rating: ****
the story: An old bank robber proves charm is his greatest weapon.
review: I've become a huge fan of director David Lowery. Last year's A Ghost Story was a creative masterpiece and career highlight following previous films promising great potential (Ain't Them Bodies Saints, the live action Pete's Dragon). However, he's one of the young directors of his generation who's found it tough to find much popular, much less visible critical success. Scoring what's billed as Robert Redford's final role is probably a good way to get some attention. The results are once again worthy of the potential.
Redford was at the head of another creative generation, one of the brightest acting talents to come out of the '60s, where he made one of his earliest standout films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where he first teamed up with Paul Newman (they struck again with The Sting), and set the tone for what Lowery evokes with The Old Man & the Gun. Redford made a career out of his effortless charm. His most recent mainstream role was as a bad guy in the MCU, the Marvel superhero Avengers franchise. I feared that this was how younger moviegoers were going to end up remembering him, and maybe they still will, but at least now he gets to go out on a high note, one that's all his own.
The idea of the "good" rogue is at least as old as Robin Hood, the criminal as likable, even defensible. Casey Affleck, who also appeared in Ghost Story and Ain't Them Bodies Saint, and as such has easily become a signature Lowery collaborator (he starred with Rooney Mara in them, and I wish she'd appeared in this one, too), plays a cop who eventually sympathizes with Redford's bank robber after spending most off the movie trying to catch him. Tom Waits (arguably continuing to reap the benefits of being Heath Ledger's purported model for his iconic Joker in The Dark Knight) and Danny Glover play Redford's fellow crooks, while Sissy Spacek plays a woman who falls for his charms in a purely romantic sense.
By the time Lowery allows himself to become showy (the whole thing is actually his filmmaking as more accessible, beyond Redford's appeal, than he's been in the past), playfully chronicling Redford's many jailbreaks, setting up the ending, you can appreciate the subtlety of the storytelling even more. A lot of other directors would've dwelt on that element a lot longer, and thus lost the point, and taken the focus off of Redford himself. But we do get a brief look at vintage Redford screen footage during the montage, and that's another great way to help say goodbye. In an era where we're suddenly resurrecting dead actors via CGI seemingly without batting an eye, remembering we have old footage available, and knowing how to use it, seems a lot more, well, artful.
And "artful" is what The Old Man & the Gun is all about, the art of moviemaking, the old charms, the timeless charms, and adding to them, explaining them, maybe.
Showing posts with label Robert Redford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Redford. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2018
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Lions for Lambs (2007)
rating: ****
the story: Two conversations tackle the state of America in 2007.
review: From the vantage point of 2018, the conversation in America sucks. Lions for Lambs captures perhaps the last real opportunity the nation had to correct this before it became impossible for differences to be set aside and people to be civil about their political differences. At the time of its original release, it was dismissed as talky, academic. I always found the results, all the same, to be fascinating. Today they're downright essential.
A political science professor played by director Robert Redford and a brilliant but disenchanted student played by Andrew Garfield form one of the conversations. A hotshot Republican played by Tom Cruise and a liberal reporter played by Meryl Streep form the other conversation. Soldiers played by Michael Pena, Derek Luke, and Peter Berg participate in military maneuvers, illustrating the realities of what their talking about. I love the idea of Redford, Cruise, and Streep converging on something. I love Garfield already submerging himself in vital material. I think few actors today have chosen as interesting material, as consistently, as Andrew Garfield.
Cruise was still working at winning back his credibility after his affiliation with the Church of Scientology had become toxic. Today he subsists mostly on Mission: Impossible movies. The opportunity has definitively, it seems, been lost. Back in 2007, though, Lions for Lambs is a kind of latter-day answer to Born on the Fourth of July, the Oliver Stone movie where Cruise plays a real-life veteran who after having become paralyzed in Vietnam becomes disenchanted and begins protesting the war. Garfield's role is the complete opposite of that role; he never even signs up. That's exactly the legacy of the Vietnam era right there. I saw it myself on campus in the early part of the century. Garfield doesn't believe he can affect change, despite his passionate, well-considered opinions. Today we see students protesting...everything. But we don't see them inserting themselves into the process. We've collectively decided the process is broken, just as Garfield's character does. But Redford challenges Garfield to choose a different path. He admits he was a Vietnam protester, too. But to motivate Garfield, he tells him about two other students he had, Luke and Pena, who chose very different paths, enlisting in the army. They give a brilliant presentation in his class explaining exactly why.
It's the juxtaposition of their thought process, Garfield's, and the fact that Redford is willing to support all three of them despite having other ideas. He sees it as essential that participation, not protest, is chosen as a reaction. When Obama was first elected, he was called a symbol of hope, that the system could still work. After the Bush presidency, voters wanted to believe in positive change. Yet Obama ended up presiding over a further polarized culture, not because he was black but because protest became a permanent way of life, disengagement, cynicism.
