Silver Linings Playbook

An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Saturday Nation on 9th January 2013 under the title "Romantic comedy poised to win big in this years Oscar awards"

Countdown to the Oscars has begun. The 85^th academy awards are barely three weeks away and one of the films predicted to win big will be romantic comedy Silver linings Playbook. The movie is the work of American director and screen writer, David Russell, who brought the world Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees and has bagged eight academy awards among them best director and best picture.

The film which won the 2012 people’s choice award at the Toronto international film festival is led by Hangover star Bradley cooper who plays the role of Patrizio Solitano Jr. Pat is a bipolar high school teacher who has just been released from Baltimore mental facility after 8 months prescribed to him by a court of law for an incident that is not revealed at the start of the movie.

His mother Dolores Solatano (Jacki Weaver) despite having her doubts and without the knowledge of her husband picks Pat from the hospital. On the day, Pat tries to break out his friend Danny (Chris Tucker) but the hospital calls before they are too far and they have to take him back. On getting home Pat learns that his wife Nikki has sold their home and moved away while he was in hospital. On top of this, she has placed a restraining order against him.

Pat’s father, Pat senior,  played by academy award winning Robert De Niro has also lost his job while pat was hospitalized and has turned to book making to try and raise money to open a restaurant. On the first few nights, the disillusioned Pat is a pain to his parents. His obsession with his wife Nikki leads him to stay up all night reading literature books that his wife, a school teacher as well, taught.

Pat, who does not take his medicine because he doesn’t like it, is forced to attend therapy sessions with Dr.Patel as part of his release agreement. It is during these sessions that we find out what had led to his hospitalization. One day while returning home form work, he walks in to find his wife having sex with the school’s history teacher in their bathroom.

As if this was not bad enough, they two were playing the couple’s wedding song Stevie wonder’s My Cherie amour. Pat nearly beats the tomcatting history teacher to death and hence his arrest and hospitalization. As a result, every time Pat hears the song, he becomes enraged and violent.

Pat tries hard to recover and get back his life with the hope that Nikki would take him back. He is invited to dinner by his friend Ronny and meets Ronny’s equally psychotic sister in law Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence).

Tiffany has recently lost her husband and is recovering from sex addiction. Although they get off on a wrong start, the two later find out that they need each other.

Pat desperately needs to speak to Nikki and Tiffany offers to deliver his letter as he is not allowed anywhere near her. In exchange, she needs pat to be her dancing partner for a Christmas dancing competition she has always wanted to go. Problem is Pat doesn’t know how to dance and is not interested in learning. 

The film which was released late last year was an outstanding theatrical success beating the 100 million mark in box office revenue collection.  This is a win as it cost 20 million to produce. Much of the success can be attributed to the mature, sophisticated humor that the movie offers.

 The movie which was adopted from a book by Mathew quick going under the same title, tells the audience that we all have a little of crazy in us but at the end everything turns out okay. It is the story of lost love and picking oneself up after a fault. It’s a story about it being okay to be imperfect. It is a story about sibling rivalry and it is a story about a father and son struggling with their respective and sometimes enjoined problems. 

Critics received the movie well. Rotten tomatoes gave the film a 92% rating with votes collected from 214 people.

Respected critic Roger Eberts said of the movie “We're fully aware of the plot conventions at work here, the wheels and gears churning within the machinery, but with these actors, this velocity and the oblique economy of the dialogue, we realize we don't often see it done this well. "Silver Linings Playbook" is so good; it could almost be a terrific old classic.”

For the Oscars however, Silver Lining Playbooks still has to beat other big titles like Argo, Lincoln, Life of Pi and Zero Dark Thirty. Time will tell.

Gangster Squad Review

An edited version of this review originally appeared on 2nd of February 2013 on the Saturday Nation Magazine

February brings a good gift for Kenyan action lovers. Gangster squad, one of the most anticipated action movies this year, opens in theatres locally this weekend. Released worldwide on January 11, the movie is directed by Ruben Fleischer director of the 2009 movie Zombie land and the 2011 action comedy 30 Minutes or Less. 

