A PERFECT GETAWAY (Major Spoilers)

Dir. David Twohy USA 2009

"That would be a hell of a second act twist, though."

(Quick note regarding Boardwalk Empire: I've abandoned my original plan to review every episode since it seems like the quality of the show will remain constant and I don't want the reviews to get repetitive. I'll probably do another one when the first season ends. Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones will definitely get reviews for each episode since I'll have a lot to say about comparisons between the show and the source material.)

OK, so, A Perfect Getaway. This movie came out late last summer to little critical or box-office fanfare and was pretty quickly forgotten. I mostly wanted to see it based on the strength of the cast (specifically Steve Zahn, Mila Jovovich and Timothy Olyphant) and the director (who made one of my favorite sci-fi/horror flicks ever, Pitch Black, as well as Below, which I reviewed over the summer). And while I did enjoy this movie, it's pretty tough to discuss without giving away the ending. So I'm going to do what I did for The Book Of Eli and stay spoiler-free for as long as possible before leaving some space and discussing the ending. Sound good? Good.

The film stars Steve Zahn and Mila Jovovich as Cliff and Cydney, a pair of newlyweds who are spending their honeymoon hiking on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. While on a lengthy, multi-day hike to a remote beach, the couple hears news of the brutal murder of another newlywed couple on the main island, apparently perpetrated by a man and a woman. They then encounter two couples, Kale and Cleo (Chris Helmsworth and Mary Shelton), two white-trash hippies and Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez), a pair of intense, but likable outdoorsy types. As they trek deeper into the wilderness, Cliff and Cydney being to suspect that one of the two couples may be responsible for the murders and that they might be next. DUN DUN DUN!

If this sounds like a B-movie thriller, that's because that's exactly what it is, albeit a beautifully shot one. Twohy milks the scenery for all its worth and although I didn't watch this on Blu-Ray I expect that it'll pop right off the screen if you do. The film is well-paced, building characters and tension slowly for the first two-thirds before hitting the gas and not letting up toward the end. The acting is surprisingly good for this type of film, with Steve Zahn and Timothy Olyphant turning in their usual great performances. As an alpha-male former soldier Nick, Olyphant gets to unleash the affably threatening persona that characterized his early work in Go and The Girl Next Door (yes, I've seen that and it's surprisingly not terrible). He seems to only get cast as stoic badasses nowadays, so it's nice to see him turned up to 11 again. I was more surprised by the female leads in the film, who I wasn't expecting much from. Mila Jovovich has kind of fallen into a rut over the past few years (although I guess it's making her money) as a beautiful but bland action star in crap like Ultraviolet and all the Resident Evil movies. Here, playing a normal down-to-earth character, she displays a naturalness and vulnerability that makes me wish she'd take dramatically challenging roles more often. And Kiele Sanchez, who played one of the two most hated characters on Lost, makes me believe she too has been hampered by bad material in the past, showing a lot of personality and enthusiasm in this film.

Despite having better characterization and directing that a film of this type deserves, the movie isn't without its problems. Steve Zahn's character being a screenwriter provides a lazy short-cut for Twohy, allowing the characters to have entire discussions about red herrings and plot twists in films which, depending on how meta you like your movies, may come off as annoying. And despite nicely balancing some pretty broad tonal shifts for much of its running time, there is one scene about halfway through the film that just...goes to a really weird place without much warning and feels completely divorced from the rest of the film (although it does pay of story-wise by the end).

Speaking of the ending, it's time to talk about that. I hate giving away endings, so if you haven't seen this movie and it seems at all interesting from what I've written so far, I'd reccommend checking it out before you read on. It will definitely be more enjoyable going in blind, but I understand if you don't. There won't be any jump back after the spoilers, so if you don't want to read any further you can jump off here. Bye.

Hi. So about halfway through the film, Zahn and Jovovich's characters have been sticking with Olyphant and Sanchez's characters, despite their suspicions, mostly because the third hippie couple are way creepier and a bit more threatening. When they get arrested by the police, it seems pretty obvious that Olyphant and Sanchez are going to be the killers. Then, when the two couples alone on an isolated beach, Sanchez realizes that Zahn and Jovovich are in fact the killers. We are then treated to a ten minute flashback which shows us that Cliff and Cyndey are a Mickey-and-Mallory-style sociopathic couple who murder other couples and assume their identities in order to live an infinite number of lives.

