In the Name of the Father

In the Name of the Father; legal drama, UK, 1993; D: Jim Sheridan, S: Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite, John Lynch, Don Baker, Corin Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Beatie Edney

Belfast, 1 9 7 4. While playing with a stick on a rooftop, Irish lad Gerry Conlon is mistaken for a sniper and chased by the British police. In order for the situation to "cool down", Gerry is sent by his father Giuseppe to settle for a while in London, together with another Irish lad, Paul Hill. Upon returning to Belfast, Gerry is arrested and interrogated by Inspector Dixon, who coerces him to sign a statement. Later, this is used as evidence on trial where Gerry and Giuseppe are convicted as IRA terrorists guilty of Guildford pub bombings. In prison, Giuseppe becomes sick and eventually dies. Gerry is contacted by lawyer, Mrs. Gareth Peirce, who starts investigating his case. She discovers a document in the archives titled "Not to be shown to the defense", which confirms that Dixon knew years ago that someone else confessed the bombings. Upon a re-trial, the court acquits Gerry, who is finally released from prison after 15 years.

Based on the real life case of Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, one of the most notorious examples of British miscarriage of justice, "In the Name of the Father" is a gripping, engaging, authentic and energetic movie experience, though the director Jim Sheridan is much more inspired during the first and last act when it is a legal drama and depiction of Gerry Conlon's private life and behavior (excellent Daniel Day-Lewis) than the second, middle act which plays out in prison. The almost hour long prison segment is boring and routine, failing to justify wasting so much of the movie's running time, though Sheridan wanted to illustrate Conlon's plight and mental torture by enduring 15 years in prison as an innocent man. Historical inaccuracies aside (Gerry and his father did not share the same prison cell), "In the Name of the Father" flows smoothly, and a high compliment should be given to the outstanding, crystal-clear cinematography by Peter Biziou, which gives a sense of higher aesthetic even during the most mundane scenes. A great pity is that the character of lawyer and human rights activist Mrs. Gareth Peirce appears so late, around 80 minutes into the film, which is scarce since she is played miraculously by Emma Thompson and clearly dominates every scene she is in. One of the best moments is when their case is at an impasse, so Gerry tells Gareth to do "whatever is necessary"—cut to the next scene of Gareth marching with hundred human rights activists protesting for Gerry's release. While more significant morally and humanistically than cinematically, this movie is a valuable legal lesson and a strong piece of drama.

Grade:+++

...And Justice for All

...And Justice for All; legal drama, USA, 1979; D: Norman Jewison, S: Al Pacino, John Forsythe, Jack Warden, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Lahti, Robert Christian, Thomas Waites, Lee Strasberg

Arthur is a stressed lawyer who is tackling several cases before the court, but always gets disappointed by the flaws of the legal system: he represents an African American cross-dresser, Ralph, and persuades him to settle before the court for the charge of robbery because he will only get a parole, but when Arthur is absent and his friend closes the case, his error has Ralph sentenced to jail, so Ralph commits suicide. McCullaugh has been arrested for a broken car light, the police found out he has the same name as a killer and sent him to jail, so Arthur punched the judge Fleming. When Fleming is charged for raping and beating a woman, he pressures Arthur to defend him before the court. However, when Fleming refuses to hasten the acquittal of McCullaugh, the later rebels in prison and is shot. An angry Arthur thus says that Fleming is guilty of rape in his closing statement, and is thrown out of the court building. 

