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Movie Reviews from "Film At 11"
"United 93 "
2001pm RATING: 9/10
Written and Directed by: Paul Greengrass
MPAA: Rated R (for language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence).
Runtime: 111 min.
CAST…
Lewis Alsamari: Saeed Al Ghamdi
JJ Johnson: Captain Jason Dahl
Trish Gates: Sandra Bradshaw
Polly Adams: Deborah Welsh
Cheyenne Jackson: Mark Bingham
Opal Alladin: CeeCee Lyles
Starla Benford: Wanda Anita Green
Nancy McDoniel: Lorraine G. Bay
David Alan Basche: Todd Beamer
Richard Bekins: William Joseph Cashman
Susan Blommaert: Jane Folger
Ray Charleson: Joseph DeLuca
Christian Clemenson: Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.
Ben Sliney: Himself
It is never the wrong time for a great film. United 93 is a great film, and will be seen as a great film generations from now. It exceeded any and every expectation I had, and put to rest any doubt as to whether or not this story needs to be told less than five years after 9/11. United 93 is conveyed from a point of view that is so unique in its objectivity that it is astounding. From beginning to end, there is no way to know what will happen next in this story, even though we saw what happened that day over and over again. That is because, essentially, the point of view we are given only allows us to watch and react to events as they occur in real time. We are placed in an airplane, a few control towers, and a military security building, but we are helpless, because we aren’t given any advance information that anything bad is going to happen.
The film begins and we hear a Muslim prayer spoken by a hijacker. We’re taken to an airport where we board a plane with ordinary people – I found myself feeling like just a regular person looking at all the other regular people on a regular plane. You won’t recognize more than one or two of the actors. They’ve been chosen and cast perfectly. We hear what we normally hear on a plane: airport background sounds; people talking at random about nothing special. United 93 does not force archetypes on us (the beautiful blonde stewardess, the handsome Euro-businessman in the expensive suit, the noisy airplane brats that have to be shown the cockpit before they’ll stop screaming). We know nothing about anybody. Thank God. But we’re all on the plane together, waiting on the runway to take off.
United 93 places us in various control towers at local and regional levels. Many of the control tower personnel in the movie are the real people that worked in the towers on 9/11, not actors. I counted over a dozen. I was amazed as I watched these people re-enact that day from their control towers. The words we hear are the words that control tower people really speak: They swear once in a while; they are allowed to stumble-stutter through a grammatically incorrect sentence without stopping the cameras. We are taken inside the National Air Traffic Control Center often as the film progresses. There are TV screens displaying maps of the United States, with countless dots representing every airplane in the air over the country. Ben Sliney, playing not just himself, but himself on 9/11, heads up the national center. He’s told of a possible hijacking early on, digests the information, then returns to his primary job of keeping the nation’s entire body of air traffic in the air and on-time whenever possible. He can have that job. I don’t want it. I haven’t had a job-related heart attack, and I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible.
More hijackings happen and there is frustration and confusion in the control towers. The towers share their information, but a controller can’t reach into the radar screen and make an airplane go where he wants it to go. All we can do is watch the radar, just like the controllers. By now everyone knows something very bad is happening. There is supposed to be a military liaison at the national control center, but Ben Sliney keeps getting told that the person isn’t there. He is frustrated. So are we. Protocol calls for the President to make the calls in this type of situation. The President can’t be located, we’re told. More frustration.
We’re taken to a military operations center. The military is told of the hijackings and tries to form a strategy. But, a strategy for what? All they know is that planes have been hijacked. Then someone points to a television set. CNN News has a live picture up of a smoking hole in the World Trade Center. They say a small plane hit the building. The controllers see the pictures and realize a small plane could not have flown completely through a building like that. And so it is deduced that the first hijacked plane, which has disappeared from the radar, hit the Trade Center building. Next thought: It’s an accident, right? When you steal an airplane you fly it around and make demands about political prisoners and money, don’t you? Then, live, we and the controllers see the second plane fly directly into the World Trade Center, right on CNN. Only then was it clear that this was a planned attack. On the U.S.? On New York? By whom?
The president still can’t be located. There are two more hijacked planes in the air, though. The military decides to bring these planes down using the most immediate tools at their disposal. There are two available fighter jets in Michigan. Unfortunately, they are unarmed. What next? It is decided the fighters will be crashed into the airliners -- the fighter pilots will eject on impact. Meanwhile, a third hijacked airplane crashes into the Pentagon. Another plane, believed to be hijacked, turns out to be safe. That leaves one more hijacked plane in the air, flying toward the east coast from Cleveland. United Airlines flight 93.