In retrospect, if I had been thinking harder while I was watching the film, I would have seen this coming, despite it being totally bugfuck nuts. I didn't think the movie would be particularly challenging when I sat down to watch it and Olyphant and Sanchez being the killers seemed like the obvious outcome, which I was willing to forgive since the rest of the movie was so well done. While their are clues placed along the way that could allow you to figure this out, Twohy cheats a bit by having Cliff and Cyndey remain in character while they are alone with each other, which cause the viewer to eliminate them as suspects from the get-go. This is later explained (or rather, the explaination is implied) by the idea that they are insane method actors who completely "become" the people they kill, but it still feels pretty cheap. Basically, if you think this is the most retarded thing ever, it'll probably ruin the movie for you, but if you can run with it (which I was able to do, more or less) it makes for a pretty nifty twist and allows for a breathless final twenty minutes where your character allegiances are turned on their head.

The twist also allows for a few other positives. I've never seen Steve Zahn play a balls-to-the-wall villain before and he's pretty goddamn good at it. More importantly, in my case anyway, it allowed me to root for the characters that I had liked best all along. Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez (particularly the former) are so badass and so charming, that I found myself regretting the fact that they were going to end up being the killers as I watched the first three quarters of the film. When they were suddenly revealed to be the potential victims in the final act, I was happy to remain in their corner as they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives. And although the movie could have been even more subversive by having the protagonists you've been following the entire time come out on top, I won't really blame them for playing it a little safe.

Ultimately (and somewhat unfortunately) the twist will probably be the deciding factor as far as your opinion on this film goes. I think it goes all the way from audacious through retarded and back to awesome. And I didn't see it coming. Which is really what you want out of a twist in the end.

UP NEXT: A Chris Evans double feature, oddly enough. It just kind of worked out that way. Cellular and Push, two apparently middling thrillers. Lets hope for the best.

HARRY BROWN / THE HIT

Dir. Daniel Barber UK 2009

Dir. Stephen Frears UK 1984

"It's just a moment. We're here. Then we're not here. We're somewhere else... maybe. And it's as natural as breathing. Why should we be scared?"

I feel like I've been doing a pretty good job thematically (if not obviously) pairing these reviews up and I just went with two British crime flicks I'd been meaning to see for a while. One was pretty good, one was pretty bad. In we go:

Harry Brown got a small US release this past April, and it had some interesting buzz surrounding it at the time. It's the first film by director Daniel Barber and was pretty much advertised as Death Wish with Michael Caine. That descriptor alone should provide most of the plot synopsis, but I'll give you a short one just for the hell of it.

Harry Brown is a long-retired Royal Marine who's sickly wife passes away in the first five minutes of the film. Harry is left alone in his flat in an extremely run-down housing project that is overrun with nihilistic young gangs of drug dealers. Harry fills his empty days by playing chess with his only friend, another elderly man named Leonard, in a local pub. When Leonard suffers a fatal encounter with the gangs plaguing their neighborhood, Harry reaches his breaking point and is forced to bust out his old school military training to clean up the streets.

Like I said, it's basically Death Wish, although in a lot of ways it's also a much more conventional take on the material covered by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Unfortunately, with the exception of Caine's performance (which is unsurprisingly great), I'd pretty much call this film a complete failure. It's kind of amazing that anyone, even a first time director, was able to botch such a tried and true concept, especially when working with such a reliable and talented lead actor.

The problems with this film all start with the script. Like I said, the story isn't particularly original, but this film devolves into obvious cliches at every turn and just glosses over plot points as it goes on, all smacking of an untested first-time writer/director. The friendship between Harry and Leonard is poorly established, showing us that they drink together and play chess, but giving us no indication of how they know each other, or for how long, making the main thrust of the film feel empty. The villains in the film are ridiculously over-the-top caricatures that are never represented as anything less than completely, irredeemably evil, collectively or individually. They run guns, deal drugs, make snuff films and perpetrate random acts of violence, but are also represented having some kind of organized structure, which doesn't really make that much sense. The police are also portrayed collectively as incompetent and uncaring, to the point that it's completely unrealistic, all of which works toward building a world where the audience has to believe that Harry is the only one who can take action. It's lazy writing, plain and simple. I won't spoil the ending, but the final act contains a preposterous action sequence as well as an extremely stupid pseudo-twist that, surprise surprise, feels cheap and completely unrealistic.

