Lee Daniels' The Butler

The names of the U.S. Presidents are instantly recognizable, names synonymous with the history of the United States, especially that building where the president leaves, whatever it's called. The White House I think? What about all the people who work at the White House, who keep the place running? And no, it's not just the nameless/faceless individuals who get killed during terrorist attacks in movies like White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. I kid of course as we jump into 2013's Lee Daniels' The Butler, the true story of one of the White House's longtime butlers.

Growing up as a young boy with his sharecropping family in 1926 Georgia, Cecil Gaines has his outlook on life forever impacted when his father is shot down by a white man, the land owner where the family work, after raping his mother. Cecil is taught to be a house worker, a butler, and grows up finding jobs here and there working as a butler for the rich and well-to-do, eventually ending up at a Washington D.C. hotel. It isn't long before a grown-up Cecil (Forest Whitaker) has created quite a reputation for himself, earning an interview and eventually a full-time job at the White House, working with the sizable staff to make sure the President's home is a crisp, clean operation on a day-to-day basis. It's the late 1950s though, America heading into a turbulent time in its young history. Cecil has an inside look at America's involvement at home and internationally, all the while trying to raise a family with his wife, Gloria (Oprah Winfrey).  

This wasn't a movie I was dying to see, but I was nonetheless curious, even intrigued to see it. Loosely based on the true story of Eugene Allen, 'Butler' is director Lee Daniels' second film since his 2009 movie, Precious, that really put him on the map. It received pretty solid reviews and was a surprise success in theaters, earning over $167 million. I'm not really sure what to take away from it overall. I can appreciate what the message is going for, what it's trying to stand for and say about American history, yet that said, I didn't especially like it. What it's trying to do is admirable. What it accomplishes? Still mulling that over. Some of that can be chalked up to the script which tries to accomplish a ton in a 132-minute movie.

What I didn't question was Forest Whitaker in the lead role. Playing Cecil Gaines, Whitaker is our window as an audience into a whole lot of American history. We see his mindset, his frustrations, his motivations, his friendships, his rivalries, all of it. It isn't a flashy part, far from it, just a very straightforward, effective part. Whitaker's Cecil is a family man who wants to provide for that family, especially his wife, Gloria, struggling with alcoholism as she misses Cecil, his oldest son, Lewis (David Oyelowo, a good performance with some odd moments as a 37-year old playing a 15-year old), who dives headfirst into the civil rights movement, and his youngest son, Charlie (Elijah Kelley). His narration as a lead characters gets to be a little heavy-handed at times, but that's the script and not on Whitaker's shoulders. A very solid performance for Whitaker, a man trying to get by and live in some extremely turbulent times.

Beyond the family though, the supporting cast is mostly a long list of historical characters and bit parts that aren't around long enough to resonate. We meet a handful of Presidents including Dwight Eisenhower (Robin Williams), John F. Kennedy (James Marsden), Lyndon B. Johnson (Liev Schreiber), Richard Nixon (John Cusack) and Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman), even meeting Nancy Reagan (Jane Fonda). These little episodes are pretty cool, but they're also gone as quick as they started. Because of that pacing issue, these scenes, appearances and story developments aren't as effective as they could and should have been. In storytelling technique, 'Butler' reminded me of the classic Forrest Gump, bouncing around to a lot of stories, a lot of key moments in American history, the story giving us a window into those moments. Where Forrest Gump blended the humor and drama though, 'Butler' stays on the dramatic path, and it wore on me. This can be a heavy, dark movie to get through at times.

Give the movie credit. It tries to do a lot. Ultimately though, I felt like it tries to do too much. A story focusing on Cecil's 30-plus year career at the White House would have been fascinating in itself. The same for a man trying to care for his family through the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, into Vietnam and beyond. Doing both ends up making things too bouncy to the point neither story gets the attention it deserves. Much time is spent with Oyelowo's efforts in the Civil Rights movement, Cecil and Gloria worried and angry back home. Moments that feel like they should resonate well and carry the movie feel rushed, not letting those moments breathe. Much like the recent The Monuments Men, this feels like a story that would have been better suited to a miniseries. The effort is admirable, the execution tolerable. Moments like Cecil interacting with his fellow butlers (Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz) ended up resonating more with me than most of the far-more dramatic scenes. Also look for Terrence Howard , Mariah Carey, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave in odd, out of place parts.

