Back Seat Producers

Two top New York City police detectives, nicknamed Turk and Rooster, are continually frustrated at seeing collars of theirs go free by technicalities, and as the movie starts, one of them is seemingly revealing himself to be a killer, working outside the law to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. Two other detectives are also on the case, and find themselves continually thwarted at nailing who they think the murderer is. And though both Turk and Rooster have their hearts in the right place, all is not as it seems…

And yeah, I’m being as vague as I can possibly be in trying to explain the premise to Righteous Kill the new film from director Jon Avnet that teams two legendary actors together, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. This isn’t the first time that both actors have been in the same movie, they’ve both been in The Godfather Part II and Heat and unfortunately, Righteous Kill while enjoyable (to me anyway) isn’t anywhere as monumental as the other two movies.

The problem being that this is a movie with a “twist” and that “twist” is ultimately the downfall of the film. Both actors do their jobs well enough and it is fun to watch them play off of each other, but the “twist” itself seems like a cheat in the end and really just not worthy of the talents that these guys have exhibited in the past.

Personally, I wish they’d just not gone in with the idea of having a twist in the first place and just would’ve made this a straight-up cop film with both guys working the right side of the law and pursuing someone else in the end. I still had a good time with this, but it really could’ve been a lot better.

Pacino and DeNiro are backed up with some impressive supporting talent, including Carla Gugino, Donnie Wahlberg, John Leguizamo and Brian Dennehy and everybody does a fine job here, but it’s the material just really isn’t as worthy of their talents as it should be.

Avnet does a better job here than he did in his previous film (also with Al Pacino), 88 Minutes and does a nice job of moving things along, but again, I just wish they could’ve resisted the urge to have to make a movie with a “twist” in the first place.

If you’ve got time to kill, and want to see these guys together on-screen, Righteous Kill is an OK diversion, but at the same time, I wouldn’t necessarily urge anyone to run right out and see this in the theatre right this minute either. If you want to do something like that, then go see this week’s other big film, Burn After Reading instead…

Osborne Cox is a CIA analyst who’s now quit his job because of the threat of a downgrading, given the excuse of a “drinking problem,” but due to his own explosive nature, we see it’s more than that. His cold-hearted wife, Katie, reacts badly to the news, covertly planning a divorce while carrying on an affair with a U.S. Marshal, Harry Pfarrer. Harry, married and an overachiever in the worst way, in addition to his affair with Katie, is also having affairs with other women as well. Linda Litzke is an employee at a gym who’s starting to feel her age and wants to get several rounds of cosmetic surgery to find her perfect man. Osborne, now at home decides to write his memoirs as a book much to the consternation of his wife, who’s been advised to covertly get all of his financial information to help expedite the divorce process. A CD with Osborne’s information falls into the hand of Linda and her dimwit friend Chad and from there… the literal hijinks ensue.

Confused? Well, don’t be, all comes together in a highly entertaining way in this extremely black comedy from the Coen Brothers, Burn After Reading their sorbet follow-up to last year’s Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men. I say “sorbet” because essentially this is a palette cleanser compared to the grimness that was in their previous movie, but it’s not all happiness and light here either, but still an extremely welcome change of pace from the Coens.

There’s nothing at all out there like this today, basically being this extremely smart black comedy about a bunch of people who could best be described as functioning idiots. And while it’s not the type of movie that’s wall-to-wall laughs, it has it’s moments, and still comes together to just be an extremely good time.

The Coens of course know what they’re doing, and these characters are all very well drawn out. I have to give some special note to their longtime musical collaborator Carter Burwell as well, for delivering a very cool score that of course just runs extremely counter to anything you’d expect in a comedy.

The Coens have a great cast at work here- John Malkovich as Osborne, George Clooney as Harry, Frances McDormand as Linda, Tilda Swinton as Katie and Brad Pitt as Chad all do great work here and they’re all well backed up by folks like David Rasche, the always solid Richard Jenkins, and J.K. Simmons who literally steals the movie in both of the scenes that he’s in.

Burn After Reading is just an extremely good time at the movies, and as I said above, a very welcome change of pace film from the Coens that’s sort of a mix of movies like Hopscotch and A Fish Called Wanda but still comes out in the end to be something all it’s own. I cannot recommend this one enough, it’s just a really good time, and certainly up there with the best that I’ve seen for the year.

