IRON MAN 3: THE RELUCTANT CAPITALIST

DIRECTED BY SHANE BLACK 

STARRING: ROBERT DOWNEY JR., GWYNETH PALTROW, DON CHEADLE, GUY PEARCE, REBECCA HALL, TY SIMPKINS, STEPHANIE SZOSTAK, JAMES BADGE DALE with JON FAVREAU and BEN KINGSLEY 

There will not be a more comprehensively American contribution to the superhero universe than Iron Man, and I have maintained this position ever since I saw Tony Stark take on a partner-in-crime of Stark Industries in a battle that destroyed half the city but had him ‘come out’ in style in an unexpected(?) resolution in the first film. I guess I cannot make it any clearer that I did not think much of the franchise. 

But I cannot say the same about Iron Man 3. It comes out a year after the super success of the Avengers and actually refers to the film in so many places – which might not be the smartest move considering it has us viewers ask what the Incredible Hulk was doing when the Iron Man was in chains, mortally wounded. Or any member of S.H.I.E.L.D. for that matter. Perhaps I was too keen on the lookout that I got ahead of myself a little bit, but I thought I could see certain characteristics of the Avengers absorbed into characters old and new in Iron Man 3. I would break two of the biggest and most exciting revelations Iron Man 3 has if I told you what those are. I will only say that they are just about enough to guarantee your satisfaction, if the action sequences have not done that already. 

There is not too much of a graduation where the plotline is concerned. This is where I would return to my previous assertion that there is no superhero who is as American as Iron Man. Please understand that I use Iron Man and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) interchangeably. Somewhere in the beginning of Iron Man 3, Stark makes the assertion that the machine is a part of him. It is a scene where you would like to shout out loud at the screen, in clarification. The actual rectification comes much later, actually, in the last shot of the film. The Iron Man is not part of Tony Stark. Tony Stark is Iron Man. It’s Dr. Jekyll’s Hyde-side, where both people are salvaged by patriotism – something Stark calls plain old-fashioned revenge. Interesting. Kidnapping the President is like kidnapping the woman he has vowed to protect. Both deserve to be avenged for. On the one hand we have the man. On the other we have the patriot. 

Iron Man 3 borders on being a buddy-comedy on so many levels. Actually, so did the previous two. Maybe not the first film that much. Stark and Col. Rhodes (Don Cheadle, beefed up and striking), Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, whoa!), Potts and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall, like a sunrise in Barcelona), Stark and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Stark and JARVIS (voiced by Paul Bettany). And, oh, Stark and Harley (Ty Simpkins, endearing) – a kid sidekick who is snarky by sheer innocence, possibly the most unbelievable character in recent times, miles ahead of Max in Real Steel. Stark makes a fair Charlie too. At no point in the film do these people (with the exception of Dr. Hansen) face actual threat. Stark himself had gone through bigger crises than the one in this film. Blasted, kidnapped and on the verge of death, he made Iron Man in Iron Man. His makeshift arrangement for a heart gave him complications in the second film, and he was on the verge of death, again, due to poisoning. In Iron Man 3, it is anxiety attacks. Hardly threatening. 

At no point in the film do we doubt that all would be well. Something would happen. Someone would step forward and take the fall, only to rise again. Stark. Rhodes. Harley. Dr. Hansen. Pepper Potts too, like the twelfth member in Ocean’s Twelve, does an exciting cameo. This reassurance is further backed by Stark playing narrator in the film. Thou shalt not take me seriously. This is one film that has played to the true spirit of Iron Man. It’s like Charlie’s Angels of America. There is even a red-white-and-blue suit which Stark never wears. Col. Rhodes does. So does the President and Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), the bad guy. Talk about political correctness! Iron Man 3 does well by keeping Russia and the Islamic nations out, even though many of the henchmen look like they’re from either of these places. Still, the wounds of America are self-inflicted. The remedy lies within. Where is he located? Stark asks JARVIS, in pursuit. Pakistan? No, says JARVIS. He is in Miami. It is part of a bigger comedic routine which, I have to say, is hilarious. Long story short, Stark asks Harley (boy-genius, like Stark himself) to shut JARVIS down and reboot him because he seems to be getting the last word of every sentence wrong. But Harley confirms that the man he is after is actually in Miami, Florida. He is called the Mandarin (HA!) and is a crony with the American dream acting from behind the scenes – that of total control. In him, we see the coming together of so many things distinctively American. The faux-British accent. The method actor. The junkie. The sell-out in Ben Kingsley. 