That's the biggest issue. It doesn't pick a route and stick with it. Moments that work among portions of story that drift too much, kinda a necessity with a story that covers six decades in a man's life. I also resented something from the final scene, a written, on-screen message thanking all the men and women that have helped gain "our freedom." As a white individual, this message hit me the wrong way, and I admit I may be over-analyzing. Is this a movie meant solely for an African-American audience? Should I not be watching this movie? It's a mixed bag in the end, a generally interesting movie that ultimately doesn't live up to its potential.

Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013): ** 1/2 /****

The Jack Bull

Made for TV typically has a pretty negative connotation, but it doesn't have to. Made for HBO in 1999, The Jack Bull is a western with a lot of potential coming from a strong cast and clearly some production value. The story though gets tedious and repetitive, wasting away what is obviously a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera.

Running his modest but successful spread in 1880s Wyoming, horse trader Myrl Redding (John Cusack) has been wronged by local rancher Henry Ballard (L.Q. Jones). In lieu of cash, Ballard takes two of Redding's prize stallions as payment only to mistreat the animals to the point of near-death. Seeking retribution, Redding steps into a world of trouble when the crotchety Ballard refuses to even admit a wrong was done. He tries to go about it the legal way but is met by the rancher's corrupt ways.  When all else fails after his family gets involved, Redding goes down the route of vigilante with a small army of gunmen. With Wyoming seeking statehood, the conflict is magnified as the state government tries to step in.

The western at its most simple -- and often times its best -- is typically the always present and always topical good vs. bad.  Simple as that. As the west expanded in the 19th Century, individuals were often led to that choice. Stand up in the face of bad/evil, or fold and let good be defeated. That's the premise here in 'Jack.' More than anything, a man must stand up for what he believes in, even when it seems a foolhardy venture. There is right and wrong so pick your side as Cusack's Myrl does. That premise is fine and dandy, but it gets beaten to death in this story. We get it. Myrl wants justice done no matter what it takes. Repeat that for two hours.

While I've always been a fan of John Cusack, that doesn't necessarily mean I think he's a great actor. This part clearly shows his acting ability. His Myrl is the prototypical good hero. He's a family man (with wife Miranda Otto and son Drake Bell) who wants to build up a life, a successful one. Myrl is a man of principle though, a trait that gets him in more trouble than he ever imagined. Cusack brings a humanity to the part, a necessary feature of the lead character here because otherwise his intent gets lost if we don't side with him. Some of the best scenes in the movie are those quiet moments with his families or his crew, including cowboy Woody (John C. McGinley) and Crow Indian and horse wrangler, Billy (Rodney A. Grant). There is a tragic element to the character, but like so much here it gets lost in the shuffle in the movie's second half.

So I love a good old-fashioned gun fight like anybody else, but I can appreciate a more cerebral western too.  Directed by John Badham, 'Jack' tries to be more intellectual, leaving the shoot 'em up angle by the wayside. The problem is that without much in the way of action, we're left to focus on the dialogue and the drama and a story that does a lot of meandering getting anywhere. By the 30-minute mark, I was bored. The story is interesting, but the execution of that story lacks any energy at all.  It bounces around far too much, and by the last 30-45 minutes it completely comes off the rails. It was marketed in the wrong fashion to me at least (nice job there, Netflix) so maybe I was just expecting something different. Whatever the case, a slow-moving story without much of a payoff is not a positive.

Boring story maybe, but the cast is pretty solid top to bottom. It's great to see western icon L.Q. Jones playing the bad guy, and he looks to be having a lot of fun doing it. John Goodman plays Tolliver, a judge called in to deal with the quickly escalating case with Scott Wilson, Jay O. Sanders and Kurt Fuller playing other varieties of corrupt government officials. McGinley and Grant are excellent in supporting parts as Myrl's hands at his little ranch to the point where the story would have been infinitely better with more of them around. Disappointing in the end though because the potential was there. Probably best for die-hard western fans more than anyone else.