The satirical legal drama screenplay by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson was suprisingly sloppily directed by veteran director Norman Jewison, who was not able to balance the uneven, heavy-handed elements of awkward humor and tragedy of legal injustice, and thus the only reason to see "...And Justice for All" is the outstanding performance by the always excellent Al Pacino who once again gives it his best, yet in order to see him the viewers need to pave their way through a whole sea of lukewarm scenes and situations. There are simply too many excess sequences of Arthur visiting his grandfather (Lee Strasberg, Pacino's acting coach), judge Rayford flying with Arthur in a helicopter or Arthur's boring romance with Gail, an underwritten and uninteresting supporting character, which are all pointless and should have been cut, since they needlessly overstretch the movie's running time to two hours. The best parts are precisely the ones where the movie explores Arthur's disillusionment with the personal caprice of judges or utter negligence of lawyers, which render the legal system into a corrupt failure: the tragic fates of the innocent convict McCullaugh and the sensitive cross-dresser Ralph terrified of going to jail ring the strongest. The authors did not know how to shape the story around these best pits, since even the ending seems meagre and incomplete, leaving a subpar impression.

Grade:++

Darkness in Tallinn

Tallinn pimeduses; crime, Estonia / Finland, 1993; D: Ilkka Järvi-Laturi, S: Ivo Uukkivi, Milena Gulbe, Monika Mäger, Enn Klooren, Väino Laes, Peeter Oja, Jüri Järvet, Villem Indrikson, Andres Raag

After the end of the Soviet ocuppation, Estonia regains its independence and orders that its gold reserves from Paris be brought back. As the truck with the gold is heading towards the central bank in Tallinn, a group of criminals plans to steal it. Electrician Toivo accepts the offer of two gangsters, Dimitri and Andres, to head towards his power plant and turn off electricity in Tallinn at midnight, but when an official there gets suspicious, Dimitri shoots him, and forces Toivo at gunpoint to redirect the cables into one switch in less than two hours. Snipers shoot 13 police officers at the central bank and then the power blackout plunges the city in dark, so the gangsters steal the truck with gold and head to a cigarette factory to melt it into golden cigarettes. Toivo's wife Maria gives birth, but their baby is in an incubator which doesn't work in the hospital due to the electric blackout. Toivo turns the power back on and helps the police to arrest the gangsters. He then goes to the hospital and awakens Maria in bed.

Written by an American, Paul Kolsby, and directed by a Finn, Ilkka Jarvi-Laturi, this cult heist crime film helped kick-off a new era of modern Estonian cinema. The story itself about a planned robbery of a truck full of gold by turning off the electricity in Tallinn at midnight is standard, yet it is enriched thanks to unusual camera angles, bizarre film shots and examples of black humor—in the opening, as the gangster Mikhail is preparing for the heist in a tower, a waiter informs him that his wife is on the phone, calling him for dinner. "Tell her I'm dead!", Mikhail replies, upon which the waiter holds the phone and inquires again: "She asks if you will be alive for breakfast tomorrow". Another gangster has a 10-inch long "tube" hanging from his ear, which he uses to intermittently cut as to always have a new cigarette to light in his mouth. After the blackout at midnight, two thugs break into a store and shout at the owner, a grandmother, ordering her to give them all their money—and then the grandmother just pulls out a gun and shoots them both. These unexpected moments and sudden plot twists give "Darkness in Tallinn" spark and spice, with enough style to cover up the low budget production. The movie does start to drag in the last third, instead of igniting into a climax, and it is not consistently entertaining, since several moments feel slow or stale. It is also misguided to have the entire movie be filmed in black and white, all until 80 minutes into the film, when Toivo turns on the electricity again, and the movie then suddenly turns into color (!) for the last 15 minutes. Nontheless, the actors are all fine, whereas the authors show a lot of enthusiasm in trying to craft this crime extravaganza.

Grade:++

A Civil Action

A Civil Action; legal drama, USA, 1998; D: Steve Zaillian, S: John Travolta, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub, Kathleen Quinlan, Željko Ivanek, Bruce Norris, John Lithgow, Peter Jacobson, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, Stephen Fry, Sydney Pollack

Jan Schlichtman is a personal injury lawyer of a small legal firm who is pressured live on radio by Anne Anderson to take on the case of their small town of Woburn where eight children died of leukemia suspected to be caused by dumping of chemicals near the river by a company. At first, Jan drives there to tell them he won't be taking the case, but upon seeing the contaminated river, he changes his mind and starts doing preliminary investigation. He hires geologists to inspect the area, and talks to an employee who had seen chemicals being dumped by the company. Finally, Jan files a lawsuit against the company, but it is represented by his rival, the more experienced lawyer Jerry who sabotages the process. Ultimately, due to a shortage of money, Jan agrees on a settlement of 8 million $, which doesn't satisfy the families of Woburn, and his firm is dissolved.

