Snitch

ACTION/ADVENTURE, SUSPENSE/THRILLER

Sins of the Father

7.5 out of 10 | Rental

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Rated: PG-13 Sequences of violence and drug content.
Release Date: February 22, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes

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Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Writers: Ric Roman Waugh, Justin Haythe
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Barry Pepper, Jom Bernthal, Susan Sarandon, Michael Kenneth Williams, Rafi Gavron, Melina Kanakaredes, Benjamin Bratt, Lela Loren, JD Pardo, Harold Perrineau

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SYNOPSIS: A father goes undercover for the DEA in order to free his son who was imprisoned after being set up in drug deal.

REVIEW: Felon writer/director and established sixteen year stunt veteran Ric Roman Waugh returns with a story co-written with Revolutionary Road and the upcoming Johnny Depp version of The Lone Ranger writer Justin Hayte. Based, or inspired, by true events - as most films seem to be these days - Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson will stop at nothing to protect his family.

John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson, Fast Five) works hard to keep his construction business afloat. He supports his second wife and little girl as well as worries about his ex-wife Sylvie Collins (Melina Kanakaredes, Percy Jackson and the Olympians:The Lightning Thief) and his son Jason Collins (Rafi Gavron, Celeste and Jesse Forever). When Jason is set up for receiving the illegal drug ecstasy in the mail during a sting operation, he is put into federal custody and faces the "mandatory minimum" sentence of 10 years in prison unless he is willing to roll over on somebody else. Jason can't and won't roll over on any other friends because he doesn't know any actual drug users or dealers. His father John looks for any way to reduce his son sentence by trying to find a way to find drug pushers on his own. Forced to turn to his one of his workers Daniel James (Jon Bernthal, The Walking Dead), an ex-con with narcotic ties John Matthews is introduced to a local drug dealer named Malik (Michael Kenneth Williams, Boardwalk Empire). Offering his trucks to transport drugs for Mailk, John Matthews is assured by federal prosecutor Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon, Cloud Atlas) and Agent Cooper (Barry Pepper, True Grit) that the final meet will reduce Jason's sentence down to one year. But the plug is pulled on the operation by Cooper when the promise of the larger cartel kingpin Juan Carlos 'El Topo' Pintera (Benjamin Bratt, The Lesser Blessed) could be captured. With John facing an uncertain future for himself against the drug dealers and cartel and facing uncertain terms certain the federal prosecutor, he puts his own plan in motion, regardless of the risk to his own life

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson takes another roll that separates him from that of a brute character stemming from his World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) days and even some of the more recent comedy work he had done for Disney. Maybe one of his better performances, Johnson excels as a desperate man willing to do anything to protect his son. Even with his muscles and height Johnson's character isn't infallible or indestructible, making him a much more realistic character. John Bernthal's Daniel "Cruiser: James looks like he stepped from the small screen as his character Shane from the AMC series The Walking Dead. Barry Pepper and Susan Sarandon make up the supposed good guys as a undercover agent and federal prosecutor respectively, ultimately looking to make as big as score against the drug cartels as possible. William, playing the local drug peddler, and Bratt, playing the elusive former para military drug lord, give Johnson's character enough drama to deal with.

The story is quickly set as the competent businessman John Matthews deal with the day-to-day operations of this construction company. When his son Jason is busted receiving the Ecstasy in the mail, the story quickly speeds up as the lives of Jason's family lives spin out of control. As Dwayne's character looks to seal the deal against other drug dealers to save his son he faces a hail of bullets and double crosses at each turn.

This film has plenty of mild intrigue and action throughout, although the ending was a touch week. From bullet ridden drug exchanges to a climactic semi tractor-trailer truck chase on the highway, Dwayne Johnson has a solid action film on his hands. There's drama around the family and dealing with the government and the drug dealers..

A strong dramatic effort by all involved from Dwayne Johnson to Barry Pepper to Susan Sarandon to Williams and Bernthal, these actors and actresses have enough talent to get the job done. The suspense and intrigue are evidence enough with a young man's life and the balance, the dangerous world of drug trafficking, and the threats of Injury or even death as a end to an innocent life.

Snitch, based on true events, pits the father against the government machine and the drug cartel. Well-made dramatic and suspenseful film, Snitch makes for a decent fit for February movie going.

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Cloud Altas

Say It Tru, Tru

★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5 buckets | Matinee and DVD

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Rated: R  Violence, language, some drug use and sexuality/nudity

Release Date: October 26, 2012

Runtime: 2 hours 52 minutes

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Director: Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski
Writers: Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, based on the best-selling by David Mitchell
Cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith Davis, James D'Arcy, Xun Zhou, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant

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SYNOPSIS: An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.

REVIEW: The Matrix Trilogy writing and directing siblings Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski return for a visionary tale that crosses time and space, the past, present, and far future. Joined by veteran writer/director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) who has had experience with warping redundant and overlapping storylines, the Wachowskis may set another precedent of storytelling that changes how movies are created.