The Jack Bull <---trailer (1999): **/****

Eight Men Out

Growing up a sports fan in Chicago, I learned to love the White Sox from an early age, going to countless games with my Dad over the years. The 2005 team that won the World Series is still one of the coolest moments of my life to this point and is something I'll never forget. But as much as I love the Sox, they will always be responsible for one of the darkest moments in baseball history, and bigger than that, professional sports. In 1919, eight players (allegedly) took money to fix the World Series, losing to Cincinnati. Their story was immortalized in 1988's Eight Men Out, one of the all-time underrated sports movies.

Tearing through the American League and winning the pennant, the Chicago White Sox, led by five-tool player Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney) and 29-game winner Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn), head into the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds the heavy favorites. Gamblers from Chicago to New York City see a chance for a big payday, starting by approaching Sox first baseman Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker) to see if enough players would be interested in throwing the series for a payoff. The plan sounds awful. How could professional ballplayers on one of the best teams ever assembled throw the championship? Having been mistreated and poorly paid for years by owner Charles Comiskey (Clifton James) though, Gandil finds suitors, finally settling on eight players, some more committed than others. When the best-of-nine series starts though, will the players go through with it?

As a sports fan, there is something incredibly uncomfortable about watching this movie. As a Sox fan, there is something really unpleasant watching the story unfold. The details of the Black Sox scandal plagued the franchise for years, the 2005 World Series team finally wiping some of the embarrassment away. Just as a sports fan and a baseball fan, you feel wrong watching something like this. 'Eight' neither condemns nor makes the eight players into heroes. Some like Eddie Cicotte are looking for money as his career winds down, Gandil is looking for a quick payday, and others like Jackson and third baseman Buck Weaver (John Cusack) aren't even sure they should be involved. Director John Sayles simply tells his story, and lets the viewer come to his own conclusions.

Any fan of sports, history, or doesn't live under a rock is at least somewhat familiar with this incident. Eight players were kicked out of baseball two years later for throwing at least part of the 1919 World Series although it's a personal judgment call as to whether all eight were guilty. In other words, you know how the story will end before it starts. Sayles takes on that challenge, directing a story that never failed to keep me interested. He builds a sense of doom throughout as the series develops, the fix clearly in. Cicotte's signal that he's going along with the fix -- hitting Game 1's first batter -- is a simple but surprising and even shocking moment. It is very real from here on in, and with one pitch things changed forever for baseball. The series bounces back and forth, even the Sox questioning if they should go along when their promised pay isn't provided. Give Sayles credit. He made the known content of history interesting, keeping us guessing.

With at least 30 or 40 speaking roles, a handful of performances still manage to rise to the top. Cusack especially as 3B Buck Weaver is a scene-stealer, a hard-nosed baseball player who claimed to the day he died he had nothing to do with the fix. He sees what's going on around him but is basically helpless to do anything. Sweeney plays Jackson as the immensely talented but naive Shoeless Joe, a player caught up in something bigger than he is. He knows nothing else other than baseball, and to this day fans still say he played as hard as ever in the 1919 Series. The movie's final shot focuses on Jackson, an incredibly moving closing. Strathairn as Eddie Cicotte delivers an understated but very effective performance, a pitcher who sees the finish line in sight, a man who's been mistreated by his boss, the dirt-cheap Charles Comiskey. John Mahoney plays Kid Gleason, the Sox manager who sees what's going on but is helpless to stop it.

That's far from all though, just the best of the bunch. The other players include Rooker's Gandil, Charlie Sheen as Happy Felsch, Don Harvey as shortstop Swede Risberg, Gandil's conniving partner, James ReadPerry Lang as Lefty Williams, a southpaw and second pitcher in on the fix, and as Fred McMullin, a little-used benchwarmer. Gordon Clapp, Bill Irwin and Jace Alexander play members of the Sox playing it straight come game-time. Michael Lerner plays Arnold Rothstein, big-time gambler putting the money up for the fix, with Christopher Lloyd, Kevin Tighe and Michael Mantell as other gamblers involved. Sayles and Eight Men Out author Eliot Asinof are good playing off each other as two sports writers suspicious of what's going on with the White Sox on the field.   

