42 ****

Short Take: Beautiful, old fashioned biopic on Jackie Robinson may be too reverential for some but its ability to take you back in time and tell its story puts it on the level of The Natural and Eight Men Out.

Reel Take: Only the snarkiest critics are saying really negative things about 42 (Jackie Robinson’s baseball jersey number for you non-baseball fans) which is to be expected. Some others may be afraid to fully criticize it because of the subject matter which is also understandable. As for me, I could give you a laundry list of things wrong with the film but I won’t because nothing on that list really matters in the long run.

42 details the extreme trials and heavy tribulations that Jackie Robinson had to face when he became the first African-American to break the color barrier of major league baseball back in 1947. He was chosen for this task by Branch Rickey, the general manager of the then Brooklyn Dodgers. Their collaboration changed the face of professional sports forever.

It certainly wasn’t easy for Robinson who had to endure not only the vilest verbal abuse imaginable but also deliberate physical abuse such as being hit in the head by 90mph fastballs and having his legs spiked by angry players. In the beginning even his own teammates shunned him except for shortstop Pee Wee Reese. Robinson kept coming back for more and earned the respect of the rest of the Dodgers.

In the long run, nothing succeeds like success and once the Dodgers, aided by the base stealing, catching, and hitting skills of Robinson, fought their way to the National League pennant and the 1947 World Series, the fans rallied and the African-American community had one small victory to celebrate.

All of this is done in classic, inspirational sports film style from the important speeches to the slow motion triumphant finale. An added bonus, and it’s a huge one, is the cinematography which bathes the film in subdued colors and soft focus images which heightens and enhances the feeling of nostalgia. We are not only witnessing one man’s triumph, we are also witnessing history. Here CGI recreates the legendary ballparks of yore such as Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, and of course Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

But there’s more here than simple nostalgia. 42 is graced with a quartet of performances from the principal characters that draw us right into the events. Chadwick Boseman and Nicole Beharie give breakout performances as Jackie and Rachel Robinson. Their determination and love for each other make the audience care about and willing to cheer for them. Andre Holland as African-American columnist Wendell Smith engages us as we witness how Robinson’s triumph becomes his own.

The real surprise, however, is Harrison Ford’s performance as Branch Rickey. There’s no trace of Ford the star persona here only Ford the actor portraying the feisty, cigar chewing Brooklyn GM complete with raspy voice, slicked back hair, and thick glasses. If Ford fails to secure an Oscar nomination down the road for this portrayal, then to quote the old baseball phrase “We wuz robbed!”

This is certainly old school filmmaking with few negative elements concerning its title character. While this may bother today’s jaded critics who wanted a warts and all biography, it gives a weary audience, in lieu of recent events, something to cheer for and feel good about afterwards. Writer-director Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale) is deliberately looking backward in order to try and create an inspirational myth not an everyday reality just as his mentor, director Richard Donner, did in the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie back in 1978.

The greatest praise I can bestow on 42 is that I literally cannot remember the last time I attended a movie with a sizable audience that was almost evenly divided between black and white patrons who then engaged in dialogue afterwards. I like to think that somewhere, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey would be proud.

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including language.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Mud *****

Short Take: A terrific modern southern tale with a sweet soul and a muddy, snake bit underbelly.

Reel Take: Mud takes place in the sleepy backwoods Arkansas tributaries of the Mississippi River, part of a culture relatively untouched by the rest of the world and a way of life not long for this world. Best friends Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) are fourteen year old boys who explore the river, looking for adolescent fun and adventure. When they discover a boat amazingly suspended in a tree on a nearby island, they get the adventure of a lifetime.

The story is a coming-of-age story of sorts and is centered around Ellis. Ellis sells fish door-to-door with his father and he’s struggling with the apparent disintegration of his parent’s marriage. He is a romantic and an idealist. Neckbone is a little rougher around the edges, never having known his parents and being precariously raised by a well meaning and loving uncle (Michael Shannon).

When they discover the boat, they decide to claim it as their own—a perfect secret tree fort. Soon however, they discover the boat is occupied by a mysterious squatter on the island with an odd moniker. Mud (Matthew McConaughey). He is a fugitive on the island, hiding out from the law and waiting for his lady love, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).

Mud is his own ‘beast of the southern wild’ (a love child of Boo Radley and Max Cady if you will). He’s superstitious, but very capable of surviving in the woods and under the radar. He’s done bad things, but has a code of honor. He, like Neckbone has never known his parents, but like Ellis is a true romantic. He’s an oddball to be sure, and while we don’t quite know how much of his story is true, he earns the boys’ trust (and the audience). The three then set about the task of getting the boat out of the tree and patching it up so that Mud can sail into the sunset with his lady love.

