Vantage Point (2008)

Vantage Point (Pete Travis, 2008) An American news crew sits in their van in Salamanca, Spain, technically coordinating coverage of a Presidential visit. No sooner does POTUS (William Hurt) take the podium when two shots ring out, sending him flying, to the horror of the news-people, the Secret Service, the crowded throng and the millions who are (probably not) watching at home. For a split-second, there is reaction all around, and then the confusion starts: where did the shots come from, who's that running guy, get the president to the hospital, foot-chase. At the end of it, a lot of people are dead, and the ramifications are huge, while the news channels try to play catch up...and one suspects never will.

   

This one's just plain crazy. The same 15 minutes, played out, rewound, clock started again, and POV switched. Technically, it's a daunting challenge, with all the shots of things that have gone before shifted into the background, and having to match what went before in the same time-frame that it did before, although one later incident seems to be fudged a little longer to allow some exposition in one segment (all the better to build suspense). The director, Pete Travis, mostly known for his British television work) does one thing that always drives me nuts in pot-boiler novels—he takes you to one pop-eye inducing moment...and then...stops and goes back. Next chapter. We'll get back to that...

That would make it "a relentless page-turner" if it had a spine, but you're stuck watching the movie, wondering, "Yeah, but what about..." Annoying. But, not enough to make you hit the "Eject" button.

Source Code did this a little better this year, and had the decency to make all the populace in it more than innocent by-standers.  Most of the characters are there to serve a function in the plot, rather then being motivated, save for Dennis Quaid's Secret Service agent, who has just come back to active duty after taking a bullet for this President six months earlier. The speculation is that he might be a little gun-shy (if so, he wouldn't be put on active duty, now would he?) 

This is the problem with the film. Good concept (even if it is Akira Kurosawa's), but the deeper we go into the movie and the more we find out about this 15 minutes, the situation becomes less and less likely, and more and more contrived. It has the kinetic feel of an episode of "24" compressed and spread out over a ninety minute running time. And, it isn't even "The Rashomon Effect," where (when it's done well) the differing perspectives are colored by the person telling the story. Here, facts are facts—it just happens from different angles, how the person feels about it doesn't enter into things. In that regard, Vantage Point is just a standard detective thriller, more about information dissemination in an electronic 24 hour news cycle, rather than saying anything about the human condition—besides the obvious jumping to conclusions. The film begins and ends in that van and the broadcast of events, making the point that there's a photon-filter between truth and knowledge. At the end, the news audience does not know, and may never know exactly what went down. But, given what we already know about the efficacy of reporting "while it happens," the endless speculation and rumor-airing and other apocrypha and opinion that's offered as journalism, it is a bit of a hollow exercise, a "gimmick" movie without that much to offer.

Is it a good movie? I don't know.

Emperor (2012)

Written at the time of the film's release...

The Supremes 

or
Doing Our Duty While Losing Our Humanity

Like his 2003 film The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Peter Webber's Emperor is the long and involved story behind a single image—a photograph of the U.S.'s General Douglas MacArthur and Japan's Emperor Hirohito in July of 1946. The image is normal-looking, pedestrian even, if one does not know the back-story, which is extraordinary, without precedent at the time, and represented a brave new world shattering a history of 2,000 years.

Japan had surrendered to the U.S. soon after what one character describes as turning Japan "into the largest crematorium the world has ever known." General Douglas MacArthur had been established the "Supreme Commander" of the occupied territory, a role one author has described as making him "an American Caesar." One of his first tasks is the establishment of blame and war-crimes tribunals, and uppermost in his mind is what "to do" with the Emperor, Japan's supreme leader held to be almost a deity for his people, not to be looked at directly, not to be photographed, not to be touched. America is calling for his head, but MacArthur, wily politico that he is, ponders what will become of a Japan without its Emperor, if tried, found guilty and hung by the American conquerors. The "Supreme Commander" sees only chaos and revolt in such a future.  

So, he assigns the task to someone else.

Emperor is the story of that investigation, as carried out by General Bonner Fellers at MacArthur's behest. In the film, Fellers is conflicted: America is calling for the Emperor's head, but the reality of controlling a defeated nation hinges on his fate; Fellers is a Japan-ophile, and yet the iron bureaucracy surrounding the Emperor makes his job difficult getting answers, and the 2,000 year old traditions are part and parcel of what keeps the shattered country together; he is also looking for a girl that he befriended in the States during college, but her parents demanded she return to Japan, and now he's looking for her in the ashes of the city she was last in; other Army officers are  questioning Fellers credentials to do an unbiased investigation despite his history with Japan, and are pushing for his demotion in their own biased fashion.

The story is based on a novel by Shiro Okamoto, and might be playing with the character of Fellers a bit. In fact, Fellers was an extreme conservative and a member of the John Birch Society post-war. He had also been involved in a disastrous tenure in the European front when his reports were intercepted by Axis powers, and the intelligence influenced the outcomes of battles in Northern Africa (entirely due to the Army's insistence that Fellers NOT use coded encryptions to send his reports). The man portrayed in the film may not be the one doing his duty in Japan, but the outcomes are the same, and that's where the fascination lies.