The films plot is based in Los Angeles in the late 40’s shortly after the Second World War. Mickey Cohen-played by the award winning and former husband to Madonna Sean Penn - is the villain of the town. Having corrupted most of the law enforcement offices in the city, the greedy and blood hungry Mickey deals in drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling and even lower crimes expressed best in his loosely quoted line “Every good thing must eventually be burned down for insurance money”

Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen

Few people have the guts to stand up to Mickey owing to his connections and brutal way of dealing with his enemies.  Sgt. John O’Mara is not one of them. Played by Josh Brolin, the sergeant gets involved with the gangster after he forces his way into one of Micky’s establishment to save a young lady from rape. He fights and arrests about half a dozen of Mickey’s men but they are later let out by his police boss; and killed by Mickey.

Impressed by his one man show, the chief of police Bill Parker appoints sergeant O’Mara to create a team and cripple Mickey’s business operations. Killing him he argues, would simply encourage other crooks to take over from where he left but crippling his business would drive him out of the city. The sergeant’s pregnant wife Connie is initially against it. However, she effectively aids him in selecting a suitable team for the job.

He first recruits Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), a tough young policeman who has a personal hate for drugs and their dealers after losing his niece to heroin. The second to  be recruited in the team is technology expert Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) who believes that people like Mickey Cohen should not be allowed to ruin children’s and his son’s future. The team is also joined by legendary gun man and law keeper Max Kennard (Robert Patrick) and his groupie like partner Navidad Ramirez.

Giovanni Ribisi as Conway Keeler

Jerry Wooter, played by The Notebook star Ryan Gosling, is a friend to O’mara and first to be approached to join the squad. He is a tomcatting, womanizer and declines the offer claiming it wouldn’t amount to much. He later changes his mind after a young innocent friend of his, shoe shiner Pete is killed in a Cohen ordered fire exchange.

The team then sets about trying to achieve their goal of driving Cohen out of Los Angeles. The situation is however complicated as Jerry is infatuated and romantically involved with Cohen’s girlfriend Grace Faraday played by Emma stone who starred in the 2011 multiple award winning film The Help.

The film has had a good share of off-screen drama. The movie’s trailer had to be removed from all platforms and some scenes of the movie reshot after the mass shooting in a Colorado theatre on July 20^th in which 12 people were killed and scores injured as they watched the movie Dark Knight Rises.
The cancelling of the trailer was because of a scene that involved gunmen shooting sub machine guns at movie goers through the screen. The scene was a crucial part of the film and the team was forced to go back and redo some of the main action scenes in August 2012. Resulting from these changes, the films release date was pushed from September 7^th 2012 to January 11 2013. The makers however came under fire for making the new scenes just as violent as the deleted ones.

Critics have not received the much anticipated film well. Rotten tomatoes the movie review website gave the movie an average rating of 5 out of 10 based on votes from 172 voters. A statement on the website reads “Though it's stylish and features a talented cast, Gangster Squad suffers from lackluster writing, underdeveloped characters, and an excessive amount of violence.”

Jeff Shannon writing in place of Roger Ebert for the Chicago sun-Times praises the films action highlights such as the car chase and brilliant performances by Sean Penn. Giving the film a 2 out of 4, Jeff Shannon says “To be fair, this tawdry dose of pulp fiction ("inspired by real events") is not a complete waste of time. It offers the marginal pleasure of an all-star cast slumming their way through a thicket of routine plotting, almost laughable dialogue and the constant blaze of tommy guns”

Elizabeth Weitzman writing for the New York Daily News said “This movie is at its worst when it relies, lazily, on an abundance of bloodshed. And it’s at its best when everyone puts their weapons down, and takes the time to tell this story:”

Despite the negative reviews, the movie has continued to attract theatre crowds and has so far collected over 68 million dollars in the box office compared to its 60 million budget. Judging from online buzz about the movie, it’s going to attract a good crowd in Kenya too. Despite reviews, Kenyans never turn down a good (not excellent) action flick.

Zero Dark Thirty Review

An edited version of this article first appeared on January 19th 2013 in page 26 of  Saturday Nation

Barely a year and a half after the capture and killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a movie depicting the decade long mission to capture him has caused uproar from different factions of the American government, anti-government groups and human rights activists.

