Capsules

Che, Last Chance Harvey and Notorious.

New Releases

Since most biopics seem willing to rub their subject’s feet with pumice stone—see this week’s Biggie paean Notorious—it’s refreshing that throughout both parts of director Steven Soderbergh’s Che (totalling four and a half hours) we never quite know what he thinks of his subject. To some that may seem like a dodge. The film never mentions the facts about Ernesto Guevara that ought to keep him off college kids’ T-shirts, such as his overseeing mass executions, persecution of homosexuals and many other questionable offenses. Soderbergh’s film views its subject at such a remove that Che often seems a supporting player in the film that bears his name.

Played with quiet cool by Benicio del Toro, Guevara is viewed at three vastly different points in his life. In Part One, titled “The Argentine,” we toggle between him on an uncomfortable whirlwind tour through New York (climaxing in a too-fiery speech in front of the U.N.) and the fabled Cuban Revolution. Filmed in heroic Cinemascope, the campaign’s a spectacular triumph, setting up things nicely for Part Two, “Guerilla,” which shows Guevara’s attempt to spread revolution in Bolivia from 1966 to 1967, which wasn’t so triumphant.

Watching both parts in one intermissioned screening (as you can at the Ritz Theatres), underscores the numerous echoes that resonate throughout the entire work. What goes swimmingly in “The Argentine” goes miserably in “Guerilla,” and where the Cuban revolution snowballs like a game of Katamari, its Bolivian counterpart never takes shape, resulting in its leader’s appropriately unglamorous execution.

Though Soderbergh never gets too close to del Toro’s rebel, he follows his tactile example. If two words sum up Che, they would be “grunt work.” Soderbergh’s interest is not the how or why of Guevara but the what—what it’s like to assemble a revolution, to keep it going, to live day by day on feral instincts in inclement weather and with little food. During the thrilling, if still fairly detached, climax of “The Argentine,” Guevara’s men painstakingly knock down the walls of a long stretch of row homes, all to get to a target that winds up not being used. That’s revolution, and that’s also, in a nutshell, Steven Soderbergh’s Che.

Perhaps there are worse things to imagine than a Last Chance Harvey that doesn’t star Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. War. Famine. Future Twilight sequels. That said, even leads as fundamentally appealing as these two can’t do much to assuage the banality and schmaltz of Joel Hopkins’ autopilot romancer.

Introduced banging out a sad, lonely tune on a piano, Hoffman’s Harvey Shine proceeds to spend the first half-hour being shat upon. First, he loses his job as the author of commercial jingles. Then, upon arriving at the London wedding of his semi-estranged daughter (Liane Balaban), she informs him that she’d prefer her non-shlub stepfather James Brolin to give her away. Meanwhile, we catch the less caustic shenanigans of single gal Emma Thompson, as she fields endless calls from pesky mom Eileen Atkins and is dragged on a run-of-the-mill blind date.

The lead characters don’t meet until two reels into the film. At this point, all Hoffman and Thompson have to do is rise above the blandness of the script. Both escape unscathed but also unvictorious.

Perversely mismatched, the two have an easy, bubbly rapport that would probably be even more affecting if former Tindersticks member Dickon Hinchliffe’s sickeningly oppressive score didn’t constantly try to drown them out. Still, not even full-on musical bombast can sabotage these performers, particularly Thompson, whose disarming mix of brusqueness and warmth has rarely been so appealing. She effortlessly conveys a history of pain and disappointment, turning a cliche—the intimacy-phobic loner—into a living, breathing person.

Hoffman fares less well as Harvey; if anything, he’s too likable, never hinting at the dark side that would cause his loved ones to extricate him from their life. But most is forgiven when they share the screen, despite the opposition they face from all sides.

Unambitious to a fault, Last Chance Harvey simply wants to be sweet, but only its stars make that a worthwhile goal.

Notorious
Directed by George Tillman, Jr.
C+
Reviewed by Matt Prigge
Opens Fri., Jan. 16

The inevitable Biggie Smalls hagiography fails as soon as the first post-credits words hit the screen: “March 9, 1997.” It’s not just that it’s textbook to start a biopic at the end. It’s an omen that there’s no chance the film will remotely approximate its subject’s singular mix of storytelling, humor, confidence, vulnerability and eerily prophetic morbidness.

Out to install Big Poppa in the Hall of Great Men—as well as milk some more from that cash cow—Notorious hits all the biopic marks as though Walk Hard never happened. Embodied by fairly magnetic small-time rapper Jamal Woolard, Biggie rises from tubby, bespectacled Bed-Stuy runt—played early on, in a fit of psycho-casting, by his real-life son, Christopher Wallace—to the savior, and eventually martyr, of East Coast hip-hop.