There are so many scenes that typify this self-identification, some of which you might miss; some of which are in your face. The American President is held for an oil spill. For that he is sentenced to death by oil. Col. Rhodes does well to reemphasize. It is only a reason to kill him, as Killian says. He is the pioneer of a new brand of biotechnology called Extremus – a mechanism that taps right into your brain cells and alters your DNA, in a quest to find the ultimate superhuman. There is a flaw, however, which also serves as a regulatory mechanism, for the people at AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics). But the flaw is not merely physical. It has to do with the very conceptualization of the superhuman. I see a vague sort of intersection with an X-Men-styled pacifism here. The idea of the superhuman lies not in strength, but in control. Iron Man has a suit which is detachable. I hear that the actual Extremus arc has him fuse his suit with his body – where the man becomes one with the machine. The film does not support this concept. It separates man from machine and brings death to all who do not wish to do that. Power is power only when you can step out of your skin and – I don’t know – criticize yourself? Even if you were to ultimately resolve the question in your favour, like Stark always does. It is after all a toss between two Capitalists – one who lets the State do its job, another who wants it to do his. Both of them control it, nonetheless. The common man – who is but raw talent and aspiration – becomes a pawn in their game, as dispensable as Dr. Hansen. No marks for guessing what happens to her. 

All aside, what is most exciting about Iron Man 3 is its action choreography. As I have always maintained, the beauty of an action sequence is in the elaboration. Lightning strike or blitzkrieg, it first has to make sense. Director Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) frames his action sequences keeping the viewer in the middle. Also interesting to note is the amount of time that Stark actually spends outside his suit, which goes well with the theme of Stark as the Mechanic, as he introduces himself to Harley. He is not the man in the suit. He is the one who made it. But he is also the suit. It is pretty confusing, if you think about it. But don’t. For the love of great visuals and spectacular action, watch Iron Man 3 discarding all analysis as I have made above. Or watch it, keeping them in mind, as long as they do not come in the way of childlike delight. And most importantly, watch it in 2D. For a better, more intimate experience, take your suit off. By suit, here, I mean your 3D glasses; your multiplex death-mask.

TAKEN 2: CARRIED AWAY

DIRECTED BY OLIVIER MEGATON 

STARRING: LIAM NEESON, MAGGIE GRACE, FAMKE JANSSEN, LELAND ORSER, LUKE GRIMES, KEVORK MALIKYAN with D.B. SWEENEY and RADE SERBEDZIJA 

To start talking about why Taken 2 did not work, one must understand why its predecessor did. Taken, a Luc Besson franchise – Luc Besson of Cinema du Look, which is French for empty-headed cinema that rides on thrills – revolved around the concept that a man would do anything to save his kidnapped daughter, provided he’s CIA-trained. Lesser mortals shall crumble in the way, but Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) reigns supreme. In Taken 2, there is a scene where his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) asks him what he’s going to do to save her mother Lenore (Famke Janssen). He answers her saying he would do what he does best. In Mills’ case, this could translate to so many things. He’s like the Rocky Balboa of first-person shooting – which is not just that he is damn good at it, but that he is a sport. He is a sport, a father and an honest man. All he needs is a little push. 

In Taken, Mills flew across the Atlantic to rescue daughter Maggie from an Albanian prostitution ring. He is a man of utmost focus, unmatchable relentlessness and an actual ability to care. He is the perfect father figure, in short, be it for Kim or Lenore, which is possibly why their marriage failed in the first place – not because he played Dad, but because he played an absent one. And the film, on its part, was the story of a man who was, to put it simply, making up for lost time. 

Everyone knows the popular line that Mills says to a laughing gangster on the other side. I will find you. And I will kill you. The line is epic. It could almost be the single most important reason why Taken turned out to be the way it was. It’s not that Mills does what he set himself up to do, but that he had to set himself up so he could do it. As the place where the plot kicks off, this scene has no substitute in the sequel. One scene came pretty close, though, I thought. The unstoppable force that he is, Mills is finally brought to a stop with a gun pointed at Lenore. He has time enough to call his daughter while still in negotiation with the enemy. He needs to ensure her safety. Then he lets go of his. The moment he chooses to drop the gun could be the single most defining moment had sacrifice been the theme. But it is, unfortunately, not. Neither is revenge. It is, in fact, absurdity that is the theme. 

