Risen

I was raised as a Catholic, going to church every weekend with my Dad and my sister. Over the years, I've mostly left organized religion behind. I struggle with my beliefs in religion, of a higher being, of faith in general. Through the ups and downs though, I've always been fascinated with the story of Jesus. Whether he was the Son of God or just a man (or both), it is a truly interesting, layered individual, one we'll never fully know. Slinking into theaters this weekend is 2016's Risen, the story of how Jesus' supposed Resurrection from the dead sparked quite a tense situation in Jerusalem.

Stationed in Jerusalem -- in 33 A.D. -- a Roman tribute, Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), is in command of a veteran legion tasked with helping keep the peace. Upon arriving back at the garrison having put down a small rebellion in the hills, Clavius is summoned by the Roman governor of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate (Peter Firth). While Clavius was away, Pilate ordered the crucifixion of  a preacher from Nazareth who was causing problems on all fronts. Now that the preacher is dead, it is feared by many in power that the man's message of resurrection from the dead in 3 days will now incite more disbelief, more fervor, more fight against the Romans. Sure enough, on the morning of the third day, the body is missing from the tomb it had been buried in. What happened? Was the body stolen? Is there something more powerful going on? With Pilate's less than patient mandate to get the job done and do it quickly, Clavius must get to the truth of it all. What really happened to the preacher from Nazareth known as Jesus?

Semi-SPOILERS AHEAD For those that believe Jesus is the Son of God, the thought he rose from the dead is a matter of truth. For others? It's far more incredulous. I don't know where I stand exactly on the subject. I'd like to believe, but I just don't know. 'Risen' -- though it keeps you guessing throughout -- attacks the subject as if Jesus (called by his actual name, Yeshua) did in fact rise from the dead. It's not overtly religious as a film, but your personal beliefs-faith-convictions will no doubt impact what you take away from the film, or if you even like it. I liked it a lot for all the right reasons. End of Semi-SPOILERS.

In the heyday of the EPIC roadshow film hitting theaters -- the 1950's and 1960's -- historical epics were quite common in theaters, specifically biblical epics. How then do you inject some life into a sub-genre that's long since lost its popularity? With an original story like this! Director Kevin Reynolds wrote a screenplay with Paul Aiello that turns one of the most famous stories in history -- Jesus' death and Resurrection -- into a mystery, a police procedural of sorts. How genuinely original and creative is that? If it sounds too straightforward...well, it is a perspective on a familiar story just waiting to be told. Some general background info and knowledge wouldn't hurt here either going in. A lot going on, a lot of names and history so while it's never out-and-out confusing, it could be a lot to juggle if you're unfamiliar with the story and its players.

One of the archetypal characters in biblical epics were non-believers who wanted to believe -- sometimes against their better judgment -- who are then brought into the growing Christian faith. In steps Joseph Fiennes as Clavius, a longtime Roman soldier who's grown weary of the life full of death, blood and destruction. When instructed to find out what happened to Jesus, he doggedly pursues the clues of a case that just seems too impossible to be even remotely true. A man couldn't really rise from the dead now, could he? The transformation Clavius goes through is believable and very effective because Fiennes does such a fine job with the lead performance. An underrated actor all around, he's one of the best things going here in 'Risen.' We see a man tortured inside by his own doubt, comparing everything he knows and believes to all those things that you have to take on faith (no matter how difficult). A layered performance, a fascinating character and our point person in solving one of history's great stories and mysteries.

This isn't an all-star cast full of thousands. There's some recognizable names and faces with an ensemble cast that fills in around Fiennes as necessary. Firth is excellent as Pilate, given some depth here and not just as a cardboard cutout, the easy villain. Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy himself) plays Lucius, Clavius' young aide, inexperienced but wanting to learn. Who else to look for? A lot of familiar names if you're familiar with the story, including Mary Magadelene (Maria Botto), Joseph of Arimathea (Antonio Gil) , and Jesus' disciples, most notably Simon Peter (Stewart Scudamore) and Bartholomew (Stephen Hagan).

Filmed on-location in Spain, 'Risen' has that sun-drenched, sandy, dusty look of so many past epics from The Greatest Story Ever Told to King of Kings, Ben-Hur to Gladiator and so many others. In that sense, Reynolds' film feels like a bit of a throwback to biblical epics of old, albeit with such a cool twist leading the story. How do you prove a man did or didn't die? Finding his body and quickly before it rots to the point it can no longer be identified. In 33 A.D. in the heat of the desert...that's not long. It's never slow-moving, always moving forward, always working toward something bigger in a finished product that runs 107 minutes. There are times I thought it dragged some in the second half when things should have been picking up momentum, but the ending itself -- and some twists along the way in getting there -- certainly make up for it.

