Reign Over Me (2007)

Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Donald Sutherland

First, The Lowdown: A dentist reunites with his college roommate, who lost his family in the 9/11 attack.

Alan Johnson practices cosmetic dentistry, has a lovely wife and two daughters, but does not have much else. His life entails staying at home and working- and that’s all. While on his afternoon commute home, Alan accidentally sees Charlie Fineman – his old roommate from dentistry school. But Alan’s attempts on getting Charlie’s attention are for naught because of the noise of traffic (and Charlie’s headphones). The next evening, however, Alan successfully meets up with his former schoolmate, only to find out that Charlie has no recollection of Alan at all.

Charlie used to be a successful dentist of his own, and then his wife and children died in the plane attack on the World Trade Center on September 11^th. The loss devastated Charlie so much that he withdrew away from anything that reminded him of his former life, instead building an insular wall that keeps him safe from painful memories, but also very alone. As such, Charlie has put everything from his put out of mind so that it can’t hurt him.

As Alan begins to hang out with Charlie, he finds that he wants to do all he can to Charlie heal his wounds. But Charlie has grown so accustomed to living has he has that he shies away from any help. The only people he has regular contact anymore is his landlady and his accountant (who used to be a close friend of Charlie’s his until the incident.) However, Alan is a new presence, and as such won’t inquire about Charlie’s family, nor will bring any reminders of them.

Meanwhile, the more Alan is around Charlie, the less he is around his own family – which further opens the rift of communication between Alan and his wife. And while Alan has taken a personal stake in helping Charlie overcome his obstacles, it becomes more clear that Alan is doing this for his own healing as well.

9/11 was a weird time for everyone involved. My uncle lives in Manhattan and thusly had front row seats to the entire event. For a while it looked like it was a wound that we were never going to heal from. But time is the ultimate healer – and in the years hence we have just begun to let go of some of the pain that was inflicted during that event.

Out of all of the “let’s revisit the World Trade Center disaster” movies that have been brought out recently, I think Reign Over Me is the least political. We’re not concerned with terrorism or politics, merely with healing. If anything, 9/11 is used more as an explanation rather than a backdrop – Charlie probably would’ve reacted the same way if he had lost his family to a fire or a car accident (or even a typical plane crash).

I was rather impressed with Adam Sandler’s performance in this movie. Much like Jim Carrey’s role in Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind, Sandler is very understated. Plus, there are a handful of lines that out of context could’ve been the punchline to a joke, but here they only emphasize how tragic Charlie truly is.

Line of the movie: “Any chance of you getting audited this week? Because that would make things even better.”

Four and a half stars. Beware the fourth estate.

District B13 (2004)

(Originally released as Banlieue 13)

Starring: David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, Tony D’Amario, Larbi Naceri, Dany Verissimo, François Chattot

First, The Lowdown: A cop and a street punk have to take back a nuclear bomb from a gangster.

Paris, France – 2010. To help contain the rampant crime in the city, the more dangerous districts have been walled off to keep the dangerous persons in. Now those neighborhoods are run entirely by the strongest gangs, and the poorer citizens are kept under their thumb. Leito makes an honest living by keeping his apartment block clean and safe from crime, by eliminating any drug dealers. After intercepting over 1 million Euros in heroin, Leito did not anticipate the intended recipient, Taha, to miss it so quickly. Taha sends a group of thugs to retrieve the stolen merchandise and bring back Leito alive, but unfortunately Leito had already disposed of the drugs (down the drain of his bathtub). The thugs’ attempt to capture him is equally unsuccessful as Leito is a master of the anti-gravity art of Parkour – making the man as easy to hold onto as a handful of Jell-O.

Taha is not terribly amused that Leito has given them the slip and has his men kidnap Leito’s sister, Lola. However, they did not anticipate on Leito following them to Taha’s base. Before Taha has the chance to have the message go out to Leito about his sister, he bursts through a window and takes Taha hostage. The brother and sister lead Taha to a police checkpoint, only to find out that the police are pulling out of their area and locking the door behind them. Leito implores to the police inspector in charge to arrest Taha for drug trafficking (after presenting a briefcase full of evidence), but after seeing that Taha’s thugs outnumber the cops, the inspector decides to arrest Leio instead! Taha takes Lola as compensation, and Leito goes to the hoosegow.

Six months later.

Capt. Damien Tomaso is an undercover cop with a well-deserved reputation for being the best. After seamlessly infiltrating and busting a crime boss’s underground casino, he is given a much more challenging assignment. An unmarked military vehicle was hijacked by Taha’s gang and taken to District B13. In the back is a “clean” neutron bomb, designed to wipe out the population, but leave the structures intact and disperse its radiation quickly. When Taha opens the crate for it, the bomb’s 24-hour failsafe went off. Now Damien has less than a day to find out where the bomb is and disarm it. His only guide to it, however is Leito.

