to answer.
I can’t be sure what to say, much less to expect from her.
I wished we could talk again, for she died only weeks ago.
_______________________________

MPA rating:  R (some language and violence, mostly at the very end)

I love movies that play with time: time loops, time travel, time displacement, time for dinner. And I’m usually willing to overlook massive plot holes for the joy of seeing a film mess with time in a unique way. Don’t Let Go didn’t get much fanfare upon release, but it’s a sci-fi thriller I thoroughly enjoyed, using its mostly black cast to perfection. As mentioned in the poem, David Oyelowo plays a cop who is crushed when his brother’s whole family is found dead, including his beloved niece Ashley (Storm Reid). To his shock, though, he later receives a call from Ashley and discovers that he’s talking to his niece several days before her murder, prompting them both to figure out how to prevent the crime from two different points in time.

Don’t Let Go never really addresses how its central concept happens; it just exists to make the plot possible, perhaps as a gift from above, and that’s okay. Oyelowo and Reid make a wonderful team, even when separated by time and cell phone, and the mystery remains tense and compelling throughout. I was also pleasantly surprised that it was largely clean of profanity as well, at least until the very end. Also starring Alfred Molina, Mykelti Williamson, and Brian Tyree Henry, Don’t Let Go is an excellent blend of emotional sci-fi and police puzzler that only strengthens my love of quality genre cinema.

Rank:  List Runner-Up (very close to List-Worthy)

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Fatal Attraction (1987)

Tags

Drama, Thriller

(For Day 11 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a two-part poem as an exchange of letters, so my correspondents are the main characters of this film.)

Look, Alex,
I know that we had a great time.
You kept my bed warm, and you brightened my day,
But that wasn’t love; it’s two folks in their prime,
Partaking in something that just couldn’t stay.
I do have a family, a wife – you knew that.
You had to have known we would go separate ways.
I’m sorry, but we can’t keep writing or chat.
I wish you the best for the rest of your days.

Dear Dan,
You may say that, in words or in ink,
But women are able to read between lines.
A “great time” is not simply gone in a blink,
It lasts if you’re willing to act on the signs,
To push obligations, like families and wives
And substandard marriages fully aside,
And see that the best thing in both of our lives
Is right there before you and won’t be denied.
I won’t simply shrug off the loss of our bond.
I felt it, you felt it, I won’t let it go.
No need to write back if you want to respond.
Just look out your window to see me. I’ll know.
____________________________

MPA rating: R

Fatal Attraction isn’t the kind of film I would expect to earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination (in addition to five others), but it’s gone down in history as the film to scare men straight, because you never know if the person you’re cheating with could be a psycho. Glenn Close’s character of Alex Forrest is iconic here, and it was fascinating to view her as the forerunner for the behavior of the many yanderes (obsessively loving, violent girls) of anime, such as showing up unexpectedly to meet their lover’s family.

Michael Douglas is suitably scummy as the philandering husband, but it’s hard not to sympathize with him and especially his wife (Anne Archer) as his tryst puts his whole family in danger. As a thriller that switches from eroticism to psychological unease, Fatal Attraction is tense and well-made, culminating in an especially memorable climax. It’s the epitome of the maxim “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Best line: (Alex, to Dan) “Well, what am I supposed to do? You won’t answer my calls, you change your number. I mean, I’m not gonna be ignored, Dan!”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
727 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #7: Heathers (1989)

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Thriller

The more I see in movies
Of a high school student’s woes,
The tricks and cliques and politics,
The mockery of clothes,
The favoritism, criticism,
Narcissism, hedonism,
Overwhelming pessimism
All the films have shown…
I feel more blessed for all the pros
Of being schooled at home.
_____________________

MPA rating:  R (for frequent profanity and occasional violence)

Well, it looks like my Blindspot list for 2020 didn’t go as expected, along with almost everything else about 2020. I may have only gotten to #7 out of the initial 12 Blindspots, but I’ll do my best to knock out the last few ASAP before getting to a new list for 2021. Still, I wanted to get one more Blindspot pick out of the way this year, which has also been the most accessible one all year. (It’s on YouTube in its entirety.) I’ve been hesitant to watch Heathers, though; I’ve listened to and greatly enjoyed the soundtrack to Heathers: The Musical, and I just wasn’t sure if the original film would measure up to my expectations, minus the show tunes. I’d say it did meet them, but I can’t help but have mixed feelings.

Heathers follows Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder), a half-willing member of the feared/admired high school clique known as the Heathers: Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk), Heather Duke (Shannon Doherty), and the queen of mean-girl stereotypes Heather Chandler (Kim Walker). Bristling under the thumb of Heather Chandler, Veronica grows close to classmate J.D. (Christian Slater), whose ideas of retaliating against the popular kids become more and more psychotic. Repressed teens may often wish their bullies were dead, as Veronica does, but J.D. is willing to grant such wishes.