In an odd way of looking at 'Risen' as a police procedural of sorts, the story works as it drops hints and clues where it's going. The story we follows begins with us being thrown right into the tail end of Jesus' crucifixion, and away we go from there. There are references to the bloodied crown of thorns, the shroud of Turin, several Bible passages about the days and weeks following the death and Resurrection -- specifically the Upper room -- which we just don't know much about other than some vague(ish) references. The best thing going here (along with Mr. Fiennes) is a moving performance by Cliff Curtis as Jesus, a quiet, dignified performance that just works so well. I don't want to give too much away, but it's an excellent appearance. The second half does take some surprising twists that lean toward the more religious nature so be forewarned going in.

But taking it all in, I loved it. A bit of a throwback to days of old with Hollywood historical epics mixed in with some new elements of a biblical detective story. Fiennes is excellent, but the whole cast is very good. It's not making much money in theaters, but the reviews are fair to middling (with some that actually liked it) so take advantage during the Lenten season and go see this one. And that's from a heathen like me!

Risen (2016): ***/****

Colombiana

Having worked in film and television for the last 10-plus years, Zoe Saldana has made quite a name for herself over the years. She's been in comedy, drama and action but yet hasn't been able to make herself into that HUGE star. How about an effort to make her that star? That would be an action flick that tries to go for something a tad different with a female lead, 2011's Colombiana.

It's 1992 in Bogota, Colombia and young Cataleya (Amandla Stenberg) is witness to the deaths of her parents. Her father was tied up with a drug lord and had some damning information against him, prompting a hit on both him and his wife at the hands of the drug lord's enforcer, Marco (Jordi Molla). In the aftermath, Cataleya escapes, getting out of the country with some help from American law enforcement and traveling to Chicago where she meets her crime-connected uncle (Cliff Curtis). Even as a young girl she knows what she wants to do. Cataleya wants to be a killer, a hired gun, and Emilio begrudgingly agrees to train her. Some 15 years later, Cataleya (Saldana) has grown into a terrifyingly effective killer. She has turned into a bit of a vigilante, but her sights never change too much. Cataleya intends to exact her revenge on the drug lord and his enforcer, Marco, no matter what it takes or what it costs.

The ingredients were here for a solid movie from the cast to the story to a not so ordinary female lead in an action movie. Yeah, they were here, but in the end they didn't add up to a winner. Director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 2 and 3, Taken 2, soon to be Taken 3) tones down some of his usual over the top schtick in terms of style-heavy action, but working off a script from Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, something is just missing. Lots of good elements -- potentially at least -- that don't quite gel in the end. It received pretty middling to negative reviews and did okay at the worldwide box office, earning about $60 million, but was far from a big success. So what's good? What's bad?

With the Star Trek movies, Avatar, The Losers, Takers, and most recently Guardians of the Galaxy, Zoe Saldana has shown she's a tough actress more than capable of holding her own with a tough guy cast around her. So how about her getting a crack at a lead role? Like most of the characters here, the issues aren't with the acting. It's the script. The Cataleya character is interesting but never developed in truly interesting fashion. Why does she take so long to exact her revenge? Her desire for revenge becomes an obsession but she seems surprised when the drug lord fights back in brutal fashion. Think things through! Now just as an action star, Saldana nails the part. She looks like a stiff wind would knock her over, but my goodness, does she look good dispatching countless nameless henchmen. Saldana is given all sorts of chances to undress, wear tight clothing, wear very little clothing and generally look good doing it. She's got the potential to be an excellent action star if she so chooses.

But what about everyone else? The other characters seem like cardboard cutouts of interesting people. They're ideas of characters more than red-blooded people who...ya know, might actually exist someplace. I love seeing Jordi Molla's name pop up in the credits, and his Marco is a smooth villain but he's simply not around enough to be effective. The same for the drug lord he works for, Don Luis Sandoval (Beto Benites), an under utilized bad guy too. The similarly reliable Curtis is kept in the background, his few scenes with Saldana providing some solid dramatic moments but simply not enough. Michael Vartan is Cataleya's lover, a painter who's curious about this beautiful woman's mysterious qualities, and Lennie James plays the FBI officer trying to track Cataleya down as her kill count piles up. Max Martini plays his assistant and right-hand man.

It's a movie I wanted to like more. The action-packed finale packs a pretty good wallop -- stylish and bloody and slow-motion -- but getting there can be a trip at times. There are too many portions that feel rush and/or disjointed. As well, there are some cringe-worthy moments from young Cataleya turning into a parkour runner and evading an army of drug gunmen to Curtis' Emilio opening fire in public to prove a point and simply walking away as police pull up in force. Say what now?!? It doesn't help that the film is "filmed" in Chicago but the city I grew up in sure looks like Los Angeles, at least a west coast city. It sure had some potential, but it ends up being a disappointment.

