Man on Film: American Hustle

Coming after The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook in David O. Russell's body of work, it was hard to not have high expectations for American Hustle. As a result (and the subsequent innumerable accolades and nominations heaped upon it cannot help for those who have yet to see American Hustle), American Hustle was at least a little disappointing.

That isn't to say American Hustle wasn't good. It is just a victim of its high expectations.

In essence, American Hustle is an acting showcase. From the principal cast to supporting cast members like Robert DeNiro, Elisabeth Rohm, Michael Pena, Louis C.K., and the Boardwalk Empire cameo crew (Jack Huston and the inimitable Shea Whigham), this was an opportunity for actors to shine, regardless of their line count. And as Russell's films virtually guarantee, shine they do.

And while the supporting cast is rock solid, the principle cast is outstanding. Jeremy Renner gets to shine as a faithful family man and politician who actually wants to provide for his constituents. Bradley Cooper turns in a wonderfully complex role, imbuing Richie DiMaso with every bit of obsessiveness, self-pity, egotism, and volatility that it required. Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence are both fantastic and get to make themselves comfortable in these wildly unpredictable and wholly colorful roles. And Christian Bale? Holy shit. Once again, Bale shows that he belongs in that very short list of actors who turn in must-watch performances every damn time. He is brilliant once again, and his brilliance goes far past his physical commitment to the role. Bale disappears into the role of Irving Rosenfeld. He was given a role wrought with pathos, a duality of supreme confidence and insecurity that is thrilling to behold.

After all of this discussion of the stellar acting, it would be a disservice to those working behind the scenes to fail to talk about the production design, wardrobe, and art direction. The painstaking attention to detail that went into realizing the world of this film was obvious in every frame of the film. The uniformity in style and full realization of late-'70s New York/New Jersey is special.

As usual, David O. Russell has crafted a well-directed film. It is hard to argue with the performances or the mise-en-scene. The narrative, however, was just a little lacking in the oomph that his recent films have had. The story in American Hustle was fun but ultimately insubstantial. The richness of characters goes a long way towards helping to remedy this shortcoming, but American Hustle is not a movie that stays with you for more than an hour or so after you walk out of the theater. With a David O. Russell film, this is sort of something that I had come to expect.

Man on Film: The Dark Knight Rises

It does not seem a stretch to deem The Dark Knight Rises the least successful of the Nolan-helmed Batman franchise. That isn't to say that it is bad--far from it, actually--but in relation to its predecessors, The Dark Knight Rises fails not only to raise the bar but also to reach the lofty heights of Batman Begins or The Dark Knight.

Now The Dark Knight Rises is a far cry from Spider-Man 3, not going so far as to sully the franchise, but it does have its warts. Without giving away too much for the four people in the world who haven't seen it, there are multiple sequences that are not particularly effective. For starters, the prison sequence really did not work and was the filmic equivalent of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' album Californication--a rehashing of a concept already covered by the artist with the revisitation lacking the requisite inspiration and freshness to make the latter effort work on a substantive level. While Bruce Wayne is in an anachronistic foreign prison (again), Gotham City descends into a bedlam in which criminals run amok and turn the city into a lawless hell on earth. Unfortunately the nearly instantaneous nature of this descent into unadulterated madness requires such a suspension of disbelief that in an otherwise fairly realistic and grounded world the change is jarring, and not in the way that Christopher Nolan intended.

If that was all there was to complain about, then that would probably be fine, but it's not. The amount of screen time in which Christian Bale is actually on screen as Batman is extremely limited. I know the film's plot calls for it, but that doesn't change the fact a Batman movie doesn't really have that much Batman. As for Bane, the big villain in the film, it's a little hard to take him seriously when he running roughshod over Gotham City while sounding like gay Sean Connery as Darth Vader (hat-tip to Tony Borne). I love Tom Hardy and don't blame him for this, but it undermines the menace Bane is supposed to represent when the voice-modulation induces laughter and confusion. And then there's the completely anti-climactic send-off of Bane, leaving the audience deflated and wondering what the point of it all was.

To read this review thus far, one would assume that I was displeased by The Dark Knight Rises. There were certainly elements that were disappointing. There were, however, elements to like.

