City of Industry

I kinda knew the definition of the term but would have had trouble describing it. So thank you much, Internet, I looked up the term 'neo-noir.' The meaning? A film that uses the similar jumping off point of the classic film noir movies from the late 1940's and into the 1950's while adding something new, something fresh in terms of style or story that wasn't readily available. Today's neo-noir, 1997's City of Industry.

In Palm Springs, ex-con Lee Egan (Timothy Hutton) has bought his way into a potentially highly lucrative heist, one that could net over $3 million. His friend, Jorge (Wade Dominguez), is on-board to help with Lee's brother, Roy (Harvey Keitel), even agreeing to come out of retirement with such a payday awaiting them. Rounding out Lee's crew is their getaway driver, the fiery, feisty Skip (Stephen Dorff). What is the job exactly? Black market diamonds are scheduled to arrive at a Palm Springs diamond broker with a Russian mobster arriving to pick them up. While there's always the potential for craziness and the unexpected, this job seems pretty straightforward if potentially very dangerous. Lee, Roy and Co. go about putting all the pieces together, but with that much money on the line, you can never really fully trust anyone...can you?

So neo-noir, it's one of those weird descriptions. It's vague really, allowing for some personal interpretations depending on the film. When I think of it, I think of movies like the hyper-violent, hyper-stylized flicks like Drive and To Live and Die in L.A. (of which I loved both a whole freaking lot). 'City' is more traditional to its noir roots with its bleak, downright unpleasant world full of betrayals and back-stabbings where money is not only a powerful motivator; it may be the only motivator. I'd never heard of this crime drama from director John Irvin, but it's certainly an interesting flick. 

'City' is an interesting finished product. With its opening credits, I thought I was getting into an uber-stylish crime drama. Hyper-fast editing, black and white photography mixed with color photography, it felt like quite a scene-setter. A bit misleading because Irvin's film isn't that stylish. Hmm, what word to use instead? Let's say grim. Downright grim. This isn't a stylish criminal underworld where small-time crooks win in the end. This is a bloody, betrayal-riddled world where loyalty comes cheap and usually ends up with a knife/bullet (Your choice!) in your back. That lack of all hope reminded me some of so many French crime dramas where there's a sense of doom and foreboding that the characters seem fully aware of...but continue on regardless. Through all that bloody chaos, there's a hard-fought honor among thieves.

Who better to bring that to the forefront that one of the coolest actors ever, Mr. Harvey Keitel! I'd watch the man read a telephone book so watching him take a crack at a mostly silent anti-hero is a step above for me! Keitel's Roy is all business even when it comes to working with his brother, giving him no slack. He's a professional, a businessman when it comes to pulling a job. It's only in the second half of the movie when the story takes a severe turn do we see the depths Roy will go to when he's been wronged. Like the best anti-heroes, Keitel makes it look effortless. He steals scenes without doing much at all, but his presence alone carries whole stretches of movies. When there are outbursts -- whether it be emotionally or physically -- it comes out like a volcano erupting. Little warning but when you see it happen...just watch out. Excellent leading part for Mr. Keitel.

There's no huge star power here for 'City' but what's there is choice. Dorff is excellent at playing the possibly unhinged Skip, a worthy adversary when a massive amount of cash is on the line. Hutton and Dominguez are solid in smaller parts as well to round out the crew. Who else? How about Famke Janssen as Rachel, Jorge's wife who's become increasingly displeased with her husband's line of work. Lucy Liu -- a very topless Lucy Liu -- makes a quick appearance as a stripper who is holding onto some valuable information while Elliott Gould makes an uncredited appearance as a crime kingpin with his hand in everything dark and sinister in the city.