Being familiar with the musical meant that very little about the plot of Heathers surprised me, though certain characters were combined and events shuffled around as needed for the stage adaptation. I was mainly surprised that the film already began with Veronica as a member of the Heathers, whereas the musical takes a little more time portraying her initiation. However, where both versions excel is black comedy, which is a very touchy genre for me. I can appreciate something like Beetlejuice, which also starred Winona Ryder and Glenn Shadix the previous year, but such films can also just come off as mean-spirited or in bad taste, which I don’t find entertaining. While I knew going in that it’s not exactly High School Musical, Heathers threatens to be in the latter category with its frequent profanity and making light of teenage suicide and homosexuality. Yet the film has some surprising depth to its satire and manages to weave some insightful themes into its droll plot: the stress of not liking your own friends, the eagerness with which the powerless can exploit newfound influence, the sensationalism that dark subjects impart in those with good intentions and no solution, and the difference that empathy or its absence can have on someone. Oh, and of course the signs that your boyfriend might be a psychopath.

One ingredient I can say I liked was Winona Ryder, on whom I have something of a celebrity crush. She perfectly originates the sarcastic frustration of Veronica and evokes a sense of growth as she seeks to atone for the evil influence of Heather Chandler and J.D. Slater is also an effective bad boy doing his best Jack Nicholson impression, and the rest of the cast excel at their high school clichés, though it’s disturbing that two cast members later died in ways that the film foreshadowed. Another aspect worth commendation is that unique confidence of style that certain ‘80s films had, regardless of director, as if they knew they would become iconic eventually. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Say Anything come to mind, and Heathers likewise feels like the kind of film that knew exactly what it wanted to be, which is rare for high school movies these days that often just try to imitate what came before. Maybe my exposure to the musical accentuated that, as I recognized the origins of songs like “Big Fun” and “Our Love Is God.” So, although my feelings remain mixed on content, I largely enjoyed Heathers as a paragon of dark high school humor, mainly because its ultimate goal is empathy, something that we could use a lot more of nowadays.

Best line: (Veronica) “All we want is to be treated like human beings, not to be experimented on like guinea pigs or patronized like bunny rabbits.”
(Veronica’s dad) “I don’t patronize bunny rabbits.”
(Veronica’s mom) “Treated like human beings? Is that what you said, little Miss Voice-of-a-Generation? Just how do you think adults act with other adults? You think it’s all just a game of doubles tennis? When teenagers complain that they want to be treated like human beings, it’s usually because they are being treated like human beings.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2020 S.G. Liput
708 Followers and Counting

Happy New Year, everybody!

Fast and Furious 6 (2013)

Tags

Action, Drama, Thriller

We all need a code,
For our lives, for the road,
When the plans we prepare
Hit a wall and explode.

However we fare,
And whatever we bear,
Our constant is known,
And it always is there.

It may be your own
Or it may be borrowed,
But when we’re alone,
Every man needs a code.
______________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

Finally, a holiday break! And that means I finally have some extra time to allow for blogging outside of work and school. So we once again return to the Fast and Furious franchise, with the sixth entry that, for lack of a snappier alphanumeric title, is simply Fast and Furious 6. Despite everything I’ve heard about Fast Five being the turning point of the franchise from small-timer to blockbuster, this sixth film feels even more like a watershed entry, transitioning from a series I’ve largely tolerated thus far to a movie I thoroughly enjoyed.

Fast Five ended with the “shocking” reveal that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom’s girlfriend killed offscreen in the fourth film, was still alive, which wasn’t so shocking for me, since I had seen her in the trailers for the last three movies. (One of the perks of waiting to get into a series until late in its popularity.) Now the promise of his lost love, as well as clemency for past crimes, convinces Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew to join Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) in stopping a criminal mastermind named Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who has recruited the amnesiac Letty into his own team of mercenaries.

Beyond the destructive action, Fast Five’s greatest pleasure was how it brought together so many characters from past films, with Fast and Furious 6 doing the same. The whole team is back, from Paul Walker to Tyrese Gibson to Gal Gadot. Well, those two Spanish guys are absent, but who remembers their names anyway? The main difference, and the one that made me enjoy 6 more than 5, is that Dom and his roadworthy companions finally get to be the good guys. They’re not plotting to steal millions or drag racing illegally; they are pitted against a less moral version of themselves, trying to save the world with redemption and a chance at normalcy on the line. While Walker’s Brian O’Conner was a good cop undercover at the beginning, the truth is that Dom and his buddies were little more than small-time crooks with insane automotive skills, who eventually ended up turning Brian into a wanted man as well. They’ve been the protagonists of this series thus far but rarely unqualified heroes, and that’s what this sixth film finally makes them.

