At The Cinema - January 2013

Broken City – 8
You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  throwbacks
b.  simple and direct plots
c.  Wahlberg and Crowe
This is a simple political and crime thriller.  It could have been filmed in the 40’s or the 50’s.  It is straightforward and effective.  There’s an understandable plot with a few twists.  Mark Wahlberg plays the disgraced former cop who is now the struggling private eye.  The part could have been played by Jimmy Cagney in the 30’s, or Humphrey Bogart in the 40’s, or Robert Mitchum in the 50’s.  The story could have been placed in any of those decades as well.  Any character actor could have played the corrupt mayor, but today you need a box office heavyweight like Russell Crowe, who brings a twist of evil and his latest hairstyle.  It’s all formulaic and a little clichéd, but it’s kind of nice to watch what is essentially a potboiler with the heavyweights needed to rake in the bucks.  Not terribly innovative, but a throwback to when movies were a lot simpler.

Silver Linings Playbook – 7
You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  chick flicks
b.  Jennifer Lawrence
c.  Philadelphia attitude
Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, has successfully fulfilled the terms of a plea bargain in a mental institution.  He’s bipolar and doesn’t want to take his drugs.  He just wants to reunite with the wife he caught in the shower with another man, whom he then pummeled, thus, the almost-jail time.  Cooper is properly frenetic in the role, but as the central character, you have to buy him completely, and he just never convinced me.  Making matters worse is Robert DeNiro who plays himself again.  Is it just me or is DeNiro now the same in every role?  Yes, the guys are winning awards, but they had me cringing throughout.
On the other hand, Oscar favorite Jennifer Lawrence is terrific as Tiffany, the troubled widow challenging Pat who makes the movie worth watching.  I went home and watched her breakout movie, Winter’s Bone, and it’s easy to see why we’ll be watching her for a long time.

Anyway, I’ve often said that when a movie starts, you either buy it or you don’t.  I didn’t.  Maybe you will.

The Impossible – 7
You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  Disasters
b.  Human suffering
c.  Naomi Watts
This is a good movie.  It’s just not very enjoyable, especially for someone who has experienced the aftermath of Gulf Coast Hurricanes.  This is the true story of an English couple, played by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, and their 3 sons, who are vacationing in Thailand when the tsunami hits.  The scenes of this natural disaster are incredible.  In watching movies today it’s awfully hard to distinguish the real from the digital, and it’s impossible in The Impossible.  It’s so well done that it is hard to watch. 
The family gets separated and their story of perseverance in trying to survive, and then reunite, is well done and fairly riveting.  It’s just hard to watch.  Naomi Watts is terrific, and the director knows it, as her struggle with her injuries is graphically detailed.  It’s all like the proverbial train wreck.  Hard to watch, but you can’t take your eyes off it.

Parker – 7
You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  Jason Stratham
b.  Jennifer Lopez
c.  B Movies

Jason Stratham is one of the newer action stars.  I can tell because his stubble rarely changes and women like Jennifer Lopez are always trying to kiss him.  I find this interesting because when I don’t shave for a few days, it’s a salt and pepper disaster, and only my dog appears to not care.  I kind of get preoccupied with the stubble in movies like this.  Jason’s never seems to change, which appears to suggest that every morning he gets up and trims it to yesterday’s length.  Think about it.  Nevertheless, Statham’s screen presence is undeniable, and he has the moves of an action star.

In this movie, he plays the title character, a thief with strict standards.   When he gets double crossed by his partners and left for dead at the end of a robbery, his focus becomes revenge.  He travels from Ohio to New Orleans to Palm Beach in pursuit, and begins to stake out his former accomplices.  He then runs into a broke real estate agent, played by Jennifer Lopez, who apparently killed time during American Idol doing sit-ups.  She shows off her abs in the one totally gratuitous scene in the movie, which seems to have been filmed more for the previews than the plot. But like Statham, her screen charisma is palpable.  Imagine If they’d been given some actual dialogue . 

Here’s the good news.  The fight scenes are really good, and Parker continues the recent trend of some realistic injuries for the main character.  Parker gets shot, stabbed, and beaten along the way.  It’s not one of those movies where he gets shot at 500 times and never hit.  He’s hit early and often, and that makes it interesting.

Parker is kind of fun, in a B Movie kind of way.