“When I die, fuck it, I wanna go to hell, ’cause I’m a piece of shit, it ain’t hard to fuckin’ tell,” our subject once rapped. But Smalls isn’t just a big teddy bear prone to the occasional ugly hissyfit or moral lapse. Early on we witness him coldheartedly dealing to a pregnant crackhead, a moment that hangs, ugly, over the whole film … until much later when Biggie spots the very same woman now cleaned up, playing with her boy in an idyllic manner befitting an underwear commercial. Phew!

Elsewhere the film glosses over the coastal tussle (“I pray all this East Coast-West Coast stuff is over now!” Angela Bassett bemoans as Mama Smalls), offering a mostly one-sided view of his feud with Tupac (Anthony Mackie, delivering a killer audition for the inevitable Shakur biopic) and frequently features ass-kiss executive producer Sean Combs (Derek Luke), who the film makes sure we know forced the rancid James Mtume sample to “Juicy” upon our then-grateful protagonist. As for the great unsolved mystery at the climax, don’t worry—Notorious shies away from any and all Nick Broomfield-style conspiracy theorizing.

It’s hard to hate on a film with a lead as endearing as Woolard, who may lack the Biggie swagger but locates the kind, gentle and sporadically guilt-ridden side of the titan he’s impersonating. Tupac may have (allegedly) banged our subject’s wife, but Big Poppa has the last laugh: He became the first rapper to get a cookie-cutter movie memorial.

Not Reviewed

My Bloody Valentine 3-D
A murderer returns to his hometown —unironically named Harmony—on the most romantic day of the year to win the affection of his former girlfriend. (Opens Fri., Jan. 16.)

Paul Blart: Mall Cop
The guy from The King of Queens stopped making a television show so he could portray a Rent-a-Cop on the big screen. Huh. (Opens Fri., Jan. 16.)

Ongoing

Bedtime Stories
Adam Sandler and the chick from Felicity star in this children’s film about tall tales coming true. (Not reviewed.)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
There’s one bit of solace to take from David Fincher’s unexpected segue into Oscar-bait territory: His heart doesn’t appear to be in it. A project that’s bounced around Hollywood for more than a decade, Benjamin Button—based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short about a man who ages in reverse—has wound up in the hands of an excessively talented filmmaker in desperate need of a movie that’ll actually make money. C- (M.P.)

Frost/Nixon
Based on Peter Morgan’s smash 2006 stage play, the film attempts to chronicle the travails of shlock TV host David Frost (expertly played by Michael Sheen) as he overpays and underprepares for an epic stretch of interviews with “Tricky Dick” Nixon (played by the always magnificent Frank Langella, who’s a bit too grave and Shakespearean to truly convey the disgraced leader’s wormy, shifty mannerisms, no matter how impressive his jowls). C (S.B.)

Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a grizzled old Korean War vet who, after the death of his wife, tends to while away the days sitting on his front porch guzzling cans of PBR, offering salty observations on the decline of his white-flight Detroit neighborhood. Barking ridiculous, dated slurs for every minority in his sight, he’s like Dirty Harry in the sunset years. A variety of contrivances find Walt begrudgingly befriending a family of Hmong immigrants next door. Young Thao (Bee Vang) is an awkward, bookish kid—prime recruitment material for the local gangs. These thugs make the huge mistake of scuffling on Walt’s pristine front yard and kicking over the wrong geezer’s garden gnome. B+ (S.B.)

I’ve Loved You So Long
Boasting a beautifully understated performance by Kristin Scott Thomas and little else of merit, writer-director Philippe Claudel’s would-be tearjerker ends up suffocated by its own design. Locked into a scheme of formal rigor and peek-a-boo screenwriting, the film is too busy calling attention to its own cleverness to allow any room for emotional connection. Thomas stars as Juliette, recently paroled after spending 15 years in prison for the murder of her only son. Shocking stuff, but Claudel tiptoes and tap dances around this revelation for at least half an hour, dropping hints and insinuations and generally driving us crazy before finally spilling the beans—and even then offering no elaboration. B (S.B.)

Marley & Me

Inquirer columnist John Grogan wrote a memoir about his (admittedly adorable) puppy. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston star in the film version. (Not reviewed.)

Milk
As San Francisco’s cherished local legend—the first openly gay man ever elected to a public office in America—Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is a buoyant, expansive figure. As droll as he is shrewd, the character is delightful to watch. The real Harvey Milk’s lanky stance, queeny mannerisms and honking Noo Yawk accent aren’t just fodder for a typical Oscar-friendly dead celebrity impression—they’re pushing this actor out of his gloomy old comfort zones. There’s such a feeling of playfulness and joy in this performance, I dare say Sean Penn hasn’t been this much fun to watch since Fast Times at Ridgemont High or at the very least Carlito’s Way. A- (S.B.)

