Four Brothers (2005)

Four Brothers is a everything you’d expect from a movie directed by John Singleton, starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, André Benjamin, and Garrett Hedlund, and set in Detroit. It has lots of guns, a good deal of punching, and more than my daily recommended dose of alpha male machismo. But it also has Chiwetel Ejiofor, so we’ll call it even. A tale of brotherhood and justice, the movie starts with a murder, a particularly cruel one. A grandmother is gunned down at a convenience store, seemingly a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but as her adult sons gather, little is what it seems.

The deceased is Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan), a neighborhood guardian who’s fostered a number of children over the years. The only ones who couldn’t find permanent homes were Bobby (Wahlberg), Angel (Gibson), Jeremiah (Benjamin), and baby Jack (Hedlund), so she adopted them herself. The four have drifted apart over the years, but they put their lives and differences on pause to come together and honor their mother, and to find the killers. That’s when things start to get crazy.

They deduce that her death wasn’t just the result of a robbery gone wrong but a calculated hit. Who wants to kill a sweet old grandma though? As the brothers get closer to the truth, they also find themselves tangling with the city’s criminal elements, which may involve the police. Two detectives (Terence Howard and Josh Charles) warn them off the case, and fur coat-wearing gangster Victor Sweet (Ejiofor) possibly has ties to one of the brothers.

There are a lot of characters running around, but somehow they manage to keep their distinct personalities, even if that is reduced to a few key character traits. Amongst the brothers, for example, Bobby’s the oldest and the natural leader, Angel’s the playboy, Jeremiah’s the good boy, and Jack’s the mama’s boy. These archetypes are meant to explore ideas of brotherhood, family, and identity, but they don’t amount to much more than broad overtures to a deeper social portrait. Neither the script nor the actors push the characters beyond their limited purpose within the plot, so any closer examination of race and class in this troubled part of Detroit simply fades. At the core, Four Brothers remains very much a police procedural, tense and action-packed to be sure, but not a film whose importance extends beyond whatever is happening on the screen.

Released: 2005
Prod: Lorenzo di Bonaventura
Dir: John Singleton
Writer: David Elliot, Paul Lovett
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, André Benjamin, Garrett Hedlund, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Fionnula Flanagan, Terence Howard, Josh Charles, Sofia Vergara, Taraji P. Henson
Time: 109 min
Lang: English
Country: United States
Reviewed: 2017

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

Having never cracked open a Tom Clancy novel or seen any of the films featuring the titular hero, I watched this latest reincarnation with a willingness to embrace whatever Jack Ryan wanted to throw my way. And now that I’ve seen it and we’re a few years out, I only wish the Chris-Pine-as-Jack-Ryan tease would have lasted a little longer. A tight spy thriller that doesn’t try to outdo itself, Shadow Recruit keeps you on edge to the very end.

One reason is that our hero is not cut from the same cloth as steelier spies like James Bond or Jason Bourne or even Harrison Ford’s version of the same character. Instead, Pine sheds the bravado for a younger, untested Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst working undercover as a compliance officer on Wall Street to identify terrorist funding. His riskiest encounters happen during shadowy cinema screenings when he passes information to his handler. He is unprepared to step into the front lines of the spy world but is forced to after noticing suspicious activity on a major Russian account. Ryan goes to Moscow to investigate further but must improvise his first kill before he puts down his suitcase.

That he’s so out of his depth makes him an appealing and even reassuring lead character. Our screens are filled with so many cocky superheroes these days that Ryan’s fear and insecurity only emphasize his intelligence and humility. After he drowns his would-be assassin, Ryan fumbles his way through a call to his CIA contact and, while he’s waiting for the cleanup crew to arrive, surveys the scene with blanket shock. This isn’t what he signed up for, and in his uncertainty, you can easily see how the whole spy game might go south. But then again, this is also a guy who joined the Marines post-9/11, midway through his Ph.D at the London School of Economics. While recovering from severe injuries suffered during a helicopter explosion, in which he rescued two of his men, he rebuffs an initial offer to join the CIA because of moral objections (this being the Bush era). Pine, proving that he is equally skilled as the anti-Captain Kirk, creates a character who you trust will pull his shit together when it’s all on the line, even if Ryan has his own doubts.