Good or bad, shown in a positive or negative light, there is something to be said for a baseball movie (of which there are too few). The baseball action is handled in exciting fashion without getting bogged down. The actors look like baseball players, appearing very natural on the field. The late 1910/early 1920s look of the movie doesn't hurt either, fans coming out to the stadium wearing suits. Throw away just about anything else though, and baseball and its simple beauty make up the heart of the movie. Even in the sport's darkest days, it is great to watch. Why it isn't remembered more fondly I'll never know.

Eight Men Out <---trailer (1988): ****/****

The Thin Red Line

With just five movies to his names over a 39-year span, director Terrence Malick's movies have been few and far between to say the least. He doesn't take just any movie. He takes on projects that appeal to him. Malick is a director that was probably born a generation too late because he would have fit perfectly with the French auteurs of the 1950s and 1960s.  Not making a movie for 20 years after 1978's Days of Heaven, Malick returned in 1998 with a heavily anticipated WWII film based off a James Jones novel, The Thin Red Line.

The timing of the release no matter how anticipated this movie was could not have been much worse.  'Red Line' was released in early 1999 after a limited release in December '98, just five months removed from Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan was shown in theaters.  It's not fair to compare the two movies, but the damage was done. Malick's film is the complete opposite of Private Ryan, and in the years since has been lost in the shadow of the Spielberg film.  I revisited The Thin Red Line, remembering enjoying it through several viewings. Instead this time around, I found a deeply flawed, even boring movie that I struggled to get through.

To write a plot synopsis of a Malick movie would be a waste of words so I'm not going to bother. He doesn't have stories in the linear sense. The Jones novel and this film are based on the fighting at Guadalcanal in 1942, but for Malick's purposes and his screenplay the setting is unnecessary. It could as easily have been Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Okinawa or any number of other Pacific islands that saw fighting in WWII. This isn't a story about the scope of war or the immensity of it all.  This is soldiers at their most basic, the thoughts racing through their heads as they take part in the unnatural act of killing another human being. Malick's screenplay does its best to delve into that aspect of war but ends up assembling an uneven, odd finished product that I can only qualify as an 'art house World War II movie.'

A trademark of Malick's in all his films is narration filling in for actual dialogue which is so often nuts and bolts conversation in his screenplays. When used correctly, narration can carry a movie, bringing emotion and power to a story that simple dialogue just couldn't do. Among the cast at different points just about everyone gets a crack at their own narration, but most prominently used are Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, and John Dee Smith who appears only at the beginning and the end but narrates throughout. First, all three of these narrators are Southerners with a heavy drawl, making it nearly impossible to distinguish which one of them is which in their narration.

More than some tough accents to get used to though is the fact that these narrations are so poetic, so lyrical, so ethereal and from another world that very little of it registers.  I've seen the movie several times, but only an exchange or two sticks with me.  Chaplin's Pvt. Bell constantly thinks of his wife, the love and desire he feels for her.  It is so mind-numbingly tedious that I completely lost interest anytime he started talking, his thoughts drifting back to the time he spent with her (played in flashback by Miranda Otto). All of the soldiers -- who end up being dirt-covered, nameless individuals -- wonder about life, love, death, God, pain, suffering, righteousness, faith, and so much more. It is well written, but it is so unnatural that it sounds like a poetry jam. The eerily calm toning and pacing will no doubt put some viewers to sleep. Malick is in absolutely no rush to speed things up to get where he wants.

That's the problem I've had with this movie though since I first saw it. What is Malick trying to accomplish? What's he trying to say? Anti-war message for sure, but in what way?  We see the horrendous physical and psychological efforts war and combat can take on the individual. We see the inner turmoil tearing soldiers apart as they battle with their inner demons. But the tone of the movie is so odd I don't quite know what the intention was. 

