RIGHT UPPERCUT WITH GENTLE BLUE EYES

 

DIRECTED BY SHAWN LEVY 

STARRING: HUGH JACKMAN, DAKOTA GOYO, EVANGELINE LILY, ANTHONY MACKIE, OLGA FONDA, KARL YUNE with KEVIN DURAND, JAMES REBHORN and HOPE DAVIS 

The closest association ‘Real Steel’ might have with the Oscars is that both happen to take place in the same country. That, or it might’ve been nominated for a couple of technical awards – like sound mixing or editing or special effects, because the film is a fairly good audio-visual achievement. In the event of my Oscar-lead-up, I should probably have picked up a ‘Best Film’ nominee from the past that I hadn’t discussed – like ‘War Horse’ or ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ – or even bothered watching. 

The last film I took up to analyze – David O. Russell’s ‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ (scroll down for review or click here) – found myself at an all-time low on the review-scale. I found out what was going wrong. This year, I find, has had very little to inspire. Every year, I try to catch up on the ‘best films’ made with one desire – to come across something that can truly represent this generation, this era, this paradigm to completion, and not merely on a technological scale. 

‘Life of Pi’ was supposed to be that movie. It didn’t work for me. ‘Argo’ would be Hollywood's pride, mixing the studio-picture with American consciousness. Tarantino hasn’t ever attempted to dissociate himself from the film world and represent humanity on the whole. ‘Lincoln’, again, sounds like a mix of both – of classic Hollywood storytelling and American values. I would not go to the lengths of calling these films jingoistic, but you get what I’m saying, right? 

There’s a whole lot of absentees. Ramin Bahrani – without whom it’s been a painful three years – needs to come back. So do Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. It’s too soon to expect Thomas McCarthy, after ‘Win Win’ the year before last – delightful; one of the year’s best, easily. Alexander Payne has a film coming soon, set in his hometown. It’s the second time I’ve referred to him on a review, in two days. Not good. 

I’ve always loved cinema. I hate to sound distinguishing, but for someone who loves film, I haven’t been content. I think the creative world can do better. There’s a lot of films I haven’t watched. There’s a lot of films I don’t even have access to. Given that, maybe I’m selling it short. But that’s only because I don’t have the luxury of patience. It’s been a year since I’ve had a film experience that’s made me truly belong. The last time I had that was when I watched Marc Webb’s ‘the Amazing Spider-Man’ – a story of youth, mortality and crazy romance. In a world where superhero movies have bitter, morbid love stories, it was a kiss of life exchanged between young guns firing at the same time. 

Contrast that with a film that kept saying “life’s hard enough as it is,” ‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ made it harder. I struggle with down-to-earth fiction. I think it takes a tall story to really bring one down to the ground. That, or life itself. I think it’s a thin line – I’m actually debating it inside my head. What Woody Allen could do with ‘Midnight in Paris’, he didn’t do with ‘Manhattan.’ 

Okay, that's not quite true. It's out of order as well. I can’t discuss filmmaking trends with Allen as an example, even if he has shown changes with time (at his own pace). 

The point of contention is this. On the one hand, a slight stretch of imagination in a film that promises reality seems unforgivable. On the other, we have those that never attempt to come close to the ground and yet find a way to appeal to the deepest of your senses. 

‘Real Steel’ is one such film. It’s set in a future that looks like the past. Culture gets accentuated – human beings get more rustic as robots resemble them to the best of their ability. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) manages one that’s as untrustworthy as he is – it takes a good, solid beating, he can’t patch it up anymore. He moves on. One more to the dirty pile. Son Max Kenton (Dakota Goyo) arrives, bringing with him this ancient-looking, puny specimen that shows some traits they hadn’t seen in robots before – the ability to obey and understand, the latter kept a secret throughout the film, part of a punch-line. 

He calls the robot ‘Atom.’ It looks nice and friendly. If it had lips, it would smile. Max shares a bond with it that’s neither made to sound too special, nor left unstated. He brings it to Charlie, a washed-out boxer from the golden era, made in Hollywood. Deep in debt and no robot to spare, Charlie is pretty much ‘anything goes.’ He goes with Atom, teaching him boxing in something that’s, interestingly, called the ‘shadow mode.’ It means the robot would imitate anything that he does, where what it does is mere shadow. 

