Term Life - DVD Review

TERM LIFE (R) Starring Vince Vaughn, Hailee Steinfeld, Bill Paxton, Jonathan Banks, Terrence Howard, Shea Whigham, Mike Epps, Jon Favreau, Jordi Molla and Taraji P. Henson.
Written by AJ Lieberman.
Directed by Peter Billingsley.

★★

This movie has a lot of interesting ingredients, but I was never sure what it was actually trying to be.

Vince Vaughn plays a small-time hood, a specialist in setting up heists, then selling the plans to highest bidders. When he gets framed for murder, he's wanted by the mob, the police, and the crooked cops who framed him. The title comes from the term life insurance he takes out on himself. As long as he can survive three weeks, then he can leave his daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) a ton of money.

It's not really a comedy, nor do the stakes ever feel high enough to be a gritty drama. His life's in danger, but he seems detached from everything. I was impressed by all the names that signed on to this project. Too bad their director didn't know what to do with them.

Dead Man Down - DVD Review

Starring Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Terrence Howard, Dominic Cooper, Isabelle Huppert and Armand Assante.  Directed by Niels Oplev.

★★½

Niels Oplev, director of the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, brings some Eurotrash sensibilities to this revenge thriller about a gangster (Colin Farrell) trying to help his boss (Terrence Howard) figure out who wants to kill him.  Meanwhile his neighbor (Noomi Rapace) blackmails him into killing the man who permanently scarred from a hit-and-run.  The pacing isn't exactly smooth, but something about the really dysfunctional love that develops between the two leads make it enjoyable enough for a rental.

Prisoners - Movie Review

Starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Paul Dano and Melissa Leo.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.

★★★½

This slow-burn thriller may be two-and-a-half hours long, but I was never bored nor concerned with the running time.

It features two families (Hugh Jackman & Maria Bello and Viola Davis & Terrence Howard) spending Thanksgiving together.  When a daughter from each disappears, they start to search the neighborhood, but then the teenage son remembers they were playing by a suspicious RV parked down the street, and it's now gone.

It isn't long before the investigative officer Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) locates the RV, and the driver Alex (Paul Dano).  Alex exhibits the mental acumen of a 10-year-old and the police are unable to find enough evidence to keep him. Loki (really wish they'd named him something else) pursues other avenues, but Keller (Jackman) is convinced that Alex knows something, and with each passing day, it means there's less likelihood their girls will be found alive. So he kidnaps Alex and questions him in ways that get more and more medieval.

The movie has a lot to say about vigilante justice, but it's more about the mystery, and while I was able to figure out most of it fairly early (had to wait about half an hour for Loki to notice a clue I noticed right away), it was suspenseful to watch unfold. I can only imagine what David Fincher (Zodiac, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) might have done with this material.

The acting's good all around, but this is career-best work from Jackman, getting that primal, vicious paternal instinct that would give Taken's Bryan Mills pause. (If your brain just hit a speed-bump, that is Liam Neeson's character's name.) I was also really impressed with Gyllenhaal, a man clearly struggling with his own demons that have affected him in odd ways. (He has a very distinct blink, and one where I didn't feel I needed to know why.)

It could have been tighter. I think it could have trimmed minutes here and there but the makers wanted to hang some lanterns on clues to make sure the audience didn't miss them.

Lee Daniels' The Butler - Movie Review

Starring Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, James Marsden, Robin Williams, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, John Cusack, Liev Schreiber, Lenny Kravitz, Vanessa Redgrave, Clarence Williams III, Alex Pettyfer, Elijah Kelley, Minka Kelly, David Banner and Mariah Carey.
Directed by Lee Daniels.

★★½

An impressive all-star cast gathers for this Forrest Gump journey through the civil rights movement.  It's inspired by a true story but they change so much of it, it might as well not be.

Forest Whitaker is great as Cecil Gaines, a humble man who becomes a butler in the White House during the Eisenhower administration and works there through the Reagan years. We see the changes in the country through his eyes, but also through the eyes of his older son Louis (David Oyelowo), a civil rights activist who happens to be there for pretty much every milestone event.  He's there for the lunch-counter protests where they're assaulted by patrons, for the bombing of the freedom bus, best friends with Martin Luther King, the rise of the Black Panther party. I'm surprised he didn't happen to be on the very bus where Rosa Parks refused to move.

A parade of stars wander through to play the presidents.  Robin Williams is gone before you have time to think if he's convincing as Ike or not.  James Marsden is all boyish sincerity as JFK.  Liev Schreiber's pretty funny as LBJ.  John Cusack is John Cusack as Nixon.  Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda got the mannerisms right as Ronald and Nancy Reagan, but the way the movie craps all over Ronald yanked me out of the movie.

Then I remember the movie was written by Danny Strong, an actor who's quickly made a name for himself demonizing Republicans with his scripts for HBO's Recount, about the Bush-Gore 2000 election told through Gore-colored glasses, and HBO's Game Change, where he cut out all the parts of the book on Hillary, Obama, John Edwards, so he could just focus on Manchurian candidate Sarah Palin, who was about 1/5 of the book.

The movie's over two hours and it's overstuffed with melodramatic coincidences, subplots that meander, and it culminates with angelic voices swelling at the election of Obama.  It's also always watchable.  Not only is Whitaker mesmerizing as Gaines, but Winfrey, Oyelowo, Gooding and Howard all give stand-out performances too.

Red Tails - DVD Review

Starring Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Tristan Wilds, Elijah Kelley, Ne-Yo, Gerald McRaney and Bryan Cranston.
Directed by Anthony Hemingway.

★★½

It's produced by George Lucas, and his signatures are all over it. Bad dialogue, stock characters, well-choreographed fight scenes, and good vs. evil.

I was worried this movie would be like Flyboys and at first it was. I point to Captain America as an example of a movie that could have been corny but succeeded in its patriotic earnestness. Red Tails doesn't quite get there.

It has its moments though. It improved as it went on, where the characters start facing individual challenges. We get past the two-dimensional racist officer (Bryan Cranston) to the gruff one (Gerald McRaney) who just wants to know if these Tuskagee Airmen can fly or not. In fact if I flowcharted this movie, you'd see my thumb down for Act I, sideways for Act II, and up for Act III. I couldn't help but be moved by the squad's courage and the surprise respect they earned from the white pilots with newly-opened eyes.

The aerial shots are obviously CG-generated, so it's about on par watching the Rebels shoot up the Death Star, but I'm not about to complain about Rebels shooting up the Death Star. The Nazis sneer and have strategically placed scars on their faces. Terrence Howard is decent as the commanding officer. The pipe-smoking Cuba Gooding Jr. always has this wry grin on his face like there's a joke he's not sharing anyone.

Lucas tried for years to get this movie made, and he said having blacks in all the main parts was his main obstacle. Well, it opened to $19 million, and had it been a better movie, it might've grossed more than its $50 million domestic.