The reason why Bryan Mills could single-handedly take on the entire ring in Taken was because he was nobody. In his anonymity, he found strength. But that is not the case in Taken 2. The film starts with him being hunted. It’s not you they want this time, he tells Kim. It’s me. Their revenge has specifications. Mills is to be taken to the place where the dead have been buried, and he must bleed to his own death there. That’s what would calm their spirits. They shall have nothing else. There are so many occasions when Mills could have been compromised at the drop of a hat, but he isn’t. There are so many occasions when Lenore could have been fed to the dogs, both figuratively and literally. But she isn’t. Kim, on her part, is saved by a shot that’s only too opportune; too good to be true, even for Bryan Mills to have fired it. 

Think the Dark Knight Rises. Think Ocean’s Twelve. Batman fighting in broad daylight is just absurd. Possibly as absurd as Danny Ocean and gang trying to knock something off the Van Der Woude residence, with the Night Fox at their heels. Mills has half of Europe that can recognize him, this time around. The syndicate seeks revenge. They’re likely to be doubly careful. He is, in fact, taken, tied and tortured. But to no avail. He wriggles his way out with the help of an amateur – his daughter. It is true that the manoeuvres are nothing but presence of mind and some rapid-fire thinking. If you remember, the last time was a tag-team match with Bryan and buddy Sam (Leland Orser) on one side. Mills and Kim are an unlikely pair, that way. They work as father and daughter, but not as brothers in arms. Kim slows him down to an extent that they miss by seconds a head-on collision with a train. I can’t drive, says Kim and rightly so. Can you shoot? Mills asks her. She can’t. She doesn’t have an option but to drive. And we have no option but to believe that she can. 

Beyond an unbelievable plotline that can be tolerated only because Neeson is a likeable dad, Taken 2 is absurd for its distinct lack of motive. Mills, in both movies, works well as the man pushed to a corner. The Albanians find, in them, neither the necessity nor the ability to match his, in spite of being a hundred against one. They are led by a man who wants dead the man who murdered his son. Mills has all reason in the world to defend, one would think. The man in question was someone who kidnapped girls and sold them to brothels. Not the kind you would see sense in supporting, right? Taken 2 thrusts its antagonists into such regions of insensibility that there is no escaping the wrath of the audience for what they have done – of pitting themselves against the all-encompassing American hero. You would think of it to be outrageous for the mob boss to even place his son and Mills on the same level. Surely the Albanians are viler beings! At least in comparison with the one-man killing machine that went haywire the last time he landed in Paris. We were over-sold the concept of the wrath of the caring father in the last film. Here we have that of a man who intends to be left alone. When asked why, he says he is tired. This coming from a man who’s probably already beefing it up for the third instalment – where they get kidnapped as a family, to be sold as servants to yet another Islamic nation. 

Taken 2 fails for the very same reasons that its predecessor was a success. Its action sequences lack direction, its screenplay lacks motivation and there is no such thing as a reality bite happening. Some of the sequences still pack the punch the first film was loaded with. But then any given scene would work only in as far as it is believable. In that department, Taken 2 is a parallel-park in mid-air on an American flag magic carpet. It's a driving test you'd rather give a pass, if you get what I'm saying.

OR CALVIN 'NARCISSUS' WEIR-FIELDS

DIRECTED BY JONATHAN DAYTON and VALERIE FARIS 

STARRING: PAUL DANO, ZOE KAZAN, CHRIS MESSINA, TONI TRUCKS, AASIF MANDVI, DEBORAH ANN WOLL with STEVE COOGAN, ANNETTE BENING, ANTONIO BANDERAS and ELLIOT GOULD 

The scariest thing about writing about writing is the possibility of being confined to just that. Authors can get carried away describing the creative process in an elaborate metaphor that can make up the entire length of their work. It is such cause for alienation if the protagonist of a story is going to be relatable only in as far as the reader/viewer identifies with the process of writing, where the crisis does not go any farther. I could be fighting a thousand demons, warding off insanity doing my own little thing, when it would only add to my frustration that I had watched something that could very well have been about me and life, except that it had decided not to be. 

Ruby Sparks is troublesome, in that way. She is the figment of author Calvin Weir Fields’ imagination. He is someone who might have found acclaim a little too early, and is played by Paul Dano, an actor of whom you can say the same. To tell a long story short, she is a character who comes to him, whom he writes about and who comes to life, as a consequence. She is also a girl whom he can – conveniently – fall in love with, because she is not real. She is not a person, like brother Harry (Chris Messina) tells him. She is a bunch of characteristics you can’t quite wrap around your head, where he wrote them all down in his own kind of meet-cute. She comes along as an immediate solution, he goes along in as much as she works. 