We’re aboard United 93 now. The hijackers have taken over. The pilot and co-pilot are dead. In the back of the plane the passengers, crouched down in their seats, have just learned what is happening by using the airplane’s air-to-ground telephones, and their cell phones. They've learned their plane will be crashed into a building, not flown around until political demands are met. A man, whose wife is watching CNN TV news, gets the up-to-the-minute details of the story and passes that information on to the others on the plane. Messages -- goodbye messages -- are left on answering machines for loved ones.
And then, “Let’s roll.”
Those incredible words are spoken by one of the passengers as they – we – storm the cockpit. United 93 was headed for the U.S. Capitol. It crashed in Pennsylvania. WE crashed in Pennsylvania.
Director Paul Greengrass has honored us as much as he honored United 93's passengers, because he allowed us to be among heroes for just a few minutes. Greengrass himself is a hero for making United 93. So are the many actors in this film who were actually there on 9/11. They did the best they could with the knowledge they had. We know that now because of this film.
"American Dreamz"
RATING: 7/10
Produced by: Paul Weitz
Written by: Paul Weitz
Directed by: Paul Weitz
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sexual references.
Runtime: 107 min.
CAST…
Martin Tweed: Hugh Grant
President Staton: Dennis Quaid
Sally Kendoo: Mandy Moore
Chief of Staff: Willem Dafoe
The First Lady: Marcia Gay Harden
Omer: Sam Golzari
Martha Kendoo: Jennifer Coolidge
William Williams: Chris Klein
Paul Weitz directed “American Pie.” If you liked or hated “American Pie,” it’s because of Paul Weitz. His new film is “American Dreamz.” I liked “American Dreamz,” and it’s because of Paul Weitz. Just as “Pie” is a comedy/satire that shoves easy, simple, rude visual and verbal jokes and satirical jabs right in your face, so is “American Dreamz.” The movie is a laugh-out-loud funny satire that probably would have better if it were cut as an “R” movie. But then the teen audience, who may appreciate “Dreamz” the most, and who pays all the actors’ salaries, wouldn’t have been able to see it.
In the opening scene we meet Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant playing his version of “American Idol’s” Simon Cowell). He’s the host and judge of America’s top-rated TV show, “American Dreamz,” which is ramping up for a new season of talent competition. There is no attempt to keep us from knowing “American Dreamz” is actually the top-rated U.S. TV talent show, “American Idol.” Tweed is so self-absorbed that he barely looks up from his latest ratings sheet as his beautiful girlfriend breaks up with him in his Hollywood home. Grant plays Tweed to perfection, in a role he could have very easily overplayed.
Over at the White House, Dennis Quaid is newly re-elected President Staton , who is obviously George W. Bush. (Quaid is excellent. He nails Bush’s look and mannerisms.) Willem Dafoe is Staton’s Chief of Staff (Dafoe is Dick Cheney -- I laughed out when I saw Dafoe’s Cheney makeup), and Marcia Gay Harden plays the First Lady, looking adorable as a Laura Bush clone. Dafoe tells the president it’s time to greet the public after winning his second term as president. The president decides he wants to read a newspaper instead -- something he’d never done before as president. He reads one paper, then another, and soon he spends all day in his pajamas, holed up in his bedroom reading a library’s worth of books, to the dismay of Dafoe and Harden. Dafoe finally convinces the President to come out of hiding, which culminates in Quaid being a guest judge on the “American Dreamz” season finale.
Meanwhile, in rural Ohio, the ruthless Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore in a surprisingly good performance) and her mom, Martha (Jennifer Coolidge), are strategizing so Sally can compete on “American Dreamz.” Sally dumps her handsome, adoring boyfriend (Chris Klein) because he’s getting in the way. She gets an agent (Seth Myers from Saturday Night Live), and is chosen to be on the show.
Another thing you must have in a Paul Weitz-in-you-face bombastic political satire is at least one Middle-Eastern terrorist. So Weitz gives us Omer, a failed terrorist exiled from a hidden training camp near the Afghan border. After a day of tough terrorist training, Omer loves dancing and singing along with show tunes in his tent after everyone else is asleep. Omer is booted from camp and lands in Orange County to live with his California cousins. Of course, Omer ends up as a contestant on “American Dreamz.”
The film’s climax comes during the live airing of the “American Dreamz” season TV finale, featuring a Hasidic Jew, an Arab, and a blonde beauty as the three finalists, with the President of the United States and a Simon Cowell-like guy deciding who should win. The ending is ridiculous – and funny. Are we laughing at a TV show, a movie, or ourselves?
