At The Cinema - September 2010

The American – 4
You’ll like this movie if you like
a. George Clooney
b. Slow moving action movies
c. Great Scenery

The American is a character study of a man with no character. That makes for an empty movie. George Cooney as Jack the assassin accurately portrays this blank slate of a man. The problem is that it’s just boring. The movie is shot in a stark European style with little music and none of the special effects we’ve all overdosed on. So while the nicely realistic action scenes are interesting, they are few and far between. The beauty of the Italian scenery and the prostitute with a heart of gold cliché can’t hold the audience interest. The audience clapped when the movie was over, because it was over. Even Clooney is flat and boring. Skip it.

The Town – 8
You’ll like this movie if you like
a. Bank Robbery movies
b. Ben Affleck
c. Boston

Ben Affleck flexes the promising directorial muscles he first displayed in the fantastic Gone Baby Gone in this bank robbery film. The personal relationships and dramas are more fleshed out than usual, adding some heft to what is a simple, albeit farfetched story.

I had two major quibbles with the plot points, but I won’t reveal them. Affleck the director outperforms Affleck the actor here. Jeremy Renner, who was so terrific in The Hurt Locker, shows that it was no fluke. He’s electrifying again as the chaotic center of the film. There’s some interesting stuff here, especially that fascinating Boston atmosphere.

Get Low – 8
You’ll like this movie if you like
a. Robert Duvall
b. Bill Murray
c. Old Time movie-making

They don’t make movies like this anymore. Tell a simple story, Tell it well.
This is a slow, beautifully acted period piece set in the 1930’s in rural Tennessee. Robert Duvall as the main character Felix Bush, Bill Murray, and Sissy Spacek demonstrate why they’re acting stars. Not movie stars, real actors. They inhabit these 3 strange characters who come together as Bush winds his life down and decides to throw his own funeral ahead of time. Since he is the town’s misunderstood hermit, he wants everyone to speak at his funeral, and tell what they think they know, an interesting premise for sure.

But it is Bush who comes clean at the event and his big reveal is an acting class. The “reveal” didn’t blow me away, but it’s the getting there that’s the fun. If you long for the days of old, nice deliberate movies, this is the one for you.