Casino Jack: Grade C

C

Casino Jack (2010)

Kevin Spacey, Barry Pepper, John Lovitz, Rachelle Lefevre, Kelly Preston, Graham Greene. Director George Hickenlooper.

Spacey is Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist convicted in 2006 of fraud, conspiracy, and corruption. He was recently released from prison, after serving only half of his six year sentence (how does that work?). The movie wants to be a biopic of Abramoff, perhaps with the goal of humanizing a figure who, to many, is little more than an amoral, money-grubbing beast. That goal is mostly realized, thanks to Spacey’s trademark intelligent, smiling mendacity. His performance carries this otherwise weak movie. His right-hand man (Pepper), and his hired front man (Lovitz), are humorous and enjoyable cartoon characters that cannot be taken seriously, although those actors give a hundred percent.

The movie is a tragically missed opportunity. The really interesting part of the Abramoff story is not the guy’s personal life and character. There is nothing distinctive or interesting about him as a person. He is an ordinary, megalomaniacal parasite who doesn’t understand why “the law” singles him out for arbitrary punishment. We’ve seen that character in the movies a hundred times, and the dialog here is accordingly stale, cliched, and deadening.

The really interesting story is not how Abramoff brushes his teeth or likes to quote Michael Corleone, but the culture of Washington corruption and big bucks lobbying. The movie makes a few allusions, showing Abramoff’s close relationship with Tom Delay (without mentioning that Delay is now in prison for corruption and money laundering), and it takes a few vague potshots at John McCain. There is nothing at all about his numerous meetings with George W. Bush, the conviction of several White House staffers for bribery and corruption, and few details about the fraud he perpetrated on several Indian tribes.

You cannot see in this movie any actual crimes being committed, investigated, charged, or prosecuted. So in the end, the viewer is just as mystified as poor Jack about why he is in jail. That’s bad writing, and it’s a shame, because this story could have been as gripping as All The President’s Men, or any other political thriller. To get a more comprehensive view of the Abramoff scandal, one would be better off with Casino Jack and the United States of Money, a nonfiction documentary and a better movie.

Police, Adjective: Grade A

A

Police, Adjective (2009)
Dragos Bucur; Writer & Director Corneliu Porumboiu. (Romanian, subtitled)

A police detective (Bucur) in a small town in Romania tracks a teenager who occasionally smokes pot, hoping to find his supplier. Actually, he does not hope that because he thinks the whole investigation is stupid, but he has been assigned to the case by the police chief. He reminds the chief that nobody in Europe gets busted for smoking a joint but the chief tells him that it is the law, and asks him, “Are you above the law?” The theme of the movie is really not about drugs, but about morality, the nature of authoritarian power, the tedium of everyday life, and Romanian politics. (Consider examples of how the word "police" is used as an adjective, to appreciate the subtlety of the political commentary). In illuminating these values, it succeeds completely.

It also succeeds as a masterpiece of cinematography. Every shot is visually perfect, even though it is obvious in many scenes that a building has been painted a certain way for the shot or a post has been whitewashed to bring brightness to the drab, wet, autumnal scene. The camera often lingers, unmoving for long minutes, so we can absorb the stillness of time in that town, in that country, in that character’s life. Several interior shots are through doorways and having the shot framed by the door jamb gives a startling sense of intimacy.

Caution, however: This not an American style film. It is extremely slow, even by European standards, and absolutely nothing happens. There are no guns, no car chases, no naked women, no drug deals, no violence of any kind. There is nothing going on but a detective walking the grubby streets, smoking, talking in the office. The beauty and the mastery of the picture is entirely “inner.” If you are not an inner person, there is nothing here for you. But if you liked Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), you’ll understand what this one is about.

The Green Zone: Grade D

D
The Green Zone (2010)

Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear; Director Paul Greengrass.

Damon is a US Army officer in charge of finding Iraqi WMDs just after the invasion of Baghdad. He keeps coming up empty and begins to suspect that the intelligence he is being given is bad. He whines to the CIA, which acknowledges something is wrong with the intel, and hires him to look into it. Some unlikely coincidental events occur that lead to the bent politician (Kinnear) to be in pursuit of Damon so he does not uncover the coverup that there are no WMDs. In this, the story vaguely follows the structure of Three Days of the Condor a great 1975 film with the government out to silence one of its own people for some political advantage. But this film is not great. It tries to make up in aggressive sound engineering what it lacks in dramatic tension. Loud crowd noises, featuring people yelling “Hurry,” squealing tires, gunshots, and obnoxious trombones attempt to convince you that you are feeling something. The pace of the story is slow, the acting is terrible, the editing is so cut up you can’t see anything, and the story line itself is just too jumpy to be coherent. If you did not know the real history of the WMD deception you would be hard pressed to make head or tail out of this project. That's too bad because it is an inherently interesting historical drama.

Endgame: Grade B

B
Endgame (2009)

William Hurt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Johnny Lee Miller, Clark Peters. Director Pete Travis.

I have often wondered how, exactly, the apartheid regime in South Africa fell without civil war. I have the same question about the fall of the Soviet Union. When the dominant group has all the political power, all the money, all the jobs, all the guns, what motivates them to yield to change?

If I were not so lazy I could read the history books and find out. But this docudrama answers the question for South Africa to my satisfaction. There were secret talks held between the two sides, Afrikans professor Will Esterhuyse (Hurt) who secretly was working for government intelligence, and Thabo Mbeki of the ANC (Ejiofor). The personal relationship that develops between those two men goes a long way to explaining what happened.

