One for the Money [2012]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598828/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv013.htm

One for the Money (directed by Julie Anne Robinson, screenplay by Stacy Sherman, Karen Ray and Liz Brixius based on the gritty New Jersey romance novel by the same name by Janet Evanovich) is a remarkably good, well written, laugh-out-loud funny, if at times foul-mouth, rom-com that really deserves far more recognition than this initial installment is going to get.  However, One of the Money as a novel is the first in a series.  So one gets the sense that we're going to be seeing far more of Stephanie Plum (played by Katherine Heigl who believed in the picture enough to be an executive producer for the film) in the years to come.

What's the film about?  The film begins with Stephanie Plum approaching her parents' working-class Trenton, NJ home in her red sports car convertable, telling us her situation: She was coming home to Trenton, 6 months after being fired from working in the lingerie department at a Macy's department store somewhere in Newark, knowing that this was probably the last time she was driving her red convertible.  She parks the car in front of her parents' house, takes a long last look at it, and notes that she's 5 minutes late, meaning that her mother will think that she's dead.

Ma (played by Debra Monk) opens the door and the first thing out of her mouth is indeed "You're five minutes late, I thought you were dead."  Stephanie shrugs her shoulders, passes by the statue of Mary as the Immaculate Conception on her parents' porch and enters the house.  Ma notices Stephanie's car, confused, impressed, we don't really know, because before she can say anything, Stephanie tells her "Don't worry Ma, it'll be gone within an hour."  And the repo people are there taking the car away in less than ten minutes ...

Steph's home, so the family sits down to have dinner.  There's Ma, there's Pa (played by Louis Mustillo) and Grandma Masur (played by Debbie Reynolds).  Stephie shares her sob-story.  She's lost her job -- six months ago -- they just took her car and she's broke.  The folks quickly chime in with kind, well-meaning, "we're on your side" but, of course, totally obvious, generally inappropriate and certainly unsolicited advice:  "You need a job," says Pa.  "You need a husband," adds Ma.  Grandma, confused, chimes in, wondering how bad the economy's must have become, 'cause: "Everybody likes a good thong ..." And there it is ... :-).

A job's still probably the most realistic thing to find at this point.  Steph's already been married.  It didn't work out, has no particular prospects and isn't exactly looking.  Heck even her hair's all frizzy ... But where then to get a job?  Ma, pa and grandma scratch their heads and come up with Cousin Vinnie, who runs a Bail-Bonds place in the center (or at the edge) of town (take your pick ...).  "Cousin Vinnie?  He tried to make-out with me at my wedding?"  But at least it could be quick money.  We find out at Vinnie's (played by Patrick Fischler) Bail Bonds place what happened: "Steph, look I'm sorry about what happened back then.  I was very, very drunk and you looked like an old flame."  "Vin, I was in a white dress and a veil." "Yes, but I was very, very drunk ..."  And so it goes.  

Vinnie's tougher-than-Vinnie secretary named Connie (played by Ana Reeder) finds her a job that Steph's certainly gonna love: bringing in Steph's first love, apparently former heart throb Joe Morelli (played by Jason O'Mara).  Morelli had taken Steph's virginity near the end of high school (Okay, parents take note, this is _not_ a film that would give good role-model advice, except in a back-handed, "for the love of God don't do this" sort of way to impressionable teens...), "one night on the floor of the bakery" (where she worked in her first job). As Steph recalled the story, she noted "I gave him all my canoli that night." (Connie recalls, with a sigh "Honey, a lot of girls gave him their canoli back in the day ...").  And of course Joe dumped Steph.

It turns out that Steph had already gotten back at Joe years ago, something that Joe's mother (played by Angela Pietropinto) never forgave her for: "I just hope you live long enough to have your only son run over by some crazy-a b..., breaking his leg in three places, because she's pissed off at my boy for some crazy-a reason ..."  And Joe also hasn't forgotten either, "I remember you, Steph, every time it rains ..." ;-).  Anyway, Joe's since become a cop and was recently accused of shooting a low-life drug dealer but then inexplicably skipped-out on $500,000 bail.  All of Trenton's police force, of course, knows exactly where he is and what he's doing, but no one's bringing him in.  Still, Vinnie's out $500,000 and if Steph brings him in, 10% of that, $50k, would be hers... 