The background of this film is interesting in itself, worthy of its own review. When Malick came out of the woodwork to make a movie, actors -- big, big name stars -- lined up to fill out the cast for this WWII story. Rumors persist of some epic five or six hour movie. Malick had to make cuts to his final movie, completely editing out parts for Bill Pullman, Gary Oldman, Viggo Mortensen, and Mickey Rourke among others. As is, the finished product is 170 minutes long and still features an interesting cast full of recognizable names. Along with those mentioned earlier, there's Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John Cusack, Elias Koteas, Woody Harrelson, Adrien Brody and Thomas Jane. That's some of the cast. Check out the IMDB page for a complete listing. Even George Clooney and John Travolta make brief, pointless cameos.

With so many speaking parts, only a few get a chance to leave an impression -- positive or negative. Caviezel is the best as Pvt. Witt, a man who just doesn't belong in the army. His Heaven is the little Pacific village he deserts to, but he's torn away and brought back to the fighting as he's reunited with his company. He joins the fighting but doesn't quite know why. Sean Penn is great as Sgt. Welsh, the veteran sergeant who serves as the sounding board for all his men. His scenes with Caviezel's Pvt. Witt provide some of the movie's most memorable and more importantly, most moving movements as they question what they're accomplishing. Koteas too is a scene-stealer among the faceless soldiers as Capt. Staros, Charlie Company commander who refuses to waste his men in a frontal assault that has little hope of succeeding and feels the wrath from above.

That's probably the most frustrating part of this movie for me. There are moments of perfection that you just sit back and revel in, let them wash over you. Malick's directorial eye is never in question, his movies beyond gorgeous. Some directors work best with scripts and actors. Malick is a visual director, here Australia filling in for Guadalcanal. This is a story of nature and its beauty torn apart by the fighting. Malick is quite content to show a hillside with its long, green grass blowing in the wind.  Add in the musical score from Hans Zimmer, and you've got a winner. His main theme with the Melanesian choirs send chills down my back every time I hear it. Listen HERE. The rest of the score is more subdued than Zimmer's more well-known scores, but it soothes, it meditates, playing almost constantly in hushed tones over the action in some cases and the narration in others (Try HERE). There is something soothing about this movie in its execution and its message. It just can't keep up the momentum throughout.

Certain moments of this movie have stuck with me over the years. Almost an hour is spent in excruciating detail as C Company tries to take a Japanese bunker on a grassy hillside. Later, a running firefight takes the company through a ravaged Japanese camp, Zimmer's score combining with the action to make it one of the great realistic battle sequences ever, the aftermath as moving as the actual fighting. Witt's conversations with Welsh have always stuck with me, and Witt's final scenes as C Company goes on a patrol bring the movie full-circle in an inevitable way that you know is coming.

Is the movie pretentious and even tedious at times? Oh hell yes. There were times I wanted to fast forward through vast stretches of narration and shots of nature. The narration is done to death by the end of the movie, little lines of dialogue straight from a poet that I didn't even always comprehend what I'm hearing. But with all that said, I just can't give this movie a negative rating. The moments that work are so good they overpower and overshadow the weaker moments.  You have to know what you're getting into when you watch this movie, and even then, there's no guarantee you will like it. It is a movie experience though, and one every movie fan should at least try.

The Thin Red Line <---trailer (1998): ***/**** 

Hot Tub Time Machine

Sometimes all it takes is a movie title to draw you in.  It doesn't matter who is starring or who is directing, what the story is or if it's a drama, comedy, action, or romantic comedy.  The title can say everything you need to know before you see one scene from a trailer.  I was originally skeptical of this flick, thinking it looked like one of the stupidest movies I'd ever heard of.  But after more than a few positive reviews from people I have common interests in with movies, I caved and watched 2010's Hot Tub Time Machine.

When a movie's title is Hot Tub Time Machine, do you need to know anything else?  You're not going in to this movie as a viewer thinking you're about to see Citizen Kane or The Godfather.  What completely caught me by surprise was that even with its fair share of stupid, gross-out humor, 'Time Machine' is a genuinely funny movie.  It feels like a throwback to a lot of the raunchy comedies that are so often associated with the 1980s with its mix of John Hughes comedy and Back to the Future like situations.  A classic it is not, but certain scenes made me laugh until I cried.  Any movie that does that is okay in my book.