The movie,  Dark Zero Thirty directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, follows the journey of a CIA team that dedicated years to following every little detail and clue that could lead to a possible capture of the world’s most wanted and feared villain.

The movie’s plot commences in 2003 when C.I.A officer Maya (Jessica Chastain) is sent to the American embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow agent Dan (Jason Clarke). The two spend the first few months trying to get information from Ammar, a detained terrorist. Dan, a cold ruthless man who prefers monkeys to people as friends, uses torture and humiliation to get information from Ammar who despite his suffering remains quiet. Eventually they trick him to giving up the name of Abu Ahmed; an alias used by an old acquaintance of Bin Laden’s who was now working as his personal courier.

Dan is reassigned and Maya fixates the next few years of her life on the single task of finding Abu Ahmed. In the process, she survives several blasts and an attack by gun men. Furthermore, she loses numerous friends and colleagues through a suicide bombing. In 2009, a detainee claims that the man identified as Abu Ahmed from a photograph they have is a man he personally buried in 2001. Maya’s seniors conclude that Abu Ahmed is long dead and they’ve wasted years following a dead trail.

Maya remains adamant and some information from Moroccan intelligence leads her on a new theory that Abu Ahmed was actually alive and the photograph they had  been using was that of Abu Ahmed’s brother who had a striking resemblance to him. With the help of Dan who is now in back at the C.I.A headquarters, they are able to locate Abu Ahmed who eventually leads them to Osama’s compound and consequently to the raid and killing of the man with a 25 million dollar bounty on his head on 2^nd may 2011.

The raid scene

Dark Zero Thirty which was released worldwide on 11^th January had to postpone its release scheduled for October last year until after the American elections. This was due to claims that it would serve as a propaganda tool for the Obama campaign team, to who the killing of Bin Laden was a big selling point. The title, Dark zero thirty, is a military term for 30 minutes after midnight. Director Kathryn Bigelow adds that the title is also symbolic to the darkness and secrecy that cloaked the entire decade long mission.

The movie has been a commercial success beating star studded Gangster Squad in ticket sales when they both premiered last weekend. So far, it has raised over $29.5 million as of last weekend and has bugged five Oscar nominations. Most critics have reviewed the movie well with movie review website rotten Tomatoes describing it as “gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted” and goes on to say “ Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.”

However, not everyone gave the movie a good rating. The film has enraged factions of the American people including senators led by John McCain claiming the movie’s producers were given access to classified information by the C.I.A and Obama administration; a claim that the American government has denied.  This forced the acting C.I.A Director to issue a message which in part read “What I want you to know is that Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts.  CIA interacted with the filmmakers through our Office of Public Affairs but, as is true with any entertainment project with which we interact, we do not control the final product.”

The movies off camera drama did not end there. There have been further claims that the movie is pro-torture and that it wrongfully portrays the use of torture as a key tool that was used to acquire information that led to Bin Laden’s capture. 

And it’s not without good cause. The first hour of the two and a half hour long film contains gory, brutal scenes of prisoners being tortured and humiliated. At best, a prisoner is punched around and at worst they are water boarded, stripped, locked in tiny boxes, denied sleep and made to crawl around naked with a dog leash around their neck. Author Greg Mitchell wrote that "the film’s depiction of torture helping to get bin Laden is muddled at best—but the overall impression by the end, for most viewers, probably will be: Yes, torture played a key (if not the key) role."

Author Greg Mitchell

Other critics had less than flattering remarks about the movie. Journalist Michael Wolff slammed the movie as a "nasty piece of pulp and propaganda" and Bigelow as a "fetishist and sadist" for distorting history with a pro-torture viewpoint.

Django Unchained Review

An edited version of this article originally appeared on  the 12th of January 2013 in Saturday Nation under the title 'Fast-moving Django comes calling'.

It’s a good start to the year for Kenyan film lovers and theatre goers as this coming week marks the opening of the much anticipated film “Django Unchained” in several theatres across Nairobi and the country. The movie, termed a spaghetti country film by reviewers, is directed by the controversial and blatant Quentin Tarantino famous for Pulp fiction, Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards. The movie has star studded cast consisting of among others Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Waltz, Kerry Washington and Leonardo Dicaprio .