So this then sets up the story.  Steph sets out to find and bring in former "love-'em-and-leave 'em Joe" to the police (who know where he is already anyway ...).  Joe of course doesn't want to be brought in.  And there's obviously "a story" about that shooting that Joe was involved-in as well ... Much ensues...

There are all sorts of characters that both Steph and the audience are introduced to along the way, often in a very stereotypical but also in a very funny fashion.  There's Vinnie's ace bounty hunter "Ranger" (played by Daniel Sunjata) who oozes such utter _coolness_ that he's like a refrigerator when he's in the room.  He takes Steph, who wants to be a bounty hunter but doesn't even have a gun (just pepper spray) under his wing.  There are two prostitutes who Steph befriends and become her "contacts."  Says Lula (played by Sherri Shepherd), the friendlier, more cooperative of the two streetwalkers: "We have a good-cop / bad-cop routine here, only we're hookers ...").  There's a young gay Asian man named John Cho (Leonardo Nam) who "saw everything that went down the night" that Joe took down the low-life drug dealer, but between his accent and mannerisms it's all but impossible to understand him.  Yet, despite the "challenges" that Steph faces ... to no one's surprise, everything gets resolved in the end ...

Obviously, this film not going to win any "Walton Family Legacy Awards" or anything like that.  The lexicon of the characters of One for the Money has far more in common with that of the Blagojevich family of recent memory than with the Waltons ;-).  So if language is an issue at home, this film is definitely not for you.  But it is a very, very funny film and would certainly make for a _great_ young-adult date movie as Valentine's Day approaches.  

Indeed, since seeing Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, I've often wondered how great it would be if a theme park like Universal City would create a section of its park where people could enter into the "Paris of the 1920s" created in that film to chat with the characters portrayed in that film.  Leaving One For the Money, I felt the same way about Stephanie Plum's Trenton, NJ created in this film.  What a blast it would be to spend an hour or two walking through the over-the-top world and larger than life characters portrayed here.  Honestly what great story and what _great_ imagination!  Congrats Janet Evanovich, the screenwriters of this film, and Katherine Heigl and the rest of the cast for taking it on!


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My Reincarnation [2011]

MPAA (NR)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1742084/

My Reincarnation (directed by Jennifer Fox) is documentary which has followed 20 years of the life of Yeshi Silvano Namkai (from his mid 20s to his mid 40s today).  Yeshi was born in Italy some 40-45 years ago to Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, an exiled Tibetan Buddhist master, and Choogyal's Italian wife.  A few years after Yeshi was born, Choogyal was informed by various Tibetan Buddhist practitioners from "the old country" that they believed that Yeshi could be reincarnation of Chogyal's uncle who had been a well known Buddhist monk prior to his death at the hands of Chinese Communist authorities in the late 1950s-early 1960s.  Making note of this news, and informing his son of it at a relatively early age, Chogyal nevertheless had taken a perhaps typically Buddhist approach to the matter, one of detachment -- if this were true, that his son Yeshi really was the reincarnation of his uncle then it would inevitably manifest itself in some way, if not, then ... it won't.  Fascinating!

Particularly interesting during the course of the film were Yeshi's evolving feelings toward his father, who at the beginning of the film (when Yeshi was being interviewed in his mid 20s) Yeshi clearly resented for being "detached" and largely away from his family, as well as Yeshi's evolving feelings toward predictions regarding his destiny, which at the beginning of the film (again when Yeshi was being interviewed in his mid-20s) Yeshi did not particularly take seriously.  Yes, he knew what had been said about him -- that he was the reincarnation of his great-uncle -- but at the time of the beginning of the documentary (20 years ago) like most people his age, Yeshi was far more interested in getting married and getting a job (he found one working as a sales-rep/technician for IBM in Italy ;-).