I spoke about jingoism, right? Well, the bad guy here is a bot called Zeus that has Darth Vader written all over it – in a film that’s all about father and son, it could’ve well been Atom’s dad, for all you know. Zeus is of Japanese design – made by this man called Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) – and is managed by a Russian tycoon called Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda), two people who might as well have been talking exhibits in a display of stereotypes. There’s a cowboy who calls a black man (Anthony Mackie) ‘homey’ who calls him ‘partner’ in return. They bond over a hundred grand the partner wouldn’t cough up. 

Alright, one too many challengers in one too many big fights over the years. Agreed. ‘Real Steel’ almost faithfully (deliberately?) follows ‘Rocky’ with its plotline. ‘Rocky’ was the everyday man’s struggle for recognition. ‘Real Steel’ is a man’s search for himself, there being no surprise in the place where he finds himself again. The robot has twinkling blue eyes that seem to invite you into its depths. So does the boy. It’s not the first time that Shawn Levy has handled something like this – he directed ‘Night at the Museum’ and its sequel, both of which stick to the theme of man discovering himself in something seemingly inanimate. “I just want you to fight for me,” says Max, in the scene just before the last act. Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) didn’t need to be told this. Neither does Charlie, but then Max has the bigger mouth. 

There are places where ‘Real Steel’ exasperates you with its faith in Hollywood clichés. But it has an undercurrent that’s fairly consistent. What can’t win a fist-fight beats you with a show of heart, in the manner of saying too much as opposed to never saying what needs to be said. 

To Mr. Levy and the ‘Real Steel’ camp, technology is about holograms and fancy screens where the wires don’t show. Atom is an old-timer even in that respect. He steams up like a bad radiator, his wires spark and his eyes flicker as he staggers like he’s disorientated – at one point, the commentator actually uses that word, with quite a bit of ‘almost-human’ references thrown in as well. Somehow, you wish it was a little under-played a little. Like ‘Cinderella Man’ maybe. Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe) would make a fair Charlie, give or take a few pounds. And I’m most definitely not comparing boxing styles here. 

‘Real Steel’ is ‘Rocky’ with Adrian replaced by a brat to make it more about men than before. Where, among a bunch of beasts and bureaucrats, man triumphs. Well, almost triumphs, with scope for betterment – betterment that means getting together, holding close to those who matter as Hollywood defines them, in a world that won’t go beyond the boxing ring. It’s a sturdy-but-modest piece of furniture with a load of varnish it could’ve done without. And it passes woodshop, with honours.

The film played on TV when I desperately thought I needed a break from this year’s monotony and the overflowing list of films I’m yet to watch. It’s the tall film I thought I needed to bring me back to ground level. Having sparred with robots, I should – hopefully – be able to deal with humans better now.

TOO MUCH SILVER LINING, UNDERESTIMATING GRAY

DIRECTED BY DAVID O. RUSSELL 

STARRING: BRADLEY COOPER, JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ROBERT DE NIRO, JACKIE WEAVER, JOHN ORTIZ, JULIA STILES, SHEA WIGHAM, PAUL HERMAN with CHRIS TUCKER and ANUPAM KHER 

There’s something good and great about putting all your cards on the table. It also tells me whether I’d want to play my hand as part of an informed decision. It’s double-edged; it’s also the only way to go. The world can thrive on lies, deceit and sleights of hand. I wouldn’t want to. I put all my cards on the table. I’d expect you to do that as well. Fairness could be over-demanding like that. And it’s only fair that it is, if you think about it. 

‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ is a lot like Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence). She’s the page-turner on David O. Russell’s script. She’s the meta-statement he makes through the film. She’s an active part of the rhetoric as well. I’d get back to that at a later point on this review, but accepting her is similar to accepting the film; it’s too tempting not to. By that I don’t mean a one-woman no-show. The film is anything but that. And, nonetheless, this is a woman who had held her whole office to ransom before she went to war with herself. The promos call it ‘sex-addiction.’ I think that’s a bad term to call the situation itself, to begin with, let alone hers. But she has a reputation. 

Patrick ‘Pat’ Solitano (Bradley Cooper, in his first ever acting role) sticks his neck out to change that reputation of hers. He’s fresh out of a mental facility and is diagnosed as having been undiagnosed bipolar – Dr. Patel (Anupam Kher) does that diagnosis for the audience. Their interaction is convenient. You come to learn that Pat - previously a history-sub at the local school - had assaulted the history teacher whom his wife Nikki (Brea Bee, unspeaking) had an affair with. You come to learn there’s a trigger (Zoolander, anyone?) – ‘My Cherie Amour’ by Stevie Wonder – their wedding song that was, ironically, playing when he caught them in the shower together. You come to learn he has a history with delusion and violence, in the fact that he almost beat the man to death. You come to learn there is a restraining order. 