And that's what Cruise and Streep's conversation reflects. Meryl Streep's career fascinates me. At this point she hadn't yet chosen to represent the protests of Hollywood. That was still reserved for documentary filmmakers. She was only a few years removed from portraying a pastiche of Hillary Clinton in The Manchurian Candidate. Later, she'd rocket to new levels of acclaim playing all sorts of morally superior figures, and be rewarded with a staggering array of Oscar nominations. She'd become a figure out outrage. Her character in Lions for Lambs ultimately decides on that path. She opts to give up the idea of dialogue with the other side, after sitting through the conversation with Cruise. Her producer begs her to keep trying. She decides it isn't worth it anymore.
It's the kind of conclusion you can either agree with or find unsettling. I find it the latter, and I see that as exactly what happened, over the past decade, and I think that was a massive mistake. This is a movie that reflects what could've been. And now it stands as a testament to what didn't happen, and why.
Maybe it's a little hard to watch, because it is talky, but sometimes that's exactly what's necessary. Arguably, more than necessary. And now it serves as testament to what should have happened, and why. The sad part is, we know it was rejected at the time, as well as the idea it represented.
the story: Two conversations tackle the state of America in 2007.
review: From the vantage point of 2018, the conversation in America sucks. Lions for Lambs captures perhaps the last real opportunity the nation had to correct this before it became impossible for differences to be set aside and people to be civil about their political differences. At the time of its original release, it was dismissed as talky, academic. I always found the results, all the same, to be fascinating. Today they're downright essential.
A political science professor played by director Robert Redford and a brilliant but disenchanted student played by Andrew Garfield form one of the conversations. A hotshot Republican played by Tom Cruise and a liberal reporter played by Meryl Streep form the other conversation. Soldiers played by Michael Pena, Derek Luke, and Peter Berg participate in military maneuvers, illustrating the realities of what their talking about. I love the idea of Redford, Cruise, and Streep converging on something. I love Garfield already submerging himself in vital material. I think few actors today have chosen as interesting material, as consistently, as Andrew Garfield.
Cruise was still working at winning back his credibility after his affiliation with the Church of Scientology had become toxic. Today he subsists mostly on Mission: Impossible movies. The opportunity has definitively, it seems, been lost. Back in 2007, though, Lions for Lambs is a kind of latter-day answer to Born on the Fourth of July, the Oliver Stone movie where Cruise plays a real-life veteran who after having become paralyzed in Vietnam becomes disenchanted and begins protesting the war. Garfield's role is the complete opposite of that role; he never even signs up. That's exactly the legacy of the Vietnam era right there. I saw it myself on campus in the early part of the century. Garfield doesn't believe he can affect change, despite his passionate, well-considered opinions. Today we see students protesting...everything. But we don't see them inserting themselves into the process. We've collectively decided the process is broken, just as Garfield's character does. But Redford challenges Garfield to choose a different path. He admits he was a Vietnam protester, too. But to motivate Garfield, he tells him about two other students he had, Luke and Pena, who chose very different paths, enlisting in the army. They give a brilliant presentation in his class explaining exactly why.
It's the juxtaposition of their thought process, Garfield's, and the fact that Redford is willing to support all three of them despite having other ideas. He sees it as essential that participation, not protest, is chosen as a reaction. When Obama was first elected, he was called a symbol of hope, that the system could still work. After the Bush presidency, voters wanted to believe in positive change. Yet Obama ended up presiding over a further polarized culture, not because he was black but because protest became a permanent way of life, disengagement, cynicism.
And that's what Cruise and Streep's conversation reflects. Meryl Streep's career fascinates me. At this point she hadn't yet chosen to represent the protests of Hollywood. That was still reserved for documentary filmmakers. She was only a few years removed from portraying a pastiche of Hillary Clinton in The Manchurian Candidate. Later, she'd rocket to new levels of acclaim playing all sorts of morally superior figures, and be rewarded with a staggering array of Oscar nominations. She'd become a figure out outrage. Her character in Lions for Lambs ultimately decides on that path. She opts to give up the idea of dialogue with the other side, after sitting through the conversation with Cruise. Her producer begs her to keep trying. She decides it isn't worth it anymore.
It's the kind of conclusion you can either agree with or find unsettling. I find it the latter, and I see that as exactly what happened, over the past decade, and I think that was a massive mistake. This is a movie that reflects what could've been. And now it stands as a testament to what didn't happen, and why.
Maybe it's a little hard to watch, because it is talky, but sometimes that's exactly what's necessary. Arguably, more than necessary. And now it serves as testament to what should have happened, and why. The sad part is, we know it was rejected at the time, as well as the idea it represented.
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