However as the years went on in the documentary and he had gotten married and had kids of his own, Yeshi seemed to become more and more convinced that there may be something to the destiny that those Tibetan Buddhist practitioner friends of his father's had said that he was called to.  He described rather vivid and specific dremas that he was having regarding his uncle's life and fate at the hands of the Chinese communists.  At the end of the film, Yeshi does return (if for a visit) to Tibet as the religious figure that he seemed to be predestined to from birth.  Angain, fascinating!

Now I know that a fair number of Christians and even Catholics would be disturbed by a movie like this.  However, at least with regards to the Catholics, I would remind all, that the Catholic Church does see itself as a universal church, secure in its faith, and therefore capable of dialoging with respect with everybody.  The Second Vatican Council's declaration on non-Christian religions indeed said as much.

I personally have found it very easy to admire and respect the Buddhist religions which are generally presented peacefully and without great rancor.  And I also note the famous saying of Zen Buddhist master, D.T. Suzuki of the early 20th century, that Buddhism may focus "more on the Kitchen than the Cook" but that does not mean that it denies the Cook.  It simply means that Buddhism chooses not to focus on the Cook.  Focusing on the Cook is simply left to others, like us Christians and Catholics ;-).

And yes, over the last several generations we Cathoics and Christians too have come to appreciate more the beauty and value of the Cook's kitchen ;-).  Yes, if we choose, we can all come to live together with respect and in peace.


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Carnage [2011]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb Listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692486/
Roger Ebert's Review - 
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120111/REVIEWS/120109982

Carnage (directed and screenplay co-written by Roman Polanski and Yasmina Reza) is an excellent screen adaptation of the play by Yasmina Reza named "The God of Carnage (orig. Le Dieu du Carnage) that has won all kinds of awards in Paris, New York and London.  The play was a hit a number of years ago here in Chicago as well.

Screen adaptations of stage plays are often quite easy to spot.  The set is generally relatively simple and the story is generally dialogue driven.  In the case of Carnage, pretty much the entire story takes place in the somewhat upscale Brooklyn side of the East River condo of one of the couples involved.  Thus it's "not quite Manhattan" but at least the condo's sort of facing it ;-).  Then, yes, the story is dialog driven, but what a dialog it is! ;-) and I do believe that ANY couple with a grade school age kid or two could relate to it ;-).

So what's the story about? The film takes place over the course of a single weekday mid-morning meeting between two sets of parents, Michael and Penelope Longstreet (played by John Reilly and Jodie Foster) and Alan and Nancy Cowan (played by Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet).  The two couples' 11-year old boys had gotten into a fight a day or two before.  During the course of the fight, one of the boys picked up a stick and whacked the other boy in the face, breaking two of the other boy's teeth.  So this had been altercation between two relatively young boys. Yet it seemed certainly serious enough to warrant a meeting of this kind between the two boys' parents...

So the two couples meet.  One is apologetic, the other understanding, both couples straining really hard to do the right thing, be civil about it, and put the matter behind them.  Va bene.  It's just every time they are about to set things straight, resolve the matter like adults, say goodbye and put it behind them one or another of the four parents says something stupid that blows the "civilized agreement" up and the four have come back into the flat, sit down, and start all over again ... ;-)

As this starts to drag on, it becomes clear that though both couples live in this nice section of Brooklyn facing the River one of the couples is clearly wealthier than the other.  Further, it also becomes clear that the wife of the not quite as wealthy couple is either better educated (or thinks herself to be somewhat better educated) than her husband.   All four (as well as the audience) pick-up on these vibes and all four begin to jostle for position based on these perceptions:  Alliances shift back and forth from couple vs couple, to "the more educated" vs "the less educated," to the "actual breadwinners" vs "the intellectuals," the men vs the women and back again.

As this meeting of parents continues, the cell-phone of one of the four begins to ring -- work is calling -- and the person has to take the call.  Va bene.  But soon the cell-phone rings again, and then again...  Each time the cell phone rings the other three get more and more frustrated.  The eyes of the spouse start rolling ... and the other couple begins to feel increasingly put-upon (who do these people think that they are?).

