Month: June 2013

By Joe Bendel. It is not exactly “Garbo Talks,” but as hooks go, “Statham Cries” is pretty good. The action star’s big close-up comes in the right vehicle. In a throwback to the angry young anti-hero films Michael Caine cut his teeth on, Statham prowls the mean streets of London in screenwriter-director Steven Knight’s Redemption, which opens this Friday in select cities.

Haunted by his war crimes, a shell-shocked former Special Forces soldier lives a homeless existence to evade a certain court martial. Deeply traumatized by his experiences, he often suffers from flashbacks and hallucinations. Terrorized by local thugs, “Joey” finds unlikely refuge in an exclusive hipster flat. Unfortunately, his companion Isabel is captured and consigned to a low-end brothel.

Using the resources of his unwitting host (conveniently abroad for the season), Joey cleans himself up and takes work as an enforcer for a Chinese crime syndicate. With the reluctant help of inner-city mission nun Sister Cristina, Joey Jones (as he now calls himself) tries to track down Isabel. Yet, despite his erratic behavior, a strange relationship develops between them.

Granted, the “troubled” vet is always a problematic device. However, the film is rather sensitive in its depiction of Joey Jones, while never absolving him of his sins. There are definitely beatdowns in Redemption, but the film is more concerned with mood and character development. Knight demonstrates a keen understanding of tension-and-release, so when the violence flares up, it never feels gratuitous.

Clearly, Oscar winning cinematographer Chris Menges loves the neon lights and shadows of Redemption’s nocturnal world, getting all the Miami Vice he ever had in him out of his system. The film looks great, aside from a few awkward scenes of Jones’ delirium. Statham is also surprisingly good as Jones, convincingly portraying his violent unpredictability. Viewers are never quite sure how he will react in a given situation, which is a major reason why Redemption works so well.

Statham also shares some richly intriguing chemistry with Agata Buzek (the daughter of former Polish Prime Minister and Solidarity activist Jerzy Buzek), whose intelligent but tightly wound performance adds significant depth to the film. The notion that Jones and Sister Agata are sharing a mutual “wild patch” in their lives may not exactly ring true, but it still works within the film’s dramatic context.

Knight nicely maintains the tragic logic throughout Redemption, but the NSA-ish surveillance motif book-ending the proper narrative feels wholly out of place in his street level tale. Nonetheless, Redemption is a stylishly executed over-achiever that is only really missing the Roy Budd-inspired soundtrack. Recommended for fans of Statham and old school payback movies, Redemption opens this Friday in New York at the Village 7.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on June 25th, 2013 at 12:07pm.

By Joe Bendel. In the Lone Star State, estate law is a big deal. Smelling the money, crack-heads and secret progeny will come out of the woodwork for a Texas-sized inheritance in Antoni Stutz’s sweaty small town noir, Rushlights, which opened Friday at the Picture House in Pelham, New York.

Not long after Billy Brody finally puts the moves on Sarah, the greasy spoon waitress he has been swooning for, she calls him in a state of panic. Ellen Niles, her crack-addict roommate has overdosed. Normal people would simply call the police, but not Billy and Sarah. They are heading out of town as fast as his beater can take them, but not without a dubious plan.

Sarah bears an uncanny resemblance to her dearly departed roommate, who just received a letter informing her she is the sole heir of the rich uncle she hardly knew. Billy and Sarah are off to Texas to collect in her place. However, problems will follow them from the big city. It turns out there is a reason Sarah was rooming with a hardcore druggie. It also seems there might be an unacknowledged son looking to claim the estate for himself—and he’s a real bastard.

It is kind of amusing to watch Rushlights string along one highly improbable scene after another, with a perfectly straight face. Right from the first ridiculously convenient accidental gun discharge, viewers should realize what they are in for. However, veteran character actors Beau Bridges and Aidan Quinn are actually a lot of fun to watch doing their suspicious Jim Thompson thing as good old boy Sheriff Robert Brogden, Jr. and his glad-handing lawyer brother, Cameron Brogden, respectively. Both are in fine form strutting about and chewing the scenery.

In contrast, the young leads are decidedly lightweight, particularly the underwhelming Josh Henderson and his high school freshman starter moustache as Brody. Haley Webb has a bit more presence as Sarah, Ellen, or whoever she is, but she does not project the femme fatale sense of danger the genre demands.

At least cinematographer Gregg Easterbrook gives it the right hot-in-the-shade/inflamed passions/noir look, in the tradition of Red Rock West and Blood Simple. As a director, Stutz also maintains a respectable pace, but as a co-writer, with Ashley Scott Meyers, he overindulges in contrivance while avoiding logic like the plague. Frankly, Rushlights would be perfect viewing for a lazy somewhat hung-over weekend afternoon, but its probably not worth commuting from the City to Westchester when it opened Friday (6/21) at the Picture House, as well the Chinese 6 in LA and the Premiere Renaissance in Houston.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on June 25th, 2013 at 12:07pm.