The amnesia subplot with Letty may seem like a soap opera cliché to retcon the fourth film, but it’s not unwelcome. In fact, Dom’s attempts at convincing Letty of their former life together add much-needed heart to a story where there’s little interest in developing any of the other already established characters. Luke Evans makes a decent baddie, if only because he and his cronies actually prove to be more than a match for Dom’s team, and the action manages to one-up even the safe scene from Fast Five, particularly an outrageous chase involving a tank. By the time of the final set piece, which includes what has to be the world’s longest runway, I could tell this was my favorite film yet in this crazy car-themed series. It’s also the only action franchise I can imagine featuring the main characters saying a genuine prayer together, which again rings truer now that they’re not closet criminals. It even ends with a cliffhanger that both builds hype for the next installment and clears up a bit of confusion surrounding the series timeline, messily but well enough. For the first time, I’m actually looking forward to the next Fast and Furious film.

Best line: (Owen Shaw) “You know, when I was young, my brother always used to say, “Every man has to have a code.” Mine: Precision. A team is nothing but pieces you switch out until you get the job done. It’s efficient. It works. But you? You’re loyal to a fault. Your code is about family. And that’s great in the holidays, but it makes you predictable. And in our line of work, predictable means vulnerable. And that means I can reach out and break you whenever I want.”   (Dom) “At least when I go, I’ll know what it’s for.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2020 S.G. Liput
706 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #5: Fargo (1996)

Tags

Drama, Thriller

Now sit right on down on a carpet or quilt
And lend me an ear for a minute.
I’ve got here a story of greed and of guilt,
And there’s death and dishonesty in it.

You may have heard tell of some murders up north
Around Brainerd not far from the border.
It started with three deaths (or was there a fourth?);
Regardless, it shocked the reporter.

It didn’t take long for the local police
To kick off the investigation,
And boy, what a puzzle! They gathered each piece
With no lack of luck and frustration.

Turns out the two culprits behind it were wicked,
But there was a right normal guy
Who stuck his nose right where you don’t want to stick it
And hired those two on the sly.

It came down to money to finance the lie
That set off the kidnapping fraud,
Which led to the murder when things went awry,
For even the best plans are flawed.

It’s hard to imagine some schmo you might know
Doing something to cause homicide.
It just goes to show how lies snowball and grow,
And you don’t know what folks have to hide.
________________________

MPA rating:  R

Back now to the ol’ Blindspot list, which I’ll unfortunately be hard-pressed to finish before the end of the year. Perhaps this opinion is just based on ignorance, but 1996 has always struck me as a weak year for cinema with few must-see award-worthy films. Yet Fargo has some ardent fans, even spawning a spin-off TV series nearly twenty years later, so I felt impelled to see what the fuss was about. The Coen brothers are an acquired taste, but their uniquely dark humor distinguishes this tale of fraud and murder from what could have been pedestrian.

All I knew about Fargo going in was the famous Midwestern accents (“Don’tcha know”) and that scene of Frances McDormand standing next to a car wreck in the snow. I was sort of expecting a mystery and was surprised then to see the crime start from the very beginning, with Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) meeting two mercenaries (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare) in a dive bar in Fargo, North Dakota, to arrange for the fake kidnapping of his wife, with the expected ransom set to pay off all involved. It took longer than expected for McDormand’s Marge Gunderson to arrive on the scene, following the clues that the naïve Jerry and ruthless hitmen leave in their wake. Watching everything unfold was like observing one of those true crime stories in action, knowing whodunnit but awaiting the culprits to meet their comeuppance as they dig their graves deeper.

In a way, my opinion of Fargo is an odd mix of appreciation and overhype. It’s not a film that I automatically love or would want to immediately include in the National Film Registry (which it was only ten years after its release), yet I’ll admit there’s something intriguing about the way the story plays out. For example, I hate profanity as a rule and rarely think it adds anything to a movie, but in Fargo’s case, there’s a clear contrast in how only the hitmen and their ilk cuss while Marge and the other law-abiding Minnesotans are content with “for Pete’s sake” and “aw, jeez” and a surfeit of “yah”s. Jerry’s thin veneer of good-natured smarminess is gradually peeled back as he realizes how deep in over his head he is, even as the folksy mannerisms of him and Marge give the proceedings a wry sense of humor.

Despite her late introduction, McDormand is certainly the star and deserved her Best Actress Oscar, imbuing her pregnant policewoman with all the levelheaded practicality needed to ground the film and provide the audience someone to root for. The Coens’ Oscar-winning screenplay also stands out, though there were several unresolved tangents that could have been better explained, such as the lack of explanation for Jerry’s need for money or the inclusion of an old classmate of Marge’s who adds nothing to the main story. Plus, isn’t it odd that the film is called Fargo when only the very first scene actually happens in North Dakota? My VC and I were dreading the “wood chipper scene” we’d heard about, thinking it would be overly gruesome, but it honestly could have been worse. (Maybe I’ve just been desensitized by Criminal Minds.) I’m slowly working my way through the Coens’ eccentric filmography, so I’m glad to add Fargo to my watched list. It uses small-town quirk to its advantage to make a shocking murder story into something more distinctive, an exemplar of the saying “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Best line: (Marge, kneeling at the crime scene) “Oh, I just think I’m gonna barf…” [standing up again after a moment] “Well, that passed. Now I’m hungry again.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2020 S.G. Liput
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