Not to be outdone, the mother/mother-in-law of the other couple calls as well.  She's been at the doctor's that morning.  It had been a relatively unimportant appointment, but she wants to talk about it.  The couple has to say "Ma, we're in the midst of something here, can we call you back in 10 minutes?"  Ma reluctantly agrees but calls back 20 minutes later saying, "Are you done yet...?" ;-)

What middle-aged couple could not relate to this? ;-)  The whole movie is only an hour and twenty minutes long, covering the length of a would be meeting exactly like this.  What a film!  Does the matter get resolved?  I'm not going to tell you ;-).  Go and rent it ;-)

ADDENDUM -

As the readers here can tell, I really enjoyed this movie.  However, the film was made by the very contraversial director Roman Polanski whose life has been marked by his committing of a truly horrendous crime: he did first drug and then by definition rape a 13 year old girl.  To avoid prison, he fled the United States and has lived beyond the reach of U.S. justice in Switzerland ever since.  He's been obviously a very talented man but who committed a truly horrendous crime, a crime that the victim has _after much pain_ has since transcended and forgiven him for.  How should the public regard him now?

Wow, what a question?  I'll leave it to the reader here to sort this thing through noting all the factors above (1) Polanski's talent, (2) the horrendousness of his crime, (3) the victim's forgiveness of him, (4) the apparent sense of contrition on Polanski's part, though apparently not enough to go back to the United States and go to jail for it and (5) that yes both Christianiaty and _especially_ Catholicism has been about reconciliation and forgiveness though (6) the Catholic Church itself has been embroiled in recent decades with a list of similarly horrendous crimes against minors by a fair number of its clergy.  Again, what to do?

Perhaps the best course is exactly what society is apparently doing with regards to Polanski today: Allow him to make an occasional film, often very good (all four of the actors/actresses in this film should certainly be very proud of their performances here, as all four of the performances are certainly among the best of their careers), but also then note Polanski's past crime as well.


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Underworld: Awakening [2012]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (A-III) AV Club (D-) Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb  listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1496025/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv009.htm
AV Club review -
http://www.avclub.com/articles/underworld-awakening,68061/

Underworld: Awakening (directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, story by Len Wiseman who collaborated on the screenplay along with a host of others) is the fourth installment in the Underworld franchise featuring a seemingly unending battle between vampires and lycans (better known to us as werewolves). 

Now that vampires and werewolves do not like each other underpins also much of the Twilight series.  So a good question could be asked as to why they wouldn't like each other. Checking answers.yahoo.com and answers.com, it would seem that this "ancient rivalry" actually began with the Underworld Series.  So the rivalry appears to make for a "really cool" device much like that which created such cinematic "wonders" as the hyper violent Predator vs. Alien [2004] even though the first Underworld [2003] movie predates it (and certainly this movie Underworld Awakening is hyper-violent as well).

Yet in the box office these vampire vs werewolf movies (both Underworld and Twilight) do really, really well.  So the question of why that would be, why these movies/stories "work" (or other seeming strange or even stupid stories "work") fascinates me.

Part of it has to be in a fascination within apparently fairly large segments of the population with the vampire and werewolf archetypes.  Vampires seem to be about "unbridled, indeed consuming passion," enough so that a vampire wants or needs to suck blood out of its victims.  Werewolves seem to be about "the beast within."  Both vampire and werewolf stories appear to have been very popular during the Victorian era notable for its conformity (the opposite of what "the beast within" would want to do) and sexual repression (the opposite of "unbridled, indeed consuming passion").  

I wouldn't be able to prove it now (and honestly don't have a particularly great desire to pursue this) but I would imagine that a combination of the current societal "gender wars" (of which the Catholic Church is certainly an active party) as well as the "ick"/"yuck" factor associated with certain aspects of male homosexuality makes the vampire archetype somewhat relevant today.  After all, why would one want to drive one's ___ up someone's ___?  An "unbridled, indeed, consuming passion" perhaps ...