“American Dreamz” either hits home runs or strikes out. There is no middle ground. The satire is served up on a platter. You either love the jokes or you cringe at their simple-minded delivery. I was lucky to see the movie in a public theater that was over half full. At the end, I heard something you don’t hear at many movies: applause. As bad as the strikeouts were, the home runs were better, and people walked out laughing. Including me.
"V for Vendetta"
RATING: 8/10
Directed by: James McTeigue
Writen by: Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski
MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and some language.
Runtime: 132 min
CAST...
Natalie Portman: Evey
Hugo Weaving: V
Stephen Rea: Finch
Stephen Fry: Deitrich
John Hurt: Adam Sutler
Tim Pigott-Smith: Creedy
A beautiful, petite, smart brunette named Evey (Natalie Portman) walks down a dark alleyway late at night and is assaulted by thugs who want more than money. Her mace spray is useless. Evey is thrown to the pavement, unconscious. Suddenly, a mysterious masked man appears out of nowhere and kicks the bad guys’ butts six ways from Sunday. Between body armor and martial arts mastery and a deadly knie display, the man is indestructible. When Evey wakes up, she is lying in a bed in the secret lair of the masked man. Are we watching another typical comic book hero movie? No way.
It’s November fourth in England in the year 2020. A civil war in America has spread overseas, but the British government has stopped the war in England by establishing a totalitarian regime. The evil dictator Adam Sutler (John Hurt) is running the country. Innocent citizens have been killed in prison camps where biological warfare experiments are conducted. The only people allowed out after curfew are government security enforcers. The TV station is state-run: the only TV “news” is produced by the government. Television is the only time the dictator Sutler is ever seen. There’s a popular variety show hosted by a man named Deitrich (Stephen Fry in a wonderful supporting performance), but that, too, is censored by the government. It’s hell on Earth for Englanders.
The masked man who rescues Evey calls himself “V,” for reasons we learn during one the film’s most poignant scenes. He is played by Hugo Weaving in a difficult role, because we never see him talk through his smiling, mustached mask. We only get to hear his voice, and see him use body language to convey his emotions. (V’s mask is fashioned after the image of Guy Fawkes, a religious fanatic who unsuccessfully tried to burn down the Houses of Parliament on November fifth, 1605. V has dedicated his life to emulating Fawkes.) Evey bonds with V quickly in the secret hideout. He feeds her fried eggs on pieces of toast and butter – the first real butter she’s had since childhood. Evey is stuck in V’s hidden lair, unable to show her face in public again since she faces certain death.
When the clock strikes midnight to signal the arrival of November fifth, V also strikes. Furiously. He goes on a rampage, violently killing government officials and blowing up government property, resurrecting -- and expanding on -- the original mission of Guy Fawkes, who died in his attempt to destroy Parliament. V’s strike against the government sets the dominoes in motion, and, from this point on, nobody is safe: heroes’ lives are in danger from government retribution, and villains are no match for V.
“V for Vendetta” is first and foremost a visual film, with its dark rooms, alleyways and shadows. (It’s based on a 1982 graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, who distanced themselves from the film, as they have for other films based on their work.) The film is not as comic-bookish in look or feel as I expected – not like “Batman” or “The Mask,” for example. But it has just enough of a "1984" Apple Macintosh feel to it. What we see is not quite the real world, but close enough. V’s past is revealed to us in flashbacks that are not forced. The film churns through heroic plans that both succeed and fail: near-misses, dangerous escapes, and violent acts against people who, if you’re rooting for V, deserve what they get.
Throughout the film, V is called, by different government officials, a “terrorist.” The “T Word” is used frequently, and was, I believe, deliberately put in the script to get us to react. Is V really a terrorist, or is he a revolutionary freedom fighter working for the common good of all people? That’s what the Wachowski brothers are asking us to decide. I believe there are good arguments on each side, thanks to the brothers themselves. They haven’t tried to force anything on us. The film leaves plenty of room for us to dislike its hero – a risky strategy by the filmmakers that worked. It is one of the reasons this film rises above so many others in this genre.
The films successes also lead to some of its failures. We are bombarded with so many scenes of visual information combined with plot details that, at times, we get lost in the imagery and the details. But I found myself actually enjoying getting lost in what I was watching. Natalie Portman’s performance is the focal point, and she is superb in her portrayal of Evey. We feel everything she feels. We empathize with Hugo Weaving’s V, even as we’re deciding whether or not he’s doing the right thing. The supporting characters are cast perfectly – good or evil, everyone is convincing. “V for Vendetta” brings out all the guns (and knives) and all the butter, and lets us decide which is better.