This shot of realism pairs well with the Russian context, which might have seemed old hat just a few years ago. Ryan doesn’t just uncover financial dishonesty but a far more devastating plot to collapse markets and sow chaos for more terror attacks. There’s an eerie prescience to the storyline in this age of Trump. With persistent reports of Russian efforts to disrupt Western democracies, you could imagine a duplicitous Viktor Cheverin character (a delightfully cold Kenneth Branagh) lurking in the background. Though he leans towards parody – our introduction to him involves opera, drugs, and someone getting their head kicked in, Cheverin controls most of the assets in question and effectively draws the U.S. government into a daring two part chase. The first ends up being a game of cat and mouse that darts between the streets of Moscow, his glass bunker of an office, and a fancy restaurant across the way. The second is on American soil, right in the heart of Wall Street.

Grounding all this action is seasoned officer Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), who recruits Ryan and then shadows him in Moscow. His ability to keep unflappably cool and maintain an even inside voice contrasts with his edgy protégé. Costner, ageless and dignified, disappears into the role like a good spy should. Meanwhile, Keira Knightley, playing Cathy, Ryan’s doctor/girlfriend, does quite the opposite. Though the relationship could benefit from more heat between the two actors, that doesn’t lessen her performance, and she really lights up when her character crashes into Moscow like a woman scorned. Cathy is just this side of a nagging stereotype and is saved by Knightley’s resolve and occasional glower. After Ryan again pleads with her to marry him, she looks at him like he’s been asking the wrong question this whole time.

Released: 2014
Prod: Mace Neufeld, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, David Barron, Mark Vahradian
Dir: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Adam Cozad, David Koepp
Cast: Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh, Len Kudrjawizki, Alec Utgoff, Elena Velikanova, Peter Andersson, Nonso Anozie, Gemma Chan
Time: 105 min
Lang: English, some Russian
Country: United States
Reviewed: 2017

White House Down (2013)

As we near Donald Trump’s first hundred days as the President of the United States, it’s safe to say that we are living in truly absurd political times. I figured the appropriate way to cope would be to watch an equally absurd politically themed movie, so here we are. As things sometimes turn out, this bombastic action thriller is marginally more sober-minded than whatever it is that we’re currently watching unravel in the nation’s capital. At least White House Down makes perfect sense within the Roland Emmerich world of apocalyptic shit shows, and there’s the satisfaction of knowing that not only do the good guys always win but the bad guys definitely get punished.

So, possibly helped by the times, I must recommend White House Down, the enjoyable political disaster movie starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx as the heroes our country desperately needs. One (Tatum) is in the mold of your traditional action star. A brusk loner with an authority problem, John Cale recognizes the sins of his past and just wants to do right by his girl, Emily (Joey King). She is his precocious middle school daughter, a walking encyclopedia of political history and current events, but is none too impressed with her estranged father. In part to earn back some daddy points, he hopes for a career upgrade from protection detail for House Speaker Eli Raphelson (Richard Jenkins) to Secret Service agent.

It’s on their way out from the interview that they crash a White House tour and meet the other man of the hour, President James Sawyer (Foxx), channeling his very best Barack Obama. Six months ago, a chill black president who’s a little too professorial and a little too much of a dove would be par for course, but now there’s something Twilight Zone about it. If only Obama really had gotten that third term, maybe we’d all be laughing now. In any case, Sawyer rebuffs Cale, not knowing that this man will save his life and his whole damn country by nightfall. That’s because a group of mercenaries, some with elite military training and a massive grudge, has infiltrated the Capitol Building and the White House, and they’ve got inside help. There is just so much treachery in Washington.

Director Emmerich guides the story along with the steady hand of one who has blown up presidential quarters before, which is useful since the White House proves to be a very big playground. The action isn’t always graceful and is too often reliant on unimpressive special effects and green screen, but the movie rushes along at a steady pace, zipping back and forth between considerable explosions, tight firefights, and actual fights. All of this is supported by a low-key chemistry between Tatum and Foxx that keeps the mood serious but only just so. Tatum has less rapport with Maggie Gyllenhaal, a former love interest and potential superior. They don’t share many scenes together, but it doesn’t matter because the appeal is Tatum shooting things whilst clad in a tiny tank top.

And to be sure, there is a lot of shooting going on here. Some people will be aghast at the carnage. I don’t mean the body count, which gets pretty high pretty quick, but the priceless artifacts that are used as target practice. The only person who senses the devastation is the droll tour guide (Nicolas Wright). In fairness though, this physical blowing up of the White House is preferable to the metaphorical one that is happening right now.

Released: 2013
Prod: Roland Emmerich, Bradley J. Fischer, Harald Kloser, James Vanderbilt, Larry Franco, Laeta Kalogridis
Dir: Roland Emmerich
Writer: James Vanderbilt
Cast: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, James Woods, Joey King, Nicolas Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Michael Murphy, Lance Reddick
Time: 131 min
Lang: English
Country: United States
Reviewed: 2017