Under the Banner of Heaven - TV Review

Starring Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Gil Burningham, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Wyatt Russell, Denise Gough, Billy Howle, Chloe Pirrie, Seth Numrich, Adelaide Clemens and Rory Culkin.

Written by Dustin Lance Black, Brandon Boyce, Gina Welch & Emer Gillespie.

Directed by David Mackenzie, Courtney Hunt, Dustin Lance Black, Isabel Sandoval & Thomas Schlamme.

I didn't want to write a review until I'd seen all 7 episodes and saw how they landed the plane. Dustin Lance Black (Milk, Big Love) has taken Jon Krakauer's nonfiction bestseller and fictionalized it for dramatic effect. Did I like the series? Overall, yes. But I'm also so familiar with the culture it's trying to recreate and the history it's trying to tell that I don't know how the show is for people outside of Utah who've never been Mormon. Reviews have overall been positive so I think it's doing its job that way. Let's get into it.

Krakauer's 2003 book took the Lafferty case, where brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty killed their sister-in-law Brenda and their 15-month-old niece Erica in 1984, and used it to condemn The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a whole, primarily the fundamentalist offshoots it inspires. It's fairly straightforward, but it spends as much time on Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as it does Ron and Dan Lafferty.

Here, the miniseries approaches it like a mystery. The central character is a fictitious cop named Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield), a believing Mormon whose own faith is shook by the case and the truths he learns about the origins of the Church. The Laffertys had a lot of sons, and he doesn't know if it was Brenda's husband Allen (Billy Howle) or any of the other four Lafferty brothers. They take enough liberties with the 1984 facts that they change the names of one of the brothers and the father. They also use Allen as a Basil Exposition to the whole affair. Allen himself never lost his testimony in the Church in real life, but here he's a deeply cynical widower who seems more concerned about spelling out "the truth about" 1800's Mormonism for Pyre (complete with ominous background music) than figuring how who killed his wife and daughter.

There's a lot of heavy lifting in the dialogue, and for me it wound up being one of the weaker elements of the show. I lived in Utah for part of 1984, but I moved to Texas a few weeks before the Lafferty murders and so have no memory hearing about the case. Culturally they get a lot of things right, but there are anachronisms that could take me out. (Mormons don't say "Heavenly Father" THAT much.) As the series progresses it does a good job of showing how fundamentalism and the mainstream church are at odds. Of course, the only villains in the show I'd describe as cartoonish are the church leaders. (No General Authority in 1984 would bring up the Mountain Meadows Massacre, let alone try to spin it as a positive.)

As far as the facts go, well, I bring up the aforementioned liberties. It puts forth a bizarre theory that Brigham Young and John Taylor conspired to have Joseph Smith killed so Brigham could take over the church. I think even Brigham's staunchest critics would raise their eyebrows to that. (And why on Earth would Taylor be in the room to get shot four times if that was his plan?)

The acting? Top-notch. Garfield really pulled me in as Pyre, and David Mackenzie vet Gil Burningham (Hell or High Water) is great as the non-Mormon Paiute detective who has to tread through all this weirdness to get to just the facts, ma'am, while putting up with bearded dudes calling him a Lamanite. Sam Worthington's journey as Ron from regular guy to fundamentalist killer is calibrated just right, and Wyatt Russell as Dan shows he's destined for future stardom. (His parents Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn must be proud.) Daisy Edgar-Jones made me wish she had more screen-time as Brenda. She's the normal Mormon wife who finds herself trapped in a family that's getting more and more dangerous and doesn't know how to cool the temperatures of everyone involved.

Worth seeing? Yes. There's plenty in here to chew on and debate and discuss, which is part of what makes good TV.

Silence - Movie Review

Starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Ciaran Hinds, Issei Ogata, Yosuke Kobuzuka, Yoshi Oida, Shin'ya Tsukamoto and Nana Komatsu.
Written by Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.

★★½

Silence is adapted from a 1966 novel of the same name by Shusaku Endo. Martin Scorsese has been trying to get this film made for over two decades. It's clear he respects his source material. It feels like he respected it too much. There's a sprawling quality to it where the movie suffers from repetitive narrative beats.

The first half is the strongest. In 1640, two Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver) request to go to Japan, where their mentor Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) is rumored to have left the faith. As Christianity is illegal in Japan, the priests must be hid by secret members. The Japanese Christians are grateful to finally have priests among them. The last few they had were killed or apostasized.

