"Morgan" Review

I remember the experience of seeing Morgan more than the movie. Despite a friendly PSA from a not-so-friendly security guard, the phones buzzed, their glow occasionally diverting my eye (I didn't really mind).

An elderly woman climbed the stairs looking for her friend, who was waving at her in the row in front of us. Upon seeing said friend, the woman decided not to walk down the right row, but take a detour through ours.

In the last act, during a particularly quiet scene, a man with the lung capacity of Mickey Mouse was the lone squeaker of "Damn!", much to the crowd's amusement.

Long story short, this movie sucks: a placeholder in Hollywood's BYE week between summer blockbusters and fall award-winners. Morgan cobbles together elements of Ex Machina, The Terminator, and Transcendence and waters it down to an unsalted broth.

Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is a risk-management consultant for SynTech, a company specializing in artificial intelligence - more specifically, blending human DNA and nanotechnology to make a new kind of life. Their latest prototype is a girl named Morgan (Anya Taylor Joy); after an argument results in Morgan stabbing one of the scientists (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the eye, Lee is sent to assess Morgan's health and recommend either further study or termination. 

For the most part, Morgan acts like a regular girl. Flashbacks show her frolicking through the woods with her "family," the scientists who've spent six years in the research enclosure overseeing her development. One scientist, Amy (Rose Leslie), is Morgan's best friend, promising her a trip to the lake to see its unfathomable beauty, an event that captures Morgan's blossoming imagination.

Whenever Morgan snaps, we aren't given much information as to why. Is it an error in her wiring? Is it a product of rapid growth: her body is 18 but her emotions are five? These suggestions aren't the movie's, by the way.

What the movie prefers to spend time on is with the scientists, whose characters are shallow at best and annoying at worst. Most of their dialogue consists of praising Morgan blindly; she's such a special girl, they say.

They're not totally wrong. Morgan has the uncanny ability to know everything one can google about a person as soon as she sees them, as well as exhibiting bouts of telekinesis. I don't know how adding nanotechnology to a fetus gives a person psychic powers, but it's okay. I don't think the movie knows either.

I must ask, however, in a movie about AI that features violent outbursts and pseudo-intellectual debates about consciousness, why the writer (Seth W. Owen) feels the need to introduce a subplot where Skip the cook (Boyd Holbrook) goes for a meet-cute with Lee. It has the romantic fire of a middle school kid trying to sit next to their crush at the lunch table.

Most of the acting is bland because the dialogue is hollow, save for a hammy role by Paul Giamatti, who was gracious enough to relieve my boredom for 10 minutes. It seems Kate Mara is trying to pull off an icy intimidation, but it looks and sounds like Vince Vaughn in The Lost World. The movie tries to explain her no-nonsense personality, but the explanation is so dumb and predictable that it feels like a studio note.

Morgan lacks the soul, intelligence, and flavor of a sci-fi thriller. I'd say "Avoid it," but given its opening weekend grossed a whopping $1.9 million, putting the movie in 17th place, it seems like you lot already have. Keep up the good work.  

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Don't Breathe" Review

Most of my disappointment with Don't Breathe stems from its director, Fede Alvarez, who helmed the 2013 remake of Evil Dead.

Evil Dead was a bloodbath, a kick to the balls for stale franchises (Saw) and pointless reboots (Friday the 13th, Quarantine). Alvarez's take was outrageous, with black humor and wince-inducing kills. It brought grindhouse to the 21st Century and we are all better for it.

Alvarez brings that style to Don't Breathe, a story about three robbers (Jane Levy, Daniel Zovatto, Dylan Minnette) who break into a retired blind vet's (Stephen Lang) home, unaware of the danger he poses to them. 

The trailer presented a near-silent movie. Once the robbers were in the house, the tension of not being heard (and subsequently caught) would add to the suspense. Instead, a heavy-handed camera and editor often defuse tension for cheap, booming jumps.

The overwrought style leads to inconsistencies, worst of which being the Blind Man's hearing. The sound of a robber slamming up against the wall or loudly whispering to his partner isn't enough for the vet to catch, but God forbid he lean on a creaky floorboard. The scares become predictable and nonsensical.

A hulking Stephen Lang is this movie's menace. Sniffing for a scent or jerking his head toward a sound, Lang is animalistic and unpredictable. Just the sight of his dead eyes is frightening.

Near the end, the film reveals more of the vet's secrets. The change of pace works and by circumventing some clichés, the movie brings out some chills. Unfortunately, the ending drags and grows so goofy that the movie completely wastes its burst of good will.