Caine aside, the acting in this film is pretty terrible, but the person I was most surprised by was Emily Mortimer. Although I haven't seen her in much, she has a good reputation as a decent actress and I instantly latched on to her demure presence and overall adorableness when she first popped up in the movie. By the end, I was trying to decide if she'd been horribly miscast or had just completely botched the interpretation of her character. She plays the detective investigating Leonard's murder, who eventually comes to suspect that Harry is responsible for the rash of anti-criminal violence. You'd expect this part (played by either a man or a woman) to fall into typical hardass cop cliches, but that would have been preferable to what actually happens. Mortimer plays the part like a frightened mouse, unable to stand up to her superiors, whispering reprimands at her partner and generally appearing to be completely pathetic. Her complete lack of physical competence or any kind of believable personal drive made her wholly unsympathetic and boring, and you know how bad it must be if I'm unable to sympathize with a character played by a cute British woman.

As always, Michael Caine not only did the best with what he had, but seemed to really pour himself into this role. He carries himself with a combination of righteous anger and weary grief that kept me compelled despite everything else being a total suck-fest. Shots like him standing silent and alone at his friends funeral while another giant procession passes by and his lonely, monotonous morning routine were some of the few well-made directorial choices in the film, and Caine sells every minute of it.

My last complaint about this movie before I move on is fucking CGI bullet hits. I know I just nitpicked this in my Boardwalk Empire review, but this exclusively featured CGI bullet hits and stabbings and holy shit did it look fake. Like, laughably fake. This shit bothers me slightly less in sci-fi or comic book movies like Kick-Ass, where it sort of meshes with the aesthetic, but I'm watching a gritty crime thriller here, not playing Resident Evil 4. It's probably weird that I fixate so much on this, but I just don't understand how this can possibly be seen as cheaper or more effective than using practical effects. Someone please explain it to me.



Much more interesting and enjoyable was The Hit, an early effort from director Stephen Frears, best known in America for directing The Grifters, High Fidelity and The Queen. The Hit tells the story of Willie Parker (played by Terence Stamp), an English gangster who sells his companions up the river in the mid-70's in exchange for immunity following a failed bank robbery. Ten years later, Willie is enjoying his retirement in sunny Spain, until he is kidnapped by the ice-cold Braddock (played by John Hurt) and his over-eager protege Myron (a hilariously young Tim Roth), who intend to return him to his former comrades so they can have their revenge. What follows is Sexy Beast by way of In Bruges in sort of a road trip format.

My interest in this film was piqued when I saw that it was a Criterion release, and they're pretty flawless when it comes to releasing movies that are, at the very least, interesting. Also, John Hurt and Terence Stamp are badass and I was extremely curious to see what Tim Roth looked like when he was younger than me (as you saw above, the answer is: kinda goofy). The movie isn't particularly action packed, but when violence does strike, it's pretty brutal and unexpected. There are very few speaking parts in the film beyond the three leads I just mentioned and a female lead who inadvertently gets wrapped up in this whole situation and ends up along for the ride. Everyone, however, is excellent and the script is structured in such a way that you can easily view any of those four characters as the protagonist of the film. The obvious character to latch onto is Willie, for whom this trek across western Europe is a days long death row march, but Stamp plays him with a sort of Zen-like sneakiness that allows you to not really worry too much about him as the film goes on, and instead get invested in the relationship between Braddock and Myron, which starts out frayed and deteriorates from there. I personally gravitated toward Braddock, who's backstory and thought process goes relatively unexplained, but is communicated very effectively by Hurt's performance, made all the more impressive by the fact that he wears sunglasses for most of the film. As the reckless young punk, Tim Roth (22 at the time the film was shot) overplays a bit, but still displays that charismatic spark that's carried him through most of his career. The fact that his character is a bit annoying would have probably stymied a lesser actor, but Roth carries it well.

The tone of the film (like In Bruges) fluctuates wildly, but never feels uneven. The score, which consists of flamenco music and some extremely 80's guitar licks, courtesy of Eric Clapton and Roger Waters, keeps the mood pretty light for much of the film, as does the easy-going nature of Stamp and Roth's characters. However, when the film turns on the intensity, it's pretty unforgiving. The opening scene, where Willie testifies against his friends, ends with him being lead out of the court as all his friends begin to sing "We'll Meet Again" in an incredibly foreboding fashion (what is it with that song by the way? Between this and the end of Dr. Strangelove, it's become way creepier than its authors ever intended, I'm sure). There's also a spectacularly tense sequence set at a gas station about two thirds of the way through and the ending, as you can imagine, is fairly intense. The movie never looses sight of this underlying direness, despite the frequent humor and sun-drenched scenery, best exemplified by the scene from which I pulled the quote at the top of the page, where Stamp explains his views on death, which allow him to remain calm and affable in the face of his impending execution. It's powerful stuff, and an excellent example of writing, directing and acting coming together for the best.