This is as useful as any Indian actor has ever been in a Hollywood motion picture. 

Oh, and even though you don’t really need Dr. Patel for that, you come to learn that Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) is just about as crazy. And when I call Pat crazy, I don’t refer to his diagnosed condition as much as I refer to the method he chooses to fight it. It’s called ‘Excelsior’ – a Latin term that translates to ‘ever upward’ – as American as it can get. In fact, it’s supposed to be the motto of New York city, something the Eagles should’ve known before they let Pat hit the stands in their game against the Giants. Pat intends to recycle his negative energies, put them in the garbage bag he wears, and transform them into positive energies. Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear) tries something similar with his ‘seven-step success’ plan in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, if you remember. Both films represent as much as they parody the American household. 

Russell does a good job fleshing out the characters that make the household and beyond, most of whom have a mix of craft and genuineness to back them, in terms of actors and performances. Jackie Weaver, as the ever-frightened Dolores Solitano, Pat’s mother who shuttles between two madmen – one who bets his life and future on a Football team, the other finding himself entangled in such a wager – is a revelation. Russell won Melissa Leo the Supporting Actress Oscar, last time around. Ms. Weaver is among the lot this time –I’m glad she is. It’s hard to play married to De Niro, the comic. You’ve seen Blythe Danner patronize him in the ‘Meet the Parents’ series. There are those Hollywood type parents who win your love with the way they screw up. Weaver, however, sets her own unblemished record. She inspires sincerity in a film that makes an effort to live up to hers. 

Now, I spoke of Pat’s entanglements – there are two. Pat Sr. who wants father-and-son time on his own holds one end of the line. The other belongs to the ex-wife inside Pat’s head – a commitment he had made to himself. To help him transcend, Tiffany entangles herself in both. What follows is two Hollywood clichés – of the messenger and the guiding light – in a film that states quite clearly it doesn’t want to play out like Ernest fucking Hemingway wrote it. 

Here, I come back to my first point on how the film spreads its cards out on the table for everyone to see. It looks promising. You look at yours; you play Pat to its Tiffany impersonation. You have your own ex-wives and Father-concepts, right? Films have come and films have gone that have told you it’s okay to be crazy – the whole world is. ‘the Silver Linings Playbook’ falls in line. It skates on thin ice with denser material below. Like I said, there’s an ex-wife in the picture. We don’t really know the reality in that relationship. Nikki (unspeaking, as I deliberated) doesn’t have her say. Pat has his. It’s David O. Russell speaking, actually. He wants his happy ending. Tiffany deserves it. Jennifer Lawrence, the hottest choice to play self-confident-but-fragile these days, deserves it too. 

Still, I find myself in disagreement. Maybe because I like my Hemingways and Alexander Paynes intact. Maybe because (and this is crucial) by putting itself out there, saving nothing for mystery, the film happened to reduce itself to an option than a mind-instructed, necessary pursuit – pretty much the risk that Tiffany runs, half the time. There’s a voice inside my head that said “the worst I can do right now is consent to marry you,” on Pat’s behalf. Maybe I think the girl doesn’t deserve that either. And who said 'sex-addiction' finds its cure in high-fidelity? Maybe I wanted Pat to be put in that spot, where he is one option among many, for Tiffany. Maybe the right one, but still - an option.

Or maybe it’s just a mood-swing of mine. And maybe I would shed tears of joy watching the film another time, when I’ve taken my meds.

ON ETERNAL SUNSHINE AND SPOTLESS MINDS

DIRECTED BY LORENE SCAFARIA 

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, MELANIE LYNSKEY, ADAM BRODY, ROB CORDDRY, TONITA CASTRO, DEREK LUKE, T.J. MILLER with PATTON OSWALT, NANCY CARELL and MARTIN SHEEN 

Lorene Scafaria wrote and directed ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ that starred Kat Dennings, Michael Cera and Ari Graynor. You can almost see that in the premise of her new film ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.’ A woman who is in control of an existing relationship meets a man who isn’t. The difference here is that now he has the option to not want to do anything about it. Nick O’Leary (Cera’s character in ‘Nick and Norah’) needed mending. Dodge Peterson, (Steve Carell) on the other hand, awaits doomsday. The least he can do is sit tight. 

