The Proposition- ****1/2

The Proposition- ****1/2

“I will civilize this land!” Bellows Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) in the beginning of the movie. He has just given the proposition of the title, telling Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) he has ten days to kill his estranged, psychotic older brother Arthur (Danny Huston), or Stanley is going to hang his younger brother Mike (Richard Wilson). But this simple proposition sets off the entire movie, and we realize that killing one brother to save another is the least of the film’s moral dilemmas.

The Proposition opens with a warning that Aborigines may find certain images disturbing. While the treatment of Aborigines is particularly awful, the images in this film will disturb everyone. It continues the popular theme of recent movies like A History of Violence and Munich, in which violence and revenge do not solve problems, but instead create more. In this case, the revenge is because of an event labeled “The Hopkins Outrage.” We are never specifically told what the Hopkins Outrage was; we just receive hints through photographs and dialogue. It reminded me of 70s movies like Chinatown, where the past events weren’t as important as the psychological damage they caused.

The outrage was caused by the Burns gang, and the local town is clamoring for blood. Captain Stanley, a sober man who is horrified at his own slow decline into brutality, is trying his best to balance the needs of the town, personified by mayor Eden Fletcher (David Wenham), and the needs of his family, personified by his wife Martha (Emily Watson). One of the best scenes in the film is a flogging Stanley tries, and fails, to prevent. Rather than focus on the flogging itself, we get shots of the crowd horrified at their own actions. And rather than spray the audience with gore, as in the shocking yet empty flogging scene in The Passion of the Christ, the message is delivered more powerfully through one subtle shot of a man wringing blood out of the whip

Screenwriter Nick Cave delves deeply into the psychological issues of not only violence and revenge (no surprise to those familiar with his music), but the irony of how they turn civilized humans into animals. Cave and director John Hillcoat manage to relocate the American western to Australia beautifully. Hillcoat never tries to out-direct the screenplay, and instead settles nicely into it. He gives us a vast, oppressive outback that manages to out-barren the American west. The long, sweeping shots seem open, yet claustrophobic, familiar and yet strangely foreign. The best example is Stanley’s house, which clones civilization with a small garden penned in by a make-shift picket fence. But the oppressive, baked landscape crowding at the yard seems impossible to keep out. But the scenery isn’t the only interesting change. The Aborigines effortlessly take the place of the Indians, but the whites are almost more interesting. In an American western, they’re all white; here the criminals are Irish, and the soldiers are all British. This adds another interesting level to the themes of oppression and hatred.

I could list off each actor one by one, but there’s no point. There are no bad performances in this movie. The casting is spot-on, and each actor digs deep into their character. The only exception would seem to be Guy Pearce, but since Charlie’s actions and thoughts are entirely inscrutable, it only makes sense that his character is as well.

This review gave me a very hard time, as did a review for another neo-western I saw earlier this year, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. I never did finish a review for that film, and very nearly gave up on this one. Nothing in this movie is easy, and trying to discuss it in a short space is excruciatingly difficult. There is a very telling point in the middle, though, which brings together not only the evil in that time, but in our own as well. Fletcher chastises Stanley for letting his men kill an aborigine, because of the revenge the aborigines will now take on the whites. Fletcher’s solution? “Next time,” he sneers, “kill them all.”

The Da Vinci Code

Sarai:***1/2
Let me begin by saying that I started reading the Da Vinci Code, but found the writing style wretchedly inadequate, to put it mildly. Thankfully, the film saved us all from Dan Brown’s imitation of literary “style.” With this movie, Ron Howard’s filmmaking continues to evolve by omitting most of the heavy-handed sentimentality and adding cinematic flair to the story. I especially enjoyed Howard’s stylized flashback sequences. The pace of the film seemed even and unrushed until the end, where it falls apart. Despite some faults, that I think arise from the source material, I really enjoyed the film.

I love Audrey Tautou and was pleased to see her in an English-speaking role that was more substantial than the underwhelming Dirt Pretty Things. She inhabits the character of Sophie fully and displays the subtle nuances that are so often missing in blockbuster style movies. That being said, some things in this film are too utterly unbelievable. For example, Sophie (the French FBI Agent) freezes up every time a gun is pulled on her, only to be saved at the last minute by... a college professor who studies symbols? Give me a break. Sir Ian McKellan, always the consummate performer, delivers another spot-on performance as Teabing. Paul Bettany will undoubtedly be overlooked for his intense and down-right creepy portrayal of Silas, but it was one of the best performances in the film. Jean Reno, who seems to play the “French guy” in every American movie, basically plays a meaner version of his character in French Kiss. While I did enjoy Tom Hanks performance, for the most part, you always got the impression that his character really had no clue what was going on. This would have worked fine if he actually didn’t. But his character continually outsmarts the bad guys, which Hanks’ bumbling portrayal of the professor makes look like dumb luck.