After drifting apart over the years, three high school friends, Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson) and Lou (Rob Corddry) reunite for one huge weekend fling. With Adam's nerdy nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) along for the adventure, they head to Kodiak Valley, a ski resort they visited often as high schoolers with generally raucous results. Partying in their suite's hot tub, they all pass out, waking up the next morning to find they've gone back in time to 1986 on a weekend they'd visited in the past.  The four friends must decide what to do, not miss with history and try to get back to 2010 or have some fun with this predicament.  At first, they decide to do exactly what they did the same weekend back in 1986, but what's the fun in that?  Enjoy yourselves!

Subtle humor this is not, but if you've made it this far into a review of a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine I guess you know that by now.  Even with the stupid humor, the laughs come from some great nods to classic 80s movies, and of course the crew's general confusion as to how exactly they've traveled back in time to 1986.  If that wasn't enough, I'll recommend this movie for one line and one line only.  Everything else is just gravy because it is one of the most flawlessly delivered lines I've ever seen.  When they figure out what's going on, Robinson states in a deadpan voice "It must be a...hot tub time machine" right as he looks up at the audience.  Watch it HERE. A movie that knows how ridiculous it is and embraces it always gets points from me.

When I first saw the trailer, everything looked normal for a raunchy R-rated comedy with one major exception.  John Cusack? Really? You've got no other offers on the table.  An iconic actor from the 1980s, he somehow seems out of place here and just doesn't provide many laughs.  He looks to be sleepwalking through the part.  Thankfully, Robinson (one of the best comedic actors around right now) and Corddry are there to pick up the slack.  Robinson's Nick is dealing with his long-time girlfriend cheating on him with some hilarious results while Corddry is the self-proclaimed asshole of the group because every group of friends has one.  It's their delivery, their physicality, everything works for these two.  Duke's Jacob generally plays straight man but gets some great laughs anyways with his subtle deliveries of some great lines.  Check out IMDB's memorable quotes for just a sampling.

Now it is a time travel movie so you've got those issues that any movie that's ever dealt with time travel...yes, even in a comedy.  By going back in time, can you change the future like Marty McFly?  Will one little thing epically change the course of time?  Of course, there's the Back to the Future references, an excellent, hilarious analysis of the first Terminator movie and how it applies, and a running gag with a bellhop (Crispin Glover in a perfect supporting part) who we know loses his right arm, but not how. It's only a matter of time before it happens, and when it is revealed, it doesn't disappoint.  On top of it all, there's Chevy Chase as the all-knowing janitor who knows exactly what's going on but refuses to let anyone in on it. He's in the movie maybe 8 minutes total, and he steals every scene he's in.

I don't know what else to say.  More than pleasantly surprised with this movie that I assumed would be one of the worst I'd ever seen.  Sure, there's some glitches, and not all the jokes work but a majority of them do.  Entertaining, hilarious, and highly quotable.  Highly recommended.

Hot Tub Time Machine <---trailer (2010): ***/****

Runaway Jury

So you check the mail, and that dreaded letter appears, the one you fear finding...JURY SUMMONS!!!  Ah, the benefits of a democracy where accused crooks get to be tried by a jury of their peers.  Too bad about being on the jury though.  You get to meet all sorts of new idiots, get paid very little, and in general, are taken away from your everyday life.  That is unless you're on a jury in the movies.  There you get to meet Henry Fonda, save the world, and deal with all sorts of intrigue and deception behind the scenes of the courtroom trial, like 2003's Runaway Jury.

That description of course minimalizes the movie and the duty of being a jury member.  Based on a novel from courtroom master John Grisham, this 2003 thriller benefits from a very strong, very deep cast that turns in worthy performances from top to bottom.  The main idea of the novel/movie is one that should make you chuckle.  Someone actually wants to serve on a jury.  As for their motivations, I can't give everything away here.