If 'City' has a weak point, it comes in the pacing and too-familiar story. There's a pretty major twist about the 30-minute mark -- I ain't much for giving away spoilers -- that seems to re-energize things nicely...for a touch. Then things fall back into a slower-paced rhythm that doesn't offer much in the way of surprises. The body count rises pretty quickly through the last hour-plus with some startling violence at times. As bleak as the general tone is throughout, the ending is actually pretty hopeful which is unfortunate if you ask me. The whole story seems to be building to something bleak, downbeat and downright unhappy, but that never quite comes together.

Still, there's just enough to give a slight recommendation. It's called the Harvey Keitel Effect.

City of Industry (1997): ** 1/2 /****

Harry and Walter Go to New York

Some films are doomed from the start. They just are. Production problems, casting decisions, pacing/tone issues, any and all can derail a movie. There's a whole wing of Hollywood movies that are known as Epic Failures. Some overcame it, others didn't. Massively over-budget, 1976's Harry and Walter Go To New York is one that didn't despite an impressive cast.

It's 1908 and a pair of vaudeville actors, Harry (James Caan) and Walter (Elliott Gould), are struggling to make any money at all at their shows, eventually resorting to pickpocketing where they are not surprisingly caught quickly. At the same time, infamous millionaire safecracker Adam Worth (Michael Caine) is caught during a robbery and sent to prison. Working as Worth's slave-servants, Harry and Walter manage to escape and with the blueprints for the infamous bank robber's next job. Unfortunately the well-to-do Worth isn't far behind, and now it's a race against the clock to see who can pull off the job first; the bumbling performers turned con men or the experienced, expert robber?

For whatever reason, this is a movie that received generally poor reviews. On the other hand, I liked it a lot. As Roger Ebert mentions in his review, 'Harry and Walter' is clearly made in the vein of The Sting. There isn't much ink about the movie or its troubled production, but I'm guessing the massive budget problems had to do with the lavish period sets and costumes. It's turn of the century Massachusetts and New York, and everything from the ultra-detailed sets to the immaculate time-appropriate suits to the light-hearted, goofy score from David Shire works well together, especially Laszlo Kovacs' Earth-toned, dulled down color cinematography. It is a period piece, and this 1976 flick gets the period details done the right way.

I'm thinking the biggest reason for the generally negative reviews is the type of humor. Where The Sting was well-written and funny in its ability to underplay the situation, 'Harry and Walter' is not so subtle. High comedy this is not, director Mark Rydell's period-heist movie relying far more on physical humor, and bumbling humor at that. I typically don't go for that type of humor, but it worked for me here. Much of that credit goes to Caan and Gould as the buddy relationship that produces much of the laughs. I've always been a Caan fan, but this is a showier part for him, not the usual tough guy role. Case in point: he sings and dances. Caan's Harry is the confident know-it-all, Gould's Walter the quiet, nervous knows it won't work partner. They play off each other effortlessly.

If James Caan and Elliott Gould weren't enough though (and shame on you if that's the case), the supporting cast shouldn't disappoint. How often do you see Michael Caine get third billing in a movie? His Adam Worth is a scene-stealer, not quite a villain but certainly approaching that territory. Diane Keaton plays Lissa Chestnut, a crusading newspaper woman who joins the bank robbing effort and has everyone fall for her. Charles Durning is the worried bank owner trying to save his $. Also look for Lesley Ann Warren, Michael Conrad, Burt Young, Val Avery, Carol Kane, Jack Gilford, Dennis Dugan and Ted Cassidy rounding out a very deep cast.

A period piece merged with a heist flick certainly had my curiosity on high alert. The actual heist isn't anything special as Harry and Walter's "expert team" attempt to get into Durning's perfect safe. In order to create a diversion, Harry and Walter end up hijacking a stage show with their own hijinx and shenanigans. The act finally wears thin a little, but it's not enough to detract from a movie I enjoyed a lot. The cast is too talented so even if you don't go along with the physical comedy/humor, you should still get some enjoyment out of it. If nothing else, look for the prison from The Shawshank Redemption as a familiar location. Well worth checking out.