In 1978 in Yemen, young Samir Horn sees his father killed in a car-bombing terrorist incident. Flash forward to now, and Samir is trafficking explosives to a terrorist organization. Devout in his Muslim faith, Samir proves to be a valuable asset to the terrorist cell that he’s trying to sell to and is soon brought into it’s inner circle. All the while, he remains a central figure to an FBI terror investigation, though it also appears there’s more to this man than meets the eye.

Traitor is a brilliant and thrilling little film from director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who also wrote the film, from a story from himself and Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and it’s just a really cool film giving insight to the terrorist mind, and plays it fair all the way through. It’s extremely well paced with really good, if understated, performances all around.

Really the only thing I thought was wrong with the whole thing was just that the trailer for the film blows the major twist of the film- it’s still entertaining regardless and it’s a fun ride getting to where it’s going, but I can only imagine how much cooler this would’ve been if you’d not known the twist going in.

This movie has a real first rate cast- Don Cheadle again proves that he’s one of our very best actors working today with his role of Samir, he plays this in such a way that you’re never quite sure what he’ll do next. Guy Pearce plays the straight arrow FBI agent who’s on his tail, and it’s very sincere stuff that he’s dealing out here. They’re backed up with solid work from Neal McDonough (Pearce’s partner and one of my favorite character guys to watch today), Said Taghmaoui (as the terrorist who brings Samir into the organization) and Jeff Daniels, as another government official who has a man deep inside the organization.

I really give this one high marks for playing it fair, much like The Kingdom did an for not falling into the standard Hollywood cliche of “we’ve seen the enemy and the enemy is us” and also just for being a real top-notch spy/terrorist thriller. The fact that Steve Martin co-wrote the story just makes this even more impressive. Very cool movie, up there with the best I’ve seen this year, and of course highly recommended…

In the near future, a mercenary based in Russia, Toorop, is contracted to make sure that he gets a mysterious young woman named Aurora from the ravages of a post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to New York City. He picks the girl up at a Mongolian monastery where she’s accompanied by her guardian, Sister Rebekah. Now the three begin a dangerous cross continental trek to find out what is the true secret of Aurora’s origin.

Babylon A.D. comes to us from director Matthieu Kassovitz, who’s really impressed me in the past with movies like La Haine and The Crimson Rivers and more recently behind a less impressive movie like Gothika. Unfortunately, Babylon A. D. falls into the less impressive category.

It’s hard to fault director Kassovitz entirely for this due to some problems behind his control, the movie fell behind production schedule and was running significantly over-budget and due to that, 20th Century Fox basically took over control of the final cut of the film.

There’s some good ideas at work here, and a nice sense of atmosphere built into the film. But scenes don’t necessarily flow as they should, and some characterizations seem to take a 180 degree turn right between scenes (mostly around Vin Diesel’s character of Toorov). There’s also a little too much asking of this question “What’s going on?” by the character of Aurora played by Melanie Thierry which just seems to stop any flow whatsoever, as if to be there just to make sure the audience is up to speed, making the whole thing come off more as a dumbed down version of Children of Men more than anything else.

I could certainly forgive some of this if it’s final revelation of the origin of Aurora was done in some more interesting and involving way than through fast dialogue in two separate scenes one from Lambert Wilson, who plays her “father” and the other from Charlotte Rampling who plays the leader of a religious sect called the Neolites looking for religious validity. This explanation is just boring especially in light of some of the things that they have Aurora do during the film.

The cast is pretty good executing what’s there on-screen, in addition to the above-mentioned, Michelle Yeoh plays Sister Rebekah and Gerard Depardieu plays Gorsky, the man who contracts Toorov for the job. It’s just that the way it’s all “seamed” together it just never comes through that well.

There’s probably a really good movie somewhere to be found, and maybe that would’ve come about if Kassovitz had entire control and maybe it wouldn’t. So far, much like the similarly-themed Ultraviolet from director Kurt Wimmer (which also had it’s control wrested from it’s director), there doesn’t seem to be any sort of “director’s cut” planned at present. Not awful by any means (there’s good ideas here and some good set pieces), but in no way really good either, and it’s a shame because there is some good talent at work here.