Film Review: Putzes and Pill Poppers -- "Identity Thief" and "Side Effects"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 13 February 2013 20:04

Written by Marion Dreyfus

Identity Thief
Directed by Seth Gordon
starring Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy

A surprisingly vulgar, crude, and manically unfunny film to avoid is this unfortunate Identity Thief, which takes a topical red flag issue and makes it absurd and fleece-lined cuddly by starring the usually hilarious Melissa McCarthy and the solidly talented Jason Bateman. Most of the film is so unpleasant and unbelievably ill-intentioned that you won’t believe these two stellar actors would sign on.

Near-nebbish-citizen and mild-mannered businessman Sandy Patterson (Bateman) treks from Colorado to Florida to hunt his criminal nemesis, a seemingly ditzy, cheery-looking woman (also named Sandy Patterson or so it seems) played by McCarthy who has been living very large after hoisting Patterson’s identity, cards and bank account. 

The audience managed to not laugh throughout, which is no accomplishment, since there was precious little to evoke it. Even Bateman’s smart downplaying and under-acting fails to ignite anything beyond disgust at the plot turns.

Amanda Peet has the thankless role as his wife Penelope awaiting Patterson’s return home for the length of the film. The last 10 minutes of wrap-up do not redeem this downer, and even this writer and her usual movie-seat companion failed to ratchet the laugh-meter up to the eensiest first notch. Worse, the seriousness of the issue, and the obnoxiousness of its treatment here, is such that tension knotted one’s stomach for the full first hour. The scriptwriter should wear a sign on his chest with a huge E for execrable as he goes about his clearly delta-minus life. 

Side Effects
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones,  Polly Draper

A cleverly plotted film that only reluctantly becomes evident, Side Effects is a Hitchcockian roller coaster ride starring a taut Jude Law, a nearly unrecognizable Rooney Mara, a buttoned-up Catherine Zeta-Jones and Polly Draper (she of the whiskey voice from Thirty Something).

Not wanting to say too much about the plot since one of the rewarding aspects of this film is discovering what’s going on, but here's a nominal summation.

A young New York couple’s tidy world unravels when a new anti-anxiety drug prescribed by Emily's (Mara) psychiatrist (Law) has unexpected effects on its patient, husband (Channing Tatum) -- who has just been released from prison -- and others. Don’t expect Tatum, again beefcake delectable, to be seen for more than the briefest of celluloid moments.

The baddies in this thriller are not whom or what you originally think, especially given the title.

The pharma industry now dubs them “adverse events,” which neatly avoids the chilling taint connoted by the earlier, more popularly known term. One of the choicer elements of the film is its exceptional photography; one sees a Gotham that is not the tired vernacular.

This scenic Trou Normand may coast under one’s radar, but it is elegant, almost-Gordon Willis-level cinematography (from Woody Allen’s more elegaic films), a gift floated to the receptive viewer.

Audience members, many of them apparently physicians and therapists, gabbed with each other afterwards, discussing their take on the goings-on, comparing notes from their practices.

Film Review: "Side Effects" Actually a Thrilling Thriller

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 12 February 2013 12:57

Written by Matt Oakes

With Side Effects, Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven) hasn't reinvented the thriller, he's just breathed life back into a fading genre. What begins as an ambiguous tale of a struggling romance morphs into a pulsing question mark whose greatest strengths lie within it's ability to create suspense and uncertainty. 

Since the twists and turns are vital to your general enjoyment of the film, I want to carefully navigate to ensure that nothing here is too telling. All you really need to know is that the story opens with Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) reuniting with her husband Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) and from there delves quickly and fervently into the world of psychiatry and prescription pills.

Filling out the cast we have Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes) playing a psychiatrist struggling with a puzzle of a patient. He has a great little character arc that is handled with subtle panache, pulling a muted transformation in the most understated of ways. His new client puts him in contact with a fellow colleague played by Catherine Zeta Jones (The Mask of Zorro) who has an unwritten history with Law's patient. Although we don't see Jones that often on screen anymore, she shows that she's still gotta talent within her 40-something sex appeal.

All four of the principal characters are putting their all in here and I'd expect nothing less under the lead of Soderbergh. He has a crisp, clear direction and a really deliberate framing. All of his shots are captured with concise precision. Nothing here feels left to chance as little bits of foreshadowing are dug intricately into the scenery for those watching with a careful eye.

