The Saint From Next Door

It’s difficult to resist a humorous Bill Murray performance.  His expert, deadpan delivery of his dialogue makes him one of our finest comedic actors working today.  

It’s because of him that Theodore Melfi’s overly sentimental comedy, “St. Vincent,” is more tolerable than it deserves to be.  Ultimately, the performances are what keep this movie afloat, while the story itself is something we’ve all seen a few times before.

Vincent MacKenna (Murray) lives alone, drinks a lot, gambles and maintains a relationship with a Russian prostitute, Daka (Naomi Watts).  When his new neighbor, Maggie Bronstein (Melissa McCarthy), and her young son, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), move in next door to Vincent, they don’t get along at first, but after Maggie starts getting busy at her job, she needs someone to look after her son, and asks Vincent for his help, who reluctantly agrees.  As Vincent and Oliver begin to spend more time together, the two establish a bond and help each other grow.

In the role of Vincent, Bill Murray provides us with another witty character who makes us laugh from the beginning, but also provides a few dramatic moments as the film goes on that allow us to see why he tangles with his vices.  It’s mostly because of Murray that the movie somewhat works at all.

Melissa McCarthy’s performance, thankfully, isn’t another loud and obnoxious character.  Although that sort of shtick worked at first in “Bridesmaids,” it grew tired in her films that came later.  In this movie, McCarthy’s role as a hardworking mother shows that she’s able to do more than what we’ve been seeing in her films over the last few years.  This role shows that McCarthy can still be funny while taking a step back from her usual wild side.

Newcomer Jaeden Lieberher displays his acting skills admirably, and his ability to connect with Murray onscreen helps make the film’s common scenario watchable.

The screenplay by Theodore Melfi, although pretty comical in spots, uses the familiar story of a young boy befriending a cantankerous older man, in which you can see where the narrative is going to end up.  It’s really the lead performers who make this movie passable.  The film doesn't really add anything new to this concept, and pretty much coasts along on the capability of its cast.

“St. Vincent” is an okay diversion for fans of Bill Murray’s work, but his character deserved a better and funnier film.

Final grade: B-

A Tank That Serves as an Overseas Home

Two years ago, director David Ayer gave audiences a gritty and up-close-and-personal look at the Los Angeles Police Department in “End of Watch,” which was a dramatic and somewhat brutal look at one of our country’s largest police forces.  Before that, he brought us “Street Kings” and “Harsh Times,” and has written the screenplays for films such as “S.W.A.T.” and “Training Day.”  With these movies in his filmography, you can see that he has a tendency to focus on the heroes whose job it is to keep people safe.

Now, he brings us a movie about another kind of hero: the soldiers.  In Ayer’s new war film, “Fury,” he brings us to the battlefields of Germany during World War II.  Just like in his previous films, he shows us what it means to sacrifice everything to protect others.

In April 1945, the Allies make their last push into Nazi Germany in the final month of the European Theater during WWII.  Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank called “Fury” and it’s experienced five-man crew, which includes Boyd Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Grady Travis (Jon Bernthal) and Trini Garcia (Michael Peña).  After the group’s assistant driver dies in battle, Collier receives a newly enlisted typist, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), as a replacement.  During the group’s mission to capture certain German territories, the group will learn that there are still many horrors of war to come before it can ultimately end.

Just as Brad Pitt displayed in “Inglourious Basterds,” he really knows how to play a tough and demanding military leader.  With the way Pitt plays his character, you can clearly see Collier’s battle-hardened sensibilities and his desire to get the most out of the soldiers he leads.  He’s a father figure to those who are under his command and wants to do what he can to prepare his crew for the fights to come.  

Ever since I saw Logan Lerman in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” I’ve grown to appreciate him more as an actor.  He’s been maturing into a talented performer and his role requires him to give the most emotional performance of the film, and he accomplishes that task.  His character’s display of nervousness in being placed in the fields of battle for the first time serves as a way for us to imagine what all of those soldiers must have felt the first time they had to fight.  Although his character eventually gets used to killing his enemies, the scenes in which he struggles with the idea of doing so are some of the best in the film.

Despite the story placing a lot of focus on Pitt and Lerman’s characters, LaBeouf, Bernthal and Peña each get their own moments in the film that allow us to get an idea of the kind of people they are and how the war has affected them.

