Review: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

23 Friday Dec 2011

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atticus ross, christopher plummer, daniel craig, david fincher, fight club, millennium series, nazi, robin wright, rooney mara, seven, steve zaillian, stieg larson, sweden, the game, the girl with the dragon tattoo, the social network, trent reznor, yorick van wageningen

“Stockholm Syndrome”

Review: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

Grade: B+ (Rent It)

SHE’S AN ANGRY ward of the state. She’s a goth hacker who can crack high-security codes and passwords like they’re fortune cookies. She’s got more hardware in her face than C-3PO. She wears a charming little T-shirt, while rolling out of bed after a one-night-stand with some chick from the club, which reads: “Fuck You You Fucking Fuck.”

She’s Lisbeth Salander, the femme fatale and titular girl in the American film adaptation of Stieg Larson’s best-selling page-turner “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” When Larson died at the age of 50 in Stockholm in 2004, after climbing seven flights of stairs to his office because the elevator wasn’t working, he left behind three completed but unpublished manuscripts collectively called the “Millennium Series.” It’s worth remembering that the first in the series was originally titled Män som hatar kvinnor (or “Men Who Hate Women”) before being rebranded in the American book market. Larson’s crime novel is an indictment of the sleazy industrialists who run modern-day Sweden, but it’s also, to a larger extent, a drama of misogyny wherein women are raped and killed for sport and men seemingly get away with murder. That’s where Lisbeth, as the dark avenger, and sidekick Mikael Blomkivst (played by Daniel “007” Craig) come in. As a financial journalist, Mikael is the muckraker who plays by the rules while Lisbeth operates above the law. He tells Lisbeth: “I want you to help me catch a killer of women.”

By 2011, the plot of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” should already be familiar since Larson’s storyline is not just well-read but much-discussed. (My 94-year-old grandmother may have never read such detailed scenes of S&M torture had a friend and fellow bridge-player not leant her a paperback copy.) The screenplay is by Oscar-winning Steve Zaillian (“Schindler’s List,” “Awakenings”) and though, at a protracted 158 minutes, it runs a bit long, it distills Larson’s novel into its bare essentials: Lisbeth’s rape/revenge on her legal guardian Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen), Martin Vanger’s confession as he prepares to kill the novel’s hero Mikael, and that haunting last image of Lisbeth seeing Mikael stroll off with his editor Erika (Robin Wright), leaving Lisbeth out in the snow, all alone on her motorcycle.

In short, the narrative begins in media res: after losing a libel suit, Mikael is hired by the patriarch of the Vanger dynasty, Henrik Vanger (played by Christopher Plummer) to write the family history and solve the murder/disappearance of his grandniece Harriet. The Vangers reside on a private island and their family tree is rotten to the core: father/daughter incest, rape, not to mention Nazism and generations of secrets and lies. In a parallel plot resides Lisbeth who, deemed by legally insane after setting her father on fire, comes to help Mikael solve the mystery and in the process, soften a bit and ultimately save the day.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is benefited by two tremendous talents in and behind the scenes: first, there’s newcomer Rooney Mara (“The Social Network”) as Lisbeth. She’s simply captivating, a living-breathing switchblade. Then there’s the Knight of Noir, David Fincher, who demands that it either be snowing or perpetually midnight in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” The amber flashbacks of the Vangers circa 1965 recall the equally tragic past of the Van Orton family in “The Game” (1997). Scenes of sexual torture hearken back to the queasiness of “Seven” (1995) and “Fight Club” (1999). There’s also an eerily electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the former of whom already won an Oscar for scoring last year’s “The Social Network” (also directed by Fincher).

Given these top-shelf ingredients, and Larson’s potboiler at the center of it all, it was hard to go wrong. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a slick and moody adaptation, cool but not chilling. Perhaps Lisbeth’s tattoo artist says it best when he warns the girl, his gun buzzing, “This is really gonna hurt.”

Review: “In Time”

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by colincarman in Film Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

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alpha dog, amanda seyfried, andrew niccol, andy warhol, batman begins, cillian murphy, ethan hawke, gattaca, in time, justin timberlake, kardashian, mad men, matt bomer, olivia wilde, reality TV, red eye, roger deakins, sci-fi, the social network, thriller, vincent kartheiser, white collar

“Clock-Blocked”

Review: “In Time”

Grade: D+ (SKIP IT)

TIME IS OF the essence in another dystopic installment from thinking-man’s director Andrew Niccol whose “Gattaca” (1997) remains one of the best of its sci-fi kind and no stranger to high school biology classes in which eugenics and questions of the “perfect” DNA perennially spur spirited debate.

That’s part of the disappointment behind Niccol’s latest, “In Time,” a fascinating premise blighted by thin dialogue and a too-cool-for-school performance by Justin Timberlake. His sidekick is named Sylvia Weis – she’s played by Amanda Seyfried who, appropriately, resembles a Felix the Cat wall-clock – who helps to lead the resistance against a culture that takes ageism to a lethal level. As the palindromic Will Salas, Timberlake is a working-class resident of a segregated Time Zone known as Dayton; he’s also 28 and living on borrowed time since everyone dies – or, as it’s euphemistically known, “times out” – at age 25. That’s the point at which everyone stops aging and starts dying after the glow-in-the-dark time code on their forearm begins its countdown from 365 to 364 and so on. Will’s opening narration sets the scene: “I don’t have time […] Time is now the currency we earn and spend.” Toll roads charge two months, as do hotels, and prostitutes beckon with “I’ll give you 10 minutes for an hour.” The culture has brought sexy back and, nightmarishly, forever.