Colombiana (2011): **/****

Sunshine

A bit in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" has a character exposed to the immensity of outer space, our galaxy and much further on.  The kicker is that everyone who sees how big the universe is thus feels as small as an ant and kills themselves.  It's funnier than it sounds, trust me.  But the size of space is hard to comprehend, one of many things that flashed through my head while watching 2007's Sunshine.  A sci-fi story that is a lot more at times -- and a lot less at others -- asks a lot of questions, some harder to answer than others.

The science portion of the science fiction angle has this ability to drive a lot of viewers off as they claim "Oh, that's ridiculous.  That could never happen."  Well thankfully, I've never been a science whiz and when I see something that doesn't quite make sense, it usually drifts over me and is gone as quick as it appeared.  Sunshine has its fair share of those moments, but the build-up and the tension and the character dynamics are so interesting to watch, the science of it all can be superfluous at times.  I was loving this movie, absolutely loving it, for about an hour, and then director Danny Boyle adds a twist so unnecessary and out of place that it almost ruins the whole movie.  Stew on that for a little while.

Some 50 years into the future, the sun is dying much faster than ever predicted, leaving the Earth in a state of winter at all times, the planet basically freezing to death.  Aboard an immense space ship, the Icarus II, eight astronauts navigate from Earth to the Sun carrying a bomb, a massive payload the size of Manhattan Island, that it is believed will create a star within a star by exploding the bomb within the sun.  The voyage is millions of miles away, and the Icarus II has been moving toward its goal for some 16 months.  But as the ship passes Mercury, an odd distress signal is heard, that of Icarus I, the first ship sent to accomplish the mission before mysteriously disappearing.  What happened to the first ship, and could it happen to the second before the mission  is accomplished, dooming Earth to its fate?

A great ensemble fills out Icarus II's crew, starting with Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), the ship's captain, Harvey (Troy Garity), 2nd in command and communications officer, Searle (Cliff Curtis), ship's doctor and psych officer, Capa (Cillian Murphy), the physicist in charge of the bomb, Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), the biologist, Cassie (Rose Byrne), the pilot, Trey (Benedict Wong), the navigator, and Mace (Chris Evans), the no-nonsense engineer. On a journey with no outside world to escape to that will take years, the crew develops tendencies and routines, fighting amongst themselves while balancing out the scale of their mission. The first hour of the movie as we see these characters and get to know them is by far the best part, seeing this dynamic among eight people as they risk their lives to save millions.

Deep space provides all sorts of open doors for a movie to walk into.  It's unexplored, and anything could exist out there.  It takes years to travel the millions of miles between Earth and the Sun so rescue isn't just around the corner.  These astronauts are on their own.  That premise is what drives the story.  The future of the Earth depends on this crew and their ability.  Add in an absolutely beautiful visual movie, a very moving if underused score by John Murphy (listen HERE) and you've got all these great elements to work with. About halfway through, I thought I was watching one of the best sci-fi movies ever, only to have a curveball thrown my way.  It helped following the movie reading scathing posts on the message boards that I wasn't the only one who hated an unnecessary late twist.

SPOILERS for this paragraph SPOILERS  The disappearance and then reappearance of Icarus I is a perfect addition to the story, in theory.  It's like Christmas Eve, you're curious what those presents are, but it's almost more fun not knowing what's inside.  How did the Icarus disappear? Did they kill each other? Did the Sun destroy them? Was it an alien? It's better not knowing here.  It is that sense of mystery of what space could contain.  ANYTHING.  Then in need of repairs, the Icarus II docks with I, and over the last 30-45 minutes we see that it was the deranged captain (Mark Strong) who took out his crew and now plans to take out II, hoping to be the man who last talks to "God," or in reality the sun and all its power. What was one of the best science-fiction movies ever now devolves into a teen slasher film.  Really? That's where you wanted to go with this?  The ending still remains incredibly moving in its execution, but it's almost an afterthought. END OF SPOILERS

There are good twist, great twist, stupid twists and unnecessary ones.  This one was stupid and unnecessary in so many ways. It almost completely ruins what otherwise could have been a classic movie about space, space travel, and all the emotions and feelings that race through the human mind when faced with an impossible, nearly suicidal task.  Almost completely ruins. The first hour and the last five minutes are so good I'm still recommending this one.

Sunshine <----trailer (2007): ***/****

 

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): ***/****