McConaughey, who is enjoying a very interesting career comeback of late, gives one of his best performances to date. If this is an example of the kinds of projects he’s going to sign on to, bring it on. Tye Sheridan, as Ellis, is fantastic to watch. Neither he nor Jacob Lofland (Neckbone) miss a note, and I look forward seeing what each of them do next. The supporting cast is a dream, especially performances by Ray McKinnon, Michael Shannon and Sam Shepard. Shepard delivers one of his most enjoyable performances in a while.

Directed and written by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter), Mud takes it time unfolding but never dawdles. It feels like a literary piece adapted for the screen, but it’s not. It’s just an incredibly rich and incredibly rewarding story of the modern, rural south.

Mud is told with patience, nuance and a salty underbelly, but at its core is a sweet soul. Youthful naiveté counters harsh realities yet never diminishes them. Rather, an almost childlike romanticism and idealism, and a general faith in the innate goodness of [most] people, gives the story a wonderful spirit without falling prey to sappiness.

There are very few missteps (if any) in this film, and even a rather conventional, crowd pleasing ending actually works here without feeling false. Hollywood and movie making could do with more films like Mud, though I think very few filmmakers could pull off as authentically and seamlessly what Nichols does. Bottom line – see it.

Rated PG-13 for some violence, sexual references, language, thematic elements and smoking.

Review by Michelle Keenan

Oblivion ****

Short Take: Dystopian sci-fi saga about life on Earth after an unsuccessful alien invasion that uses its special effects to enhance the story, not the other way around.

Reel Take: Here is yet another Tom Cruise movie that is receiving an unfair share of critical brickbats from certain quarters. The major complaint, aside from the fact that Tom Cruise is in it, is that Oblivion is derivative of several other science-fiction films. HEL-LO! Movies, by their very nature, are derivative of those that came before them. Always have been, always will be. It’s what you do with the derivation that’s the important thing and Oblivion uses its borrowings in a clever and creative way.

Dystopian science-fiction has been a mainstay in movies since Fritz Lang’s Metropolis way back in 1927. Although there were only a few examples before World War II, such as England’s Things to Come (1936), the Atomic Age of the 1950s brought a plethora of such films. Everything from 1960’s big budget The Time Machine (remade in 2002) to 1958’s creative, low budget drive-in fare Terror from the Year 5000. The creative freedom of the 1970s gave us THX 1138 (1971), Silent Running (1972), and Zardoz (1974) which may contain the bleakest view of the future ever put on screen (see this month’s DVD pick).

I mention these other films because they all play a part in Oblivion along with several others that I could mention and that you will recognize once you see the movie. While it breaks no new ground, it is extremely well made and has a lot more staying power after you leave the theater which, to my way of thinking, is what makes a film truly worthwhile.

The setting is a post-apocalyptic world wherein Earth defeated an alien invasion but at a terrible cost. The surviving population has been transported to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which has been equipped to sustain human life. What remains of the Earth is watched over by drones who continue to meet token resistance from alien stragglers trapped on the planet. Tom Cruise (playing yet another character named Jack) is a drone repairman assigned to Earth along with his female partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). They live in an ultramodern house high above the ground and take their orders from Central Control leader Sally (Melissa Leo) who constantly congratulates them on being good team players.

One day Jack discovers that the alien scavengers are actually human survivors led by a mysterious figure (Morgan Freeman) and that the distant memories he has of another woman (Olga Kurylenko) hold the key to an entirely different reality. Jack must now work to find out about his past and then do something about the situation he uncovers if he can. Does he succeed? Well, it’s a Tom Cruise movie so that should tell you something right there. But that’s not the point.

The point is that Oblivion is a captivating work of science-fiction with quality special effects and settings that are there to serve the story being told rather than the other way around. The acting by all the principals is engaging throughout the length of the film and if Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman are essentially playing themselves, well, after all that’s what we pay to see.

Oblivion has just enough originality to keep it fresh and make it memorable on its own terms. It’s also structured by writer-director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) to not reveal all its secrets in one viewing especially if you’re looking for other sci-fi film references. It provided me with a most agreeable multiplex experience and the rather large audience that I saw it with really enjoyed it too.

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

The Place Beyond the Pines **** 1/2

Short Take: An ambitious multi-generational drama about fate, the choices we make and their repercussions.

Reel Take: Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper have certainly gone to great lengths of late to prove their acting chops. The Place Beyond the Pines is yet another vehicle to prove their merits, even if the film is a little too ambitious for its own good and takes itself just a tad too seriously.