The major problem I had with this movie is that it didn’t know how to end. The obvious dramatic conclusion would be after we learn who the true descendant is. Instead, the film continues to meander for what seemed to be a good 10 to 15 minutes after it should have ended. Beyond that, by having family members of the descendant show up, without explaining how they are related, trivializes the entire drama by diluting the idea that they are the last descendant of the bloodline. The most exciting thing about the movie is watching the plot unfold, which is why I think most people who read the book will be disappointed with the film. However, you have to give the film props for giving us the uncontested stupidest movie line of the summer, “Get me to a library, fast!”


Brandon: **1/2
Unfortunately, I have to disagree. I read the novel and found it to be boring and childish. Dan Brown has no sense of character, style, pacing or even a real sense of how to write. I do agree with Roger Ebert's assertion that Ron Howard is a better director than Dan Brown is a writer, but this still doesn't make the movie good. Ron Howard, who won back my respect after Cinderella Man, is stuck here laboring under a dull and pandering story.

And this is the problem with the book itself- it's a total gimmick. Brown used a little-known conspiracy theory and used it as a trick to propel a rather lame and irritating novel. And the screenplay is by Akiva Goldsman (a screenwriter who specializes in weak screenplays) is way too literal to the book and draws the film out much longer than it needs to be. Brown’s pattern of clue/discovery/police arrival/ridiculous escape becomes very obvious onscreen The film never finds its own rhythm, instead it joylessly plods along from one unexciting (and generally unbelievable) sequence to another.

Only Jean Reno, Ian McKellan (who is basically playing Ian McKellan, but hey, I'm not sick of it yet) and Paul Bettany manage to breathe a little life into their paper-thin characters. Tom Hanks is miscast as Robert Langdon. While he looks the part of a laid-back professor, he never manages to make us believe he is the character. Audrey Tautou is wasted, but manages to bring a little sparkle to a largely thankless role.

If you’re looking for an exciting movie, you’d do better to seek out Mission: Impossible III. If you want a thought provoking movie, I hope you’ve got a decent independent theater and can check out The Proposition or An Inconvenient Truth. If you just want to be bored for a while, well, I recommend The DaVinci Code.

X-Men: The Last Stand ***

It’s amazing that a film franchise with so much potential was completely obliterated in such a short burst of computer generated special effects. The X-Men movies have been hugely successful because of their mix of humor, character, action, and an all-star cast. In this final X-Men movie, they throw that all out the window and go for huge special effects. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still entertaining to watch but if you liked the first two movies and love the characters like I do, you will be leaving the theatre very disappointed - if not downright sad.

There are two over-arching storylines for this film, the resurgence of Jean Gray as Phoenix and the government development of a mutant cure. Each of these stories could have, and probably should have, been a movie in themselves. Instead, they twist them up and throw a lot of explosions over it and give you a big bloody mess. All of the banter and humorous back and forth between the characters like Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Cyclops (James Marsden) is gone. Instead it’s replaced by melodramatic moments for Storm (Halle Berry) and a juvenile love triangle for Rouge (Anna Paquin). Instead of delving into the already established characters, this film throws a new mutant your way every few minutes and doesn’t develop any of them.

The beginning of the film is promising, with a trip down memory lane to give you some back story on Jean Gray (Famke Janssen). This is pretty much the only part of the movie where you get to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen together; their scenes have generally been the soul of the x-men movies. While this film does give Storm a bigger role, it is at the complete expense of Rouge. The addition of Kelsey Grammer as Beast was an excellent casting choice, but we never get to know the character in the film.

**SPOILER ALERT – don’t read on if you haven’t seen it**
While I generally hate spoilers in reviews, I found it hard to even begin to review this film without one. First of all they kill way too many characters off. Cyclops is gone in the first five minutes. Professor X, who in their right mind would kill Professor X? His death was also within the first half of the movie. Then there’s Jean Gray whose story is really interesting in the movie, but they barely scratch the surface on it before they kill her off too. And the prize for the most underutilized mutant definitely goes to Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), who quickly becomes “cured” and is not really heard from again. By taking away the heart of this movie franchise, the characters, they reduced X-Men to nothing more than a summer action movie. It’s disappointing.