By Katey Rich
In what will hopefully become a regular feature here, we'll take a look at the big releases coming up this weekend and what chance they stand both at the box office and under the critical lens. This weekend continues the month's trend of releasing a huge amount of prestige films at once, while throwing in some vampires and a formulaic sports spoof-- you know, for the kids.
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30 DAYS OF NIGHT. Call me a sucker, but I don't think I've heard of a better horror movie concept than this one. A town in Alaska is in permanent darkness for a month each winter, making it a convenient stop for a troupe of vampires. Josh Hartnett and Melissa George play a married pair of sheriffs who try to stop the invaders, led by Danny Huston, while Ben Foster shows up as the mysterious Stranger, who seems to know everything about the bloodsuckers coming to town. (Foster's character, it should be noted, will have a bigger role in the planned sequel).
My favorite review for this film comes from my friend Josh Tyler at CinemaBlend.com, who promises that "David Slade hasn't revolutionized the vampire genre, but he may make you wet your pants." This inspired the independently-owned Eagle Theater in Robinson, Ill. to keep a supply of Depends on hand for 30 Days of Night ticket-buyers; you can see the ad they placed here.
Unfortunately most reviews aren't as glowing as Josh's. The Seattle-Post Intelligencer sums it all up with the headline "What's really scary about 30 Days of Night is the boredom." The Hollywood Reporter has praise for the vampires themselves--"Feral and brutish and only vaguely human"--but concedes that the film is "more akin to an excruciatingly long Marilyn Manson clip." Owen Glieberman at Entertainment Weekly was feeling the passage of time as well, noting "the movie itself feels about a month long."
Nonetheless, the experts are calling the weekend in favor of 30 Days of Night, giving it the edge over its pretigious competitors as well as the fellow young man-skewing The Comebacks, a sports parody that hasn't screened for critics.
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GONE BABY GONE. Ben Affleck--what a surprise. The Onion AV Club has a nice feature this week offering second chances to people, projects or things that were maligned the first time around, and predicts that Affleck's reconsideration will come thanks to Gone Baby Gone. The first adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel since the critically-anointed Mystic River, Affleck's film returns to the same gritty Boston mileu to depict the search for a kidnapped four-year old girl, the daughter of good-for-nothing junkie Helene (Amy Ryan). Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan play the detectives on the trail, who must tangle with the established police force (Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman) who have more sinister intentions than just foiling the young sleuths. The plot twists in any number of different directions--this is one of those thrillers in which absolutely no one is as they seem--but stays rooted nonetheless, delivering a satisfying but troubling emotional climax. Monaghan is wasted in a prettied-up stock girlfriend role, but Affleck is mesmerizing as the lead; this plus his work in The Assassination of Jesse James should finally banish "Ben's younger brother" from his name. Ben proves himself admirable here too, mishandling a couple of plot revelations but largely keeping the whole thing on an even keel.
The critics were as impressed as I was, if not more so. Our own Bruce Feld calls it "a thinking man's crime film" and lauds the younger Affleck's 'breakthrough performance." Ryan is also getting raves--"Note to Oscar: Get Ryan on the nomination list pronto" demands Rolling Stone's Peter Travers--and Ben Affleck earns praise from even the more so-so reviews ("Affleck the director shows excellent instincts" writes Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum, before giving the film a B-). Most critics weren't so harsh, with Hollywood Reporter raving "it's going to be remembered as one of the best crime movies of this decade," and The Village Voice giving it a thorough, favorable comparison to that master of crime himself, Raymond Chandler.
The Hollywood Reporter specifically calls it "perilous" to predict Baby's chances, but given the huge success The Departed had last fall with a Boston-centric crime drama, the combined star power of the Afflecks and the great word of mouth potential (not to mention the lovely poster), lets hope Baby can get a fair shake at the box office.