Rachel Getting Married
Anne Hathaway, who’s barely recognizable beneath a stringy Louise Brooks bob and an omnipresent cloud of sarcasm and cigarette smoke, plays Kym, who’s scored a weekend pass from rehab for her older sister Rachel’s wedding. Years ago there was a tragedy, the kind of devastation from which no family ever truly recovers, and what’s most miraculous about Rachel Getting Married is just how expertly director Jonathan Demme navigates screenwriter Jenny Lumet’s hairpin tonal shifts. A (S.B.)

The Reader
Kate Winslet essays Hannah Schmidt, a mysteriously private and weary mid-30s tram conductor in post-WWII Germany who seduces 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross). They have a special relationship: He reads her the greatest hits of classic literature and then she works his bones. After a couple sweaty months Schmidt abruptly disappears. It’s eight years before Berg sees her again, this time as a law student sitting in on her war crimes trial. C+ (M.P.)

Revolutionary Road

Based on Richard Yates’ 1961 novel, this phenomenally dull new film from director Sam Mendes has absolutely nothing new to say, yet says it loud and insistently anyway. In a fiendish bit of stunt casting, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite for the first time since a certain fateful boat trip 11 years ago, starring here as Frank and April Wheeler, a tedious married couple prone to squabbling at great length about the tragic soul-crushing emptiness of their giant house, fancy car and beautiful children. The Wheelers feel so suffocated by their affluence and good fortune, it’s all they really talk about. D- (S.B.)

Seven Pounds
Seven Pounds, an exceedingly poor film directed by Gabriele Muccino, is just the sort of jerk-around that gives manipulation a bad name. Containing roughly 20 minutes worth of story but stretched out past the breaking point to a full two hours, it’s nothing but smoke and mirrors, all elliptically designed to conceal crucial information from the audience. The film plays like an exercise in annoying the viewer, deliberately confusing not for any meaningful purpose, but merely because if any of our questions were answered in a timely fashion, there wouldn’t be any movie left. D (S.B.)

Slumdog Millionaire
Teenage nobody Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is a mere few questions away from beating the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. But Malik’s been accused of cheating, and as the shadowy, belligerent authorities go through his taped performance, answer by answer, we’re treated to his ramshackle, Dickensian childhood as an orphaned slum kid from Mumbai, riding the rails and eking out various desperate existences alongside his more crafty and ethics-handicapped brother. C+ (M.P.)

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer’s putrid Mormon propaganda novels finally reach their full insidious cinematic potential in the hands of Catherine Hardwicke, a former production designer-turned-director and bona-fide villain who trivialized extremely serious teenage drug and alcohol concerns with the insipid Thirteen before shrinking the Virgin Mary’s life story into an insipid “Dude, Where’s My Manger” epic in her justly forgotten The Nativity Story. Twilight teaches young girls there’s a hunky, handsome vampire (Robert Pattinson’s Edward, inciter of riots at Hot Topics all over this land) who’ll always love you for your clumsy, banal self no matter how insipid you are. D- (S.B.)

Valkyrie
Tom Cruise is far more famous these days for bizarre behavior than blockbuster openings, so in desperate need of career rehab, here he stars as Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg, Nazi with a conscience, and architect of the suitcase bombing that nearly killed Hitler in the waning days of WWII. It’s a classy, handsomely mounted production, directed with brisk efficiency by Bryan Singer. And as a co-worker surmised, “It’ll probably be wicked suspenseful for anybody who didn’t pay attention in history class.” C+ (S.B.)

The Wrestler
Faced with a health crisis, wrestler Randy the Ram’s (Mickey Rourke) forced to consider retirement, and that’s when the movie begins questioning how we define ourselves. If a man is what he does for a living, who does he become when he can’t do that anymore? The Ram tentatively tries to muster an existence beyond the mat, attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood.) Only Cassidy seems to understand. Brilliantly played by Marisa Tomei, Randy’s favorite stripper is secretly a single mom, and the two foster a friendship outside the sleazy club’s VIP room. Just like the Ram, Cassidy’s getting too old to make a living off her body anymore, and Aronofsky quietly underlines their similarities with matching camera movements whenever these two are “at work.” A- (S.B.)

Yes Man

Jim Carrey agrees with everything in a movie that feels a little too reminiscent of Liar Liar. (Not reviewed.)