Writer, director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) deftly crafted a heavy hearted drama about the choices we make and the consequences of our actions. The impact of one fateful moment can ripple throughout lifetimes.

Here, what starts of as a fairly straightforward story of one man’s actions becomes a tragedy in three parts, playing out over course of many years and the lives of many.

Gosling plays Luke a heavily tattooed motorcycle stunt rider in a traveling carnival. When he learns he has fathered a child with woman he once knew, he quits the show, ready to put down roots, help raise his child and maybe even win back Romina (Eva Mendes), the child’s mother.

His attempt to do right is a hopeful beginning to the film. Unfortunately wanting to provide for his child and the mother of his child is the most admirable decision he makes. How he is going to provide for them proves his downfall. Becoming a bank robber leads him to that pivotal, fateful moment.

Bradley Cooper is Avery, the young, idealistic, rookie cop who brings Luke down. Their lives intersect ever so briefly, but the events of that day impact the families of both men for many years to come. The story shifts at this point from Luke’s life to the life of our young police hero (Act 2).

Avery is the son of a former state Supreme Court judge (Harris Yulin) and before donning his police blues, he appeased his father by attending law school. When a subplot of police corruption emerges, led by the perfectly (albeit laughably) typecast, Ray Liotta. Heading off the corruption ring, gives Avery’s career ambitions a boost and he’s on the fast track to district attorney and politics.

The film then fast forwards 15 years for the third and final act, which focuses on Luke’s and Avery’s sons, both now in high school. Dane DeHaan (who I liked in last year’s Lawless) is brilliant as Luke’s son Jason, but Emory Cohen is hopelessly miscast as Avery’s son A.J. He is more apt to be the thuggish son of Ray Liotta than Bradley Cooper. This is the film’s one major misstep.

The film plays out like a novel and in some ways may be better suited as such. The Place Beyond the Pines is way too long and it’s the kind of movie that really shouldn’t work, but somehow does. Gosling and Cooper both deliver fine performances, but there’s something mesmerizing about Gosling, especially as he shifts from loving father to brutal bank robber.

The other standout performance is from Ben Mendelsohn, who plays the friend with whom Luke hatches the bank robbing plan. The scenes between the two of them are some of the best in the film.

The Place Beyond the Pines isn’t a particularly easy film to watch, but it is worthwhile.

Rated R for language throughout, some violence, teen drug and alcohol use, and a sexual reference

Review by Michelle Keenan

Trance ****

Short Take: A wild, cranial thrill-ride that mixes stolen art and hypnosis and nothing is quite what it seems.

Reel Take: Fans of Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire may not quite groc his latest film Trance, but I think fans of his earlier work may enjoy this slick, fast-paced cranial puzzle of sorts. Personally, I loved parts of it, and enjoyed it over all, but am also simultaneously annoyed by movies deemed cleverer than they actually are.

James McAvoy plays Simon, a young man who works at high end London auction house. He no sooner finishes explaining how to prevent the theft of priceless art, when a theft of just such magnitude occurs.

When Simon is injured by the criminal boss, Franck (Vincent Cassel) behind the theft, we think Simon is innocent, but when Franck opens the case to find the painting cut from the frame, we realize Simon is more involved in the crime than originally thought. Because of the thunk on his noggin during the heist, Simon can’t remember what he actually did with the painting.

After a gruesome round of torture yields disappointing results, Franck decides they’ll suss the secret out of Simon’s amnesia-riddled brain another way and send him to see a posh hypnotherapist, Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson). Elizabeth becomes an integral part of the elaborate path to recover the painting. But suffice it to say from here on out things get tricky and trying to explain it all even trickier. Besides, half the fun in a movie like this is watching how it all unfolds, especially when nothing is quite what it seems.

The movie is a wonderfully stylistic, fast-paced brain f#@k (pardon the vernacular). The cinematography artfully echoes the hypnotic confusion of the story, and the whole thing is fantastic to watch. Unfortunately as capable as McAvoy is as an actor, he is readily overshadowed by Dawson and especially by Cassel. Cassel in particular makes the film immensely fun to watch and gives it the style and panache befitting a slick crime heist caper.

Trance is engaging to be sure, but at its core it thinks it’s too clever for its own good, going just a little too far in outdoing each plot twist with yet another. To go that far, one has to have a truly brilliant script (i.e. Memento), and here a clever concept and fancy footwork conceal a somewhat flimsy script. Essentially robbing what could have been a truly brilliant movie of greatness.

Still though, for those that enjoy a smartly made thrill ride of a movie and don’t mind more than a little grit, Trance is well worth a view.

Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence, some grisly images, and language.

Review by Michelle Keenan