One other quick thing worth mentioning, in comparison to Harry Brown: the characters leave a swath of bodies in their wake as they make their way through Europe, thanks to a series of unfortunate coincidences and mistakes. Unlike Harry Brown, where an entire subplot told from the point of view of the police completely sucks the life from the film, The Hit utilizes scenes of a Spanish police captain tracking their crimes across the country. He has no lines, backstory or characterization to speak of, but it's an effective and simple way to both acknowledge the real world consequences of what's happening and creates a nice bit of tension to keep you worried for the protagonists.

UP NEXT: Going on a short vacation this weekend, and I won't see the new Boardwalk Empire episode til Monday night at the earliest. I'll try to have that posted by Tuesday night. Not sure what movies are up next. I'm overdue for seeing something in theaters. The Town and Buried both look interesting. Be back next week.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE: EPISODE 1-1

"Boardwalk Empire"
Sundays 9 pm HBO

"You can't be half a gangster, Nucky. Not anymore."

I watch a lot of TV, but I know myself well enough to know that I can barely keep up with movies reviews, let alone a weekly show. However, there are a number (3, if you want me to be specific) of new shows starting in the next 8 months or so (the other two are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, if you want me to be even more specific) that I'm really goddamn excited for and with that enthusiasm in mind, I've decided to attempt weekly reviews for these shows. They'll probably be a bit shorter than my movie reviews, which should help with not falling behind. Since we're talking about the pilot here, I'll avoid spoilers, but with following episodes, I'll have to delve into plot specifics, so if you don't plan on keeping up with the show, I'd recommend you only read this review and hold off on the other ones.

Boardwalk Empire is the tip of the spear in what seems to be HBO's effort to reclaim their title as the kings of premium-quality cable TV, since Showtime, AMC and FX have been kicking their ass in the last few years. The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Deadwood and Rome all ended within about two years of each other. So basically, between 2008 and 2010, HBO was running on Entourage and True Blood which...isn't really something to be proud of (Although they did do the John Adams and Generation Kill mini-series during that time, which were great). Tremé and The Pacific kicked off the 2010 relaunch and Boardwalk Empire seems like the a sure critical and commercial hit for the network.

Well, they were pretty much right. Boardwalk Empire is set in 1920 in Atlantic City, where the county treasurer, Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson (played by Steve Buscemi) brokers arrangements between a burgeoning organized crime syndicate and local politicians in order to circumvent the newly passed federal law outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. The characters range from the powerful (real-life mob figures Lucky Luciano and Arnold Rothstein) to the everyday populace (a pair of drivers, one of whom is a young Al Capone, and a lower-class member of the Women's Temperance League) as well as Michael Shannon as Nelson Van Alden, a federal agent seeking to nip a criminal empire in the bud. All of which is certainly familiar territory for the show's creators, Martin Scorsese, who directed the pilot and Soprano's writer/producer Terence Winter.

This episode definitely feels like a Scorsese film. Subject matter aside, Scorsese leaves his stamp all over this episode. Everything from the sweeping overhead crowd shots (very reminiscent of Gangs of New York) to the flashback structure (Goodfellas) to the freeze-frame/action cuts and the old-fashioned silent film lens opening at the beginning and end of the episode. And while the episode displays a few of the weaker points of any pilot episode (some clunky expository dialogue, mostly), Scorsese displays his usual skill for balancing strong character work with excellent pacing and a meticulous attention to period detail. This easily rivals Deadwood and Rome as one of the best looking HBO shows I've seen (although for some reason they're going with CGI bullet hits, which still manage to look fake despite the insane budget this show has. I do not understand why no one seems to use practical bullet hits anymore).