Then the wildman archetype has been postulated as being both around and necessary for healthy male spirituality since at least Robert Bly's book on Iron John.  I would submit that the wildman archetype celebrating "the beast within" is really not that far from the characteristics of the werewolf.

So between the struggle to make some kind of peace with the existence of a homosexual community in society's midst (a community which previously had to live in the shadows) as well as a need by many men often feeling emasculated by the demands of modern life to rediscover the freedom of their inner wildman perhaps make both the vampire and werewolf archetypes "near the surface" of today's collective subconscious.

Still why would these two archetypes want to fight each other?  I guess because it would make for a really cool series of visual images which if strung together long enough could even make for a really cool series of movies. ;-)

Besides put really really sexy "vampire" Selene (played by Kate Beckinsale) into a skin tight black rubber suit.  Then put a very large and shiny automatic pistol with a seemingly endless supply of werewolf (er lycan) killing "silver bullets" into her hands and wow with this "Jungian anima with a gun"... it all must make for "one heck of a rodeo" in the Jungian scheme of the subconsious.

So what's a parent to think if one's teenager starts to really like films like this?  I suppose look for signs of obsession and depression.  Yes, to be perpetually "in a dark mood" becomes a problem.  But recognize that probably 99 out of a 100 young males seeing this film are probably doing so because they like to see a really attractive young woman (in a tight black rubber suit) wasting a whole lot of monsters.

Yes, the violence is appalling.  I'm amazed that the CNS/USCCB gave this film merely an "A-III" (for adults) rating while the far less violent and certainly more coherent film Haywire also about a heroine with a gun an "L" rating (of limited value even for adults) but then the MPAA is often rather inconsistent as well.

Bottom line, I don't see any particular "need" for any minor to see this film.  I certainly wouldn't want to help or otherwise "enable" a minor to do so.  On the other hand, I wouldn't make a huge deal about it either, unless one's teen seems to remain in a "dark state" focused on "dark matters" for long periods of time.  Then I would be asking the teen with some regularity what's going on in his (or her) head...


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Red Tails [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485985/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv006.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120118/REVIEWS/120119986

Red Tails (directed by Anthony Hemingway, screenplay by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder based on the book by Red Tails: An Oral History of the Tuskegee Airmen by John. B. Holway) IMHO gives viewers of the film an indispensable complement to the famed Band of Brothers [2001] HBO-television mini-series based on a similarly styled book by Stephen Ambrose.  Indeed John. B. Holway could perhaps be called this generation's African American Stephen Ambrose for writing not merely the book on the Tuskegee Airmen but also writing a series of books on the Negro Baseball League of the first half of the 20th century when the segregationist Jim Crow laws still ruled America's South.

Indeed, so good, so historically important and so frankly _family oriented_ is Red Tails that I find it surprising (to say the least...) that the CNS/USCCB website would categorize the movie as A-III (for adults) unless such previous World War II classics as Cornelius Ryan's Longest Day [1962] (staring John Wayne) and the Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers [2001] series (produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks) were classified A-III (for adults) as well.

So what is the movie about?  It is about the Tuskegee Airmen the first and only African-American fighter group to serve in World War II.  A parallel African American bomber group was also "worked-up" at the time but never served in a combat role (no mind, at least that bomber group never had the blood of innocents on its hands, as carpet bombing of civilians, now considered by the Geneva Conventions and since at least the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes #79) by the Catholic Church to be a war crime had been considered standard operating procedure by all parties in that conflict).

Returning to the fighter group of the Tuskegee Airmen, the film begins with the group already serving in Italy, if still flying outdated P-40 aircraft on essentially mop-up operations.  That the whole Tuskegee "experiment" had been saved by then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who scoffing at the then U.S. military's official assessment that "negroes lacked the intelligence to operate heavy machinery" came to the Tuskegee base on her own to "inspect" it and then insisted on _being flown_ by one of its recently trained African American airmen was not mentioned in the film, even though the incident was unfortunately true.

