Knives Out

First Hit: An enjoyable investigative romp with a group of very capable actors in an old fashion story.

This film reminded me of an old fashion crime drama, sort of like a “Clue” game. What makes this movie work is the way these capable actors tell this tale of crime and deceit in both a comedic and dramatic way.

Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) is an in-home nurse who has also befriended her only client, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). Harlan is very wealthy from writing eighty successful mystery novels. His health is failing, hence the need for Marta. Marta has become his only true confidant because the rest of the family, except his daughter Linda Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis), totally lives off his generosity.

Linda and her husband Richard (Don Johnson) live in Harlan’s home and don’t fully escape from Harlan’s largeness because he funded Linda’s successful real estate business. They have a son Hugh Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans), who is arrogant, flippant, and smart while living off an allowance from Harlan.

Harlan’s home is large and his mother, Great Nana (K Callan) lives with him. She doesn’t talk and sits in a wheelchair throughout the film but plays an important role in the story. Other family members who are living off Harlan’s wealth and success include; Walt Thrombey (Michael Shannon), his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome) who run Harlan’s publishing company. Joni Thrombey (Toni Collette) who is Harlan’s deceased son Neil’s wife, and their daughter Meg (Katherine Langford), who receive an allowance from Harlan for Meg’s schooling. Each of them are taking advantage of Harlan and during the film’s story, each of these ways are explored more fully.

The family has gathered to celebrate Harlan’s 85th birthday. During this party, most of the family, we learn, have discussions with Harlan about his largeness towards them.

The next morning, after the party, the housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) finds Harlan dead in his study with his throat slit, it appears to be a suicide.

However, someone has anonymously hired Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) a famous southern investigator to find out if it was murder or suicide. Blanc, working with the police, begin to unravel the mystery as to why Blanc was hired to be involved.

The police are convinced it was suicide, but the extraordinary questioning skills of Blanc and his inquisitive mind of solving puzzles begins to shed a different light on Harlan’s death. Slowly, and methodically, his interviews begin to piece a different story together.

One of the funnier parts of the interviewing process by Blanc, we learn that Marta cannot lie. If she lies, she throws up. There are a couple hilarious, slightly gross, scenes of this.

When the lawyer comes and the Will is read, everyone gathers to find out that Harlan has left everything, I mean everything, to Marta. The family doesn’t know what to do, or how they will survive, or do they?

Craig is hilariously fantastic as the investigator Benoit Blanc. His slow southern drawl and idiosyncrasies, during the interviews using the piano, are spot on funny and pointed. Evans is perfect as the conniving Ransom. His ability to be both charming and evil are perfect. Armas is sublime as Marta. Her expressions of the fear of doing something wrong, her caution because having a mother who is illegally in the country, and also wanting to do the right thing for Harlan are excellent. Curtis is outstanding as the daughter who wants more. Shannon is terrific as the son who thinks he’s in charge of Harlan’s business but really is just a pawn. Collette is perfectly flighty and conniving as the social influencer and thief in the name of her daughter Meg. The rest of the cast is equally good in making this a wonderful romp. Rian Johnson wrote and directed this fun filled mystery and got the best out of everyone for their roles.

Overall: This was a perfect, fun filled, and enjoyable movie to sit through.

21 Bridges

First Hit: A solid, yet predictable, thriller about corrupt cops.

The set up for Detective Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) was robust. We are introduced to Davis attending a funeral. He’s a young boy, and he’s mourning his father’s death. His father was a cop and served with honor and was killed in the line of duty. There is also an early scene when Davis is being questioned by Internal Affairs because Davis has created a reputation for hunting down and killing cop killers.

With this setup, we follow two criminals Ray Jackson and Michael Trujillo (Taylor Kitsch and Stephan James respectively), breaking into an up-scale wine bar to steal thirty kilos of heroin. Finding three hundred kilos instead, they realize this could be trouble or a setup. Just as they begin to leave with fifty of the three hundred kilos, four cops appear at the front door and knock.

Not getting an answer, they break in the front and back because they find Ray and Michael’s getaway car running in the back alley. Michael and Ray are armed with automatic guns and start killing cops and the lone wine bar employee.