Unsurprisingly, the cast is really great too. It may seem typical to see Steve Buscemi playing a criminal at this point, but his character of Nucky Thompson is actually a bit different than what we normally see from him. Whereas Buscemi generally plays jumpy, short-tempered snakes (Reservior Dogs and Fargo) or total psychos (Con Air and The Sopranos), here he seems more a man trapped by circumstance, wary of becoming a full-blown criminal, but too savvy not to make money when it's there to be made. It's an interesting move on the part of the show, giving a lead role to someone known strictly as a character actor (albeit a great one), but Buscemi displays enough layers in the first episode to make me believe he can pull it off. My favorite bit was the "Jesus-what-did-I-do" look on his face as his mistress is screaming at him from the bathroom while he's trying to have a phone conversation.

Other standouts so far include Stephen Graham as the affably violent Al Capone (although Graham, at 37 is a bit old to be playing a 21 year old Capone) and Michael Stuhlbarg as the super smooth Arnold Rothstein, who proves himself a worthy opponent by deftly outsmarting Nucky by the end of the first episode. Both Michael Shannon (as the fire and brimstone federal agent) and Michael Kenneth Williams (I don't know who he plays in the show, but he was Omar in The Wire and that's all I need to know) only appear briefly in this episode, but based on their past work, I'm expecting great things from both of them. The only reservation I feel is toward Michael Pitt (goddamn, did they only hire people named Michael for this show?) as Jimmy Darmody. Although the character has tons of potential (at age 23, he's Princeton educated, a hardened WWI vet, a father and a mob driver/enforcer), Pitt's delivery is a bit stiff and one-note in this episode. He's got great presence when he's lurking behind Nucky or looking at someone like he's going to kill them, but he pales in comparison to most of the other actors. Hopefully, he'll find a groove as the show goes on.

I hope to find my groove as well, since I've never reviewed anything on a weekly basis before, I'll try to have the reviews up on Monday or Tuesday every week (the show airs on Sundays), and I'll try too keep the spoilers light (but no promises, you should just watch the show). It's good to have you back HBO. See you next week.

UP NEXT: Back over on movies, I've got a pair of British crime thrillers coming up: 1984's The Hit starring John Hurt and Tim Roth, and 2009's Harry Brown, starring Michael Caine.

THE OMEGA MAN

Dir. Boris Sagal USA 1971

The Omega Man is the second of three film adaptations of Richard Matheson's 1954 novella I Am Legend. Vincent Price starred in the 1964 version, The Last Man On Earth and Will Smith starred in the 2007 version, the only one to retain the title of the novella. The Vincent Price version is relatively unknown now, and will most likely strike viewers as a tamer, moodier precursor to Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. The Will Smith version was a financial success when it was released to mixed reviews, but will probably have little staying power in the minds of sci-fi/horror fans (or Will Smith fans) as time passes. I had heard that The Omega Man was the best of the three adaptations, and the completist in me wanted to see all three anyway, so it seemed like a good bet.

So this movie was completely ridiculous. I almost don't know where to begin. The loose plot of the novella and all three films is that a man-made pandemic has wiped out humanity, with the exception of one man (in this case Charlton Heston), who has managed to survive and attempts to find a cure. He must also battle the infected survivors of the plague, who end up turning into something horrible. In the case of The Omega Man, they're albino, photo-sensitive mutants who are obsessed with destroying all traces of the civilized world, which brought the plague down upon them.

Each of the films is set in the very near future relative to when it was made; in this case, 1977. And boy does it show. In addition to all the staples of early 70s cinema (awkward zooms and obviously fake squib hits), the film manages to display some of the more regrettable aspects of American style from that time, including a jive talking, afro-sporting leading lady (I guess hair care products have long shelf life) and an utterly ridiculous leisure suit worn by Charlton Heston. Even the mutants all wear aviators to shield their light-sensitive eyes. The word honkey is also used. By a mutant. Don't ask.

Now sure, just because a movies dated, that doesn't mean that its bad. And the movie showed promise at the beginning, with Charlton Heston cruising around a deserted LA in a convertible and taking in a viewing of the Woodstock film at movie theatre (the irony of that being the only movie Charlton Heston can watch is pretty delicious). There was even a great sequence where he hears all the payphones on the street ringing at once and covers his ears, screaming to himself that its not real. However, unlike the other two films, which are pretty faithful to the book until the end (the Will Smith version pussied out in a big way here, after coming so close to being awesome), The Omega Man wastes little time diverging from its source material, much to its detriment.

