Warrior
(Starring Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte)
It's a modern Cain and Abel set in the violent world of mixed martial arts. Irish-American brothers attempt to pummel and kick each other to death, intent on winning the prize. The weird thing is that each brother possesses good and bad qualities, making it hard to pick someone to root for.
Warrior is a strange blendâ┚¬â€Âone that takes its sweet time getting started, so that we know the back-story going into the final battles.
There's the typical sports underdog tale. There's the high melodrama of an old trainer, a recovering alcoholic (Nolte in his best performance in a while) seeking forgiveness from his unyielding sons. One son (Hardy of Inception) is a frigid ex-soldier hardened by the war, hiding a painful brutalism. The other (Edgerton of the wonderful Animal Kingdom) is a schoolteacher trying to keep his own family above water, aiming to be a better father than his dad was.
Some of this is hard to buy. Physics teacher Edgerton almost miraculously trains for and becomes ready to be a contender. It's seems a little too convenient that both brothers would reach the championship. Finally, all three parts filled with dialogue that rings like a gravitas-filled staccatoâ┚¬â€Ââ┚¬Å”Oscar speech-ifying,â┚¬Â I call it.
But Warrior is filmed beautifully and viciously. And there's something about these beefy, ripped siblings settling their scores in the ringâ┚¬â€Âin a bloody, relatively unknown sportâ┚¬â€œthat makes it hard to turn away.
The Debt
(Starring Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Tom Wilkinson, Marton Csokas, Ciarán Hinds, Sam Worthington)
This remake of a 2007 Israeli film possesses such promise. In the 90s, three elder spies from the Israeli Mossad are being honored for their 1960s capture of an evil Nazi surgeon, bringing him into Israel for trial. Agent Mirren's daughter has even published a book. Then some truths emerge, causing everything to unravel.
The movie jumps between 1965 Berlin and 1997 Tel Aviv. Young actors play the older Mossad agents to varying effect. Chastain (The Tree of Life, The Help) is gripping as the young Mirren. The other twoâ┚¬â€ÂWorthington and Csokasâ┚¬â€Âare a little duller. Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) is not above little tricks to keep the audience nervous and confused, sometimes to the point of annoyance.
It's a good thing Mirren and Chastain are here. The older spy sports an ugly scar on her face and we anticipate finding out how she was injured. The younger spy goes in for a gynecology examinationâ┚¬Â¦delivered by the Nazi surgeon.
We know early on that something went awry with the â┚¬Å”brilliantâ┚¬Â kidnapping. The movie is not so much a whodunit as it is a â┚¬Å”how it went wrong.â┚¬Â The earlier action sequences are fun and intricate, but the ending stumbles in some pretty silly, major ways. Yes, it's a serious nail-biter, but only because The Debt doesn't quite add up.
Contagion
(Starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law)
If you see this film, take plenty of hand sanitizer and pick a matinee, where you can sit far, far away from any disease-carrying pariah. The whole world's a Petri dish, I tell you!
Director Steven Soderberg has created another layered look at a modern problem, like he did in Traffic with the War on Drugs. This time, he explores a plague that could decimate the world population, the science and politics behind it, the Capitalist battle between selling a cure and giving it out freely.
But Contagion tells too many stories, and not well; most of them feel underdeveloped. This technological tale never raises a fever; it's an intellectual exercise on pathogens, politics, science and gossip, when it should have focused on just a few emotional, human stories at its core.
Everything starts out promising. After visiting Hong Kong, one of our major stars coughs and then dies. Then Soderberg slyly films each and every way humans could become infected. It's giddy, paranoid fun, and Contagion had the possibility of being sickly entertaining. Soderberg also darts around the globe, giving the disease a real pandemic effect.
Then this flick goes all scientific and sociological, eschewing characters for a cold, logical lecture. Big action sequences seem dead, and cathartic moments are given a flat-line delivery. The facts behind Contagion may cause audiences to talk, but a well-written Time article would've achieved the same.
