"Inside Job"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
Just in time for Halloween comes the scariest movie of the year. The bad guy in "Inside Job" isn't Freddy Krueger but a bigger villain named Freddie Mac. The ghouls and goblins of this piece are the creatures who feasted on the corpse of the American dream.
The story of the 2008 financial meltdown begins with a title card that says, simply, "This is how it happened." But there is nothing simple about this story of fiduciary irresponsibility, but director Charles Ferguson and narrator Matt Damon carefully lay out the greed and systemic failure that brought America to the brink and beyond during the biggest bubble in history.
With the collapse of the U.S. economy so went many world markets. It's a small world, one analyst says, "economies are all liked together." It's fascinating stuff, too complex to be recounted here, but Ferguson takes his time uncovering the intricacies of world finance without the kind of stunts that Michael Moore might have been inclined to include. It's straightforward, kind of a big budget Power Point presentation that allows the facts and figures to tell the story.
Many of the names will be familiar -- Director of the White House National Economic Council Larry Summers, Richard Fuld, the former Chief Executive Officer of Lehman Brothers and Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke for instance -- but the depth of the information will likely not be.
Ferguson has assembled a varied and credible cast of characters to explain how we came to brink of a global financial collapse. Many key players declined to sit in front of his camera, but luckily archived CSPAN footage fills the missing gaps.
Despite the film's steady tone, anchored by Damon's matter-of-fact narration, Ferguson can't seem to resist including a few "gotcha" moments. Occasionally the camera cuts away after difficult questions are asked without allowing the interviewee to respond. It's a cheap trick to make the subject look guilty or uncooperative and the film would have been better without this obvious stylistic trick. Ditto the use of unflattering photos to subtly vilify people. More often than not Larry Summers is shown in unflattering close-up, his Hugo Boss suit spotted with dandruff. Again it shows a bias that the film doesn't need to make its point.
"Inside Job" is occasionally a little too exhaustive. One of the least shocking revelations involves Wall Street a-type's predilection for drugs and hookers and eats up more time than it should, but the film's final point is probably the most chilling part of any movie this year. Like the bad guys who haunt Elm Street and Camp Crystal Lake the villains featured in "Inside Job" can't seem to be killed. The film's final cautionary note reminds us that many of the people who set us on this very destructive path are still in positions of financial power. Now that's scary.
"Tamara Drewe"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
This big screen adaptation of the Guardian comic strip Tamara Drewe sees director Stephen Frears return to the social satire of early work.
When Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), once a shy and homely teen in the Dorset village of Ewedown, now a bombshell big city columnist, returns home to clear up her late mother's estate, she instead turns the small town on its ear.
An affair with a rock star (Dominic Cooper) earns the ire of his teenage fans while a hunky old flame (Luke Evans) tries to rekindle their teenage romance. The resulting entanglements -- and more romantic intrigue from a philandering crime novelist -- shine a light on the personal politics of nosy neighbors and gossip. In the end, however, it is also about leaving all the chitchat behind and getting on with your life.
"Tamara Drewe" is an amusing distraction with some winning performances -- particularly from Arterton who makes the selfish Tamara likeable and Roger Allam as an arrogant novelist -- but doesn't pack the punch of some of Frears's other films like "Dirty Pretty Things" and "My Beautiful Launderette." It is, however, well cast and eager to please with a sharp, literate script.
"The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest"
Richard's Review: 1 1/2 stars
With "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" the Millennium trilogy comes to a close on the big screen. At least the Swedish take on the wildly popular books does. Next up they'll be given the David Fincher Hollywood treatment, which I originally thought was a bad idea. Leave well enough alone. But now, having seen all three of the Swedish entries I think it's time someone else had a crack at bringing these pulpy, complicated and deliciously fun stories to the big screen.
"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" picks up about an hour after its predecessor, "The Girl Who Played with Fire" left off. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is in the hospital after being beaten, shot and left for dead by her father and half brother.
In a room just down the hall her estranged-and very strange-father, is recuperating after being hit in the head with an axe by his daughter. It's all very Greek tragedy. Meanwhile a wide reaching and ludicrously complicated scheme to have Lisbeth declared insane and hospitalized for the rest of her life is under way.
The scheme involves secret government organizations, some deep dark backroom dealings and a miasma of missing and mysterious documents. Only Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has the know-how, and possibly the patience, to plough through this mess and keep his former lover out of the bin.
The beauty of the first film in this series, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," was that while it was a pulp thriller, complete with Nazis, Bible references and bondage, it had a certain elegance in the way it unfurled its outlandish story, loads of action and a great central character in Lisbeth. Since then, however, the series has been an exercise in diminishing returns. "The Girl Who Played with Fire" committed the great sin of stretching every plot point past its breaking point and its sequel, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" is even worse, stretching our interest past its breaking point.