Despite a few war-movie cliches appearing here and there, David Ayer’s screenplay takes us on a harrowing wartime journey as we go on several missions with the tank’s crew as the intensity of the fighting increases.  There are a few battles during the movie, but they never become repetitive because they’re all staged differently, and in between these sequences, we are provided with moments that let the soldiers ruminate on what they are experiencing.

The story takes an interesting detour about halfway through that lasts around 20 minutes.  After the Allies take a German town, Don and Norman visit two women in an apartment and get to know them as people, not enemies.  During this scene, you see how the soldiers interact with the locals when there isn’t any fighting taking place.  It’s a break from the combat sequences that lets us see what these soldiers are like when they’re not in the middle of battle.

Director Ayer teams up again with “End of Watch” cinematographer Roman Vasyanav, and they use excellent camerawork to capture the chaos of war.  With the way the battle footage is shot, the two really give you a sense of the tremendous danger that the soldiers face in the film.

“Fury” brings you on a rather tough road, but Ayer makes it worth it with his evident admiration of real-world heroes.

Final grade: A-

An Anatomy of a Toxic Marriage

Think about how many wedded couples you’ve seen in film.  Think about how different and alike they were.  Think about how many stayed together and how many separated.  Movies have shown viewers countless marital bonds go through scenarios of varying details, but I don’t think any of them can compare to the craziness of cinema’s latest onscreen matrimony.

Director David Fincher’s twisted thriller, “Gone Girl,” which is based on Gillian Flynn’s 2012 bestselling novel, descends into the barbed-wire anti-romance of the book’s two main characters and creates one of the best and most faithful page-to-screen adaptations of today.

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), live in Missouri and have been married for five years, but not all of them have been happy.  On the day of their fifth anniversary, Nick returns home from work, but Amy isn’t anywhere to be found.  With the help of some local authorities, Nick begins a frantic search for his wife.  While under the mounting pressure of being seen as the prime suspect and trying to prove his innocence, Nick will also have to come to terms with what has caused his marriage to go horribly wrong.

While I still see Ben Affleck as a slightly better director than actor, his abilities on the latter have seemed to get better with each film he has appeared in over the last few years, and this performance stands as one of the best he’s done.  He expertly captures what the character of Nick is like in the book, everything from the cluelessness about his wife, to his uncomfortableness in being bombarded by the media, to his shock at what he finds out about Amy as the film progresses.  Throughout the movie, Affleck is able to present his character’s transition from being camera-shy to knowing how to make public opinion work in his favor, and it’s fascinating to watch.

In the case of Rosamund Pike, there isn’t any bigger star-making performance this year than her wildly brilliant turn as Nick’s enigmatic wife.  It’s a role that takes you into the depths of Amy’s mind as she narrates certain scenes through her diary entries.  Although narration can be seen as taking the easy way out to tell a film’s story, it’s needed here because of its bigger significance to her character later on.  What’s remarkable about her performance is how even when we see her on screen with her voiceover narration, her facial expressions are perfectly in tune with her words.  The scenes with her narration in the film’s first half are actually some of the best in the movie because of how alluring her voice is and its ability to draw you into her mysterious psyche.  I can’t say much else about her character without giving away some of the film’s surprises, but I will say that it’s a better portrayal of Amy than I could have hoped for.

Inhabiting Nick and Amy’s downward-spiraling lives are some interesting supporting characters: Amy’s sketchy ex-boyfriend Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris); Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens), the dedicated detective leading the case; Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry), the attorney who comes to Nick’s rescue; and Carrie Coon as Nick’s twin sister, Margo, a character who’s an example of what it’s like to be close to someone who’s caught in a media frenzy, and then beginning to get harassed by the press as well.

Gillian Flynn penned the screenplay, and she clearly had an idea of what to include in the film and what to leave out.  Sure, there are a few things missing, but she’s able to get around those absences in order to place an emphasis on what’s really important.  Everything that was essential in the book is there on the screen.

One of many things she does well with her script is the series of jumps between the perspectives of Nick and Amy, where we go back and forth from the events happening around Nick in the present and flashbacks that come from Amy’s diary entries.  It works every bit as well cinematically as it does in book form, and it’s intriguing to watch the two timelines eventually converge and ignite a startling chain of events.

