Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Hands up if you’ve seen a film where Mark Wahlberg plays a middle-class Average Joe who becomes an American hero after being thrust into extraordinary life-threatening circumstances. Hands up if it was based on a true story? Hands up if it was directed by Peter Berg? While statistically we’re only talking about one other movie – Lone Survivor – it sure feels like we’ve seen this one before.

Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams, an engineer aboard the doomed (and retrospectively ominously dubbed) oil rig Deepwater Horizon. Against the advice of supervisor “Mister Jimmy” (Kurt Russell), BP execs (led by a seedy John Malkovich) press on with the drilling operation, sparking catastrophe when the rig ignites.

Deepwater Horizon is competently told, frightening when it needs to be and rousingly admiring of its real-life heroes in the obligatory epilogue in which we see photos of the real-life casualties. That’s the thing about Deepwater Horizon, though; it’s entirely inoffensive because it plays very much by the numbers of how you’d expect this film to bear out. Deepwater Horizon never truly transcends the genre it inhabits.

As a piece of narrative fiction, Deepwater Horizon isn’t particularly thick. Its characters are largely indistinguishable, set apart largely by the fact that they’re played by different recognizable performers who lean heavily on their reputations or, in the case of Malkovich, an accent bordering on the ludicrous. These are largely seasoned veterans, quite comfortable in their cinematic personas. Wahlberg is in top “say hi to your mother for me” mode and looks suitably beleaguered by the harrowing disaster he endures. And Russell is finely stalwart as Mister Jimmy, commanding the respect of his employees in a way that never beggars credulity. But it’s not as though there are any surprises in this one as far as acting goes. Ditto for the story, which ends up being a vehicle for big explosions and opportunities for individual heroism (usually shot against a billowing American flag, which is astonishingly flame-retardant).

When it comes to the spectacle, though, Deepwater Horizon is sufficiently compelling and doesn’t disappoint. Indeed, it calls to mind an oceanic Alien, claustrophobic with no shortage of renegade scenery ready to pop out without a moment’s notice. As with character, the film is unfulfillingly thin on plot, but its special-effects sequences are engaging and amply terrifying, though I’m not sure they have the staying power that make the film strongly memorable.

Trailers before Deepwater Horizon reveal that Berg and Wahlberg are reuniting for Patriots Day, a film about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Whether this is the final installment of a thematic trilogy or the shape of things to come, there isn’t much to suggest that another film won’t be anything but more of the same. This “same” is fine enough, but it’s doubtful that the third time’s going to flip the script. If you’ve enjoyed it before, you’ll like it again, but unlike the depths which its protagonists plumb Deepwater Horizon proves to be a little shallower than filmgoers might appreciate.

Deepwater Horizon is rated PG-13 for “prolonged intense disaster sequences and related disturbing images, and brief strong language.” Directed by Peter Berg. Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand. Based on a true story. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, and John Malkovich.

Red 2 (2013)

Red 2, the closet comic book film of the summer, has been marketing itself as the antidote to the monster/superhero bombast of the summer season, and while that’s certainly true it might have been wiser to play up the film’s strengths – its exuberant sense of fun executed by professionals who aren’t afraid to take themselves a little less than seriously.

Enjoying retirement to the dismay of his girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), former special agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is pulled back into the life by his old partner, the mentally dispossessed Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich).  While another old friend, Victoria Winters (Helen Mirren), takes a contract on their lives for MI6, these Retired/Extremely Dangerous agents scramble to find a nuclear device mislaid during the Cold War before engaging Edward Bailey (Anthony Hopkins), the criminally insane genius who built the bomb.

Let’s get the obligatory stuff out of the way.  Red 2 bears none of the gravitas of Skyfall and probably won’t be making any best-of lists come December (although it’s #1 on my list of “Top 10 Movies of 2013 Where Helen Mirren Blows Stuff Up”).  And while the concept demands aging actors, there are moments when an abler, more spry spy might have shaved about fifteen minutes off the plot; there are moments in Red 2 where Willis seems tired and not, I suspect, because his character needs a breather.  (I hesitate to say “phoning it in,” although it’s clear he’s not having as much fun as everyone else at all times.)