The 2nd directorial work by screenwriter Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List", "Awakenings") is this excellent legal thriller-drama based on the real-life Anderson vs. Cryovac case which involved the contamination of the drinking water by dumping trichloroethylene near the river, and offers precise, concise and expert dissemination and analysis of the legal challenges in trying to build up a lawsuit against a much more wealthy opponent. Besides "The Thin Red Line", it is arguably the best 90s film featuring John Travolta following his post-"Pulp Fiction" boost, and delivers intelligent writing by Zaillian, which engages effortlessly until the end. The dialogues are simply snappy and clever—the opening is wonderful in establishing everything so fast by presenting the sly protagonist, personal injury lawyer Jan, bringing his plaintiff on a wheelchair in the courtroom, and even helping him drink water in front of the judge, causing the lawyer of the opposite side to write him and offer of 2 million $ on a paper, just to settle out of court, as Jan narrates: "It's like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth as much as a living, severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it's a long slow agonizing death, as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rise considerably. A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged." 

"A Civil Action" was described by Roger Ebert correctly as "John Grisham for grown ups", since it shows sobering real-life problems in trying to build up a case for a lawsuit: the lawyers need evidence, but to find them, they need to hire experts, which all costs, until they realize they lost all their savings without even knowing if they have a clear case or not. Their small law firm is not a match for the big company they are fighting against, showing this as a battle between David and Goliath. Jan's narration is consistently fascinating: "Only one and half percent of all cases ever reach a verdict. The whole idea of lawsuits is to settle, to compel the other side to settle. And you do that by spending more money than you should, which forces them to spend more money than they should, and whoever comes to their senses first, loses". Robert Duvall is weaker as the aloof, more experienced lawyer Jerry, but even he has great lines which are inserted "strategically" in the movie to comment on some situations, such as when Jerry speaks to his students: "Now the single greatest liability a lawyer can have is pride. Pride... Pride has lost more cases than lousy evidence, idiot witnesses and a hanging judge all put together." Zaillian is less inspired as a director, since the whole execution is more formal than genune, yet even here he has some fine cinematic techniques, such as jump cuts of several family members exchanging sitting in the office while Jerry all asks them the same questions, trying to obfuscate that the company is at fault for their health problems. As the finale bitterly concludes, justice—or rather in this case, a negotiated justice—is sometimes not very profitable, summing up a surprisingly elegant, intelligent and honest legal film.

Grade:+++

The Red Lanterns

Ta kokkina fanaria; drama, Greece, 1963; D: Vasilis Georgiadis, S: Tzeni Karezi, Giorgos Foundas, Dimitris Papamichael, Mary Hronopoulou, Alexandra Ladikou

The Red Lanterns is a bar that also works as a brothel. Several prostitutes work there: Eleni is a Romanian emigrant who arrived to Greece, but was left by her lover and thus now has to earn her money in the brothel. She is in a relationship with Petros from Alexandria, but keeps her profession a secret. When finds out that she is a prostitute during a party, he slaps her, but they eventually make up... Anna finally admits to Captain Nicholas that she secretly had a son with him, but he dies in a ship wreck at sea... Mary has sex with young lad Angelos and starts a relationship with him. He proposes her, but she laughs at him... Marina threatens to kill herself if her pimp leaves her, but he does... A new law is in force which forbids prostitution, so the bar is closed and the women decide to find new jobs.