Harry and Walter Go To New York <---trailer (1976): ***/****  

Contagion

For a lack of a better description or word choice, there are a lot of hack directors currently working in Hollywood. No real specialty or ability, they point the camera and let things take care of themselves. Steven Soderbergh? He ain't one of those talents. I come away more impressed with each film he directs, including one of his most recent ventures, 2011's Contagion.

After visiting Hong Kong on business, Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns home to her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), and isn't feeling quite well, thinking she picked up a bug along her travels. The next morning she drops dead after going through a series of violent seizures. Mitch doesn't believe what he hears, claiming she was fine just minutes and hours before. It wasn't just Beth though. Something else is going along in various cities, regions and countries around the world. People are dropping dead with a variety of symptoms, a disease that the medical community can't quite pinpoint. The death toll grows and grows with each day. What is this new virus? Can it be stopped in time?

This is not an easy film to review, mostly because it isn't a film that's trying to entertain you. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the wave of big budget disaster movies that hit theaters in the 1960s and 1970s. All-star cast in a perilous situation, who will survive? I guess it's appropriate that a 2010s version isn't an ocean liner overturning or a jet airliner struggling to stay in the air. Instead, we get a smart, well-written pseudo-documentary/medical thriller that seems more relevant in our time than any old disaster movie. Mostly though, it's not a movie you come away from thinking 'Man, that was great.' I finished it thinking 'Great movie, and a well-made one' but great? I don't think it wants to be great. It's content to be different from the norm, and I always give points for that effort.

That's where Soderbergh's film succeeds on so many levels. Yes, it is a feature film, but it feels very real from the start. Some of the director's touches are there -- title cards introducing locales and background -- but it is a very self conscious film for a 2011 audience. News spreads like wildfire of this new disease, Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet in general going crazy. News turns into rumors, rumors turn into chaos, and then it's the individual for himself. A condemnation of our society? Yeah, a little, but it isn't heavy-handed or forced. Instead, it's probably spot on in its portrayal of how our modern society would react in this situation. When survival is on the line, rioting, stealing, killing, everything becomes blurry. Where do you draw the line then as what's too far? Kudos to Soderbergh for handling the situation so smoothly and even effortlessly at times. Just one more sign of a very talented individual behind the camera.

His cast assembled here is an impressive one, starting with Damon as Mitch, a widowed husband trying to protect his daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron) from something he can't see. It is an ensemble cast with pretty equal screen-time divided among the group, but Damon's Mitch is the most personal of the stories. Damon as always is very likable on-screen, especially when fighting for his daughter. And you know you're in for it when a big name like Paltrow is dead 10 minutes in. Oops, "spoilers" I guess. Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet play doctors at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Fishburne working from headquarters, Winslet in the field trying to isolate the virus. Jude Law is perfectly slimy as a blogger with quite a following and therefore, a whole lot of power at his disposal. The beautiful Marion Cotillard humanizes a small part as a World Health Organization (WHO) doctor trying to find the source of the virus in Hong Kong. Jennifer Ehle is also very good as Dr. Hextall, a scientist/doctor working diligently to try and find a vaccine. Also look for Elliott Gould, Bryan Cranston, Enrico Colantoni and John Hawkes in small but important supporting parts.

With so many characters and storylines, 'Contagion' does bounce around quite a lot, but it never loses track of where it's going. Title cards show the day and location so we get a sense of how quick the virus is moving, the cells reproducing quicker and quicker. We learn what the virus is as the characters do. The movie has a very distinct look, colors filtered and washed out, the impending doom hanging in the air. Cliff Martinez's score is a gem, part electronic, part synthesized like so many solid Tangerine Dream scores. Listen to track one HERE and follow along with the other links for a taste of it. These are the elements that are easier to critique, but the movie on the whole is well worth recommending.

