A Hijacking

First Hit:  A serious and interesting film about what a high-seas hijacking might entail.

My curiosity about how Somali pirates get on-board the huge freighters to hijack them, made me want to see this film.

It starts by showing Peter Ludvigsen (Soren Malling), the CEO of a shipping company, negotiating a deal with a Japanese group. He’s matter of fact, unemotional, and clear about his objective.

The other part of the story is about Mikkel Hartman (Pilou Asbaek) a cook on the ship that gets hijacked. The third main character is the Somali pirate’s negotiator Omar (Abdihakin Asgar) who wants to make sure that he is not classed with the pirates, but hired to negotiate a settlement because he speaks multiple languages. Mikkel is highly attached to his wife and child who are awaiting him to return home.

When the boat he’s on is hijacked, Peter insists on negotiating the release of both the boat and the crew. Omar suggests that the initial price asked by the pirates is $15M US. Peter’s counter offer is $250K. Omar uses Mikkel as a pawn to drive emotion into his bosses' negotiation tactics. 

The distance between the two sides makes for a long protracted negotiation and as one of Peter’s consultants tells him, time is a western concept and means nothing to the pirates. Meanwhile the during the 4 month negotiation process the film goes back and forth between Peter at corporate HQ and Mikkel, the ship, and its crew in the middle of the ocean.

Asbaek is very good as the sensitive cook who misses his wife and child. At one point he gets very angry and slams his fist on the table, but the rest of the time, he is a quiet force. Malling is excellent as the supposed heartless negotiator. He’s anything but heartless and knows how to put on the face and mental attitude to make his negotiations work. He does everything he can to hold the line required to make it work. Asgar is very good as the Somali pirate negotiator. Tobias Lindholm wrote and directed this film and made it really work.

Overall:  Although I didn’t learn how the pirates get on these huge freighters from their small boats, I did feel as though I learned how this process works.

The Heat

First Hit:  There are a few really funny moments, a large number of suppose-to-be funny moments, and also attempts to create a heart felt story.

The story around this film is that we have two friendless women, competent; law-enforcement officers that have to work together to both heal themselves and capture a major drug lord. 

The humor, for the most part is not subtle. It is gross humor with a lot of swearing and doing stupid things. The two women are different and approach work differently. Agent Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is a pariah in her FBI division because she is incredibly competent, intelligent and shows up the other men in her squad by closing cases with a lack of humility.

She is also a lonely woman and borrows a neighbor's cat to keep her company. On the other hand, Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) is a lonely, overweight, hard charging bullying Boston cop. She intimidates everyone in the entire squad house. Nobody crosses her and nobody does something she doesn’t want done. The unfortunate part of her character is that it seemed very unrealistic and one of the things that put me off on her character.

Her methods were unprofessional; she intimidates with bullying tactics both her perpetrators, other police staff as well as anyone who crosses her for any reason. Her family doesn’t like her because she busted her brother for drugs and sent to him to prison. The humor is not subtle and although some of the scenes are funny, the humor is based more on overt brashness, bullying and swearing.

It wasn't intelligent humor. For the tenderness, each character has their own sadness which they see they can heal with this partnership. On this end, the film is good but not exceptional.

Bullock is the better of the two characters; rather I liked watching her and what she brought to the role. Sandra portrays a tightly controlled character with humor better than most actors and here she shines again. McCarthy is not someone I enjoy watching (see my previous reviews of her). Her bullying personality, which see appears to use in many roles, is tiring and I would like to see her in a role that expands who she is and in a more heartfelt way. Marlon Wayans as Bullock’s FBI support is very good and I felt grounded when he was on the screen. Katie Dippold wrote an OK script. I felt thought, that this film wanted to be serious, heartfelt and funny but didn’t do a good job of balancing these storylines. Paul Feig directed this film and also directed “Bridesmaids” which I found un-watchable and this film suffered from a lot of the same sort of humor that I don’t find funny. However, the two young teen girls sitting in front of me couldn’t stop giggling at the gross action humor.

Overall:  The film was OK, funny at times, and probably worth watching through Netflix or on video.

The Bling Ring

First Hit:  Walks a very fine line between aggrandizing these thieves, seeing them as kids trying to fit in, celebrity worship, and viewing how out of touch these affected kids were.

The moment I began to lose interest in a section of the film, Director Sofia Coppola switched gears to show the repercussions of their actions – this is the only thing that made it work for me.

It was clear that Coppola was artfully walking this fine line. The film begins by cutting between telling the story and interviews with the teens pre and post-trial. The story goes that Marc (Israel Broussard) is a soft spoken that doesn’t like to go to school. He’s dropped off by his mom at yet another new school and she says, "have a good day at your new school".