A good depiction of prostitution in contemporary Greece, "The Red Lanterns" delivers five stories of uneven quality, though the director Vasilis Georgiadis does a good job in keeping the interest of viewers all until the end. One of the best stories involves Mary: as a young lad, Angelos, enters the brothel (implied to lose his virginity), she looks at him and jokingly says: "Did you ask your mom?" What follows is the "forbidden" relationship outside the prostitution frame, and it is written with enough spice and skill to stand out. Sadly, the other stories fare less, sometimes even playing out like a melodrama (the ultimate fate of Anna's lover, a Captain), whereas the subplot involving a cleaning lady who plans to build a shack with her homeless man could have been cut. Actress Tzeni Karezi is very good as Eleni, especially when she tells her pimp that she has been doing this job so long that she is numb, and her story is on pair with Mary, leading to a satisfactory conclusion. "The Red Lanterns" leads an elegant story with enough skill to deserve a recommendation, but it is held down by a too conventional style which makes it look rather standard and routine by today's standard, as one wishes it had something more to offer than the "spicy" theme and quality performances. 

Grade:++

All That Jazz

All That Jazz; drama / musical, USA, 1979; D: Bob Fosse, S: Roy Scheider, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking, Erzsébet Földi, Deborah Geffner, Jessica Lange, John Lithgow, Max Wright, William LeMassena, Sandahl Bergman

Each morning, theater director Joe Gideon takes his pills, eye drops and cigarettes to return back to show business. He is busy between staging a new Broadway musical and finishing the long-overdue film about a stand-up comedian. His private life and health thus suffer: he barely sees his ex-wife and daughter Michelle, whereas he constantly sleeps with new women who want to be dancers in the production. Eventually, the exhausted Joe suffers a heart attack, so the production is postponed for four months. From the hospital bed, Joe has hallucinations of the new stage production, and then dies.

Excellent "All That Jazz" is a burn-out story about artists who are so fascinated and absorbed by creating art that real life just gets in their way. The 4th and penultimate movie by choreographer Bob Fosse, who died only eigth years later, is a surreal felliniesque collection of episodes and stories, yet they all surprisingly ring true and are recognizable because of Fosse's own autobiographical moments which are universal, regardless of how cocooned they are in the abstract: Joe's movie about a stand-up comedian is an obvious allegory on Fosse's "Lenny", whereas several observations about struggling actresses trying to make it, only for Joe (brilliant Roy Scheider) to tell them they are not good enough, speak some bitter truths about show business. The biggest flaw are the last 30 minutes which drown in excess hallucinatory musical sequences, which should have been either cut or reduced to several minutes, since they drag "All That Jazz" into an overlong movie.

Fosse, a former dancer and choreographer, cannot resist not to insert numerous outstandingly choreographed dance and move scenes with style (around 33 minutes into the film, Fosse's alter ego Joe even has a dance choreography holding his 12-year daughter in his hands), which are fabulous to look at, yet he also has a great sense for snappy dialogues ("Don't bullshit and bullshiter."; "You shot 82 days on a 65-day schedule! On a four-month editing schedule, you've gone seven months! Joey, God made the entire world in six days. He didn't go on overtime once."; "Nothing I ever do is good enough. Not beautiful enough, it's not funny enough, it's not deep enough, it's not anything enough. Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say: "How the hell did you do that?"). The cinematography has some great shot compositions, managing to make even some normal scenes look engaging, whereas the fast cuts and metafilm touches (at one point, while a sick Joe is in bed, a healthy Joe shows up to hold a film clapperboard and direct a movie about his Broadway musical) not only make the movie seem modern, but also stay true to its theme of the hyperactive Joe who is exhausted by creating a movie and staging a play simultaneously, yet at the same time, it is the only thing that keeps him going in his life: it's both his biggest stimulant and his biggest toxicant. 