Don't be confused heading into Contagion. It is an at times very disturbing, highly upsetting story. It isn't always an "easy" movie to watch. Know what you're getting into, and I imagine you'll appreciate it more than if you thought were getting some glossy, superficial medical thriller. It feels based in reality, like this could easily happen to us in our current, modern society. And I'll bet you something. If you weren't a germaphobe before, you will be now. Washing your hands, not touching anything, not touching your face, all the little things I took away and have been on my mind since. A movie well worth checking out.

Contagion <---trailer (2011): *** 1/2 /****

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

My usual stance on remakes is pretty simple; if the original is good, why bother? If the original is awful with some sort of potential, okay, go ahead with it. Of course, there's exceptions to every rule. A minor classic in its own right based solely on entertainment value, 1960's Ocean's Eleven didn't need to be remade. If you're going to remake a quality movie, you better improve on it, and 2001's Ocean's Eleven is the rare remake that's better than the original.

After being released from prison following a four-year sentence, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has plans...huge plans. A thief and con man, Danny heads to Los Angeles where he signs on friend and fellow thief, Rusty (Brad Pitt), to join him. What's Danny's plan? He's going to do what no one has ever done; rob not one, not two, but three Las Vegas casinos and their impregnable vault on a fight night when over $160 million will be waiting if the job can be pulled off. The owner of the casinos? Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the cutthroat businessman now going out with Danny's ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts). To pull the job though, Danny's going to need help so he starts assembling a team of con men, thieves and specialists. Impossible for this group? Nah.

This is a fun movie. There, that's all I really need to say. Everything else is just fluff. This 2001 remake is the definition of what a fun, entertaining, popcorn movie should aspire to. It's smart but not condescendingly smart. It's funny but it doesn't try too hard. It's ridiculously unrealistic, but who cares?!? Look at that cast! Director Steven Soderbergh made one of the most polished, stylish caper movies ever, improving on the groundwork set up by the 1960s Sinatra version. Las Vegas is a crazy, over the top place and that translates well to the movies. A score/soundtrack from David Holmes is a funky, cool retro mix of music, as fun and energetic as the story itself. HERE is the main theme. I defy you to not bob your head, tap your foot as you hear it.

The script is great here, the thing that keeps it all moving. It sounds so simple, a well-written script in a dramatic but not heavy drama film. It is a smart script without being in your face smart. Putting the team together, Danny asks Rusty "You think we need one more?" Rusty's face is buried in his arms, and he says nothing. Danny answers "You think we need one more," a statement now. He finishes "We'll get one more." The script gives a very talented cast a chance to shine and interact, especially Clooney and Pitt, but there's not a single character who isn't given a chance to shine. What came first in a chicken or the egg scenario? Does a good script boost a cast, or does a great cast make a script better? Short answer....who cares? The movie's great either way.

An ensemble-cast worthy of a 1960s epic, I still wonder how a cast this big was assembled. Clooney, Pitt, Roberts and Garcia would be enough for most movies but not here. Danny's crew includes Frank (Bernie Mac), the inside man working in the casino, Reuben (Elliott Gould), the former Vegas casino owner and bankroll, Virgil (Casey Affleck) and Turk (Scott Caan) Malloy, two brothers providing transport, Livingston (Eddie Jemison), the tech specialist, Basher (an uncredited Don Cheadle), the explosives expert, Saul (Carl Reiner), the aging con man, Yen (Shaobo Qin), the acrobat, and Linus (Matt Damon), a young pickpocket and thief on the rise. You couldn't ask for a better cast. The scene post-heist is a gem too, the team standing in front of the Bellagio fountains to Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune. Watch there <---- and listen HERE.

Fun and entertainment value aside, this is a heist film, and the casino vault heist doesn't disappoint. Now anyone who's been to a casino knows how ridiculous security is, but that's the fun of it. Could a job like this ever really work? No, but I'm sure Clooney, Pitt and Co. could pull it off nonetheless. A full 45-minutes, the heist goes down on a fight night, the 11 pulling a long list of cons and tricks to take down the vault. Things have been hinted at but nothing specific so seeing the twists and turns provide a great ride. Even on repeated viewings, the twists still work. How often can you say that? It's a great movie, one you can watch over and over again.