After two years of pretrial, a court case is finally going to trial.  A lawyer, husband and father (an uncredited Dylan McDermott) is gunned down in his office along with 10 other employees.  The man's wife is suing the guns distributor with a famed prosecutor from New Orleans, Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), agreeing to take the case.  The arms companies understand that if this case is lost, they stand to lose possibly billions of dollars, and hire a specialist to make sure the verdict goes their way.  His name is Rankin Finch (Gene Hackman), and he specializes in blackmail and deception to get the right jury candidates on the jury and then use them to his advantage.  One juror, Nick Easter (John Cusack), isn't going to go along so easy though.  With help from his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz), Nick plans to blackmail Finch into paying for him to sway the jury.  Of course, the offer stands for Rohr too so whoever comes through with the $10 million gets his jury.

As I reviewed several weeks ago with Primal Fear, courtroom dramas translate incredibly well from play, novel, and TV to the big screen.  It's a setting that is naturally full of tension and nerves so when you throw a halfway decent script into a mix with a very deep cast, it can be hard to mess that formula up.  In a nice twist though, the courtroom drama is secondary here with the behind the scenes situation ending up being far more interesting.  Cusack's character starts off as this clueless dolt, and then you realize he's the one duping us all along.  But with girlfriend Marlee, are they looking for a huge payout or do they have ulterior motives with their actions?

That's where I was a little disappointed with this Gary Fleder-directed courtroom drama; the ending.  Easter and Marlee clearly know what they're doing and more than hold their own in these confrontations with the always-intimidating Gene Hackman.  You're honestly not sure of their intentions for much of the movie, but it's apparent they are not just in it for the money.  When their true motivations are revealed in the last 10 minutes, everything fits together nicely that can be wrapped up with a nice bow.  But there is something missing, and for me, the finale limps to the finish.  I won't call it sappy, but it certainly tries to pull at the heart strings.  It is not necessarily a bad ending, but not the one I envisioned.

Complain about whatever you'd like from this movie, but the casting is basically off-limits.  And with so many names, characters drift in and out, but almost each one is given their chance to shine.  The jury includes chameleon-like Cliff Curtis as an ex-Marine, Jennifer Beals, Nora Dunn, an uncredited Luis Guzman, and several other recognizable faces.  In the courtroom, Bruce McGill plays Judge Harkin, Bruce Davison plays defense lawyer Durwood Cable (doesn't he just sound bad?), and Jeremy Piven is a jury specialist working with Hoffman, and Stanley Anderson as the face of the guns distributors.  As two of the four main leads, Cusack and Weisz work well together, Weisz especially standing out from the crowd with her performance.

What really stuck with me though was the performances from Hoffman and Hackman, two of the biggest stars to come out of the late 1960s and then the 1970s.  Before this 2003 drama, the two had never worked together so it's a treat to see them in the same movie.  The problem though? Originally they weren't even supposed to have a scene together.  Problem solved when a quick rewrite had the two in a confrontation in a courthouse restroom that echoes De Niro and Pacino talking in Heat (the DVD special features discuss this in detail).  It's a scene full of great dialogue and a camera that never really stops moving, pushing the frenetic conversation to an even more anxious level.  Their performances on the whole stand out from the rest of the movie, but their scene together -- almost 7 minutes long -- is a big reason to watch this movie.

So overall a flawed courtroom drama, but one that is definitely worth looking into.  The story is set in New Orleans, and while location shooting doesn't always jive well with typically inside courtroom dramas, Fleder does show off the city when given the chance.  Above everything else -- including an ending that didn't blow me away -- the cast is the main reason to watch this one.

Runaway Jury <----trailer (2003): ***/****         

2012

Watching his movies, I can't help but wonder if Roland Emmerich would have been better suited if he was born about 20 years earlier.  That way, his success in disaster movies would have coincided nicely with the 1970s epidemic of disaster movies.  To his name, he already has Godzilla, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and now 2012, all dealing with some sort of disaster of epic proportions.  Of course, all of these movies use CGI heavily so where would the German actor be?