Eventually, faced with appalling bomber losses, the American Army Air Force allowed the Tuskegee Fighter Group (99th Fighter Squadron) to both get better planes (P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs) and fly bomber escort missions.  However, they were only allowed to fly such missions after extracting a promise from the African American fighting unit that apparently the AAF could not extract from white units -- that the fighters would stay with the bombers throughout their escort missions rather than pursue German fighters (often flown actually as decoys) in pursuit of individual glory.  (The film makes a point of noting that the white fighter pilots were nominally not doing anything wrong, that they _had been trained_ to pursue German fighters until shooting them down upon engaging them.  Nevertheless, that tactical training had proven disastrous for bomber squadrons who were often left to their own devices after Germans lured away their fighter escorts with squadrons flying, in effect, as decoys).  The African American fighter pilots, perhaps recognizing that little glory was going to go to them anyway if they chased German fighters in hopes of shooting them down, made the decision to follow orders and stick with the bombers.  As a result, bomber losses dropped significantly and the white bomber crews became immensely appreciative of their African American escorts.  (Indeed, the discipline and self-sacrifice of non-white units such as the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, helped drive the decision soon after the War to desegregate the U.S. military putting the first really big crack into the wall of racial segregation that existed in the United States at the time and allowing the U.S. to approach its next war, in Korea, with a desegregated military).

The film follows then the stories of various members of the Tuskegee fighter group, from its commanders to its pilots to its mechanics.

A particularly interesting aspect of the film was its treatment of fraternization between the African American airmen and (white) Italian women.  One of the airmen Joe 'Lightning' Little (played by David Oyelowo) was portrayed as having an Italian girl-friend Sofia (played by Daniela Ruah) who lived with her mother.

I found the scenes remarkably well done and in conformity with what my own parents and uncles/aunts who had lived in Czechoslovakia at the time remembered of their encounters with African-American soldiers near the end of the war.  My mother's family was, in fact, liberated by an African American armored unit presumably making-up part of Patton's 3rd Army, and one of my uncles on my father's side may have seen with his own eyes one of the Tuskegee fighter pilots in action noting that near the end of the war there was one time in which an American plane had swooped down low over the village where my dad's family had come from, so low in fact that he could see that the plane was being flown by an African American pilot.

My parents' generation was still too young to date at the time.  But it was clear from their stories that the Czechs (like the Italians portrayed in the film) were frankly intrigued by the African American soldiers. For up until the closing stages of the war these were men that they had never seen before.

As one of Czech descent, I would also note some, admittedly irrational, pride in the fact that a good part of this film was filmed in the Czech Republic (There's a scene in which the beautiful Karlstejn Castle is shown in a flying sequence) and as a consequence the closing credits are heavily seasoned with Czech names.

In the United States, the Slavs have not been exactly known to be the most "racially open" of peoples.  Yet perhaps because the Czechs and the Slovaks are such small peoples and themselves know a good deal about oppression, they have found a way to get past previous racial bigotry.

Of course the real test in this regard is in these nations' treatment of their own populations of "people of color," that is, of their treatment of the gypsies.  And the record there has not been particularly good.  Still it made me feel very good to see a film about African American airmen being filmed so prominently in the land where my parents had come from and with so many Czechs involved in its production as well.

Would I recommend this film?  Absolutely.  There is nothing in this film that parents should be wary of.  Yes, it's a war film.  There is some blood.  But unless one is forbidding one's kids from seeing other World War II classics like the above mentioned Longest Day [1962], I just don't see why one would want to keep one's kids from seeing this film.  It is about history, both about World War II and about the United States of that time.  Knowing one's history makes for better people and for a better world.


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Contraband [2012]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1524137/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv004.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120111/REVIEWS/120119998

Contraband (Universal, directed by Baltasar Kormákur, screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski, based on the film Reykjavik-Rotterdam by Arnaldur Indriðason and Óskar Jónasson) is a so-so crime thriller largely about the wages of sin.  In as much as it focuses on this theme, it's probably a worthwhile movie even if near the end the film, (spoiler alert) its makers chose to go, IMHO inappropriately, the way of the "happy Hollywood ending."