More cops come, and Michael and Ray kill them all. Michael is a sharpshooter and is ruthless in his picking off the police. The 85th Precinct Captain McKenna (J.K. Simmons), whose precinct where this crime is taking place, wants Davis on the case along with Drug Investigator Frankie Burns (Sienna Miller). Together, these two believe they’ve only got hours to find these cop killers or they will disappear into the civilian mass.

When the detectives find all the heroin still left in the freezer, Davis and Burns question why the cops were there and why their bosses’ story was that they came to break up a burglary. The crime scene doesn’t add up to a robbery of this type.

The FBI arrives and wants to take over the case, but Deputy Chief Spencer (Keith David) and Captain McKenna argue to let the NYPD handle it for the next few hours. If they don’t solve it in a few hours, the FBI will take over.

Setting up this urgency allows Davis the ability ask that all 21 Bridges to Manhattan Island be shut down, as well as all subway lines and trains. After doing this they start to “flood the island with blue” (cops).

At this point, the movie follows both Ray and Michael trying to evade the chasing cops, Burns and Davis. This cat and mouse game are well presented as the plot adds in new characters, the owner of the three hundred kilos, a money launderer, and the suspicion that something else is up.

Boseman is excellent as a detective that is focused on justice and the law. The final scenes with McKenna and Burns present a predictable conclusion. Miller is outstanding as the Drug Investigator who is really doing a balancing act. Simmons is sublime as a guy who believes he’s helping the department’s force with his actions. Kitsch is outstanding as the highly charged marksman of the criminal duo. James is a revelation in this role. He brings a perfect blend of viciousness and emotional heart to his character. His final few scenes clearly give the audience a man who is trying to find a way while honoring his brother’s impact on his life. Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan wrote an excellent screenplay that encompassed well-choreographed action and intellectual endeavors. Brian Kirk did a fantastic job of bringing this story together and making it all feel believable.

Overall: This was a solid film, even though it was highly predictable.

Motherless Brooklyn

First Hit: Meandering and unfocused attempt to bring this Jonathan Lethem novel to life on the big screen.

Screenwriter, Director, and Actor Edward Norton failed to make this an engaging crime thriller in the tradition of Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown.” Although there were aspects of this film, I thought exquisite, for instance the jazz club scenes and the scenes in Moses Randolph’s office, generally it felt long and tired.

One way it felt tired to me was me having to analyze scenes to see if things were making sense as the film moved along. Often, they didn’t, which is tiring. For instance, a few early scenes in the Minna Detective Agency office were confusing, and I found myself questioning how the agency made any money and had pleasantly nice offices. Everybody in the office seemed flush, not struggling. There were hints that people in the agency drove people around in cars for a fee and that this was a side business, but everyone at the agency always seemed to be in the office and sitting at their desks doing nothing. I kept thinking, how did all four guys in the agency make money? The main character Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), always seemed to have money to buy drinks with lavish tips, pay for taxis, and buy dinner or two for meetings with other people.

These and other logic questions kept popping up in my mind as the film wore on and took me away from engaging more with the story.

Basically, the story is about Lionel’s dedication to his boss and friend Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Because Frank gets shot and killed early in the story, Lionel has to find out who did it. He cannot let go of the puzzle in his head, which is where his being afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome adds to the plot. He’s always blurting out comments at an inopportune time, but it helps him to drive to answers to open questions.

The trail to find his boss’s killer begins from a hint Frank whispered to Lionel just before his death in the hospital from a gunshot wound that Lionel witnessed.

The hint has to do with a woman, Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who un-be-knowingly was fathered by a powerful city politician Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin). Although he’s never in an elected spot, he’s always been chosen to run the public parks, building commission, and the housing commission. This is where the real power of control over the city lies.

The audience sees his bullying ways in an early scene when he storms into the Mayor's office and demands to have all the commissions he had before the recent election.

Randolph has a genius brother, Paul (Willem Dafoe), whom he keeps on a short leash and on the edge of hope. Paul figures into the story because Lionel interviews him and learns more about his controlling brother Moses.

I can say that I spent 2 ½ hours watching some good scenes with some excellent acting sprinkled in along the way. However, the meandering nature of the movie and overly complicated scenes to achieve a visible result were not well-intentioned.