Grade:+++

The 'Burbs

The 'Burbs; black comedy, USA, 1989; D: Joe Dante, S: Tom Hanks, Rick Ducommun, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal, Henry Gibson

Ray took a free week off from work and intends to spend it "being lazy" at his suburban home, despite the nagging of his wife Carol who wants to spend it going somewhere with their kid. Ray is however preocuppied by his new mysterious neighbors the Klopeks who never go out during the day from their house, and are only seen during the night. Together with other neighbors, war veteran Rumsfield and the chubby Art, Ray decides to break into the house of the Klopeks while they are away for the night, but they accidentally cause a gas leak and an explosion of said house. The Klopeks arrive with the police to press charges. However, in the ambulance van, Werner Klopek wants to kill Ray because he fears he might have seen skulls in the house. The police find human bones in Klopek's car, realizing they have been killing the owners and taking over their houses. 

Before Tom Hanks gave up on being a comedian to turn exclusively towards dramatic roles, he starred in several comedies where he proved to have a fine sense for comic timing, and one of his better editions was the cult black comedy about suspicious neighbors, "The Burbs", which still feel surprisingly fresh at moments. The director Joe Dante narrows the entire plot down to only one location, the suburban neighborhood, yet some situations simply have style, weird creativity and aesthetic cinematography by Robert M. Stevens, evident already in the opening scene where the Universal logo transforms into Earth, as the camera slowly descends "down" to a street in the US from space. The first 40 minutes are the best, abounding with snappy jokes: a delivery boy on a bicycle throws a newspaper which hits Ray in the stomach at his back yard, so the angry Ray just throws his coffee from his cup at the kid. Another outstandingly funny moment includes Ray and the neighbors breaking in into the house of their missing neighbor, Walter, as Rumsfield's wife suddenly screams in the kitchen because she thinks she sees a rat on the stove, but then Rumsfield picks the "furry" thing up: "Honey, it's not a rat. It's Walter's toupee." Later on, as Art holds a plate with food in front of himself, a kid randomly opens the kitchen door and breaks the plate with it. Unfortunately, the "neighbors are satanists" subplot is rather too extreme and radical for a comedy, which feels rather uneven, whereas the sole villains, the Klopeks, are shown too little in the story and feel underused, just as Carrie Fisher's thin role of Ray's wife. Nontheless, "The Burbs" have enough of suprises and ideas to be fun even today.

Grade:++

House of Games

House of Games; crime / psychological drama, USA, 1987; D: David Mamet, S: Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Mike Nussbaum, Steven Goldstein, Ricky Jay, Lilia Skala, J.T. Walsh, William H. Macy

Psychiatrist Margaret, author of a best-selling book, is distressed when her patient, Billy, shows a gun during a session and threatens to kill himself because he owes 25,000$ to a con man, Mike. In order to help him, Margaret goes to a shaddy bar and confronts Mike herself, asking if he can forgive the debt. Mike tells her Billy only owes 800$, and that he will forgive the debt is she watches if a man will play with his ring during a poker game, a signal that he is bluffing. When Mike loses the poker game anyway, Margaret decides to write a check for 6,000$ to save him, but realizes it was all a con game, a confidence trick, and that the man works for Mike. Excited by this world, Margaret follows Mike on another con game, but when it goes wrong, an undercover cop is shot and a briefcase with 80,000$ goes missing, she agrees to pay 80,000$ for Mike because he claims the mafia might kill him. Later, when she sees the dead cop is alive and was just an actor, Margaret realizes it was all a trick, so she shoots Mike in a warehouse. Since there were no traces left, Margaret returns back to her normal life.

Movies about con men often have very fascinating explanations or reveals of methods as to how victims are lured into their confidence trick, whether it is movies like "Pickpocket" and "Sweet Bunch" which show secret thefts and petty crimes, or movies like "Matchstick Men", which go a level further, presenting a direct hypnosis of a victim who is persuaded through various contextes to voluntarily give his or her fortune to the con man. Excellent "House of Games" belongs in the latter category, and is an astounding character study of a psychiatrist Margaret who realizes she herself has no clue about her own psychology, which is much more easily understood by con man Mike (excellent Joe Mantegna), who sees a rich, bored woman eager for some excitment and need to prove herself she can help others—that he uses that completely against her in a giant confidence trick. 

Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, "House of Games" is a clever storyline that slowly goes under your skin: you watch only 15 minutes of it, and you have to see it to the end, because you want to know how it will end. The opening act is indeed incredible: since her patient threatens to kill himself because he owes a lot of money to Mike, psychiatrist Margaret decides to help him in an unorthodox, direct way—by going to the shady bar and talking to Mike directly (!), asking him to cancel the debt to her patient. From there on, the story plays out like the episode 4 of season 1 of "Rick and Morty" where Rick was constantly fooled into thinking he is in a real world, only to realize it was all just a simulated reality, but that goes even a level further, since even the next reality is also a simulated reality, and the next one. A similar plot point is made when Margaret herself cannot know when the end is of the confidence trick of Mike's scam, since there is another level to it, and another, all until the twist ending. Screenwriter and director David Mamet has some sense for snappy writing (such as when Mike says: "I'm from the United States of kiss-my-ass!"), but he is also able to connect all these plot points into a harmonious whole, in a movie that feels complete and with a clear point as to what it wants to say. The only flaw is Lindsay Crouse's robotic acting—sure, her character is too snobbish to understand as to what it is to be human, but she should have showed at least some raw emotion in the finale.

Grade:+++

Train to Busan

Busanhaeng; horror, South Korea, 2016; D: Yeong Sang-ho, S: Gong Yoo, Kim Su-an, Jung Yu-mi, Ma Dong-seok

Seok-woo is a distant father to his daughter Su-an (10) because he spends most of his time on work as a fund manager. He thus wants to compensate by taking Sun-an on a train to Busan to visit Su-an's mother. However, just then a zombie pandemic breaks out. An infected teenage girl bites the staff and thus they turn into zombies, attacking other passangers. After a lot are killed or turned to zombies, only Su-an, Seok-woo, the pregnant Seong-kyeong with her husband, and a homeless man are left. The husband and the homeless man sacrifice themselves to hold off the zombies. Seok-woo is infected, and spend his last memory thinking of his daughter, before his transformation into a zombie, and his jump from a running train. Seong-kyeong and Su-an arrive to Busan alive, where they are met by soldiers on barricades.

Hyped "Train to Busan" caused a lot of attention, confirming the Korean New Vawe of the 21st century cinema, yet it is overall just a standard zombie flick with only intermittent surprises. The movie starts off with one of said welcomed surprises, when a careless driver runs over a deer on the street with his van, drives off—only for the dead deer to come to life and stand up again, displaying white eyes, confirming it is a "zombie deer". Sadly, the rest is rather routine, with the typical excess of hundreds of zombies with pale make up chasing the human characters across the train, which are tropes and cliches the viewers have seen many times already. Some good ideas break the grey routine: for instance, after it is established that the zombies only attack people when they see them, a pregnant woman, Seong-kyeong, pours water over the door of the train waggon and places newspaper over the glass, blocking the sight, and thus the zombies just stop trying to break the door because they don't "see" the humans on the other side anymore. Another good moment is when the train drives through a tunnel, creating temporary dark which again causes the zombies to stop attacking, because they don't see the humans anymore. On the down side, the rest of the story is comprised of lazy writing, consisting only out of humans kicking and punching the invading zombies, which can only go so far. Here and there some symbolism appears, like when the fund manager is derogatory labelled a "blood sucker", linking him to a "financial zombie" who also just exploits people around him. However, the overlong story doesn't truly lift-off again until the very touching ending, which implies that living like a "spiritual zombie", neglecting your family while you spend all your time just on work, leads to a dead end.

Grade:++