Even if as Christians, we actually dogmantically believe in the ultimate "happy ending," IMHO it just doesn't fit well here or at least not as "easily" as it plays out in this film.  Nevertheless, the first 90% of the movie is definitely a cautionary tale almost counting-out the reasons why one shouldn't get involved in crime: (1) things rarely go as planned, (2) one signs away one's life when one gets involved in this way of life, (3) innocents inevitably get involved, and (4) it is really really hard to walk away from the consequences of one's past.  These are all very good things to remember when one's tempted to "step off the reservation" and walk-over to "the dark side."

Very good, so how does this particular story play out?  Substituting New Orleans and Panama City for Rotterdam and Reykjavik respectively, the film begins with Andy (played by Caleb Landry Jones) the young "loser" brother-in-law of former smuggler turned-legit Chris Farraday (played by Mark Wahlberg) finding himself "way over his head" trying to run a bag worth of drugs into the country on a New Orleans bound freighter for a coked-up two-bit low-life mobster named Tim Briggs (played by Giovanni Ribisi).  When the huge container-ship freighter gets boarded by customs officials as it approaches New Orleans, Andy panics and throws the bag containing about $700,000 worth of cocaine into the Mississippi River.

All things considered, it's actually a petty amount but $700 grand is far, far more than most regular people have and so Tim Briggs trying to enforce discipline threatens to kill Andy, and more to the point, Andy's sister, Chris Farraday's wife, Kate (played by Kate Beckinsale) along with her and Chris' two small children unless he gets paid for the lost coke.  That of course, forces Chris along with Chris' former smuggling buddy Sabastian (played by Ben Foster) "out of retirement" to try to "fix things."  Much ensues ...

As the movie plays out, one's reminded of arguably much better films like The Firm [1993] and Shawshank Redemption [1994].  However, what I found intriguing about Contraband is precisely that it is about dark pasts and the film's obvious reminders (over and over again) of how hard it is to simply walk away from such pasts in the future.  The Firm, after all was about a young lawyer who simply, perhaps too naively walked into the wrong Firm when he took his first job.  In Shawshank Redemption, the lead protagonist got drunk and in a fit of passion _may_ have killed his wife after catching her with another man.  Here Chris Farraday had been a criminal who had _luckily_ never gotten caught, and now was being sucked "back into the business."  Thus Farraday is far less sympathetic of a character than the principal protagonists of either of the other two films.  And yet one does feel for him as he tries really, really hard to walk (and remain) away from crime and become (and remain) legit.

Indeed, the film uses the device of having one of the main characters, Faraday's buddy Sebastian, going to AA meetings, presumably fighting alcoholism to draw the comparison between addiction to alcohol and being trapped in a life of crime.

I applaud this comparison and wish to extend it one step further: Thanks to the relatively awful recent film The Devil Inside, I've had to talk to young people at my parish about the topic of demonic possession again.  And this time I suggested that one good thing about this recent movie was that it implicitly raised the point that the people who one should really be really be worried about are not the tormented, contorted, strange language speaking people usually portrayed by films about demonic possession.

Rather, one should be concerned about mass murderers and so forth. And I suggested to at least one group of young people since that movie came out that someone like Saddam Hussein could perhaps have been considered as having been "demonically possessed."  True his head was never known to have been "spinning around" and all that.  However, he did "cross a line" at some point in his life (he chose to send a person or two to their deaths to amass more power) and it proved to be a trap -- In order to continue to live, Saddam came to be forced to continue to kill more and more people.  How's that for "surrendering one's soul to the Devil," becoming "possessed by the Devil" and remaining so trapped until one's death?

I submit that this movie about Chris Farraday is much the same,even if Chris had been a much smaller criminal than Saddam Hussein.  Still it proved far harder than Chris would have thought for him to walk away from his previous life of crime.