Norton was at times good as Lionel, but somehow his expression of the syndrome became part of the distraction versus adding to the film and story. It’s a difficult thing to do, and at times it failed. Willis’ small but pivotal part was good while it lasted. Mbatha-Raw was outstanding as Rose. Her ability to be both strong and vulnerable was effectively used. Baldwin was the best of the bunch in this film. Without any doubt he brought the role of powerful non-elected city politician to life. His conversation with Lionel about the importance of building his future dream city was wonderfully done. Dafoe gives a reliable performance as the younger brother of Moses. He's continually seeking approval for his work, and his subsequent disappointment was exquisitely displayed towards the end of the story when he opens an envelope, filled with hope, only to find something else. For me one of the most compelling scenes was between Lionel and Trumpet Man (Michael Kenneth Williams). While in Trumpet Man’s home, he and Lionel talk about their respectively messed up heads and how they each try to soothe their inner beasts. Watching Williams's performance, I was transfixed. Norton both wrote and directed this film. The direction of his own performance needed work. He seemed too engaged with watching himself where trimming his screen time might have helped the film by being more focused. However, he does have directorial talent and was able to evoke several powerful scenes by letting the talent shine.

Overall: I can say that I spent 2 ½ hours watching some good scenes with some excellent acting sprinkled in a long, meandering, and overly complicated moments to achieve an obvious result.

Black and Blue

First Hit: An engaging drama made good by powerful scenes and excellent acting by Naomie Harris as Alicia West.

West is still considered a rookie cop on the New Orleans police force after three months of duty. She’s an Army veteran with two completed tours in Afghanistan and is not afraid of conflict. She had recently joined the department because she wants to make a difference in her hometown.

Her partner Kevin Jennings (Reid Scott) drives around and introduces her to areas in New Orleans. As he passes various neighborhoods, he points one out and says, we don’t ever go in there, unless it is to help a cop.

She voluntarily takes an extra shift and heads out with veteran cop Officer Deacon Brown (James Moses Black). He makes it clear that he isn’t wearing a body-cam and not to film him, ever.

Getting a call on his cell phone, Brown and West head to a vast empty manufacturing plant. Brown tells West to “stay put,” while he meets up with an informant. She hears shots, leaves the car, turns on her camera, and goes into the building. Following voices, she witnesses undercover cops killing people, execution-style. One of the undercover men sees her and shoots at her wounding her in the side.

She gets away and soon discovers that both the drug dealers and individual cops are out to get the camera and probably kill her as well.

The rest of the film is about her evading the crooked cops and drug dealers who think she’s the one who shot and killed their team members.

Leading the crooked cops is Terry Malone (Frank Grillo), who has been busting drug dealers, keeping half the captured stash, selling it through other dealers, and then killing them to keep them from talking. His primary enforcer is Smitty (Beau Knapp), who acts like Malone’s mad lap-dog and executioner. If West’s cop camera video gets into the Chief’s hands, Malone and his team will be found out and prosecuted. Malone wants West’s body-cam and would prefer West dead.

The head of the local drug cartel is Darius (Mike Colter), and he’s got a personal interest in who Malone’s team killed as this last killing was his nephew. Malone tells Darius that West killed his nephew.

Because West is on the run, she heads to her old neighborhood and is rejected by her former friends except one, Milo “Mouse” Jackson (Tyrese Gibson). Mouse works at a grocery store, and when West shows up, bleeding, and needing help, he reluctantly gives her assistance because she is an old friend.

There are some wonderful scenes in this film, but the one that stands out to me was when West and Jennings stop at the grocery store to get a coffee. Jennings goes into the store while West gets out of the police car and starts talking to a young twelve-year-old boy. The mother of the boy Missy (Nafessa Williams) yells at West and gets into an argument with her. West, recognizing Missy as an old friend tries to reason with Missy, but Missy disses her and tells her to shut the f*&% up. The layout of the characters, Darius, Missy, Mouse, Jennings, and West are well developed at this moment.