The concept of the "inept protagonist" isn't faulty. In Green Room, it's executed correctly and the effect is immersion. How many people know how to efficiently escape a troop of Neo-Nazis armed to the teeth with guns and trained dogs? Exactly. It's not far-fetched for a couple scrawny teens to struggle. It forces the viewer in the character's point of view. 

But here's where it gets tricky: the film can't present a method of escape that the character doesn't try. If an idiot like me sees a window, I'm gonna try to break it. If a man who's tried to kill me within the last 30 seconds is on the ground and I have a gun, I'm taking the shot.

So when in Don't Breathe, the characters are too inept to at least entertain the notion of a simple escape, the immersion is broken.

I feel I've discovered a new truth to the term "painfully mediocre." Don't Breathe isn't bad, but given Alvarez's previous work, this is a step backward into the familiar territory Evil Dead railed against. Go watch Green Room if you haven't already and if you have, watch it again. That film is a punk rock thriller both claustrophobic and gut-wrenching. How do you go wrong with that?

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"War Dogs" Review

Last year, funnyman Adam McKay won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Big Short, a movie based on real events about underdogs rising through the ranks of a flawed federal system. This year, funnyman Todd Phillips puts his hat in the same ring with War Dogs.

In 2005, David Packouz (Miles Teller) is a college dropout, looking for a calling that doesn't involve massaging greasy moguls. David reconnects with his childhood friend, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), for whom big spending and debauchery go hand in hand.

Efraim hires David as an arms dealer, the middleman between manufacturers and the military, negotiating contracts and profiting off the commission - a practice that earns the two men the title of "war dogs."

But how do two pot-smoking 20-somethings land million-dollar government contracts? It's simple, really. Quantity over quality.

"Everyone's looking at the whole pie," Efriam says. "But no one's going for the crumbs."

For a two-man operation, a small contract leads to more profit than a large one split among hundreds.

Add to that a willingness to fabricate, lie, and circumvent the law to land a deal, and suddenly it's not hard to fathom how a $200,000 deal could jump to $300 million.

The movie's politics meet somewhere between the anger of Big Short and the hedonism of Wolf. The Bush administration is present, most hilariously on a wayward trip to Fallujah, but it serves more as a figurehead for patriotic pro-war rhetoric.

In the opening narration, David says that when most people see a soldier, they see a country boy fighting for their freedom. Only the war dogs see the price tag attached to each person - about $17,500.

"If you say otherwise, you're either in on it, or you're stupid," David says.

Teller is a little miscast. I think he'd be better as the cock-of-the-walk gun runner, but he pumps his straight-man up well and with authenticity.

Hill is the standout - he's borrowing from his Donnie Azoff character, but his reedy laugh and rage-fueled outbursts are hysterical. David tells us Efraim becomes the person others want him to be, so seeing him change colors, such as when he pretends to be Jewish to win over a potential money launderer is a ridiculous riot.

The movie doesn't have Wolf's coked-up pace and despite being under two hours, it drags near the end. Some character choices only make sense because they serve the plot and the movie never reaches the same heights as its influences. But as far as crime dramedies with a Scorsese/De Palma spirit go, War Dogs is a worthy entertaining contender. Give it a matinee and you'll have a good time.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Hunt for the Wilderpeople" Review

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is what you would get if Up took place in the world of The Goonies. It's a blast of pure imagination, the kind that turns sticks into swords and frogs into dragons. The kind that takes a story about a grumpy woodsman and a chubby ne'er-do-well, and gives it a never-ending thirst for adventure.

Julian Dennison plays Ricky Baker, an orphan with a penchant for trouble and hopes for becoming a "gangster." In and out of foster homes, Ricky's last chance comes in the form of the bubbly Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her gruff husband Hec (Sam Neill) who live in the middle of the New Zealand bush. Ricky's at odds with the arrangement (Hec's not really a fan, either), but when shenanigans leave the duo stuck in the middle of the bush - millions of hectares wide, Bella says - they have to learn to get along. 

Little do they know that a manic CPS agent (Rachel House) is after them, and will not rest until she finds Ricky. You don't understand. I'm pretty sure this woman doesn't sleep nor eat. She single-handedly corrals every resource in the country to find this kid: flyers, TV stations, police, the ENTIRE ARMY. You thought Trunchbull from Matilda was bad? Think again.

Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Boy, Thor 3 next year) directs, bringing his trademark silliness along. Not a minute goes by without a joke and even more surprising, they all work. Whether it's Ricky spitting out a dope haiku or Hec reacting with an eye roll - the movie might as well be called "Sam Neill Has Had Enough of Your Shit" - every joke gets a laugh, and I laugh hard.

There's a bit of Mad Max, a bit of Tarantino, a bit of Monty Python and Blues Brothers all scrambled together. Draped in the foilage of the bush, the movie binds it all together in the boundless spirit of youth. 