Cloud Atlas starts with a storyteller who begins regaling about how those around him came into being and the journey undertaken to get there. Then the clock turns forward - or back? - to the Pacific Islands where a young lawyer Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess, One Day) finishes a contract for the purchase of slaves and property. Flash forward to 1936 where another young man Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw, The International) at Cambridge flees his responsibilities and the man he loves (James D'Arcy, W.E.) to write sheet music for an aging maestro Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent, The Iron Lady) who he admires and wants to learn from. Four decades later, a young journalist Luisa Rey (Halle Berry, New Year's Eve) working for Spy Glass magazine finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy between Big Oil and Nuclear power. In the present (our present?) of 2012, a publisher Timothy Cavendish faces disgruntled friends of an incarcerated author Dermot Hoggins (Tom Hanks, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and flees too hotel at the behest of his brother Denholme (Hugh Grant, The Pirates! Band of Misfits). The hotel turns out to be a residence home for the aged, an incarceration rivaling that of his author in his publishing stable, and requiring an elaborate escape plan. In the 22nd Century, a caste system had been re-established and fabricants have been engineered to serve the upper classes. A rebellion is underway, requiring a rogue fabricant Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae, As One) to pave the way to a new enlightenment. And, finally, in an unknown time, a cowardous goat herder Zachry living in a forested valley must overcome his own fears to help a technologically advanced outsider Meronym to reach the top of a forbidden mountain where secrets may be the key to his own salvation.

Cloud Atlas is a difficult film to encapsulate into words. Spanning across centuries with six distinct but connected vignettes, the film is more than just the same actors with different make-ups and backdrops. From the Pacific Islands in the middle of the 1900s to the far-flung future where New Seoul is ruled by corpocrats and a caste system of pure bloods and fabricants, Cloud Atlas covers much ground in its pursuit of the one universal truth.

With each lead actor and actress in several roles, it's a wonder that the film can be followed at all. But the Wachowskis spin and edit this three hour tale into an intricate and tight tapestry that will leave you amazed, delighted, and enlightened. It is a story of found and forlorn love against mounting odds, enduring cosmic connections, and the realization that there can not be versions of the truth - only one truth, regardless of the perspective.

The Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer create an elaborate thread of overlapping narratives, recurring themes, and recurring characters (or actors as different characters). Each of the lead actors or actresses play no less than four completely different parts in the film. Some play both men and women, heroes and villains. Whether a small role like Jim Broadbent's New Seoul Korean musician or a pivotal one in the guise of Tom Hank's Zachry who lives on Big Isle at a time of one hundred and six years after "The Fall', each plays their parts as if the characters themselves are defined for different films. The costume and visual effects are stunning. From the nineteenth century sailing ships to the consumer-driven society of the twenty-second century, the landscapes and backdrops are spectacular. But they are merely backdrops, practically, that set the stages for individualized stories of solidarity, brotherhood, faith, romance, love, determination, and truth.

The only down sides to this novel adaptation are that the speech of of New Seoul and of Big Isle requires a learning curve, and that some of the emotional content is dampened with all of the edits and breaks between the six stories. Even Tom Hanks' Dermot Hoggins in the good ole here and now, with his cockney accent, is near indecipherable at times. But you pick up the language as quick as you can, and middle through the rest. And just when you become invested in a scene or development, the creators may edit the scene away in order to compound the emotional payoff. Some times it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Cloud Atlas is a cinematic wonder, succeeding in weaving a cohesive narrator thread throughout the ages. With a superior cast and the Wachowski siblings and Tykwer's imagination and vision, this film will leave its mark on you, for good, bad, or indifferent, far longer than after the theater lights come up.

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Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Looking for Kevin

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Rated: R  Language, some drug use and sexual references
Release Date: March 16, 2012
Runtime: 1 hr 23 mins

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Director:  Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass

Writers: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Cast:  Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon, Judy Greer, Rae Dawn Chong, Steve Zissis

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SYNOPSIS: When 30-year-old Jeff is told to got out of the house to buy wood glue for a broken pantry door shutter, he ventures out of the basement letting the universe guide his path throughout the day.

REVIEW: Jay and Mark Duplass, writers and directors of the 2005 Sundance breakout hit The Puffy Chair, as well as Baghead and Cyrus, combine their collective writing and vision again for another off-beat semi-comedic drama Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Don't let the title fool you, hardly any of the film takes place inside the Jeff's home.

30-year-old slacker pothead Jeff (Jason Segel, The Muppets) resides in his widowed mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) basement. Letting the cosmos guide his life, Jeff sits and waits for his destiny to reveal itself. On his mother's birthday, Jeff's mother calls to demand that Jeff get out of the house, onto a bus, and to the local Home Depot to pick up wood glue for a broken pantry door shutter before she comes home from work. When a mis-dialed call asking for Kevin comes in, Jeff sees the call as a sign that guides him throughout the day. What starts as a bus ride, soon becomes stalking as Jeff follows a ball player with the name Kevin stitched on the back of his jersey. Enter Jeff's brother Pat (Ed Helms, The Hangover Part II) who starts the day revealing to his wife Linda (Judy Greer, The Descendants) he has bought a Porsche and ends up running into the cosmically guided Jeff who assists Pat in following Linda when it appears that his wife may be cheating on him. Meanwhile, Sharon becomes the focus of a secret admirer who sends her a picture of a flower and converses with her through the office's instant chat interface. As Sharon tries to uncover the man who is either interested in her or playing a practical joke on her, she confides her findings with close coworker Carol (Rae Dawn Chong, Cyrus).