There is a significant amount of self-assurance that he would have felt about his decision to stick to her, but only as much as he would be uncertain all the same. He could write her to his whims, but he chooses not to. At first thought, it could be seen as a self-righteous gesture. On second thoughts, however, there is as much of a hazard in keeping her under control, as there is in freeing her. This is where we get back to the creative process, again, for this is about how much an author can let his character(s) take over the course of his story, where, the story – this time – happens to be his life itself. 

A welcome extension of this question could be this one – how much can you write your own life? Granted that you already have, so to say, defined the girl whom you can decidedly be in love with. How effectively can you write yourself to continue to be in love with her, where you would want to give her as much agency as you would want her to give you, which is – essentially – you giving yourself the right to call the shots? In earthly parlance, that is called being a control-freak. Calvin is constantly branded as one; Ruby makes it a point to put him in his place, at that. 

It is both important and mentionable that Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of the legendary Elia Kazan) is writer of Ruby Sparks, in which she plays Ruby Sparks the character as well. The very idea that an imaginary character in a film is conceived by the one who played her makes you ask the obvious question – what is the construct of Calvin like, in Ruby Sparks’ eyes? She is an artist and an unconditional lover, like she is introduced. Calvin could be the painting who jumped out of her frame. It would be a curious mess of meta-reality if we were to discover that Calvin is as much of a figment of her imagination as she is, of his. His moodiness would then be both cause and effect of his self-determination, which is actually not. Neither would hers be. These would then be two people who try to control each other in as much as they would want themselves to be set free – so they can love beyond their control. 

Everything else in the film is gimmicky. In my eyes, Ruby Sparks could have had any given plotline. It is a romantic comedy only because it was made to be. The meet-the-parents sequence was necessary in as much as it contributed to runtime. There has to be a therapist (Elliott Gould) because Calvin can’t be someone who is completely sure of himself. That would make him God, where fiction is about lesser beings. If we were to write about Gods, we would begin and end at the very first line that we read. Unless the God in question flexed some muscle in action sequences, or talked the talk like Morgan Freeman. 

The conclusion shall not be a spoiler when you completely expect it, where it is the magnitude of your expectation that renders the event of it happening sweeter than it would have been. Ruby Sparks becomes an obvious next novel of Calvin’s – he calls it the Girlfriend where I was thankful he didn’t write a second eponymous thing. Ruby tells him her friend found the book to be pretentious, but that she liked it, nonetheless. I wondered if I could say the same about the film. It is the second film of Little Miss Sunshine duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and they are – needless to say – a delight to be welcomed back, especially with the dexterity with which they handle a host of neurotic characters. Which was their specialty, so to say, in their first film that compulsorily couldn’t have had a single, focused central character. 

Ruby Sparks has one. It is too much about Calvin Weir-Fields, the author. By that I do not request an equal share of screen-space for every actor in the film – I’d have been outraged had Antonio Banderas done any more than work the chainsaw, or had Annette Bening walked us through her house any further. I only mean that the film is less about Calvin Weir-Fields, the person, than it is about Calvin Weir-Fields, the author. He is someone who, in Harry’s words, doesn’t know women. Or, rather, he knows only as much about them to be able to fantasize. Ruby, on the other hand, has a Moth collection of ex-boyfriends, some of them twice as old as she is. This is – equally – a fantasy, as it is a cause of frustration. I was strongly reminded of Holden McNeill (Ben Affleck) in Chasing Amy, also about an author chasing his ideal, only to feel threatened by her and letting that insecurity of his get the better of him. Having asserted her as a loving, sexual being, there is only so much that Calvin can control. A little more of that helplessness – like we observe in the conversation between the two brothers beside the grill – could have rendered this film a little morose than cute - which is perhaps what I was looking for.

Doesn’t change the fact that Ruby Sparks is possibly one of the more solid, not that original (there is a man by the name of Charlie Kauffman, you know?) but smart, nonetheless, films from last year – intense, intricate and hilarious, with a protagonist who is endearing even as he’s detestable, like in a Coen Brothers movie. Too bad I couldn’t tweak the film a little like Calvin could tweak Ruby – it isn’t reassuring enough to know that the author is just about as much of a man as the one who makes a coffee-stop between work and home, not to write but to cool it off. I guess I was looking for a humbler experience, in a film I couldn’t control.