Soderbergh has talked at length about how he felt Side Effects was the natural progression of the thriller which he asserts have died out in the past few decades. To a degree, he's right. As an audience, we're not accustom to the suspense builders than dominated the silver screen of the 80's and 90's and so something like Side Effects is a pleasant throwback.

In the same vein though, it fails to really transcend the trappings of the genre and provide anything groundbreaking. And while you can applaud it's level of self restraint, both within the acting and directing field, it just doesn't have the staying power of films that transcend their genres. While it truly is a completely competent and very well acted, nothing here feels new or remarkable. It's a great suspense thriller just not a genuinely great movie.

There's enough backstabbing, lies, betrayals and revelations to keep Side Effects taut and the audience on the edge of their seats. It's a rare thriller that manages to deliver on the thrills and much like the thrillers of the 80's and 90's it will keep you engaged for it's run-time but is unlikely to stay with you long after.

Film Review: "Warm Bodies" Only Lukewarm

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 11 February 2013 10:00

Written by Matt Oakes

Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies is a semi-successful experiment in cross-dressing genres. It's an inventive blend that tries to be self-satirizing within a somewhat traditional rom-com formula. The result is a zom-rom-com that feels both too safe and too unorthodox to capture much of a franchise-building following.

In a world where evil depends on the amount of skin still on your bones, human Julie, played by Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four), falls under the protection of zombie R, played by Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class), and the two of them begin to develop a somehow not creepy but definitively necrophiliac relationship.

Since R is still pretty human looking, he's a good zombie while other skinless zombies, called "bonies", are human-eating id-machines. R's mission is to save Julie from the malevolent bonies while trying to re-assimilate the undead into the world of the living.

While Hoult's R may be dead, him and Palmer have real chemistry and are a much preferable on-screen couple to Twilightites Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Hoult manages to avoid the easy undead caricature and actually breathes life into this dead dude, a task Pattinson never could accomplish. Palmer likewise creates a female lead who is empowered and likeable, essentially the polar opposite of K Stew. Although the emotional narrative relies heavily on voice overs, the leads shoot enough ironic passion-laden glances to cut through the potential cheese factor that dominated the Twilight saga.

Something you're sure not to miss is the hefty load of allusions to Romeo and Juliet that Levine, who directed last year's under-appreciated 50/50, doesn't bother to bury. First up, take our heroes names, R and Julie, an obvious tip of the hat to the Bard's most famous ill-fated loved. Furthermore, our heroes are also each embedded within incompatible cultures that refuse to understand each other, however in this universe, R's people hunger for the flesh of Julie's people. A slight change up from the original. And for those who have yet to catch on to the R&J references at this point, a familiar looking balcony scene is sure to make the connection click. Filling out the cast we have

Filling out the cast we have Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine) getting the laughs going with some well-timed grunts and cusses while John Malkovich (RED) plays the generic, type-A, overbearingly aggressive father that we've seen a million times before.

One of the biggest things that Warm Bodies does to hurt itself is it's shameless sense of cheating itself. There are multiple moments where Levine breaks the rules that he has established for his universe in order to propel the narrative along. I call this shameless because these inconsistencies are never acknowledged and yet sit there like an awkward elephant in the room. If zombies can't talk, don't let them miraculously have a quick-paced conversation just to hurry up the plot. That's called cheating.

Additionally, the onscreen violence is noticeable lacking as Warm Bodies, which is still a zombie film, is almost entirely bereft of blood done in cheap CGI. While I get the desire to grab a PG-13 cut, the internal battle between satire and mass appeal feels a little disingenuous, even though I'll admit to understanding the tactic. 

On that note, it's hard to pinpoint the target audience for this new genre entry, it's too bloodless to appeal to the main zombie camp and too mocking and wink-wink to capture the teeny boppin' twihards in withdrawal and while it's certainly better than Twilight, it's nowhere need the greatness of Zombieland.

In the end, Warm Bodies is kind of a mixed bags that isn't bad so much as forgettable. On one side of the spectrum, it goes out of it's way to poke fun at itself, never taking it's silly zombies-reanimating-via-the-power-of-love premise too seriously and yet it fails to take that satire full force and this leaves us with an end product that is too involved with trying to be too many things.