I feel the need to point this out so I don't come across too critical, but Emmerich's movies are awful.  (How could that be construed as critical?).  Even his good ones like The Patriot, Stargate, and the ones mentioned before are awful movies.  Just about all of them qualify in the always entertaining 'so bad they're good' category and count me among the moviegoers who enjoyed these schlock fests.  But with his most recent outing, last fall's 2012, I think Emmerich finally hit rock bottom.  It's beyond 'bad but good' and produces so many unintentional -- I hope -- laughs that I'd recommend it for the comedy, not the drama.

Now as the year 2012 draws closer, more and more is being made of the ancient Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world, the apocalypse.  Emmerich takes the idea and runs with it, going from zero to 60 like nobody's business.  An American geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor, one of the few bright spots in the movie) working with a friend in India finds out the Earth's core is beginning to heat up.  He informs his government superior (Oliver Platt in prime a-hole mode) who then passes it along to the president (Danny Glover).  Fast forward three years to 2012, and the predicted cataclysmic events come earlier than expected.

A divorced dad (John Cusack) works to save his family as the Earth starts to tear itself apart with volcanoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes all starting at once.  It's while vacationing in Yellowstone with his two kids that Cusack's all-American dad starts to catch wind of the coming disaster, but he shrugs off the warnings of a conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson) spouting off about the coming disasters.  The crazy guy is of course, correct, forcing divorcee dad to keep his family alive...somehow....some way.  From the theorist, he heard of a government plan to continue mankind, spaceships outfitted to handle 400,000 people each.  The only problem?  These ships are in China.  Oh, but good news, the new dad in the family has taken flying lessons!  Now let's all find a plane!

Yeah, yeah, I know no one goes to these big budget disaster movies for the story, but come on, Roland Emmerich.  That's all you've got?  More so than most disaster movies, this one depends on coincidence and huge strokes of luck more than it should.  It's also pretty lazy with four different instances of characters having to outrun deadly death clouds/earthquakes/tsunamis/asteroids, like THIS ONE.  Some of those moments do provide the story's funniest scenes with Cusack scrambling around and looking worried, screaming at anyone who will listen.  I typically like Cusack as an actor, but he was not the right guy for this part.

The cast is full of big names -- as is required in a disaster movie -- who are forced to play cardboard cutouts of characters.  Anyone with half a brain cell can figure out within 30 seconds of a character's introduction if they will or will not survive the disaster.  Divorced dad making up for lost time?  He'll make it, especially cause he's got a cute daughter.  New dad who is an all-around douchebag?  Don't hold your breath.  That's the problem with the whole movie, you can tell where it's going before the movie probably even knew.  Also worth mentioning are Amanda Peet as Cusack's ex, and Thandie Newton as the President's daughter destined to end up with Ejiofor's scientist.  One other observation, do disaster movies require a black president?  Just wondering.

Now on to the good stuff, the CGI.  A sign of good CGI -- for me at least -- is that it doesn't produce groans from audiences when it appears, so basically anything even remotely fake-looking.  Emmerich spares no expense (okay, maybe the story) to produce some top notch CGI action.  The apocalypse never looked so good as when Emmerich is directing the story.  Not surprisingly, watch this one for the special effects.  Your viewing experience will almost certainly be more enjoyable with friends and beer too.  Brace yourself though, it's a long movie at 159 minutes.  And don't trick yourself into thinking it'll fly by, there are times (basically any dialogue scene) that are painfully slow.

Saving the best for last though, the ending.  Cusack saves the day and helps one of the spaceships -- they're actually arks -- survive.  A title cards reads 'Day 27....Year 01'  (pretentious much?) as the three remaining arcs sail around the world, or at least what's left of it.  We learn that Africa, the whole damn continent, wasn't affected at all by the natural disasters.  Not even a little bit, none, zilch, nada.  So actually, the end of the world was only sorta the end of the world.  It's one of the stupidest endings ever...only topped by the alternate ending on the DVD.  No spoilers here, I'll force you to rent/buy it.

A truly awful movie that seems to object to its status as a truly awful movie.  Lots of overacting from some typically talented people, cliched and boring story, and some cool, well-done CGI to balance things out.

2012 <----trailer (2009): */****