The Walk: Race to the Top, But Don’t Look Down

Jeremy BeckReviews
Joseph Gordon-Levitt defies death as Philippe Petit in "The Walk"

Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk tells the story of Philippe Petit, the French daredevil who one day in August 1974, to the surprise and delight of thousands of unsuspecting New Yorkers, tiptoed back and forth across a wire stretching between the roofs of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Midway through the film, Philippe and two confederates slink into a Manhattan electronics store and ask to purchase an interphone. The proprietor, a sharp fellow named J.P., suggests they buy a walkie-talkie instead, but Philippe refuses, explaining to his comrade in rapid French that cops can listen in on walkie-talkies. This statement raises the eyebrows of J.P., who it turns out speaks French (his initials stand for Jean-Pierre, and he is played very well by the American actor James Badge Dale); he assumes that this motley crew is intent on robbing a bank, and that they’re in dire need of some help.

Strictly speaking, J.P. is wrong—Philippe has no plans to steal anything, except perhaps a few moments of immortality. But in cinematic terms, J.P. is on the mark. The Walk, in its elemental form, is a crime caper. Its story, which it tells with considerable glee and marginal distinction, is that of a gang of lawbreakers who conspire to evade police detection and carry out a seemingly impossible objective. In this way, it is a successor to classic heist pictures like Rififi and Ocean’s Eleven. What distinguishes this one is that, where most capers thrive on the planning of the crime rather than the actual execution, The Walk achieves its power in depicting Philippe’s improbable, death-defying triumph. For the majority of its runtime, it’s a fun, frothy film: nicely acted, convincingly staged, and thoroughly familiar. Then Philippe steps out on that wire, and this modest, unmemorable movie becomes unforgettable. Read More

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Sicario: A Land with No Laws, a War with No Heroes

Jeremy BeckReviews
Emily Blunt gets in way over her head in "Sicario"

For a film of such engulfing darkness, Sicario spends a surprising amount of time in broad daylight. In a different story, its frequent aerial shots of the Southwest’s rolling hills and dusty deserts might feel enchanting rather than foreboding. Yet right from its electric opening sequence—a daytime FBI raid in suburban Phoenix on a cartel stash house, the kind where all the residents pack shotguns, and cadavers line the walls like asbestos—Sicario turns that pervasive sunlight into a mirage. A vicious, lacerating depiction of the Mexican-American drug trade, the movie slowly and systematically snuffs out the slightest flicker of hope. They say drug use is a victimless crime, but in this arid land, narcotics distribution is a literal cutthroat industry, a ceaseless cycle of violence, corruption, and death.

Sounds fun, right? You’d be surprised. Yes, as a political think piece, Sicario is powerful, persuasive, and even enraging. But what makes it a great movie—something more than just a forcefully conceived polemic—is that it is also crackerjack crime fiction. Directed by Denis Villeneuve from a script by Taylor Sheridan, Sicario is a pulse-pounding piece of prime-cut entertainment, one that thrills just as much as it chills. It is both literally and metaphorically explosive, and while its suffocating bleakness may get you down, its taut plotting and bracing technique will knock you out. Read More

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The Martian: Lost in Space, But Not in Spirit

Jeremy BeckReviews
Matt Damon is alone on Mars in "The Martian"

The Martian is a movie about a man stranded on a deserted planet, first left for dead, then scrambling frantically to survive. You might think, from this brief and terrifying description, that it is a horror film, or at least a gritty survivalist fable—Cast Away in space, or Gravity on barren land. Yet the most surprising and satisfying thing about The Martian, which is based on a best-selling novel by Andy Weir and is directed with characteristic competence by Ridley Scott, is how much fun it is. Certainly, there are moments of dread, and the protagonist continually faces the prospect of imminent death. But for the most part, this film is warm, inviting, and even comforting. There may be gravity on Mars, but The Martian feels positively buoyant.