But even though the director’s seat has a new occupant this time (Dean Parisot replacing Robert Schwentke), screenwriters Jon & Erich Hoeber return to make sure that the Red franchise keeps its identity secure.  This is a film that knows itself well and in the end does right by itself.  The Hoebers don’t lose sight of what made the first film work – its melding of no-frills action and an infectious sense of fun.  But a movie premised just on being fun doesn’t quite cut it.  Fortunately, Red 2 is also deft at including the other elements – plot, character, acting – that a film needs to “work.”

The plot is, admittedly, a little thin – we’ve seen “ticking time bomb” plots before – but it succeeds at giving events a sense of significance rather than just a skeleton on which to graft special effects sequences.  That is, we care about the stakes, and the characters are compelling enough to bring it to life; we want to see them defuse the bomb not because they have to but because the narrative structure imbues importance on the issue.

Much of that work of significance comes from the acting cast, who are as resplendently entertaining as they were in the first outing.  Willis, Malkovich, and Mirren continue to do well in their roles (the latter practically demanding a spin-off with a near-cameo Brian Cox, whose infatuation with her never gets old), their taut chemistry losing none of its fizzle in the interim, but it’s Parker who’s the surprise hit, amping up her damsel-in-distress with a strong shot of thrill-seeking.  Parker’s everything you want in an unlikely action heroine – strong, sexy, hilarious, and just the right amount of clumsy-yet-capable.

New face Catherine Zeta-Jones is somewhat less inspiring as a Russian femme fatale, though her scenes with Willis allow the latter to play a stellar moonstruck.  The other big additions, however, are much more pleasant.  Byung Hun Lee is a treat as an assassin with a revenge plot for Frank Moses, and his fight scenes get the blood pumping where the older stars can’t.  But by far and to no one’s surprise, the best addition to the cast is Sir Anthony Hopkins as the insanity-addled scientist, who’s gone mental after years of solitary confinement.  If Red 2 is understood as a space where scenery chewing isn’t just permissible, it’s encouraged (cf. Malkovich), Hopkins goes to the head of the buffet line for an all-you-can-eat performance, greeting invisible cows while distractedly fidgeting with nerve gas.  It’s the kind of role that exudes entertainment, with Hopkins’s gleeful mania suggesting not just the depths of his character’s insanity but also the sheer enjoyment factor that must come from playing such a part.

At the end of the day, Red 2 doesn’t break much new ground, nor does it distinguish itself as mind-numbingly brilliant.  But what it does, it does quite well – entertain, distract, and divert for two hours with a serviceable plot, a solid ensemble cast, and a breathless sense of fun.  Count me in for Red 3 (especially if you get someone like Michael Caine in there)!

Red 2 is rated PG-13 for “pervasive action and violence including frenetic gunplay, and for some language and drug material.”  Yeah, that’s a weirdly specific rating... certainly lots of guns get fired and plenty of stuff blows up.  The profanity is pretty tame, and Marvin’s history with LSD is cited a few times.

Check back with us on Wednesday for another action film, Pacific Rim!

Monday at the Movies - May 14, 2012

After a brief hiatus, welcome to Week Nineteen of “Monday at the Movies.”  Between reading Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest and attending a second screening of The Avengers (still highly recommended), we’ve only got one movie on the docket today.

RED (2010) – Can it be?  A comic book movie whose source material I’ve never read?  But the premise of the film – Hollywood’s finest senior citizens (a cast of all-stars, including Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Brian Cox) portraying “retired” intelligence agents – was too good to resist.  And on this, my second viewing, I realized that the plot is really ancillary.  What gets these agents out of retirement is a series of assassinations which eventually finds them in the crosshairs, but very few moviegoers are going to latch onto that in the way that they’ll latch onto the character types.  Ringo Starr thought he might win an Oscar if he acted naturally, but while you won’t see any Oscar-winning performances here you will see actors playing to their strengths:  in essence, the aged Avengers.  Willis is the strong, silent type; Freeman is the jovial elder with a voice of gold; Malkovich is the nutty and unstable one; and Mirren and Cox are the romancing agents from opposite ends of the Cold War.  The chemistry – and extreme sense of fun – flies off the screen and will leave you with a big smile on your face.  It’s not the deepest spy film you’ll see all year, but it’s probably the most fun. 

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!