What Fellers learns in his frustrating investigation does lead to an ultimate decision, and is tied to the character of Emperor Hirohito. But the layers of protection keep him from learning about the man and his actions in the final perilous days of the war, delaying any decision about the Emperor's implications in war-crimes. And its wrapped up entirely in tradition, reflected in the protocol id one should ever come face to face (highly unlikely) with the Emperor. He cannot leave the Imperial palace. You cannot look him in the eye. He cannot be touched. He cannot be photographed. 

And yet, there's that picture, taken in MacArthur's office as the men have their first meeting after Japan's surrender. And that, to use the old phrase, is worth more than the traditional thousand words, about Japan's supreme leader.

The story is fascinating, but the film telling that story drains a bit of that fascination out of it. Perhaps, the twists and turns in Fellers investigation are designed to "open up" the movie in terms of post-war conditions, but the "Romeo and Juliet" sub-plot feels forced and a bit "traditional" in movie terms. In the performances, Tommy Lee Jones' MacArthur feels more like reflections of the actor's personality than the public persona the general showed (itself a carefully controlled performance), and as much effort as Matthew Fox puts into his role of Fellers, the character comes off as not very interesting, constrained as it is by duty, protocol, and sub-plots.

Still, the movie feels like one of those stories that need to be told, but one wonders if it could be done with a touch more flair, without damaging the content of the truth.

The Supremes

Speed Racer

Speed Racer (Andy Wachowski/Larry Wachowski, 2008) "This will change everything," said an editor friend of mine. He was referring to the cutting style, I think—the fast blink-of-an-eye editing that has become the norm for action movies, to the point where it seems like a competition to see just how little footage can be used to create an impression that the eye-ball will retain so that an idea can be processed. The cutting style for Speed Racer stills allows a thought to sink in your head, even if that thought is: "That's a complicated move—not that it matters." Crowds stayed away in droves from "Speed Racer" and it's just as well. It's another of those all-flash-no-substance muddled-message Wachowski Brothers films. 

But it looks pretty—an all-CGI-spit-shined, "there's no there-there" green-screened hybrid of live-action and cartoon and a fair imitation of the limited animation style of the Japanese cartoon that inspired it, in all ways a cotton candy movie.

But it's also a kid's movie—race-winners get a bottle of milk to drink at the Winner's Circle—with curse words and crudities (Bad guy Snake-Oiler says at one point in a race "Let's pinch theses turds off!"), kids giving the finger, and an adult's curdled cynicism.

All the heroes are naively game, but the movie regards them as something to be pitied. It's a paean to the independent spirit that conspires in the shadows, and it teaches kids the Golden Rule: "Screw them before they screw you." 

Welcome to Dick Cheney's "Speed Racer."

But that's the way it is with the Wachowski Brothers. Fanboys like to see them as deep-thinkers, but you don't get far beyond the shallows before drowning in ambiguity. Folks crowed over the FX of The Matrix, and the veneer of the thing implied that it was a "Spartacus-frees-the-slaves" liberal message movie, but it was basically a fascist power fantasy where a superman saves the day as a Master of the Universe. And the crowd goes wide-eyed grateful for the benevolence of their new dictator. Leni Riefenstahl has brethren in the Wachowski Brothers.

But, it's just a movie, Ingrid; How is it? Technically brilliant in recreating a simplified reality with as much respect for photo-realism as anime, and no respect for the laws of physics, as demonstrated by a series of race-tracks that seem more like clamped-together Hot-Wheels patterns on which the cars cantilever and skid more often than they seem to be under any power other than centrifugal force. One begins to suspect that subliminal messages are flashed in front of our eyes in the form of "racing ads" and the whole film is dunked in Day-glo colors that haven't seen the silver screen since Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. Too much use is made of travelling wipes in transitions—things float by taking the old scene with them (one of the devices is a race car driver on fire! Funny, huh, kids?).

The story is the basic "evil man" story of the cartoons transported to multi-corporation conglomerates trying to control everything, and an awful lot of time is spent showing just how eee-vil and corrupt (and surrounded by cool stuff) the bad guys are. The movie is over-crowded with incident and made busy with jokey things on the soundtrack with such regularity that one can start to predict when a "goose" will happen, such is the clockwork dependability of the movie.

Not that it matters, but how's the acting? Well, the best are old pros John Goodman and Susan Sarandon who know how to best exploit weak material. Christina Ricci puts in a spunky try, but Emile Hirsch, who is terrific playing real human beings is at a loss realistically playing a type with conviction. Matthew Fox plays "Racer X" anonymously, as if thinking it not worth fighting against the costume. And the kid playing Sprightle (Paulie Litt)is annoying as hell, but at least he's a professional kid, as all the others in the cast speak with mush-mouths. The monkey obeys orders well. Richard Roundtree makes a welcome appearance; he may be the coolest guy on Earth.

It's a movie that just ruins your day. The snarky cynicism and bad feelings can be summed up in this exchange that was probably going through the Wachowski's minds throughout making this car-crash of a movie—"The fans love it, don't they?" "They do, God help them."

"Go Speed Racer, Go!" ("...far away from us")

(Wilhelm Alert at 00:46:43)