The thing about casting Steve Carell is that you’d find the character hollowed beyond what you’d have intended him to be. Dodge has just had his wife (played, incidentally, by Carell’s real wife Nancy Carell) drop him like he’s got dirt all over. He goes over to a friend’s place in the aftermath. The friend’s wife, initially, sets him up with a friend of hers (Melanie Lynskey) who intends to get the best out of the rest of her days. She then makes a pass at him herself. “Linda (Dodge’s wife) got to do what she wanted to do,” she says. “Why not me?” Dodge is dumbstruck. His only answer is to jump the fence and run away. He does exactly that. 

Penny (Keira Knightley) is introduced to us before she’s introduced to Dodge. We have a shot of her leaving her boyfriend (Adam Brody) as he clings to the door like it’s her, not letting go. Her hair short, Knightley reminded me of her character in ‘Love Actually,’ Richard Curtis’ collage of love stories. She’s from England – not New England, old England – and has an accent. That’s about the only thing about her that is strange in a character that is archetypical American. Emily Blunt was an example in ‘the Five-Year Engagement.’ I don’t know if it’s a trend, but if it is, it’s worth noticing. 

The film begins like it’s going to hang loose on an existential thread, but quickens to define a task for itself by means of its lead characters. Dodge comes across a letter that hadn’t quite reached him, from a high-school sweetheart by the name of Olivia. “Is she the one that got away?” Penny asks him. “Well, they all got away,” he responds, with Carell’s defeatist smile. “She was just the first one.” In that letter, needless to say, Olivia expresses undying love that had just resurfaced, given recent events. Having mentioned he hasn’t got the time or energy to handle ‘someone new,’ Dodge fixates on a past that he intends to bring to whatever remained of a future. 

Penny, on the other hand, calls it quits – something we see right through. It’s not even the usual movie-resolution. “I haven’t seen two people as much in love as they (her parents) are,” she says, when she insinuates that that’s what had possibly had her set such high standards for herself. 21 days wouldn’t be enough to find the one. Knightley works like a miracle in both aspects of frivolity and intensity that doesn’t help a character who finds herself in the most predictable of positions. There is, for instance, a sequence where Penny takes Dodge to Speck (Derek Luke), another ex-boyfriend, who claims he knows her enough to know she’s a “survivalist, more than a romantic,” and hence would choose to stay with him. You smirk because you know better. 

The writer, you find, distorts characters with whims of her own. Is it like Dodge to have his Dad (Martin Sheen) fly her back to where she’s from? Debatable. But mostly, yes. Is it like Penny to come back? You don’t know, for Penny isn’t Penny anymore. The end of the world is bound to do strange things to those who are to face it; perhaps more to those who want to write about it. Lars Von Trier showed us with his ‘Melancholia.’ ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’ could’ve been better if only the ‘end of the world’ part was driven home stronger. What we have looks like a meta-narrative of two characters who are, slowly, becoming aware that their film is going to end. And they simply had to do what the author intended them to do – one shaken out of her skin because she doesn’t know what she’s doing, the other ‘madly in love’ for he’s known to be resolute. 

Yet again, Scafaria evokes memories of another film that you’d almost think she has tried to implicate it. Penny asks Dodge to not let her fall asleep. In ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ Clementine (Kate Winslet) asks Joel (Jim Carrey) to not let her sleep so she can cling to her memories – the last she has of them together. Penny’s excuse is hypersomnia. She says she could sleep through an apocalypse and not know the world had ended. But she couldn’t sleep through a flight back home, which means she wouldn’t sleep through an apocalypse. Dodge doesn’t have to do anything. It’s all the work of the end of days - on two promising characters and a writer who shows promise, but in flashes.

THE COLOUR, THE TEXTURE, THE FLAVOUR - OF EXCESS

DIRECTED BY AKIVA SCHAFFER 

STARRING: BEN STILLER, VINCE VAUGHN, JONAH HILL, RICHARD AYOADE, ROSEMARIE DEWITT, WILL FORTE, DOUG JONES, ERIN MORIARTY and BILLY CRUDUP 

‘the Watch,’ previously called ‘Neighbourhood Watch,’ doesn’t start with the usual crash-land of spaceship or meteorite that’d give the entire plot away. There’s never been a movie where the alien wins. There’s only been those, occasionally, where there isn’t a battle as such. Seth Rogen’s involvement (as co-writer, along with buddy Evan Goldberg and Jared Stern) takes you back to the likes of ‘Paul’ on how a mildly successful comedy could be, in terms of contemporary entertainment value. ‘the Watch,’ in comparison, has very few laughs, all in bad taste. The sad part is that you think these characters deserve better. 