What seems to be a series of random, unrelated events (as written above) is actually a closely wound story. Jeff's way of thinking about his life and the purpose of his life is akin to how he views M. Night Shyamalan's film Signs. When he is confronted by the first Kevin (Evan Ross, Pride) of the day, he tries to impress upon the young basketball player that the reason why he was following the young man was because life is like the movie. Even at the beginning of the film, Jeff actually dictates into a recording device how important and decisive the elements of Signs is in terms of how he sees the world.

Although a family, Jeff, his brother Pat and his wife Linda, and their mother Sharon are a broken family even though living in the same town. Pat doesn't understand why Jeff is the way he is. Sharon wonders why her wonderful cute sons have grown up to be so different than what she remembers them as they were growing up. Pat and Linda live with blinders on and are so passive aggressive in their relationship with each other, the bonds of their marriage are disintegrating even as they sit together at the kitchen table.

As Jeff's day is shaped by signs comprised primarily with references to people and things designated with the name Kevin, Jeff finds himself joining up with his brother at points, then forced to abandon Pat as another 'Kevin' sign comes into view. The journey that starts off as an earnest effort to get to the supply store for wood glue becomes a funny and touching adventure.

Jason Segel brings his brand of Knocked Up stoner sensibility and open faith to the role of Jeff. Ed Helms dials down his Andy Bernard (The Office) stamina without losing the kinetic nervousness that Pat has sitting just under the surface. Sarandon and Dawn Chong, both still beautiful, prove that talent and grace will shape actresses throughout entire careers.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a surprisingly touching and real look at life with a bit of light humor thrown in. The situations that Jeff gets into or that Pat gets Jeff into offer a down to earth story that draws the audience in for a fine movie going experience. Jeff, Who Lives at Home will never be considered George Clooney's The Descendants, but it covers similar ground in an off-beat Louisiana sort of way.

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Time, Money and Frailty

[Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan]

image from moviefone.com

RANT: The boys from work and I finally got a chance to get to the movie house to see the "Wall Street" sequel. There were a couple of other groups of people in the audience. You know what I hate? I hate it when you are watching a movie, and an old lady who is hard of hearing needs to explain an obvious plot point. The rest of us know that the viewing of an ultrasound reinforces the fact that someone was earlier announced to be pregnant. You would think that the older set would have more movie decorum.

SYNOPSIS: Gordon Gekko, released from prison after a 8 year stint, tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter Winnie. Her boyfriend Jake, reeling from the collapse of the investment bank he was employed and the suicide of his mentor, looks to get even with those he believes to be responsible.

Oliver Stone returns to direct the sequel of his 1987 "Wall Street". Written by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff, Michael Douglas returns as Gordon Gekko, the Wall Street inside trader who finishes serving 8 years in federal prison and emerges to the fanfare of no one. Almost 8 years later, Gekko is on the speaking circuit and peddling his new book. Enter Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a Wall Street trader trying to look for the next "bubble" with fusion energy development and dating Gordon Gekko's daughter Winnie.

When rumors start about the stability of Moore's investment house at the start of the Wall Street collapse, Moore's mentor Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) loses control of the investment bank to Bretton James' (Josh Brolin) firm, and eventually commits suicide. As Jake tries to make sense of how his job has become obsolete and how Zabel could end it all, he attends a seminar with speaker Gordon Gekko. Confronting Gekko afterward, they begin a barter system where Gekko tries to reassert himself into his daughter's life in exchange for Gekko providing Moore pointers and inside information against the man he feels responsible for the downfall of his career.

I could go on and on about the plot points of the film, but the real star of the movie, aside from Gekko, is the subject matter. So relevant to the current economic climate, the issues of the recession runs deep. "Wall Street" brings to light how fragile and fluid our futures are, based on the speculations of a chosen few. Jake tells Winnie in the middle of the film that Americans are sold and believe the fairy tale, but want the truth. With the oh-so-real collapse of the US and world economies, the bursting of the housing market bubble, and the general knowledge that what used to work when it came to the financial markets doesn't work anymore, we face a uncertain future and the next generations face an even more uncertain future.

Oliver Stone weaves the return and fate of Gekko with the breed of a new generation of Wall Streeters in the image of Jake Moore. He exposes the integration of investment banks, the US Treasury, and massive bailouts. He uses the music and style of the original film with the sequel, showing us that no matter the decade greed is always greed, excess is always excess, and the best intentions usually have the most severe consequences.

Worth: Matinee

I am also trying out a new rating system shown below based on reader reaction to my somewhat complex monetary rating scale. I will give both ratings and see what kind of reaction I muster. A movie can receive up to 5 popcorn buckets. Why popcorn buckets? Because I am a slave to the thousand + calorie delight! Enjoy!