From here forward there will be tons of spoilers for the movie. I don't feel too bad about it, since you've got two other ways of watching this movie, both of which are better. So at the end of the first act, Heston is captured by the mutants and rescued by Lisa (Rosalind Cash) and Dutch (Paul Koslo), who take him to the mountains outside the city, where they live with a bunch of children (for some reason). Dutch actually ends up being the only believable character in the film. Despite looking like a hippie Val Kilmer, his acting is a bit more natural and he has a badass jacket, making him significantly more believable than Heston (who was 48 when the film was made, but looks almost ten years older and acts twenty years younger) or Lisa (who is a terrible actress and a ridiculous stereotype) as a rugged survivor. Anyway, Lisa's brother is succumbing to the sickness and since there's no set pattern to the disease, which can take minutes or months to turn you (an almost unbelievably cheap plot contrivence that pays off in an obvious twist toward the end of the film), the race is on for Heston to use his blood to synthesize a cure.

All of this is pretty paint-by-the-numbers, despite the film foregoing the plot of the book, which leaves the main character by himself for the first two-thirds, slowly succumbing to loneliness and fear. Vincent Price is great at this, since his acting is so off-kilter and strange to begin with, and Will Smith pulls it off surprisingly well in the newer version. Given that Heston can't suppress his bravado at all, remaining almost happy-go-lucky for much of the film, it may have been a good desicion to give him other people to interact with. It also gives him the chance to hook up with a girl half his age, despite the fact that's she's been living with an attractive young dude for two years. Go figure. (Incidentally, I was surprised at how progressive Heston's character was in this film, advocating science and interracial boning, until my roommate reminded me he's essentially playing a gun-nut slaughtering mutated anti-gun-nuts. Oops.)

So by the end, Lisa has an extremely ill-timed conversion to mutantdom and Heston gives his blood to save humanity after getting stabbed in the side with a spear and dying with his arms drapped perpendicular to his body. It's almost as if, out of nowhere, they wanted to draw some kind of parallel.

So let's run back through that. Cheesy effects, shitty acting, random overt Christian symbolism, AND HOLY SHIT THE SCORE. How did I almost forget the score, which, in addition to jumping from synth to world music and everything inbetween, was always uplifting and jaunty regardless of what was happening on screen. We're talking distractingly bad here. I can't believe I almost forgot to bring it up.

I would definitely recommend either other version of this film over The Omega Man itself. And above both of those I would recommend reading the novella itself. It's less than two hundred pages and will definitely get under your skin.

UP NEXT: I've got two British crime flicks arriving via Netflix tomorrow (The Hit and Harry Brown) and I'll probably check out something at the theatre as well. There's actually a bunch of things I want to see, surprising for September. Anyway. Bye.

THE BOOK OF ELI (Major Spoilers)

The Hughes Brothers USA 2010

"People had more than they needed. People didn't know what was precious and what wasn't. People threw away things they kill each other for now."

This movie came out in back in January, and I'd wanted to see it because...well, Denzel Washington as a post-apocalyptic samurai sounds fucking awesome. I missed it in theaters and I watched it with my girlfriend and one of my roommates last night. The reactions were mixed with me being on the more positive end of the spectrum. This movie definitely isn't great and you could definitely make a valid case for it not being good, but I think the knee-jerk hatred they had for it wasn't deserved. Just a word of warning: there's a fairly sizable twist at the end of the film that kind of needs to be addressed in a full review. I'll put it off discussing it until the end and give a warning when it's about to come up, so if you don't want it spoiled, you can just stop reading there.

PLOT: Set 30 odd years after 'the flash' (a vague, but most likely nuclear, catastrophe) turns America (and presumably the whole world) into an arid, dusty wasteland, The Book Of Eli follows the titular character as he travels west across America, transporting a mysterious book that he will not permit anyone to see or touch. He is waylaid in an apocalyptic desert town by a vicious despot named Carnegie, who rules his small oasis of civilization with an iron fist and seeks to use Eli's book, revealed to be a Bible, to further subjugate the mostly illiterate populace with the eventual goal of widening his kingdom. This sets off a struggle for control of what is purportedly one of the last Bibles in existence.

