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.

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.

Man on a Ledge - Movie Review

Saw this at the $2 theater.

Starring Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, Anthony Mackie, Edward Burns, Genesis Rodriguez, Titus Welliver, Kyra Sedgwick and William Sadler.
Directed by Asger Leth.

★★

This movie thinks itself clever, but it reminded of that old "If I Was An Evil Overlord" list, where one of the items was sojmething to the effect of "Hire a 5-year-old boy as my advisor. If he sees any flaws in any of my plans, correct them at once."

This movie, in its setup, violates that rule. We see the Man (Sam Worthington) got into a hotel and eat a fine meal. He then wipes anything he touched of fingerprints. Then he goes to the window, opens it, and climbs out on to the ledge. And my wife and I turned to each other and said, "What about his prints on the window frame?"

But later on, the "lab" couldn't find a single print in the room. Apparently they just assumed there wouldn't be in prints on the window he just crawled out of.

This is one of those grimy early-year thrillers that feels like it was made to be subtitled and played throughout Europe. The Man, named Nick, was once wrongly jailed for stealing a diamond from an evil businessman (Ed Harris, looking skeletal). Now he's on the ledge of a 21-story building, and he's willing to jump, but it's really a big distraction while his brother and girlfriend break into Evil Businessman's offices and crack his safe where the dimaond's been hidden the whole time.

The preview gave most of the movie away, so I had to wait patiently for it to get to the point where I didn't know what was next. The "twists" it has are all telegraphed, sometimes just by the very casting of a person ("Oh, that guy. He's always a bad guy"), other times it requires gigantic leaps of logic, but we know it's going to happen anyway because that's just the type of movie this is. And the final twists makes everything fall apart, although the movie doesn't think so.

It's interesting enough while it's happening, but the screenplay's half-baked, and Worthington's American accent seems to get worse in every movie he sports it. There's just way too many contrivances and coincidences to be able to recommend it.

The Debt - Movie Review

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Starring Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Marton Csokas, Tom Wilkinson, Jesper Christensen and Ciaran Hinds. Directed by John Madden.

There are three Mossad agents in 1965 known as Rachel (Jessica Chastain), David (Sam Worthington), and Stephen (Marton Csokas). Their mission is to capture a Nazi war criminal named Fogel (Jesper Christensen), now posing in East Germany as a harmless gynecologist. They plan to take him to Israel and try him for his crimes.

Flash-forward to 1997. Rachel (Helen Mirren), David (Ciaran Hinds), and Stephen (Tom Wilkinson) are still dealing with the repercussions of that mission, and new light is shed that may have a dramatic impact on them.

(Although I have to pause here and say I thought that Hinds looked more like an older Csokas than Wilkinson did; it threw me off a bit. Anyway...)

This is a tense thriller than jumps back and forth between the time periods with ease, and Mirren and Chastain do remarkable jobs as Rachel. Chastain especially demonstrates that she has a bright future ahead of her.

This was at 3-1/2 stars for me until the last five minutes. I'll leave it there.