Just like the novel, the big plot reveal comes when we’re only halfway through the movie, but Flynn manages to make it work in both cases because, unlike many other thrillers that have their twists and turns lead up to a reveal at the very end, this one manages to keep them coming even after we find out the main secret.

The book’s portrayal of the media also translates well into the movie with its depiction of performing for news cameras and showing media outlets jumping to conclusions, and this darkly humorous display gives a satirical jab at the matter in the film’s conclusion.

David Fincher is a consistent talent when it comes to making modern thrillers and was the perfect choice for this project.  Some of his other films, such as  “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “Zodiac” and “Seven,” all have a darkness to them, both photographically and story wise, that adds to the experience of watching something both disturbing and addictive.

Similar to his last two films, “TGWTDT” and “The Social Network,” Fincher collaborates with cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, editor Kirk Baxter and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and “Gone Girl” benefits just as much as the two aforementioned films.  The grouping of Fincher with these four individuals helps in creating the unnerving atmosphere that this film demands.

Even if you’re one of those who have read the book, the way in which Fincher constructs some of the film’s biggest moments will still have you in shock in what you’re watching.  With the blending of Cronenweth’s dark cinematography, Baxter’s meticulous editing, and Reznor and Ross’ deeply unsettling music, the film’s most important scenes will undoubtedly satisfy both those who have and have not read the book.

With “Gone Girl,” David Fincher opens the door to a crumbling marriage and gives us the chance to sort through the wreckage.

Final grade: A

A Brother and Sister Reconnect at the Lowest Point in Their Lives

Movies that focus on siblings can be very interesting to watch in how those characters interact with each other after being a part of each other’s life for so long.  Although watching friends display deep connections on screen can be just as engrossing, there’s the factor of being blood-related that adds something a little more to the story a film’s siblings share.

In Craig Johnson’s bittersweet drama, “The Skeleton Twins,” he explores the unfulfilled lives of a brother and sister as unexpected circumstances bring them together.  In a film that’s emotional and a bit melancholy, yet occasionally humorous and hopeful, Johnson succeeds in making a movie that depends on its two leads to come out of their comfort zones.

Milo (Bill Hader) is a struggling actor who lives in California.  When he ends up in the hospital after a failed suicide attempt, his sister, Maggie (Kristen Wiig), whom he hasn’t seen in 10 years, takes him to New York to live with her and her husband, Lance (Luke Wilson), until he gets back on his feet.  During Milo’s stay, he and Maggie will begin to reexamine their sibling relationship and try to repair the damage in their lives.

It’s interesting and fresh to watch traditionally comedic actors take on dramatic roles, and Wiig and Hader handle that transition perfectly, just like their fellow “Saturday Night Live” alum Will Forte did in last year’s “Nebraska.”  Wiig and Hader provide heart-rending scenes that I wouldn’t have ever expected to see them do in their careers, but they perform them so well that it looks as though they have been playing dramatic roles for longer than they have.  They do, however, produce some funny moments every so often to break the stress that their characters are feeling.

After performing together on “SNL” for several years, the two clearly have enough of a connection to carry a movie.  Having them play brother and sister is a terrific way to show their ongoing ability to act together.  You can feel every bit of love and tension that goes between them.  

The two of them sink so deeply into these damaged characters that it’s easier than expected to take their previous comedic performances out of your mind and appreciate the new territory that the two are exploring with their acting talents.  

Ty Burrell, who is best known for playing Phil Dunphy on the television sitcom, “Modern Family,” also triumphs in changing over to a more dramatic character, his role being someone who shares a troubling connection to Milo’s past.  Although Wiig and Hader have a comical moment here and there, Burrell’s role has him completely shed his hilariously goofy persona for something much different. 

The screenplay by Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman crafts one of the most emotional sibling relationships I’ve seen on film in several years.  They’ve constructed a brother-sister pairing that has the two needing to fix their own problems and help in fixing those of the other.  Although they try to assist each other, they both seem to get into more trouble then they’re getting out of, and this helps in keeping the audience invested in where this sibling bond is headed.

Director Johnson doesn’t allow for the film’s emotion to become too cloying, but rather has it remain true to what the main characters are experiencing.  He places his two leads in a story that allows them to fully display unfamiliar dramatic talents, and steps back as they confidently propel the story forward with the unbreakable bond they share while performing.  Wiig and Hader might as well be siblings in real life.

Final grade: A