Ocean's Eleven <---trailer (2001): ****/****   

The Silent Partner

How about this for an odd list of elements in a crime thriller? A possibly bisexual bank robber, an incredibly odd use of a fish tank in a murder, random scenes of nudity, a pre-star John Candy making a cameo, and Elliott Gould as a clever bank teller with an agenda. Combine all that, and what do you get? A crime thriller from Canada that has completely flown under the radar since its release in 1978, The Silent Partner.

This was a Netflix recommendation based off my previous ratings, and with a few exceptions they've been pretty good about movies they'd think I'll like. 'Silent Partner' is set in Toronto and was filmed there too -- making a movie out of the U.S. always seems to be cheaper. Released in the late 70s, it has a low budget look that works well in giving the story a seedy feel to it both in terms of character and background. There are flaws, including one major plothole in the beginning, but Netflix came through with a good pick again.

Working as the head teller at a Toronto bank based in a busy mall, Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould) begins to notice clues that someone is planning a robbery of his bank. It's the holidays and more money than usual is available in the bank so Miles takes his chance. Seeing the robber preparing for his robbery -- he's working as a mall Santa Clause -- Miles pockets almost $50,000 from his drawer. So the armed robber gets away with a few thousand dollars, but thanks to Miles, he gets blamed for taking all of it. Miles thinks he's gotten away with it, but soon after he starts getting mysterious calls from the robber, Harry Reikle (Christopher Plummer), warning him that he wants all his money. So starts a cat-and-mouse game as Miles and Reikle try to outsmart each other.

The high point of the movie by far is the interaction between Gould's Cullen and Plummer's Reikle. From the start, it is very clear that Reikle is more than a little crazy and capable of just about anything if it gets him his money. Two scenes in particular jump out, Reikle cornering Miles in his apartment, and Reikle later using Miles' fish tank for a rather uncomfortable torture scene. If anything, Plummer is underused as his possibly bisexual or just very 70s villain drifts in and out of the story. As the 'good guy,' Gould is the opportunistic criminal who still remains sympathetic mostly because Plummer is so downright scary.

This back and forth retaliation continues to escalate including a friend of Reikle's, Elaine (Celine Lomez), joining the conflict in a plot twist that if you don't see coming, you should be ashamed of yourself. Parts in the middle do drag a bit (usually when Plummer isn't around), and Gould even seems surprised that the bank robber is coming after him for the cash. What did he think would happen? My only other major complaint is how Cullen catches on to the plan by finding a carbon copy of a note Reikle supposedly slipped to another teller. Has he been robbing other tellers, but if not that, did he just happen to lose that note when he was practicing for the real deal? Who knows for sure, but it did bug me.

Some reviews mentioned this 70s thriller as having a Hitchcockian feel, and I wouldn't disagree. The story could be streamlined some more, especially Cullen's on again off again relationship with another bank employee, Julie, played by the very lovely Susannah York. After the initial robbery, it's almost 30 minutes before the conflict arises. Maybe director Daryl Duke was going for a slow burn to try and lull the viewer into a feeling of security only to unleash Plummer's villain, but if you ask me it takes too long. These are just minor complaints because otherwise I really enjoyed this movie.

Slow-paced at times, but this offbeat, little known Canadian crime thriller (how often do you hear that?) has a lot going for it including an ending that confused me at first but worked when I went back and reviewed it. That ending also adds another odd chapter into Plummer's character, but I don't want to spoil it here. It's got a little bit of everything from random, unnecessary 70s nudity (it seems every female member of the cast signed on for a topless scene), and Candy making an appearance as a clueless bank teller, but what makes it worth watching is Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer as the leads. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't heard of it. Sorry no trailer on this one, there wasn't even one on the DVD.

The Silent Partner (1978): ***/****