Talky, drawn out and largely action-free, it endlessly rehashes Lisbeth's life story while, by and large, she sits there mute. It's such a waste of a character, which in the first episode of the story had the promise of becoming one of the great female characters of recent years.
Cinematically two thirds of this series has been a bitter disappointment. Perhaps it's better to stay at home with the books until the David Fincher version hits the big screen next year.
"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
If you think Swedish cinema is all isolation and despair, a tortured Bergmanesque look at the human condition, think again. In recent years directors like Lukas Moodysson and films such as "Let the Right One In" have redefined Scandinavian movies; quietly leaving behind the icy introspection typical of the best known filmmakers from that part of the world. The latest Swedish film to gain international notice is "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," a truly thrilling thriller based on a best selling novel.
In the opening minutes of the film Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a muck raking journalist for the controversial Millennium magazine, loses a libel case brought against him by a Swedish industrialist. Before he begins his three month prison sentence he is offered an intriguing job. Hired by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), the scion of an industrial dynasty, he is charged with solving a forty-year-old murder. In the late sixties Vanger's favorite niece disappeared, leaving no trace except for framed, pressed flowers which arrive every year on Henrik's birthday. It is a cold case, one that the police haven't been able to solve, but Vanger feels that Blomkvist's dogged style might be able to uncover some new clues. Aiding the journalist in his search is Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a trouble computer hacker with a massive tattoo of a dragon on her back.
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a pulp thriller, complete with Nazis, Bible references and bondage. There's nothing terribly highbrow about it, but there is a certain elegance to how director Niels Arden Oplev slowly unfurls the clues, stretching the story tautly over the two-a-half-hour running time. The plot shouldn't work; it has story shards all over the place-the verdict in the libel case, the hacker and her evil parole officer, the disappearance-but Oplev keeps the storytelling as crisp as the sound of a boot crunching on the snow that envelopes the landscape.
Top it off with some terrific performances-particularly from Rapace and Taube-some melodrama and as twisted a bad guy as we've seen since "Silence of the Lamb's" Buffalo Bill and you have a slow burning mystery that builds to an explosive climax.
If this was an American film (and it will be soon) the disgraced, but dogged reporter might be played by Jeremy Renner, the computer hacker by Kristen Strewart and the obsessed industrialist by Christopher Plummer, and you know what, it wouldn't be any better than the Swedish version. See it in its original language before Hollywood snaps it up and ruins it.
"The Girl Who Played With Fire" DVD
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
"The Girl Who Played with Fire," much-anticipated follow-up to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," is much like one of Sweden's other great exports-the IKEA Billy bookcase system. It has lots of pieces, but not all of them fit.
The story picks up a year after "Dragon Tattoo"" left off. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is back in Sweden after lamming it around the world. She's been deep undercover; not even Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) knew where she was or what she's been up to. Of course as soon as she touches down on Swedish soil her life gets complicated and by extension so does Blomkvist's. She becomes the main suspect in a triple murder and Blomkvist, trying to get to the bottom of the case encounters human traffickers, Russian gangsters, motorcycle thugs, drugs and even a brute with an unusual genetic disorder. These people lead very dramatic and dangerous lives.
Despite the large number of story shards and characters "The Girl Who Played with Fire" is much more straightforward than "Dragon Tattoo." It's cluttered yet simplistic, stretching every plot point past its breaking point. Long meaningful stares are traded, dialogue that sounds torn from the Hardboiled Crime Writers Almanac is exchanged and tepid action ensues, all leading up to a "Murder She Wrote" climax where everyone spills the beans. It's a disappointment because even at well over two hours "Dragon Tattoo" was gripping and exciting but at just over two hours "Fire" feels much longer. It is not as taut as "Dragon Tattoo" or as interesting.
One of the things that made "Dragon Tattoo" so compelling was the partnership (and budding relationship) of Blomkvist and Salander. We watched as they became the Swedish "Hart to Hart," battling the bad guys and perhaps even developing feelings for one another, but save for the occasional e-mail "Fire" keeps them apart and the movie suffers in the absence of their chemistry.
Salander, the punk rock computer hacker with, surprise (!), an attitude, is one of the better female characters to come along in recent years, but "Fire" blunts her effectiveness. She spends endless hours hiding in her apartment smoking Camel cigarettes when she should be out kicking butt. Where's the fierceness from the first film?
The film looks good -- director Daniel Alfredson keeps the austere look of the first film intact -- but on a technical note some of the subtitles are hard to read-white letters on white backgrounds are not a good idea!
By eliminating the book's emphasis on systemic sexism and homophobia in favor of a basic crime story "The Girl Who Played with Fire" has none of the dramatic oomph of the first film. Worse, it has managed to make the main characters, so appealing in the first film, less interesting.