By Joe Bendel. Chul-soo is either Korea’s Kaspar Hauser or its Teen Wolf. He is old enough to be a war-era orphan, but even for a wild child he seems a little odd. Yet, a sickly teen-aged girl forms a deep connection with him in Jo Sung-hee’s A Werewolf Boy, which screens tomorrow night as part of the Korean Cultural Service’s ongoing free Korean Movie Nights in New York.

Soon-yi, her mother, and her younger sister Soon-ja have moved to the countryside in hopes the clean air will improve her health. Unfortunately, the big move was facilitated by Ji-tae, the entitled son of her late father’s business partner, who now feels at liberty to pop over whenever he feels like it. He assumes Soon-yi will eventually marry him for the sake of his wealth and social status. However, Soon-yi is not impressed.

She does not think much of the feral Chul-soo either when she and her mother first find him snarling in the garden. With the relevant social welfare agencies passing the buck, Soon-yi’s mother reluctantly takes him in. Slowly, he starts to grow on the family, once they clean him up and curtail his rougher instincts.  Soon-yi even starts teaching him to read with the help of a dog training manual. However, a rich jerk like Ji-tae cannot help making trouble, especially when his ego is bruised.

Chul-soo’s true nature is quite strange and uncanny, but Jo de-emphasizes the genre aspects of his story to focus on his young tragic love for Soon-yi. Told in media res as the decades-older woman returns to the fateful country house, Werewolf Boy has all the elements of a good weeper, so it is not surprising it was a monster hit at the Korean box office.

In truth, the film is at its strongest when portraying the innocent ardor of Chul-soo’s relationship with Soon-yi. In contrast, the ridiculously vile Ji-tae is little more than a clumsy class warfare tool that quickly grows tiresome. When the shoot-first military finally arrives on the scene, they at least have the virtue of being considerably less cartoony and more fully dimensional than the silver spoon villain.

Still, Song Joong-ki and Park Bo-young develop rather touching chemistry as Chul-soo and Soon-yi, respectively. The former shows both tremendous physicality and sensitivity as the young wolf-man, in an almost entirely nonverbal performance. Likewise, Park is radiantly expressive as Soon-yi. Jang Yeong-nam is also memorably charismatic yet down-to-earth as her mother. Unfortunately, as Ji-tae, Yoo Yeon-seok is stuck with a flimsy character and takes it embarrassingly over the top in every scene.

Werewolf Boy demonstrates how genre elements can be shrewdly repurposed to tell a highly relatable story rooted in human emotions. Frankly, Soon-yi and Chul-soo’s impossible love would resonate without Jo Sung-hee so conspicuously stacking the deck against them. Nonetheless, A Werewolf Boy is recommended for those who enjoy a shaggy-haired teen-aged romance, especially when it screens for free tomorrow (6/25) at the Tribeca Cinemas, courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service in New York.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on June 25th, 2013 at 12:06pm.

By Joe Bendel. If a craftsman works with their hands and an artist works with their hands and heart, than Tam is a manicure artist. Brendan is a mechanic and a regular customer. Their business relationship will evolve into the realm of the ambiguously personal in Minh Duc Nguyen’s Touch, which releases today on DVD from Cinema Libre.

Tam is quiet but she has considerable talent for her work. Despite her reserve, she is reasonably popular with her co-workers and clients at V.I.P. Nails. Brendan is a special case. One day the sheepish chap walks into the salon for a deep cleaning of his grease-stained hands. Evidently his increasingly distant white collar wife has used his grubby paws as an excuse to keep him at arm’s length. Tam gets the grime out, but that is just the start of it. Each time Brendan returns for his regular cleansing, she coaches him on ways to win back his wife’s affections.

Of course, the close contact between Tam and Brendan leads to more intense yearnings, confusing them both. On paper, they would seem a much better match. Both work with their hands and are relatively shy, but quietly harbor deep feelings. Unfortunately, Tam’s efforts to care for her difficult father monopolizes much of her personal time.

Touch is too realistically messy to be called a romance, but it taps into some pretty intimate territory. Yet it should resonate with particular force for first and second generation Vietnamese immigrants, who understand the hardships endured by the older characters during their flight from the Communist oppression.

John Ruby’s work as Brendan is refreshingly mature and down-to-earth, but the film is truly defined by Porter Lynn’s star-making turn as Tam. She powerfully but sensitively portrays the young woman’s vulnerability and hidden pain, as well as her sensual side. There is no question this is her film, but Journey from the Fall star Long Nguyen’s brave performance as her father also has real impact.

Small in scope, it would not take much cutting to adapt Touch for the legit stage. Nonetheless, it expresses some very real emotions, with honesty rather than false sentiment. If only more slice-of-life indies were like this. An impressive, unassumingly humanistic film, Touch is recommended for those who appreciate adult drama. It is now available on DVD and digital/VOD platforms from Cinema Libre.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 19th, 2013 at 1:22pm.