So even though (spoiler alert again...) the film ends in a needlessly "tidy" way, for most of the film Contraband gives the viewer plenty of material to reflect about should one be tempted to enter into a life of crime: It's really, really easy to fall that kind of life (to fall into Sin).  It's much, much harder to be able to get-out.


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The Iron Lady [2011]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  Roger Ebert (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120111/REVIEWS/120109984

As a Chicagoan, hence living in the 3rd largest city in the United States with a metropolitan area population of 8-10 million and a long tradition in the arts, theater, science and architecture, the first thing that I'd have to say about The Iron Lady (directed by Phydilla Lloyd, screenplay by Abi Morgan) is that I find it stunning that this movie about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (played in her adult and older years by Meryl Streep) certainly one of the best of the year was withheld by movie execs and distributors from Chicago audiences until two weeks into the new year.  This is emblematic of an arrogance by media elites on both coasts that only breeds resentment in self-evidently huge and well-educated media markets in places like Chicago and Atlanta that is really to the movie industry's detriment.

My protest stated, let me then go on to say that I found this film to be excellent and one that could be understood by film audiences on multiple levels not the least of which on a life history / family dynamics one.  For whatever one may think of Margaret Thatcher's politics, the movie asks us to look at her legacy (and really anyone's legacy) from the perspective of her (and again, really everyone's) destiny: We will all grow old and we will all eventually die and the details of the "battles of the past" will fade.  As such, anyone with an aging parent will probably be able to relate to this film.  The parent who seemed so large, so awesome, perhaps so frustrating, so "in the way" when one was younger does get old, does get more feeble, yes, does begin to "fade away."

One could not have been an adult, young adult or even teenager in the English speaking world in the 1980s and into the 1990s without knowing who Margaret Thatcher was.  Yet today, 20-30 years later?  She largely falls into the category of "not yet dead," that is, older, necessarily more reclusive with each passing year, no longer relevant in any serious way except in the context of the past and the past's setting of the stage for our present.

Yes, on a more propagandistic level, some of the lines Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher is given do have a resonance with American political discourse today, notably the movie's Thatcher's concern that Britain would go broke unless it cut its spending, that taxes killed jobs, and that Europe's more social democratic model would not necessarily be appropriate or even beneficial to Britain and its destiny.  These are certainly lines voiced in American political discourse today by many on the Right wing of America's Republican Party today.  Yet, IMHO drawing absolute analogies is almost always a bad idea -- Britain is more European than the United States and the United States is both larger and more diverse and frankly with a different history and a different set of demons than Britain faced in the 1980s and/or faces today.

Perhaps what is more interesting is the film's portrayal of how Margaret Thatcher came to her convictions, and like convictions held by anyone, they came personal/family history -- Margaret Thatcher was born and raised a grocer's daughter (a daughter of a truly small businessman) at a time when doors were opening for women in England (and across the world) which would were unimaginable before.  So the grocer's daughter was able to go to Oxford, something unimaginable to most women (and to most men) of generations previous to hers.

Thus this movie about one of the most political of figures in the latter part of the 20th century becomes (through extended flashbacks) largely about her relationships with her doting and supportive grocer father Alfred Roberts (played by Iain Glenn), her less supportive housewife mother Beatrice (played by Emma Dewhurst) and especially her husband Denis Thatcher (played by Jim Broadbent).  (Margaret and Denis in their younger college/young adult years are played by Alexandra Roach and Harry Lloyd respectively).  Stopping-in throughout the movie to "look-in on" the aging but still largely but diminishingly independent Margaret Thatcher is her middle-aged daughter Carol Thatcher (played by Olivia Coleman).  What middle-aged adult today could not relate to this kind of reflection on an aging parent or mentor figure?

Thus even though Margaret Thatcher (and certainly Streep's Margaret Thatcher) would resist such humanization of her persona, the film actually makes one appreciative of how the Margaret Thatcher of history came to be, and serves as a reminder to all of us that no matter how powerful or important any of us may become in our prime, we all live on a conveyor belt of time and all of us will eventually fade from this Earth, remembered ultimately only by God.


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