Harris was outstanding as Officer West, who is trying to make a difference in her old neighborhood by seeing people, not color, or anything else. She’s excellent in carrying this message and physically does a great job in this demanding role. Grillo is excellent as the crooked undercover detective. His intensity and attempts to keep everyone in line were perfect. Gibson was absolutely fantastic as the quiet gentle giant who ended up helping West escape all the people after her. Williams was terrific as West’s old high school friend, who had been twisted and hardened by the neighborhood. Colter was sharp as the leading drug dealer in this part of New Orleans. He embodied the intensity and drive of a man protecting what he has. Scott did a great job of feeling caught between two sides as he knew of the crooked stuff going on, but was always the one just looking another way. Black was good as the tough cop turning subservient to Malone when required. Knapp was perfectly unglued as Malone’s killing lapdog. Peter A. Dowling wrote a terrific script that created a high intensity by all the characters. Deon Taylor had everyone on the same page with his direction, and as I previously stated, some of the scenes were indelibly powerful.

Overall: I really enjoyed this film and thought it was well written, acted, and directed.

The Laundromat

First Hit: Confusing in presentation and often meandering away from the point, this movie fails in presenting how shell companies work to launder money and how this wrongdoing is hidden from governments.

This film attempts to teach and engage the audience about the art of laundering money through a story of tragedy, charts and graphs, and humorous vignettes. It fails on all three fronts.

Jurgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramon Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) are two flamboyant law partners based in Panama City who run a set of bogus insurance and reinsurance companies. These insurance companies scam others by taking their money, hide it, change documentation, and then legally never payout against the claims. They also have set up schemes of shell companies where money is hidden and moved around so that taxes are never paid on the money.

The human life stories they use include Ellen and Joe Martin (Meryl Streep and James Cromwell, respectively) who are in retirement and decide to go on a lake tour boat. The boat capsizes because of a rogue wave, and Joe dies along with several others. Ellen, as one of the survivors, expects a class action financial settlement from the tour boat company’s insurance company.

However, Ellen’s lawyer (Larry Clarke) discovers that the insurance company used by the boat tour company had sold the policy to someone else and that the timing issue means the boat company wasn’t insured.

The film spends a little time with the boat owner, Captain Paris (Robert Patrick), as he discovers from his employee Matthew Quirk (David Schwimmer) that he’d gotten a deal on the insurance, and that’s why he selected this company. The payments were going to a shell company (postal box) on Nevis Island in the Caribbean that is run by Malchus Irvin Boncamper (Jeffrey Wright).

Ellen, who is mad as hell, traces the payment scheme and goes to Nevis, hoping to recover a settlement and discovers that the address is only a postal box.

The film stupidly adds in stuff about how Boncamper has two families, one on Nevis and one in Miami. And he gets caught in this charade while being arrested in Miami by the federal government.

The story also adds in other drama about a wealthy man, from Africa, living in the US having an affair with his daughter’s college friend. Getting caught by the daughter, he bribes her to not tell her mother by giving her a company that’s supposedly is worth $20M. Because of a previous indiscretion that his wife knew about, this man had also given his wife a company. Angry at the bribe and tired of his shenanigans, the wife and daughter head to Panama City to visit Mossack and Fonseca and cash in their stock.

Of course, they discover that their companies are fake shell organizations, and the stock is worth nothing because the husband has transferred all the funds to his own companies.

There are ill-timed and confusing graphics thrown into the mix, and there are additional maudlin scenes of Ellen with her daughter and grandchildren in Las Vegas where Ellen and Joe had met. The whole Las Vegas segue could have been left out as it added little to the story.

This film suffers significantly from the beginning moments with Mossack and Fonseca in contrived scenes with them talking to the camera and attempting to explain financial schemes in horrible accents that make it even more muddled.

Streep is wasted and horribly underused in this story. Oldman is horrible. I’ve no idea of what he was attempting to represent because one moment he’s sitting in a beach chair and the next he’s pretending to be a lawyer using a perverse accent. Banderas was slightly better than Oldman, but not much. Wright was okay as the elusive representative of a fake insurance company. Schwimmer was OK as the relative and employee of the tour boat company that had looked to save them money on insurance premiums. There are nearly forty other actors playing roles in this story, but because the story is confusingly contrived, no one character is developed. Scott Z. Burns wrote a disastrous screenplay. Steven directed this, and it would have been interesting to better understand what was in his head. I was thrown from one ill-conceived scene to another while being interrupted with graphic explanations with poorly articulated voiceovers.

Overall: I learned little to nothing about shell companies and tax avoidance because the stories thrown up on the screen were poorly conceived.