Spaghetti western is a term used to refer to a genre that emerged in the 60’s of western themed cowboy movies but directed by Italian film makers hence the name spaghetti. The genre was popularized by directors of the time such as Sergio Leone and Sergio Cobucci. Quentin, known to bring back old genres and recreate them in his odd, off the book style, borrows heavily from this genre and pieces together recreational scenes from his favorite spaghetti westerns.

Django unchained, set in Texas in the 1800’s two years before the American civil war, is not short of performers with the big name appearances introduced gradually as the movie progresses making the audience feel like you are watching different parts of a sequel. This does magic for the plot which is carved cleverly in the usual Quentin Tarantino way to result in over two and a half hours of an emotional involving, action packed journey.

Django and Dr.Schultz

The film is the story of Django a slave who is freed by Dr. King Schultz played by Christopher Waltz, a dentist turned bounty hunter. Dr.Schultz needs Django to identify the Brittle brothers, criminals he intends to kill for a reward. After freeing Django from the Speck brothers, slave merchants who had purchased him, the two agree on a deal. Django would assist the witty, smart talking German doctor catch the Brittle brothers and in return the doctor would give him his freedom, a horse and seventy five dollars.

They set on the journey and soon find the Brittle brothers and kill them. On their journey, Django and the doctor get to talking and Django reveals that he has wife Broomhilda, played by the enchanting Kerry Washington, who was sold separately and that he intends to go save her. Dr. Schultz moved by the story which he relates to a German fairy tale and feeling responsible for his freed being, agrees to help only if Django would in turn help him catch more bounties through the winter.

Another deal is struck and the duo spends the winter killing all sorts of criminals. Dr. Schultz teaches Django how to target shoot, read and mannerisms of a gentleman. After a long, cold and profitable winter, the duo sets out to Mississippi to rescue Broomhilda. 

This, however, is where the story gets interesting. BroomHilda is owned by Mr. Calvin Candie a seasoned slaver and farmer who owns Candie land; the 4^th biggest cotton plantation in the region and every salves nightmare. Mr. Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a spoilt, charming and brutal man who fancies watching his slaves fight each other to the death. Django and Dr. Schultz have to outplay the cunning Mr.Candie who is supported by his over-enthusiastic, over-suspicious and over indulgent head slave Steven played by Samuel L. Jackson.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie

Over all the movie is a classic but it does not come short of the usual Quentin Tarantino over the top signatures. There is over use of obscenities and some scenes are a bit gory and distasteful. The bloody scenes just like in Kill Bill and Inglorious Bustards are a little over bloody and even those are marred with more obscenities.

 In one scene, a slave is brutally torn apart by a pack of dogs and the racial comments and slurs are sometimes pushed to the limit. Leonardo Dicaprio in a recent interview admitted "This was one of the most narcissistic, self-indulgent, racist, most despicable characters I've ever read in my entire life." 

However, the long dialogue scenes are laden with wit and clever talk and when they are not sharing their intelligent and sometimes not so intelligent ideas, action is well catered for. The action is bound to keep you at the edge of your sit. Explosions, guns and human eating dogs included. The characters give the movie their all and you can see them enjoying their roles. Slavery and racism, a sensitive topic, is given a light and humorous approach and one ku klax clan scene will especially get your ribs cracking.

Quentin Tarantino

Like all other Quentin Tarantio movies, Django Unchained, barely a month after its release has not escaped controversy.  Slavery-era action figures of the movies main characters, on sale online are raising questions about whether they're appropriate. Outraged Los Angeles black community leaders called them “A slap in the face of our ancestors”. The leaders feel that it trivializes the era of slavery.

Nonetheless, the movie, which had an estimated budget of 100 million dollars has already raised over 106 million dollars in theaters alone so far and has been nominated for five golden globe awards. There is talk of the three main characters getting Oscar nominations for their roles. 

January is a somber, long and slow month for many but Django Unchained is a movie to take your mind off things albeit for just a few hours. And it being an economical month, the over two and a half hours that the movie runs is definitely a good bargain and one that is worth you money. Go watch this movie.