OK, I'm going to save any discussion of the religious implications of this film for the end, since they tie into the previously mentioned twist. For now, I'll stick to the film itself. This was directed by The Hughes Brothers, and is their first film since From Hell, way back in 2001. I had mediocre memories of that film and haven't seen their first two efforts, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, which garnered higher critical acclaim than their later work, so I was going into this fairly blind as far as the direction. From a technical standpoint, this movie is really well made, and I would even go so far to say that, for an action movie, it takes serious risks with both the pacing and plot. The general look of the film is pretty much the aesthetic of The Road Warrior grafted to the visual style of The Road, which isn't particularly original, but considering how slick the movie looks overall, I think they did a great job making everyone look genuinely grubby and haggard (with the exception of Mila Kunis, who is still improbably gorgeous). The art design complements this nicely, with lots of interesting little details, from everyone wearing sunglasses or goggles due to increased UV exposure to Carnegie's base of operations, a run-down, early 20th century-style hotel.

As far as the action, the film is fairly stingy when handing out its action sequences, and when they do arrive, they're over fairly quickly and with little fanfare. The opening fight is done in silhouette, similar to the shadow segment of the House of Leaves fight in Kill Bill. A later fight scene similarly involves Eli being rushed by a bunch of dudes as he dispatches them with brutal efficiency. More than anything else, it's reminiscent of Sergio Leone's westerns and Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. The action doesn't come often, but when it does, it hits hard and fast. Otherwise, the film is surprisingly...not talky (which would be inappropriate for something riffing so hard on westerns), but measured and deliberate. The opening 7 minutes or so (in another parallel to The Road Warrior) are wordless, following Eli silently through the wasteland as he goes about the basic routines of survival. The film, like Eli himself, is in no rush.

The characters, like the script, are pretty thin, just bare bones on which to hang something more interesting. Denzel and Gary Oldman are always reliable, even when they're in crap and while their scenes together aren't as explosive as they could be, I was appreciative of their collective restraint. Denzel's part definitely called for it, but Oldman could have easily made Carnegie an unhinged maniac, as he so often does in these villain roles. I was surprised and happy to see Tom Waits pop up as the town mechanic and Ray Stevenson (who played Titus Pullo, one of my favorite TV characters ever, on HBO's Rome) as Carnegie's right hand man. Knowing the incredible range Stevenson has, it's a bit disappointing seeing him play a generic heavy, but in the end, I suppose I'm glad he's getting work. Mila Kunis, who I've come to appreciate (for reasons other than the obvious) since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, still has yet to show me that she can convincingly play drama. I really, really wanted to like her in this, but she seemed to alternate exclusively between stubborn grimacing and hand-over-mouth-wide-eyed fear/shock.

Alright, I'm going to talk about the ending after the jump. There will be a second jump which will take you to the end of the review, which will also be spoiler-free. Ready? Jump!

OK, so the dual twist at the end of this film is that a) Eli's Bible is written in braille and b) Eli (like many people in this world thanks to the increased UV) is blind and has been for the entire course of the film. Eli is fatally wounded at the beginning of the third act and, in a nice subversion, has no final showdown with Carnegie (although Carnegie's 'victory' is pyrrhic, leaving him with a septic leg wound and a Bible he can't read) but is instead taken by Kunis' character to a sanctuary on Alcatraz (his mysterious westward destination) where a he recits the Bible from memory to be transcribed by a group of educated people with a printing press who are attempting to rejuvinate the world by spreading literacy and knowledge once more.

I balked at this movie from the get-go due to my intense dislike of religion and I was irked by my initial assumption that the film was saying that the Bible was the one book that could save humanity. This was also compounded by the final reveal of Eli being blind, which seemed to imply that God existed within the context of the film and had been protecting Eli in various ways in order to get him to his destination (his Hawkeye-like marksmanship and his patching up a gunshot wound to the stomach with duct tape being the two biggest examples), making for a ridiculously literal deus ex machina.

Of course, not every movie can conform to my beliefs and opinions and, although I though the movie could have been a bit more subtle about it, it didn't turn me against the film the way it did for my girlfriend and roommate. Two things softened this aspect of the movie in my eyes. First was the film's diplomacy about the fact that religion is a tool which can be used for good (Eli's quest to spread literacy and knowledge) or evil (Carnegie's desire to oppress and control people). Second was the implication that the people on Alcatraz were not particularly religious, but just attempting to rebuild the canon of human knowledge, of which the Bible is a necessary component (this is somewhat indicated by the curator placing the first printed copy of the Bible between copies of the Torah and the Quran). I usually make a point of not cutting religion any slack, but the movie was fair enough about it (and contained enough post-apocalyptic samurai badassery) for me to not be too bothered by it. I just wish they'd been a bit more vague with the whole divine intervention thing.