Comments by mean-spirited kids begin immediately as he walks up the steps to his new school. Just as he’s leaving school, Rebecca (Katie Chang) walks up and chats him up. Like me, Marc thinks she’s going to do or say something rude to him, but instead takes him out with another friend and they get high on the beach. Rebecca suspects she can get Marc to do things with her and eventually invites him to go steal from one of his friend’s homes.

Caught between his knowing he’s doing something wrong and wanting to be liked by this beautiful girl keeps him in the game of doing more and larger thefts with her. Her other peers Nikki (Emma Watson), Chloe (Claire Julian), and Sam (Taissa Farmiga) all join in the fun of stealing from the celebrities’ homes and blow all their loot on drugs, liquor, and partying. When they get caught, Marc is contrite, Rebecca tries to make people she didn't do anything, but it is Nikki that steals all the scenes.

Her mother Laurie (Leslie Mann) is fully immersed in the teachings of “The Secret” and has raised her kids this way. Nikki’s public interviews and expressions of being misunderstood (“it will all be clear when my side of the story gets out”) with illusions of grandeur are fascinating.

Broussard is very strong as the meek, wanna fit in boy, who goes along with the thefts but the audience always knows it goes against his beliefs. Chang is a knockout as the conniving “in” girl who is fascinated with Lindsey Lohan. Watson is amazing and is showing some real variety and acting chops since the Harry Potter series has ended. Julian and Farmiga are very good as compatriots of the thieving team. Mann is superb as the disillusioned mom. Coppola did a great job of walking the fine line although the real lack of a strong opinion of her character’s acts could have been a weakness as well.

Overall:  Scary to think that others might want to duplicated these kids’ acts. But definitely an interesting film.

World War Z (3-D)

First Hit:  Despite the unrealistic plot and 2 hour length, it was very entertaining. First off, the buzz in the trades and in reviews is the argument of whether this film is or isn't a zombie movie. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is introduced as a family man who makes pancakes for his kids. He’s not working and left his old job by choice. He's taking his family on a day trip when all of a sudden there is an outbreak of people who are being attacked and bit by people infected with an unknown virus. These newly bit people take on the same virus behaviors in about 12 seconds, which in turn create more infected people running around biting people. These infected people surround Lane's car so Pitt highjacks a motor home and they hightail it out of the city. What we learn about these infected people is they stand around moving little, in a zombie mode, until there is noise mostly human made noise depicting humans doing something and upon hearing the noise, they rush around in a crazy way to find, bite and kill the nearest humans. The rushing around is very un-zombie like. It didn’t appear that these creatures don't eat the un-infected humans, they just bite and kill them to pass on the virus. This is all done very effectively, however a weakness in the film is that Lane's character, without explanation or supporting information, as some very important United Nations guy who… solves problems? The film never lets the audience know his who Lane is and what is his background story. He’s not a doctor, researcher, but someone who has this undefined power to be important and to fix something that is wrong. Despite this lack of background, Pitt does a good job being this person. Of course they figure out how to conquer the virus and for the movie goer, the ride is enjoyable.

Pitt is very good as someone who figures out how to conquer the virus problem even though the script provides no background of who he is and what his capabilities include. Mireille Enos (as Karin Lane) is good in a minor and caring role as Gerry Lane’s wife. Daniella Kertesz (as Israeli soldier Segen) is good as the soldier who helps Lane figure out how to stop the virus. Matthew Michael Carnahan and Drew Goddard wrote a good screen play but it lacked context and background for the main character. Marc Forster directed this well enough. Some of the CGI effects of people climbing up very tall walls looked very much like how ants accomplish this when driven.

Overall: This film was entertaining despite little context to ground it.

This Is the End

First Hit:  There were some very funny moments, but not enough to move it out of cheesiness. Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Michael Cera, and Emma Watson are playing themselves caught in a night of partying and “The Apocalypse”. To “get this film” the audience probably needs to know all the rumors about each actor so that you are in on the dialogue. For instance, at the very beginning of the film Rogen is walking through the airport and someone off camera states: “Hey it’s Seth Rogen, how come you always play yourself.” It is general criticism of Seth, of which I have the same view – he just plays himself, nothing more and nothing less. Rogen and Baruchel go to Franco’s new digs for a party when "The Apocalypse" comes. It takes them a while to figure it out and when they do, it’s funny what happens to Franco. Along the way there is a number of site and physical jokes and some are really funny.

As each person is playing themselves there’s nothing to say about their acting. Whom did I enjoy watching? Michael Cera, Emma Watson and a short scene with Tatum Channing. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote an amusing and inventive screen play while their direction was good enough.

Overall:  Nothing great but it was funny enough to enjoy.