For starters, the acting was top-notch. Michael Caine, who had been underutilized in the first two films, was finally allowed to stretch his legs, carrying much of the emotional weight in his scenes as Alfred. Anne Hathaway was perfectly serviceable as Selina/Catwoman. Bale, Hardy, and Marion Cotillard were exactly what one has come to expect of them over the past few years of impressive performance after impressive performance. Really, though, The Dark Knight Rises was The Joseph Gordon-Levitt Show. So much of the film is spent engendering a belief in the symbol of Batman rather than the man in the suit that its energy and plot depends largely on other characters, specifically on Gordon-Levitt's Blake. As anyone familiar with his body of work over the past decade would be sure, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great. Any doubt as to whether the future of the franchise would be all right in the hands of another should at least be partially alleviated as long as Joseph Gordon-Levitt is involved. Creative talent involved would obviously play a part, but there is no need to worry about the star. If only there weren't that horrible Robin line in the film's coda...

Despite the film's shortcomings from the narrative spectrum, The Dark Knight Rises predictably looks fantastic. If there's one thing that Nolan can be counted upon to accomplish, it is to craft a film that looks amazing. Sure, he has spent his last two films crawling farther and farther up his own ass while forgoing actually focusing on constructing a complete and affective narrative, but they've looked great.

I suppose it is a testament to Nolan as a filmmaker that The Dark Knight Rises could actually disappoint, as he did craft the nearly perfect second film in the franchise. Unfortunately, he raised the bar himself and has no one else to blame for raising expectations for the series' conclusion, and while it was good, it was far from great.

Man on Film: The Fighter

Do not take the fact that it has taken me over a month to write this as an indicator of how I felt about this film. In short, I loved The Fighter. Call me a sucker for sports movies if you would like to--the label may be apt--but David O. Russell's newest teaming with Mark Wahlberg, just leaves me excited for their fourth team-up, an adaptation of the video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune*. 

*While the game is pretty awesome, I for one am a bit leery about a video game adaptation. According to the article above Wahlberg states

The idea that [Russell] has is just insane. So hopefully we’ll be making that movie this summer.

I know Max Payne (and well, just about every other video game movie, for that matter) sucked, but this is David O. Russell we're talking about here. 

In The Fighter, Wahlberg stars as the mismanaged boxer, Micky Ward, whose career has been undermined by his brother and mother. He has been exploited by a family that has been leeching off of him for years. His brother, Dicky Eklund, is played by Christian Bale, who has rightfully been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the upcoming Oscars. Dicky is a crackhead who has slipped into the gutter. Once, he had a shot at the belt against Sugar Ray Leonard, but he has ceded control of his life to addiction.

Melissa Leo (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Homicide: Life on the Street, and Treme) plays his mother/manager, Alice Ward, who treats Micky as her meal ticket as much as her son and has a blind spot for her fuck-up of a son, Dicky. Both she and Amy Adams have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for their turns. Adams plays Micky's sassy bartender girlfriend Charlene Fleming, who pushes him to look out for himself rather than continuing to put his dysfunctional and selfish family before his own needs.

As with really any David O. Russell film, The Fighter is primarily character-driven. This is clearly Russell's bread-and-butter. Yes, the stories are ineresting for the most part, but his films' success owe largely to their performances. This is no exception. The characters are vivid and flawed. Across the board, David O. Russell manages to get full realization of these characters from his actors, especially from Bale and Leo, both of whom disappear into their characters.

Speaking in purely narrative terms, this film bears a strong resemblance to Rocky. This is not a bad thing. It doesn't feel derivative. They are different films. Where Rocky Balboa is on his own in Rocky, Micky Ward is hindered by his family. There is also the mob element that is not present in The Fighter. Ultimately, though it is about an extreme underdog who had been down on their luck, who gets a shot at the belt and shows well.

On an emotional level, it seems impossible to me that you would not be drawn in. It is hard not to root for Micky. Coming out of the movie, both Mark and I were pumped up beyond belief. Even with some asshole lady behind me (I actually had to raise a card at the Alamo for the first time ever--and this was after telling her to "shut the fuck up" twice), I was thoroughly engrossed and invested in Micky's success/failure.

Again, maybe I'm a whore for sports movies, but The Fighter was great, easily one of my five favorite movies from this Oscar year.