Alright, jump down to the conclusion. Geronimo! Sacagawea!

Welcome back. So yeah. Despite my philosophical qualms regarding the message of this film, I feel I can recommend this to anyone who enjoys westerns or post-apocalyptic settings. As long as you don't have any strong anti-Christian leanings.

UP NEXT: Nothing for the moment. I'm using my Netflix to catch up on Dexter before the new season starts. I'll see what I can find on Instant Watch.

DIARY OF THE DEAD

Dir. George Romero USA 2008

"You're stuttering, Mr. Creed. Don't try to speak, just shoot."

After spending twenty years revolutionizing the horror/zombie genre with the original Dead trilogy, George Romero made a second trilogy in the span of about five years, beginning with 2004's Land Of The Dead. While the results weren't nearly as successful this time around, Diary Of The Dead makes for an interesting, if somewhat mishandled look at the zombie apocalypse during the YouTube era.

Each of Romero's previous Dead films tackled major social issues reflecting the times in which they were made. Night (1968) addresses race relations, Dawn (1978) consumerism and urban decay, Day (1985) unchecked militarism and Land (2005) the War on Terror and invasion of Iraq. While each of those films were sequels to the previous, building upon each other to eventually show a world living a full generation after the outbreak, Diary reboots the series, returning to the woods of western Pennsylvania where Romero shot Night Of The Living Dead 40 years earlier. The film is presented as a documentary compiled by a group of film students from the University of Pittsburgh, who's film shoot is interrupted by the zombie outbreak. They then use the film equipment to chronicle their own attempts to reach family members in Scranton and document the collapse of American society.

Released about a month after Cloverfield (and made for about a tenth of the budget), Diary Of The Dead shares the obvious similarity of being viewed entirely through the eyes of characters wielding cameras. But where Cloverfield was a much more visceral, jarring experience, Romero attempts to evoke the feeling of making an actual film with Diary. The characters have two cameras running for most of the film to account for cuts between perspective and the film even goes so far as to show characters editing in stock footage that the viewer saw five minutes earlier. While certainly more measured and less action-packed than Cloverfield, Romero gives his characters plausible reasons for keeping the cameras going and skillfully allows for things like editing and perspective changes, ultimately making the film feel more like a conventional movie and less like a crazed first person shooter.

As in all of his previous Dead films (with the exception of Land), Romero went for a relatively unknown cast for this film. And as one might expect, the acting is a bit spotty. While most of the film is shot by Jason Creed (played by Joshua Close), who is ostensibly the leader of the group, the protagonist ends up being his girlfriend Debra (played by Michelle Morgan), who spends the most time in front of the camera and is clearly built to be the anchor for the audience. Morgan reminded me of a plainer Eliza Dushku, and her acting (along with everyone elses) suffers early on from some pretty stilted dialogue and ham-fisted exposition. By the end, however, I was pretty on board with her as the heroine and felt that she played a pretty good balance of vulnerable and badass. Several of the other characters were pretty whiny and annoying, but the major saving grace for me ended up being Scott Wentworth as Andrew Maxwell, the film professor advising them on their shoot. Wentworth digs so deep into cliche with his performance (knowingly I think), portraying Maxwell as a permanently soused, hyper-articulated British academic, that he emerges on the other side as an extremely enjoyable, dare I say layered character. Romero clearly had some affection for the character as well, throwing him most of the badass lines (like the one at the top of the page) and letting him rock a bow and arrow toward the end of the film.

Ultimately, while I enjoyed watching the film, I'd have to tie it with Land for the worst of the Dead films. What ultimately sinks this movie is the fact that Romero, despite trying really hard, just seems very out of touch with the material he's wants to address. All the sequences of the characters uploading things to YouTube and shooting stuff with their camera phones feel forced and weirdly inauthentic. I get what he's going for and it's certainly a worthy, interesting goal, but this film really needed to be made by someone about half of Romero's age. That being said, the man's still got it when it comes to old school zombie action. The make-up and effects look great, relying more on practical effects than CGI (although, I don't think anything will ever warm me to CG bullet hits, they just look silly) and he squeezes in some pretty neat zombie kills. Keep an eye out for the scene where an deaf Amish farmer goes at 'em with a big ass sickle. It's about as awesome as it sounds.

UP NEXT: Denzel Washington as a post-apocalyptic samurai in The Book Of Eli. Haven't watched it yet, but here's hoping.