It was only a matter of time before the filmmakers got hold of David Belle. I’m just thankful that it was Luc Besson (who brought us Leon and La Femme Nikita) instead of Michael Bay. For the uninitiated, Parkour is an eye-popping stunt-sport where it’s participants leap, flip, and climb over obstacles in such an efficient way, you’d think someone armed and dangerous was chasing them. The people who practice Parkour (or “traceurs") use physics that one only finds in video games and the occasional Shaw Brothers feature – only they aren’t doing it with wires. All one needs to do is look up “Parkour” on any video site and you’ll see what I mean (make sure you bring a pair of pants for when you shit yourself, though.)

So it was only natural that this physical feat was brought to the silver screen. Since the Wachowski Brothers brought about a martial arts renaissance not seen since Bruce Lee, it seemed that every Hollywood blockbuster had to cache in on the same success. (“It’s a good thing that supermodel knows kung-fu, otherwise she’d be screwed.” “Why don’t the nameless armed thugs shoot her, though? They got guns.” “Shut up, you’re breaking the movie.”) It’s refreshing to see stuntwork that doesn’t involve wirework normally found in a stage production of Peter Pan or look out of place on the characters using it (sorry, Shaquille O’Neal, but one Nintendo game does not a martial artist make.)

Unfortunately, the movie seems to be in too much of a hurry. After spending quite a bit of time introducing our characters in as action-packed a fashion as possible, suddenly everything stops so that we can finally figure out what our Maguffin is. The main dynamic of Leito and Damien seems to be to argue at length with each other and/or leave the other handcuffed to some random object. Plus, for a secondary character, we’re given a lot more background on Damien than Leito. Yeah, we realize that Leito’s a good guy (he hates drug dealers and looks after his sister, after all), but we don’t really know that Leito does. It’s a small point, but without it, Leito just comes off as the guy who can elude capture while looking slicker than a freshly shaved James Gandolfini on a Slip ‘n Slide coated with bearing grease.

Line of the Movie: “Take out your police manual and look up the page that says ‘up shit creek.’”

Four stars. Your shoelace is untied.

The Perfect Crime (2004)

(Originally released as Crimen Ferpecto)

Starring: Guillermo Toledo, Monica Cervera, Luis Varela, Enrique Villen, Fernando Tejero, Javier Gutierrez

First, the Lowdown: A suave floor manager is blackmailed into submission after killing his boss.

If there’s one thing Rafael knows how to do, it’s how to work people. It’s why he’s been so very successful as the manager of the ladies wear section in the department store he works in (and equally successful with seducing the female staff members that work under him – so to speak.) Rafael’s philosophy in life is that as long as he has a goal to aim for, the rest is merely details. Thusly, his current goal is to be floor manager: a prestigious job that not only will bump up his salary, but gives an additional commission on total floor sales, stock options, even a change to rub elbows with the store’s board of directors.

His competition for the job, however is Antonio: the menswear manager with a sour demeanor and worse toupee (not to mention questionable motives as to WHY he likes menswear so much.) Antonio is very much the foil to Rafael: where Rafael is free, easy-going, and lackadaisical about store policies, Antonio is strict, rule-abiding, and authoritarian to a fault.

In spite of their differences in beliefs, both men are excellent salesmen. As such, the board of directors has decided to fill the newly opened floor manager position to whoever has the strongest sales. After completing a 12,000 Euro sale of a fancy fur coat, Rafael has the position in the bag.

Or so he thinks. Apparently, the lady who purchased that fur coat overestimated what was in her checking account, and her check bounced! Antonio is immediately promoted to floor manager and his first action in his new position is to assign every single menial task he can think of to Rafael. To make matters worse, Antonio announces that Rafael is now transferred from ladies wear to big & tall. The final straw comes when Rafael sees the woman whose check bounced returning the coat, and he dresses her down in front of the whole store. This prospect delights Antonio to no end, for now he is able to fire Rafael! Before he has a change to hand his subordinate his walking papers, the pair argue in the changing rooms. The argument escalates into a full-blown fight where Antonio tries to claw open Rafael’s throat with a wire hanger. However, fighting in closed quarters is risky business and while trying to disengage, Rafael mistakenly impales his boss’s head on the back of a hook.