Like the character Vincent Freeman (played by Ethan Hawke) in “Gattaca,” Will is an outsider who subverts his perfection-obsessed environs from within. Unlike Vincent, Will doesn’t so much outsmart the bad-guys but flirt, play cards, and run across rooftops with villains Cillian Murphy (always in the role of the blue-eyed devil, i.e. “Red Eye” and “Batman Begins”) and the sublimely smug Vincent Kartheiser of “Mad Men” hot on his trail. As Raymond, Murphy is a “timekeeper” sent to take back the time given to Will by Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer of TV’s “White Collar”), a 105-year-old who gives Will his years and plunges him into a world of trouble.

Shot in ambers and grays, and in digital, cinematographer Roger Deakins imbues Niccol’s vision with the look of permanent midnight. “In Time” has an amusing opener in which Niccol startles us into his world’s weirder realities: Will’s mother (Olivia Wilde) is 50 years old and literally running out of time, but she looks not a day over 24. He could have done more with this off-putting oedipality. There’s additional shock value in Kartheiser proudly displaying his wife, mother-in-law, and daughter when all three look like triplets rather than a family tee. But as time goes on, the puns and plays on temporality fatigue and bore the viewer. Beyond the “99 second store,” Niccol’s script references “timeshares,” “quality time,” “minute men,” et cetera.

Worse yet, there’s Timberlake who is charming as supporting cast in “The Social Network” and “Alpha Dog,” but has neither the voice nor the physical presence of a leading man. Andy Warhol famously predicted that in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. Reality television and the Kardashians made that prediction a present-day reality, and while Timberlake’s talent is timeless as a song-and-dance man…JT, the movie star? Could Timberlake pass what I like to call the Hamlet test? Can you actually imagine him as the gloomy Dane on stage, asking “For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?”

Not in a million years.

Review: “Moneyball”

28 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by colincarman in Film Reviews

≈ 4 Comments

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a few good men, aaron sorkin, baseball, brad pitt, casey at the bat, george w. bush, hoosiers, jason giambi, johnny damon, jonah hill, kerris dorsey, mets, michael lewis, moneyball, oakland As, paul depodesta, peter brand, philip seymour hoffman, professional sports, red sox, romantic, scott hatteberg, sports movie, stan chervin, steve zaillian, texas rangers, the natural, the social network, underdog, yale, yankees

“Ball Street”

Grade: B+ (RENT IT)

“HOW CAN YOU not be romantic about baseball?” queries Brad Pitt, as the wildcard GM of the Oakland Athletics, in this talky new sports drama called “Moneyball.” That loquaciousness, and the surprising fact that most of the film’s action takes place not on the diamond but on conference tables, is due in large part to the snap-crackle-pop of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (sharing the credit with Steven Zaillian from a story by Stan Chervin and book, fully entitled Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis of “The Blind Side”).

It’s an ironic but endearing question from Billy Beane late in “Moneyball” because it was sheer number-crunching and player analysis not romantic notions of luck and discipline that led the A’s from a 5-3 loss to the pinstripes out East, in the Division Series of 2001, to an astounding comeback in the form of twenty consecutive wins years later. It was Beane’s bean-counting that put the A’s back on the A-list of pro-baseball. The grand notion of “Moneyball” is that when paradise is lost, it’s not regained but rebuilt from the ground-up.

After Beane loses outfielder Johnny Damon and heavy-hitter Jason Giambi to bigger and better teams, he likens his own to one big organ donor, farming out the heart and kidneys of the A’s to its competition. But he swiftly rebuilds, much to the clubhouse’s chagrin, after enlisting the support of a Yale-educated economist named Peter Brand (played by the koala-bodied Jonah Hill). (The brainy basis for Brand is Paul DePodesta, currently the VP for amateur scouting for the NY Mets; he and Beane theorized that walks are as important as home runs and relied on older and even injured players, and their patience at the bat, to succeed. The script deftly introduces us to Scott Hatteberg, whose career as a catcher for the Boston Red Sox ended with a nerve injury, only to bring him back at a key and victorious moment.) With aphorisms like “Baseball thinking is medieval” and “Pitches are like blackjack,” Brand helps Beane turn the game into a casino floor. This approach is not without its detractors: an outraged scout who curses Beane out and the great Philip Seymour Hoffman as the A’s manager, Art Howe. Seeing Hoffman, in a buzz-cut and starched white baseball jersey, is alone worth the price of admission.

“Moneyball” is entirely dependent on the work of two non-rookies: Sorkin’s script and Pitt’s intense focus. Pitt’s embodiment of Beane is the sine qua non of “Moneyball”; the film is really unthinkable without his cool grace under fire, when hiring and firing irate underlings, and his tenderness when interacting with daughter Casey (a guitar-strumming Kerris Dorsey). An awkward scene in which Beane is forced to make small-talk with ex-wife (Robin Penn Wright) and her new husband while waiting for Casey to return home from a party provides some much-need pathos.

Sorkin, meanwhile, is the modern master of esoterica in light of the Beltway banter of “The West Wing,” the military and techno-politics of “A Few Good Men” and “The Social Network” (respectively) and here, in “Moneyball,” he and Zaillian reveal that major league baseball is not a far cry from Washington: money talks and walks in both realms. Is it any wonder that another Yale grad, but just barely, George W. Bush, made that short step from the Texas Rangers to deranged foreign policy?

In the play-ball tradition of “The Natural” and “Hoosiers,” sports films that smartly transcend the track and field for something more meaningful, “Moneyball” flies because its pitch is way inside.