There are political facts too, of course. F.W. de Klerk decided to pursue reconciliation soon after taking office (for reasons not made clear in this movie), and for that, rightfully shared the 1993 Nobel peace prize with Nelson Mandela. There is not much action in this movie beyond newsreel footage of riots in the streets. Instead the drama is entirely “inner,” psychological.

Unfortunately, you do have to know a bit about recent South African history to appreciate the full depth of that drama, and even to keep the characters straight, so this would be an excellent film to show in a college classroom, but maybe not so enjoyable for someone who does not have a clue about the fall of the apartheid regime.

The acting is good, especially by Ejiofor, and the cinematography compelling. Location sets are interesting. The sound directing is so bad it almost spoils the entire picture unfortunately. Little sounds are way overmiked, volumes are far too variable, and obnoxious, irrelevant music is a poke in the ears. Beyond that however, the film is extremely worthwhile.

Nothing But the Truth: Grade C

C
Nothing But the Truth (2008)
Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Vera Farmiga, Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer. Writer and Director Rod Lurie.

Vera Farmiga, who we do not see enough of on screen, is a covert CIA employee in Washington outed by a newspaper reporter (Beckinsale). National security officials (Dillon, Alda) require the reporter to reveal her source or go to jail. She chooses jail. In a final flashback we learn who the source was.

Despite a fine cast and some good acting by Farmiga and Dillon, the story is not very dramatic. Why should we care who the source was? It means nothing to us. Nor do we really care that the CIA agent was exposed. No consequences are suggested, nothing is at stake. The reporter goes to jail for some months, and her husband (Schwimmer) leaves her, but jail was her choice; what did she expect?

The real life story on which this unimaginative tale is based was rich and dramatic. The agent (Valerie Plame) was allegedly revealed by a deliberate leak from the GW Bush administration in order to punish her husband, Wilson, a diplomat on assignment for the CIA. Wilson claimed that Bush lied about Iraq having bought uranium from the African state of Niger, part of Bush’s justification for the invasion of Iraq. Wilson found the report of uranium sales was fraudulent, and later the CIA confirmed that. His wife’s career was ruined as retribution for him revealing the president’s lies, he claimed. The White House denied this, although an aide to Vice President Cheney was convicted of obstruction of justice in the case. It later was revealed that the leak had come from the State department, not the White House. Plame’s career was ruined nevertheless and she resigned the CIA.

That is a way better story than the simple-minded one this movie told. This event could have been made into a fabulous political thriller. Instead, the movie took a pedestrian approach: reporter declines to reveal source, goes to jail, the end. It is yet another of Hollywood’s inexplicable lost opportunities.

Frost Nixon: Grade A

A
Frost Nixon (2008)
Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Hall. Director Ron Howard.

Langella plays Richard Nixon as a discouraged, self-pitying, defeated man, which he was after the Watergate scandal and his subsequent resignation from the presidency. Sheen is David Frost after his talk show did not survive in New York and he was reduced to interviewing starlets on Australian TV. Both men are has-beens who crave redemption. The first part of the story is about Frost putting together the famous Frost-Nixon interviews, risking his own money and career to do it. Nixon is motivated by the money but also by the chance to redeem himself with the American public, not realizing that he is universally despised. Frost knows that Americans want to hear Nixon admit wrongdoing and apologize for it.

From reading Nixon’s memoirs, I became convinced that he suffered from a mental disorder, and this movie portrays that well. Oblivious of reality, Nixon blusters his way through the interviews until the very end, when Frost finally corners him and Nixon seems to have a moment of self-awareness in which he sees that he is culpable and socially irredeemable. The dialog of the interviews is taken from the actual transcript, as are many of the camera angles and closeup shots. The movie has a real documentary quality.

Even after all this time it is shocking to hear Nixon aver, “If the president does it, it is not illegal.” Despite the patent absurdity of that belief, it did return to the White House with George W. Bush and director Howard may have intentionally drawn that parallel as a political comment. But this is a great drama in its own right that does not rely on historical knowledge for its tension. Still, it serves an educational purpose, since nobody under 40 years old today will remember those events. The movie well-deserved its multiple academy award nominations.

Ashes and Diamonds: Grade C

C
Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska; Writer-Director Andrzej Wajda. (Polish, subtitled).

This highly acclaimed classic film is the last in director Wajda’s World War II trilogy. It was recently released on DVD. The black and white images were murky, although maybe that’s how it was supposed to be, suggesting the emotional darkness of that time. The Germans have just surrendered, but two leaders of the resistance know that the struggle is only beginning again, as the Russians have displaced the Germans. The protagonists are ordered to assassinate a communist political boss in their town, but the volatile young man (Cybulski) falls in love, and that makes him hesitate. He wonders if the killing will go on forever.

I was extremely impressed with Wajda’s film, Katyn, shown at the Seattle International Film Festival recently. It too was a mournful look at the long-suffering Polish people as the communists replaced the Nazis. Wajda is world-famous, I liked Katyn, and Ashes and Diamonds is acclaimed, so how could I go wrong? Yet somehow, Ashes did not grip me. The acting seemed histrionic, the story plodding, sets and scenery dark and muddy. I did feel like I was in 1940’s Poland, and could sense the psychological despair of the people. But after a strong opening, there is a very long hour to get to the melodramatic ending, during which innumerable cigarettes are smoked and vodkas drunk. Various responses to the depressing hopelessness of the Polish situation are presented, from the desperate celebratory denial of some, to the clueless oblivion of others, to the clench-jawed resolve of the resistance. I can see why it was acclaimed in 1958, but it has not aged well in the intervening 50 years.