Rafael is thoroughly panicked now – no one is going to believe that he accidentally killed his boss (who he never got along with and frequently fought with). So he hides himself and the corpse in the store and waits until it closes for the evening. Rafael concludes that the best place to dispose of the body is in the furnace in the basement – unfortunately, Antonio’s body is too large to shove in the door to it. After scrambling to find a hatchet to cut the body up with, Rafael discovers that the body is missing! The next day, Rafael tries acting like nothing has happened (and isn’t doing a terribly good job at it) when he gets a note from mysterious stranger saying that everything has been taken care of. Rafael finds out that Lourdes, an average-looking salesgirl from a different department (who has been secretly crushing on him) not only wrote the message, but helps him dispose of the body! However, such things come at a price, and what seems reasonable to Rafael at first quickly blows out of proportion.

I’m always amazed how what can seem like a pretty pedestrian comedy can be improved just a little bit by changing its location. Maybe it’s my unfamiliarity with Spanish culture, but I know that if this movie were made here it would’ve starred Dane Cook and Alison Hannigan and probably made it so that the suave lothario and manipulative mouse would’ve seen past their differences and embraced their “inner beauty”. (Insert the sound of my eyes rolling here.) What made the film enjoyable for me is that none of the major characters pull any punches, even though it takes a while for one of them to finally do so. Weirdly enough, there are a couple of shots that are rather artfully done for what is otherwise a slapstick comedy. (For example: As Rafael buys a raincoat from a small shop, the camera pulls back to reveal that he’s been tailed by Lourdes who is waiting in a taxi, then pulls back further to reveal that SHE has been tailed by a policeman in a different car.)

Line of the movie: “Life is absurd. Even worse – absurd and stupid.”

Three and a half stars. Remember your hat.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

(Originally released as Hauru No Ugoku Shiro)

Starring the voices of: Jean Simmons, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crystal

First, the Lowdown: A young girl is put under a curse when she is caught up in the intrigues of rival wizards.

Sophie is a shy an unassuming girl who works at her late father’s hat shop in Ingary. In spite of the pleas from her sister to leave to shop and make a life of her own, Sophie is quite content to work there and does not see how she could make it in the outside world. While returning to her own shop, however, Sophie is harassed by two unruly soldiers in an alley. Before they have a chance to elucidate their intentions with the girl, they are interrupted by the presence of a dashing young man, who with a wave of his hand forces the soldiers to marching away against their will. Sophie is immediately taken by the magician, as he sweeps her back home.

As she closes her hat shop, a richly dressed but vainly obese woman enters through the door. Sophie gently tells the woman that her shop is closed, but offers to help her quickly. However, the older woman sniffs at how tacky and common the items are and pretends to not care whether the shop is open or not. Not liking her (or her shop) to be insulted, Sophie demands the woman leave, which she does so by passing through the girl. The woman (who calls herself the Witch of the Wastes) informs Sophie that the best thing about the cursed placed on the young girl is that she can’t tell anyone about it. As Sophie stands puzzled as to what the mysterious woman meant, she realizes that she has been transformed into a 90 year old woman.

Realizing that not only will no one recognize her for who she is, nor will the curse allow Sophie to tell anyone about her predicament, Sophie runs away to the surrounding wastelands to see if she can find a cure for her curse. While walking, she happens upon a scarecrow lying in some bushes. After uprighting it, she asks aloud if there is a walking stick anywhere around. Amazingly, the animated scarecrow bounces off and finds one for her just as it begins to rain. Knowing an enchanted creature when she sees it, Sophie asks for it to find shelter. Soon enough, shelter arrives in the form of a magical walking castle heading directly toward her.

This movie was a somewhat frustrating experience for me. Hayao Miyazaki finally achieved international fame with the success of both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, so when Moving Castle was announced, I was eagerly anticipating it. Visually, the movie is still no less than stunning - the characters inhabit a quasi-Victorian/Jules Verne land where parlor magic is as common as steam-powered airplanes. And thematically, the story starts out somewhat identifiable: where Spirited Away has been called Miyazaki’s Alice In Wonderland, Moving Castle is more akin to The Wizard of Oz (with a scarecrow character, no less.).

That being said, the film suffers from what Joe Bob Briggs refers to as “too much plot for the movie”. The characters are given elaborate backgrounds, and an interesting setup for conflict, but once we get even a smidgeon past that threshold we’re flung immediately forward without pause for resolution until the very end. Miyazaki took over this project after a different director stepped down from it, and it shows signs of that everywhere. Ultimately the film feels like a stemware set designed by Dale Chihuly – extremely beautiful and ornate, as long as you’re only going to be satisfied with merely looking at it.

Line of the Movie: “The nice thing about being old is you've got nothing much to lose.”

Three and a half stars. Once more, with feeling.