Perhaps this could be accounted for by my familiarity with Rogen and his work, but I could almost see ‘the Watch’ shaping up – in the writer’s room and out. Firstly, I think it’s kind of sad that they had to change the title. The ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ poster with the ‘Say no to Aliens’ sign on it gave you some idea on what you were up against. Even though ‘the Watch’ doesn’t exactly keep it a secret – its premise is established in the sequence that immediately follows the opening credits – you’re still confused on what the movie is about. 

The opening credits show a middle-aged man doing middle-aged things about a town called Glenview in Ohio, keeping away from his over-eager wife. He’s in a lot of clubs, we find, but does nothing that means anything. Is this a film about purpose, then? Would it raise the existential question and drop it without an answer, taking to convincing instead, making it a bittersweet mid-life experience of sorts? Ben Stiller, the man who’s perfect for the role, has himself been in a couple of movies where the lacklustre individual finds himself in the midst of the extraordinary. If the ‘Night at the Museum’ movies amount to anything at all, that is. 

“He’s the perfect guy,” I can hear Rogen say. “He’s a little less sorted out, you know, because he’s got PG-13 morals in an R-rated comedy. And he breaks his course because he can’t make pit-stops, you know? But he thinks he’s still in the race. And he needs all these people, all these buddies of his, to run the long road with him. A road where they end up busting alien balls together instead.” 

In ‘Knocked Up,’ there’s a scene where Rogen, playing Ben – an epitome of wasted humanness – asks Alison (Katherine Heigl) who works for ‘E!’ if she’s interviewed Vince Vaughn. He then tells her how he thinks Vaughn would be amazing to hang out with, and how, unlike other celebrity fantasies, he actually thinks his company would be something Vaughn would enjoy. ‘the Watch’ sees Rogen write for that man, which could’ve been a dream come true. They’re different comedians with some striking similarities, I’ve observed. Vaughn strikes me as a person with a slightly more impressionable conscience than Rogen, but that’s about it. They’ve played to their strengths in picking Vaughn for a role. Rogen couldn’t have possibly let him down. 

Franklin (Jonah Hill) is Shia Labeouf’s Mutt Williams gone rogue. I’ve previously expressed how fatigued I am with Hill’s brand of comedy. To put it simply, it hasn’t changed a bit. Franklin does poor switchblade and is even worse as a shot. He’s in the Watch so that he could join the force that rejected him before – and unceremoniously at that. His timing is impeccable, but his jokes suck. ‘Cyrus,’ ‘the Sitter,’ ’21 Jump Street.’ I can count the number of times he’s played an individual who shuttles between a man and an adolescent so fast he doesn’t linger anywhere for long. In fact, I don’t think he’s played anything else. Back in ‘Superbad’ times, he worked as a Rogen duplicate, hired because he looked younger. As his own comic, he’s yet to prove his worth. 

British comedian Richard Ayoade as Jamarcus is endearing because he’s exotic. And also because it’s sad to see him swayed by these gentlemen. He shows surprise at being offered a beer-can. His eyes widen when he ends up at a local orgy. Of course, all these things have reasons stated in context. He’s as funny as the other men in the plot, but when it comes to chemistry, he sticks out like a middle finger. Rosemarie Dewitt as Mrs. Trautwig (Stiller is Evan Trautwig) is wonderful in bits and pieces as the woman who craves for attention from an absent husband, but she’s stunted to a cheerleader when the big boys take over. Her husband had formed the Neighbourhood Watch. Isn’t it sensible for her to head the women’s fitness centre? She looks like she could. Rogen and Goldberg aren’t as thoughtful. 

I’ll tell you what. In the first scene, a Hispanic security guard at Costco finds he’s become an American citizen. He downs a bottle of Vodka to celebrate and lights a doobie, as Kevin Smith would call it. You don’t know why he did that. He wouldn’t know why he did that; neither would Rogen. He had written and performed in ‘Pineapple Express.’ It’s the sort of movie where you don’t know which one is stoned – the actor, the character, or both. If this is him steering away from stereotype, I’d caution him not to. The guard rolls outrage into a joint and lights up. He then gets skinned by an alien. The film goes downhill from there – a trend that’s evident in the career graphs of Rogen and Goldberg, following the success of ‘Superbad’ and ‘Pineapple Express.’ They’re quite the brand. But they push their saleability. Kind of like a Magnum for a peanut-sized member. Pointless.