How does one stay original in film?

It's not in the plot. If influences are everywhere, everything is derivative.

The trick is to be authentic. When a director embraces a movie so hard that they infuse themselves in it, the thumbprint's on the reel. There are few movies I can feel like I'm watching something familiar for the first time.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is one of those films.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"The Infiltrator" Review

I'm feeling a weird sense of legacy. One of my first reviews was Runner Runner, the gambling thriller with Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck. That movie, directed by Brad Furman, was dumb but unfortunately took itself too seriously. 

Almost three years later (Jesus, I've been writing this long?), I've seen Hollywood fail to innovate, content with repeating artistically (but not financially) bankrupt moves. So, alas, who better to bring me a glimmer of progress than one of the men who brought me to the party? Furman directs The Infiltrator, a thriller that's dumb, but loves every minute of it.

In the 1980's, Robert "Bob" Mazur (Bryan Cranston) is an FBI agent whose "particular set of skills" lands him as an undercover money launderer for Colombian drug lords.

Bryan Cranston will be haunted by Breaking Bad until he dies, but typecasting (for once) produced the best candidate for the job. There's almost too much Walter White in Bob Mazur - the duality of family life and a life of crime; the personality shifts between meek and menacing; even Bob's partner Emir (an equally typecast John Leguizamo) brings to mind Jesse Pinkman.

Bob says in this job, one word out of place can equal death. The first half is tense, as Bob gets close to breaking cover on multiple occasions, most memorably in a restaurant with his wife on their anniversary.

This half is more fast-paced, featuring what you'd expect from an undercover thriller. Agents argue with their informants, listen in on intimate conversations; there's even a Bond-esque scene where Bob receives a state-of-the-art briefcase that can record with a turn of an eagle emblem.

For most of the film, Bob is establishing his cover, building trust with the drug execs, and that's where most of the tension and excitement lies. But there's a substantial chunk of the second act where the movie grinds to a halt and at that point, we're waiting on a climax. It'd be tougher to grind through if not for Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt), whose connections reach all the way to Pablo Escobar. Bratt is suave, and commanding but brings an element of heart that gives Bob the dilemma of potentially snitching on his friend. Unfortunately, the film sticks too close to its genre predecessors to convincingly suggest that struggle. 

The movie follows in the tradition of grimy '80s thrillers in the vein of Michael Mann or Brian De Palma. This is the kind of movie where the only thing greasier than men's hairstyles is the body paint on go-go dancers. There's an F-bomb a minute and a lap dance in between. The film is grainy, the car crashes practical, and the suits made with the expense only cocaine can buy.

The cinematography, like in Runner Runner, is stylish but overwrought. The grainy film works as a throwback and there are some fun tracking shots lifted straight from Scorsese. Speaking of the Brat Pack, Furman borrows the worst of Spielberg, keeping scenes so back-lit, it makes me think less glamour and more "Shut it off!"

The Infiltrator is not a bad film, and due to its strengths - namely Cranston, Bratt, a goofy Leguizamo and some vintage dirty '80s cheese - I recommend it. Anything to give an alternative to The Purge: Election Year.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Nerve" ADVANCE Review

In Nerve, the newest social media app has teens scrambling to perform crowd-elected dares for money. These dares range from kissing a stranger to jumping into fires - the harder the dare, the bigger the payout. Emma Roberts plays Vee, a shy high-school senior whose wild-child best friend Sydney (Emily Meade) is growing her Nerve following. Tired of living in Syd's shadow, Vee decides to play, and when she teams up with another mysterious Player named Ian (Dave Franco), they embark on the wildest PG-13 rated night of their lives.

The movie's a neon-blasted amalgamation of The Matrix, The Brass Teapot, and The Hunger Games. Really, the problem is, this is too familiar. I've seen 20-somethings pose as teens; I've seen the shy girl "go bad" when she meets the cool guy; I've seen the boy friend (note the space) get jealous of said cool guy. Add this to technophobic portrayals of voyeuristic teens celebrating idiocy and borderline sadism, and you've got a DOOMSday scenario from the old whining about these long-haired hippies and their Livestreams.

Once logged in, the app combs through every piece of Vee's information: social media, college applications, even bank accounts. As Vee completes dares, the money's instantly hardwired into her account, something that raises suspicions in her mom (Juliette Lewis in a post-Jem and the Holograms world). The fear of no privacy is easy to establish. We never know the identity of the game's creator - I want the alternate ending to be Bugs Bunny saying "Ain't I a stinker?!" The movie goes so far as to debunk the "Shut down the server!" complaint by saying since the game is open source, everyone's phone is a server. Add in a subplot about the "Dark Web," which in a PG-13 movie, consists of an unfinished webpage with pictures of butts and random pills, and there's just enough to shut a 13-year-old up and make yours truly, at 23, laugh his ass off.