The second half is mostly filled with people getting tortured and/or killed, Garfield's Father Rodrigues speaking with the torturers, angst, rain, cruelty, and unanswered prayers.

I almost had this Apocalypse Now anticipation for when Ferreira might show up, but he shows up late, and it's pretty anti-climactic. In fact, I didn't like his character. And while I like Garfield - he was excellent in Hacksaw Ridge - he isn't quite up to the task of what he's supposed to be here.

There are many questions of faith wrestled with here. Does it really mean anything if you say you renounce God when you still believe in your heart? The movie does not make cartoon villains of the Japanese torturers either. My mind kept going back to how heretics were getting tortured and killed back home.

The last ten minutes felt like a lengthy denouement a novel would have, but the same beats could have been done in two minutes.

Hacksaw Ridge - Movie Review

Starring Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving and Rachel Griffiths.
Written by Andrew Knight & Robert Schenkkan.
Directed by Mel Gibson.

★★★½

I wish Mel Gibson wasn't so messed up in his personal life, because he is one talented director.

This is the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a WWII medic who was also a conscientious objector and refused to carry a weapon during war. We see Doss join the army, wanting to serve, but he also faces resistance and abuse when he goes through basic training and will not pick up a rifle.

His drill sergeant (Vince Vaughn) wants him to quit. His captain (Sam Worthington) wants him to quit. But Doss endures everything they throw at him, even the threat of court-martial. He refuses to quit, and he refuses to touch a weapon.

The second half of the movie deals with the title. Hacksaw Ridge is the landing point for his company's participation in the Battle of Okinawa. The battle scenes are as intense and gory as anything from Saving Private Ryan or Fury. As men are torn to pieces by bullets and bombs, Doss hops from trench to trench, tending the wounded and saving lives.

This movie hits all of the feel-good notes, but I don't see how it could work if we didn't buy Doss, and Garfield does a wonderful job as a man with sincere beliefs and an aw-shucks goodness about him. It's a performance that never feels forced, never gets cloying. There's a lot of good support in here. I haven't enjoyed a Vince Vaughn role like this in years. Hugo Weaving probably has the most to work with, as Desmond's WWI-vet father who's become an alcoholic wracked with survivors remorse. Teresa Palmer brings an earthy sweetness to Dorothy, Desmond's bride-to-be.

(It's amusing to me that this American story is full of Australians in the cast. Of the major roles, only Garfield and Vaughn are American, and Garfield grew up in the UK.)

Feels nice in these troubled times to be able to celebrate someone's heroism.

The Amazing Spider-Man - Movie Review

Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz.  Directed by Marc Webb.

★★★

This was a reboot I didn't think I wanted, but now I know I did.  Of course we don't "need" a Spider-Man reboot, but if Sam Raimi had done a Part 4, as he planned, with John Malkovich as Vulture, well, based on the drop-off of quality between the first two and Part 3, he was venturing dangerously close to Schumacher territory.

Now Webb has re-established the character and put a new twist on it, and it's refreshing, just like it was refreshing to have Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk in The Avengers instead of Edward Norton.

We go back to high school for the origin of Peter Parker, played with gawky energy by Andrew Garfield, and one element I appreciated that this film re-introduced was Peter's intelligence.  Gone are the organic webshooters out of his wrist.  We see Peter invent his webslingers, just like in the comic book.  We also get a real romance between Peter and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), and it's where I recognized Webb's touch most.  Webb directed 500 Days of Summer, so he knows how to make a boy and a girl talk to each other.

Norman Osbourne is spoken of but not seen.  Instead our villain is Dr. Chuck Conners, an Oscorp employee who becomes the Lizard. (I am sad Dylan Baker played the one-armed doc for three films but never got to become the green guy himself.)  I like that there's only one villain.  In a way it follows the Batman Begins or Superman origin stories, in that the title character really is the main character.

This is a superhero movie I walk out of with my mind racing about what they'll do for the sequel.  They could revisit Green Goblin or Venom if they wanted to, or bring to life some of the other big baddies we haven't seen in live-action yet, like Mysterio or Electro.  The groundwork's been laid.  I look forward to seeing Peter and Gwen's relationship progress, seeing more of Sally Field as Aunt Mae, hopefully meeting J. Jonah Jameson next time.