It doesn’t start out that way. In a brisk and chaotic prologue set on the red planet, a group of astronauts led by Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain) attempt to fight through a storm of swirling debris. During the squall, a piece of equipment breaks loose and slams directly into the chest of Mark Watney, catapulting him off into the desolate distance. After a desperate search, Lewis has no choice but to abandon hope, and she and her crew hightail it out of there before Mars can claim five additional victims. Read More

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Pawn Sacrifice: For Queen, Rook, Self, and Country

Jeremy BeckReviews
Tobey Maguire stars as Bobby Fischer in "Pawn Sacrifice"

In 1972 in Iceland, Bobby Fischer attempted to become the first American-born man to win the World Chess Championship, seeking to wrest the crown from imposing Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky. Now, if you think that sounds challenging, try making a movie about it. Sure, sports films are only tangentially about the sports themselves, but they almost always revolve around some degree of dynamism or athleticism, some sort of physical heroism for the camera to capture. But Pawn Sacrifice, Edward Zwick’s dramatization of Fischer’s famous battle against Spassky and the Iron Curtain, is about chess, which is basically the least cinematic sport imaginable. Zwick’s seemingly impossible task is to transform a thoroughly sedate affair—one in which two men stare at carefully sculpted figurines, furrow their brows, and think—into an actual thriller of tangible urgency and excitement. He mostly succeeds. Functional, beautifully acted, and curiously engrossing, Pawn Sacrifice resembles the best traditional sports movie Zwick possibly could have made on this subject. In other words, it isn’t half-bad.

The film opens in medias res, after Fischer has forfeited the second game of the Championship (the rules provided for up to 24 total games) and has barricaded himself in his rented cottage, flinching at the slightest sound. It then flashes back to his childhood in New York, a predictable device that immediately illustrates both the benefits and the drawbacks of Zwick’s orthodox approach. The flashback, which is mercifully brief, does its job: It bluntly illustrates that Fischer (played as a young boy by Aiden Lovekamp and then as a teen by Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) is both a genius and a prick. Expressing the former element proves problematic for Zwick; unable to telegraph Fischer’s virtuosity visually, he settles for dialogue, with adults repeatedly gushing about the boy’s brilliance, followed by a montage of handshakes soundtracked to laudatory notices from newscasters. (To be fair, Zwick initially toys with using graphics to convey Fischer mentally maneuvering pieces on the chessboard, but it’s a gimmicky tactic that he wisely abandons.) But he efficiently articulates Fischer’s petulance, as when the youth loudly berates his mother without a hint of remorse. This kid has no time for sensitivity—he has chess to play. Read More

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Black Mass: Cops and Gangsters, Caught in a City’s Undertow

Jeremy BeckReviews
Johnny Depp stars as Whitey Bulger in "Black Mass"

James Whitey Bulger was one of the most notorious mobsters in United States history. What, don’t believe me? Just watch Black Mass, a movie that repeatedly and insistently trumpets Bulger’s legendary place in American gangster lore at every shrill turn. It features no shortage of people, whether harried law enforcement agents or cowed criminal cohorts, braying about Bulger’s illegal exploits and moral contemptibility. Yet the oddest thing about this adequately entertaining movie, which was directed in workmanlike fashion by Scott Cooper and features a dream-team cast, is that for all its vociferous proclamations, it reveals very little about who Bulger was, what he did, or how he eventually became one of the country’s most wanted fugitives. Yes, he kills a few people over the course of the film, and he threatens a few others, and he certainly seems very mean. But to the extent that he ruled Boston’s underworld for two decades as the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, well, you’ll just have to take Black Mass at its word. It presents a litany of testimony swearing to Bulger’s evil, but therein lies its flaw: It tells, but it does not show.

This does not mean that there is nothing to see. To begin with, there is the unforgettable sight of a blue-eyed Johnny Depp. Those eerie cerulean irises (the product of contact lenses), along with slicked-back pale-blond hair and prosthetically rotted teeth, combine to give 2009’s sexiest man alive a truly frightening countenance. And while one might quibble with the subtlety of Depp’s performance as Bulger—which is to say, there is none—it is impossible to deny the ferocious commitment he brings to the role. Often the target of critical ridicule for his unfettered flamboyance (which can, of course, yield spectacular results), he is all business here, those unblinking, alien blues teaming with a snarling Beantown monotone that befits Bulger’s blunt, monolithic persona. He rarely raises his voice, but he is always threatening, whether he’s coolly berating an underling or, in the film’s most quietly terrifying scene, exerting his will over a colleague’s wife. He is not someone you wish to cross. Read More

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