The actors do well with the material, though the difference between the leads and supporting cast is apparent. There's a sitcom's cadence to many in the later camp. I don't worry for the fate of the characters because this is PG-13 danger, but if they were written more three-dimensionally, I'd be sucked in. Not the case here. Like many teen ensembles, they're written only thin enough to set up each stereotype.

Forgive an aside: there's a scene right before the climax where Vee does a difficult, but doable dare that lands her in the top of the Nerve scoreboard, even when another player undergoes a potentially bloody and violent affair. I'm not entirely sure if the amount of money one receives for a dare is decided on by the Watchers or Hacker Supreme/God/Agent Smith, but they need to get their properties straight.

Nerve has an audience; if you skew younger on the "young adult" scale, and you're not as familiar with teen movie plots, you'll find stuff to like here. The New York skyline is as beautiful as ever, and I'm always a sucker for neon. But there's little brains to the scenario and when we eventually get the message (literally) preached to us, I burst into laughter. An after-school special this doesn't need to be. 

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"The Purge: Election Year" Review

The Purge: Election Year is the worst movie of the decade. This combines the worst traits of American filmmaking - the excess, the preaching, racism, sexism, and uncontrollable need to dress up trash as satire - to make a depraved, incoherent stain on decency. And I'm ashamed to have watched it.

The Presidential election is between NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) candidate The Minister/Donald Trump (Kyle Secor) and Senator Charlie Roan/Bernie Sanders (Elizabeth Mitchell), who's promised to abolish the Purge. She claims the one-night endorsement of crime is a mass execution of minorities and the poor disguised as moral cleansing. 

On Purge Night, Roan is attacked by NFFA-hired mercenaries (sporting Nazi, Confederate, and probably "I always park in two spaces" patches). She escapes with the help of bodyguard Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) and together, they have to survive the night, fighting off mercenaries, Purgers, and the NFAA. Along the way, they befriend a deli owner (Mykelti Williamson) and his employee (Joseph Julian Soria), a doctor who drives around caring for victims (Betty Gabriel), and a band of revolutionaries whose leader (Edwin Hodge) wants to take out the NFFA in a less diplomatic fashion.

To this franchise's one credit, the world continues to grow and explore new possibilities. This comes at the detriment of not explaining the details from previous movies. In a Hunger Games-style snafu, we know nothing of the NFFA - who started it; why The Purge and not any other idea was approved; why the American public got on-board; what catastrophe led people to such desperation to accept it; how businesses function with the annual steep, sudden loss of labor. This is the third movie of the franchise, and writer/director James DeMonaco (who's helmed all the movies) continues to dance around these essential world-building questions.

DeMonaco puts the same care into the characters. When not spewing such cringe-worthy lines as "Is the c--t close?" and "I've come for my candy bar!," they decide to commit every stupid thing possible. They stay outdoors in the middle of the street, just watching an old woman burn her husband to death or a young woman in a pig costume take a chainsaw to a door. Did I mention that Roan refuses to barricade herself, despite being a highly controversial presidential candidate and having the security to do so? It's all in the name of experiencing what most people do, she says. Personally, I want a president who appreciates the value of self-preservation.

Grillo and Mitchell do what they can with the material, looking defeated. Others, such as Williamson, have more confidence, but loathsome dialogue. As the deli owner, Williamson delivers such enlightening comic nuggets as "There are a whole bunch of Negros coming this way. and we're looking like a big ol' bucket of fried chicken!"

I'm writing this a few days after the cop shooting here in Dallas. A veteran took to the streets and murdered, fueled by a twisted sense of vengeance. The movie would have you consider this an unfortunate parallel, a real-life example of the psychopathic violence it seemingly rails against. But here's the difference. Thursday night, I read stories of grief, pain, and anger, but just as many of resolve, healing, and above all, hope. In Election Year, there is no hope.

You may say "Well, this America is supposed to be too far gone!" To that, I ask "Do we want it to be?" Should we blindly accept, with the film's hedonistic celebration, the worldview that America is destined for a self-destructive class war? I'd be more accepting if DeMonaco took his subject seriously. But the killer in a George Washington mask gives me room for pause.

This is grisly and sensational, without the charisma, style, intelligence, or substance that can make it permissible. When there's innocent blood on the streets, this gleeful brand of nihilism is irresponsible. Don't jump the gun and think I'm calling for a ban. But for those calling this simple, crazy escapism, don't kid yourselves. Call it what it is: TRASH.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.