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THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE. Try as I might, I still haven't been able to make sense out of this title. Is it going to be one of those metaphoric ones, where halfway through some character says the title and everyone groans? Or are we just supposed to accept that "fire" is a reasonable stand-in for the death of a husband and a heroin addiction, which are the ailments that afflict Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro's characters here. Berry's husband Brian (David Duchovny) is killed in a random act of violence, and she invites his childhood friend Jerry (Del Toro), a heroin addict, to live in her home. Recovery--and maybe romance?--ensue.
As can often happen when reviews are middle-of-the-road, the number of "fresh" ratings over at Rotten Tomatoes is a little misleading. Our Bruce Feld, credited with a postive rating, still notes that we feel "much more pity for the addict who is ordered about by a hysterical widow than fear for Audrey for allowing an addict into her house." He and others, though, credit Del Toro's performance: "A live-wire performance by Benicio Del Toro sparks an otherwise morose study of loss, addiction and catharsis," writes Variety. Carrie Rickey, a fan of director Susanne Bier's work in her native Denmark, doesn't see this one adding up to her previous Danish efforts: "The tears that come feel unearned."
Even considering that it's opening against other middle-of-the-road Oscar hopefuls, Things We Lost seems particularly challenged at the box office by Reservation Road, another full-on family drama dealing with loss and recovery. As we'll see below, Reservation Road isn't faring much better with the critics either.
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RESERVATION ROAD. Joaquin Phoenix is hiding in plain sight lately, showing in meaty roles in last weekend's We Own the Night and now Reservation Road. He plays a father who life falls apart when his son is killed in a hit-and-run accident; frustrated with the police, he seeks out the car's driver on his own, eventually discovering Dwight (Mark Ruffalo), a lawyer and a family man wracked with guilt over his actions. Jennifer Connolly, Mira Sorvino and Elle Fanning also star.
Weirdly, this film gets nearly the same criticism from the New York Times' Manohla Dargis that Things We Lost got from Carrie Rickey: "Crying at the movies can be intensely satisfying, but you need to feel as if your tears have been justly earned," Dargis writes, going on to say "[Director Terry George] made me tear up while watching this movie, but he also made me grit my teeth." Our Bruce Feld (he's everywhere this week!) is far kinder: "George's direction is taut and authoritative [...] All performances are first-rate." Practically no one gave praise without caveats: TV Guide's (and our own!) Maitland McDonagh praises the performances as well, but adds "The pileup of awful coincidences is painfully artificial and the inevitable climax is both formulaic and takes far too long to arrive." Speaking of coincidences, can I just add that main character Ethan is a college professor, and his last name is Learner? I haven't even the seen the movie and that's enough to make me groan.
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RENDITION. And finally we have Rendition, which seems to have been leaving a trail of bad press in its wake since it screened in Toronto back in September. It's an ensemble drama dealing with global politics, in the style of Syriana or Babel, but this time the topic in question is the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition, a.k.a. outsourcing torture. Reese Witherspoon is an American housewife whose Egyptian-born husband Anwar (Omar Metwally) is apprehended while boarding a plane and taken to a remote interrogation center in North Africa. A CIA agent there (Jake Gyllenhaal) has a crisis of conscience, while at home Witherspoon's Isabella must navigate uncooperative CIA agents (Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard) and a United States senator (Alan Arkin) to find the truth of where her husband has been taken.
Like I said, this one's been almost universally eviscerated by the top critics. "Maybe the filmmakers felt that taking a stand was enough, and that a forceful plot, realistic characters, and any sense of credible drama were unnecessary," wrote our Daniel Eagan. Many other critics hated the way the film addressed real political issues, with Dana Stevens of Slate accusing it of "political deck-stacking" and The Hollywood Reporter noting "These arguments are mostly loaded by clearly appalled, liberal-minded filmmakers." Rex Reed, on the other hand, steps entirely against the grain and lauds "Powerful, shocking and mandatory, Rendition is a disturbing film that should be required viewing for every school and civic group in America."
Also out this week: Wristcutters: A Love Story, Terror's Advocate, Klimt and Mr. Untouchable
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