This Danish high concept thriller is fucking phenomenal.The entire thing takes place in an emergency
call center where they get a ring from a lady who says she’s been
kidnapped.You can hear she’s upset,
frightened and barely holding it together on the phone.The operator trying to help her through the
situation is a cop who’s on phone duty as punishment for some shady shit he did
as a patrolman.He’s pretty good at
detecting though because from previous calls he can tell pretty quickly when
someone’s freaking out on drugs and when some dude obviously got ripped off by
a prostitute but refuses to admit it.He
has a strong intuition.Unfortunately he
doesn’t always use it for good.
So we got a nail biter if I ever saw one.All the action is left to your imagination leaving
a powerful impression.The only bits we
have to go on are voices on a phone and the protagonist’s facial and body
language.It’s so fucking intense because
you can’t see what’s happening on the other end of the goddamn line.You feel like you’re drowning in
helplessness.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about the people that do this
job for real every day.I don’t know how
many calls involve a circumstance this dire with an abduction and little
children in danger but even one in a rare while has gotta drive you insane.
With something like this that’s very play-like and
essentially a one man show it becomes extremely fragile.The script has to be perfect, the
performances have to land flawlessly, the shooting has to be dynamic enough to
keep the audience engaged, the audio has to be clear yet slightly distorted to
give agonizing distance between the victim and their lifeline and the editing
has to be spot on to achieve just the right flow.It seems like such a difficult film to make
and they knocked it out of the park.One
of the quickest and most suspenseful ninety mins I’ve ever experienced.
(An American remake is coming out sometime soon but I can’t
imagine it getting any better than this)
All Square
John Hyams’ (Universal Soldier: Regeneration) dramedy
about a bookie named John (Michael Kelly (House of Cards, Law Abiding
Citizen)) who has the genius idea of placing bets on little league games is
really nice.It’s full of genuinely
tense moments like when John has trouble covering an unusually large bet and
gets a visit from some goons.And there
are genuinely funny moments like when the parents and drunken onlookers who
have money riding on the little league matchups take the games waaaaay too
seriously.Of course John doesn’t see an
issue with this.
More of a character study than anything else John is an
interesting guy.He was moving through
the baseball farm system when a family tragedy forced him to give up his
dream.He’s been fiercely bitter ever
since and doesn’t take shit from nobody. Well, except when he gets sucker
punched.His morals are definitely
screwed up with the little league scam but he also befriends one of the kids
and teaches him how to pitch.Maybe he
doesn’t always give the best advice but deep down he’s got a heart and
sometimes he listens to it.
If any of this sounds familiar that’s because it’s basically
a better twist on The Bad News Bears.They share a number of the same attributes like the beer guzzling
protagonist who once played semi-pro ball with questionable ethics who
inexplicably gets involved in little league, there’s a dickhead coach of one of
the teams (played by Josh Lucas (American Psycho)) and there are lessons
about integrity and sportsmanship, etc.
Hyams continues to be one of the most overlooked/underrated
directors out there and further shows he has range beyond action/thriller
material (he also made an excellent doc on MMA fighter Mark Kerr (The
Smashing Machine) and one on bull riding (Rank)).In fact I liked this better than his newest
serial killer thriller Alone.So put
this one on the bump for a few innings.It’s got good stuff.
Inside Moves
Here’s another sports related picture in this particular
jumble except this time it’s basketball.Honestly there’s too much story to give a decent synopsis but very
basically it’s about these two guys and their friendship.Bartender Jerry (David Morse (The Long Kiss Goodnight) in his debut) is a very affable guy who’s really good at
basketball but he has something wrong with his leg.He limps and that prevents him from being an
exceptional professional level player.Roary
(John Savage (Do the Right Thing)) recently recovered from attempting
suicide by jumping out of a window.He
now walks with a terrible hobble and starts off awkward around people.Eventually though they help each other out
with Roary working towards getting Jerry the surgery he needs to remove his
limp and Jerry bringing Roary out of his shell to the point where he might be
able to overcome his crippling suicidal depression.
It’s a beautiful picture with a positive message that I
absolutely dig.There’s a theme of
overcoming one’s disability and the bar where Jerry and Roary work are full of
folks with some sort of hindrance.A
blind man, a man in a wheelchair and a double hand amputee are their best
friends who they hang out and bullshit with all day long.They find strength in each other to keep
moving forward.
The performances are the definite standouts here with Savage
and Morse slaying it.It looks like
Savage had to distort his body in a pretty extreme manner due to the brace on
his leg and Morse must’ve had to practice his basketball moves because he makes
a lot of the shots for real.Beyond the
physical the emotional turmoil they go through with all the baggage they carry
around inside is heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting.Morse and Savage had to exude a warmth but be
standoffish at the same time which couldn’t have been easy.
Interestingly this was Richard Donner’s follow up to Superman
(or Superman II I suppose would be more accurate) which is about as far
from a comic book movie as you can get. Donner does such a great job developing the
characters in a natural way while never losing sight that their progress could
be erased at any moment.Even though he
was known more for action pictures he could turn on the tragedy and drama when
he wanted to.Sadly he died last month
so let’s honor his memory by remembering a real masterpiece of his.
The Boys from Brazil
Let’s completely switch gears and talk about The Boys
from Brazil for a moment.It’s about
Josef Mangele (notorious Nazi doctor who brutally experimented on concentration
camp prisoners during WWII) and his attempt to bring the Nazis to power once
again from his home base in modern day (70’s) Paraguay.What I mainly want to point out is Gregory
Peck’s (Cape Fear, Roman Holiday) performance as Mengele because he
hadn’t really played a villain before, at least not to this extent where he’s a
soulless monster.Peck is imposing,
commanding, charming when he wants to be, ruthless and creepy as a
sonuvabitch.His monologue towards the
end about his plan for world domination is riveting and spooky with the camera
right up in his face making you feel even more uncomfortable.I also love the scene where he’s at a party
and spots one of his soldiers who he thinks should be on an assassination
mission in another country.He freaks
the fuck out and tackles the guy right into the buffet table.It turns out to be a misunderstanding but the
incident shows you how serious Mengele is taking the operation.
Lawrence Olivier (Dracula (1979), The Bounty)
does a great job too as a Nazi hunter who’s trying to piece together what the
fuck Mengele is up to.I definitely
don’t want to leave him out of the discussion because he turns in a memorable
performance as well.He gives a lot of
character to someone who could’ve been very bland by playing him hard boiled
towards his allies and enemies but sympathetic towards the victims.He’s not some master sleuth but a guy doing
what he can to protect the world from war criminals that seek to destroy it.
And the plot to the movie could’ve been played as a straight
up horror picture which would’ve been kinda neat.Instead they go for a thriller which is the
smarter route because it brings the material into the realm of reality just
enough to give it some weight while the core concept remains wacky enough that
you can still have fun with it.If you
stop and think about what Mengele tries to pull off though it’s really fucking
disturbing.And as a capper the final
moments leave you with a fascinating moral thought experiment.Anyway, pretty engaging movie.Check it out.
