Tag Archive: Central Intelligence Agency


Zero Dark Thirty

Filed under: 5 Star, Reviews — Leave a comment
February 23, 2013

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Bringing us three films in one Zero Dark Thirty is the film that should win Best Film at the Oscars, but won’t because it’s a bit political and that.

Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow’s first movie since her Oscar-winning effort with The Hurt Locker, continuing her military theme this new picture explores America’s role in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. What Bigelow brings us is not just an in-depth and frank discussion of the operation but three movies packaged as one.

Feeling almost like a three-part drama pulled together the film shows us, through the eyes of a CIA operative played by Jessica Chastain, initially America’s role in the torture of captives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then the Washington-based exposure of the necessary evidence to locate OBL and the battle to get clearance to go ahead with the assault and then finally the attack on Bin Laden’s compound and his subsequent execution by US Navy Seals.

The use of Chastain’s Maya as a central character is shrewd as through her Bigelow is able to control and guide the audience, at first appalled by the torture and then complicit in it, elated by the proof discovered as to the location of their target, frustrated by the glacial decision-making processes of central government and then intricately involved but at arm’s length for the final assault, Mia is as the audience thrown through these emotions.

Jessica Chastain is more than capable of carrying the narrative and her performance is complex and nuanced to allow the torrent of emotions to develop throughout the picture. Although Chastain is exemplary this is by no means a one performance film, Jennifer Ehle as a fellow agent is staggeringly honest in her portrayal; Mark Strong, James Gandolfini and Kyle Chandler represent the endless bureaucracy of Washington while Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton lead the Navy Seals with a blend of focus and humour that defines the military roles in the later part of the picture.

Special mention is reserved for Jason Clarke who plays Dan, a CIA agent who seems to revel in the torture of captives during the opening act of the movie and then makes a C-change in the second act when both he and Chastain’s Maya are returned to Washington. Clarke is able to transform himself almost completely from the aggressive yet controlled torturer to a suited Washington paper-pusher with an almost unnerving simplicity.

Bigelow’s direction is crisp and clear, her ability to show the emotion behind the story is a rare talent and by surrounding herself with such a capable cast she is able to develop a story slowly over the duration rather than relying on masses of exposition. Her commitment to telling a story truthfully may not align with American sensibilities but the underlying message of this story is that torture does not produce results. Zero Dark Thirty is a frank and open look at the War on Terror from several angles and although these angles are all American they are by no means all American-friendly.

Striking action sequences, diplomatic drama and brutal torture are the building blocks of Zero Dark Thirty but none of these detract from what is, in essence, the story of one woman’s commitment to a single goal at the detriment of the rest of her life; the final shots show Maya contented at having completed the mission but at what cost to herself, her friends and her own sensibilities.

*****

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Lockout

Filed under: 3 Star, Reviews — 1 Comment
May 18, 2012

As good as a film about a space prison can hope to be.

Lockout is an action movie. It makes no excuses for that and despite it’s limited budget performs surprisingly well. Guy Pearce plays Snow, a CIA operative who has gone rogue and in the opening scene is being viscously beaten by a colleague interrogating him after his capture.

Meanwhile Maggie Grace plays Emilie Warnock the president’s daughter who is travelling to a space prison to investigate the possible problems of keeping prisoners in space in stasis.

These two things seem unrelated until (surprise surprise) there is a breakout on the space prison and the prisoners take control, and take Emilie hostage. The CIA offer Snow a deal that he can avoid any further sanctions for his treachery if he travels to the prison and rescues the president’s daughter. After an emotional struggle that lasts all of 10 seconds Snow accepts.

Snow travels to the space prison through some of the worst CGI ever committed to film. It’s like the producers have taken the team who did the graphics for Green Lantern, tied their arms together and made them wear very, very dark sunglasses. You would feel cheated if you saw this standard of graphics on a games console, let alone here in a movie.

Once there he is pitted against a team of prisoners led by brothers Alex and Hydell. Proving that every Scotsman in a film must be in prison, just out of, or just on the way to prison these two provide a nasty counterpoint to Snow’s misunderstood anti-hero. Vincent Regan is strong and methodical as Alex, however it is Joseph Gilgun, making his leap from British movies and TV who dominates. His psychopathic, unhinged, rabid Hydell is packed full of tricks and flips, and although it feels like a ‘look what I can do’ performance, Gilgun has certainly left a calling card for Hollywood.

The strength of the film however rests with Pearce and his ability to play the wise-cracking action hero with skill and perfect timing. His character may have been written as a sub-standard John McClane, a screenplay written by committee has never been so obvious, but Pearce works relentlessly to squeeze every drop of charisma out of the script. His relationship with his command on Earth, played by Lennie James, is fraught and tense but it is Snow’s relationship with Grace’s Emilie that allows Pearce to really show off.

Grace is building a reputation for herself in action movies and here again proves that she is more than capable of holding her own in these environments, how she would perform in a serious drama is hard to tell, but she certainly proves here to be more than window dressing.

The direction team of James Mather and Stephen St. Leger handle the action sequences well on their debut. They ramp up the tension where necessary and allow their performers space to make up for their lack of experience. It is a shame that the screenplay was not more ambitious because after an interesting premise and a competent set up the story trails off into all to familiar territory.

Lockout is not going to challenge for any awards but as a Friday night popcorn movie it contains some strong performances that are hard to ignore, especially from Pearce, Grace and Gilgun.

***

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Safe House

Filed under: 3 Star, Reviews — Leave a comment
April 15, 2012

If only the film had followed the promises of the trailer this could have been an interesting character driven story instead of being standard action movie fodder. 

In the early scenes of Safe House the two lead characters, Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) and Matt Weston (Ryan, I messed up being married to Johannson, Reynolds) find themselves locked together in a Safe House. Frost is a dangerous traitor, former spy who has turned against his homeland and must be protected at all costs so he can be interrogated, Weston is a long term inactive safe house operative who must prove himself in this situation to achieve the promotion he feels he deserves. Weston has just witnessed Frost unrelenting to a water boarding and knows this challenge is a big one.

What begins is a game of minds, Frost is clearly trying to confuse and outwit his adversary and similarly Weston is trying his best to keep up and battle on a level playing field. Here begins a great set up for a movie. To watch these two characters in a battle of wits in one room would have made for a great vehicle for Washington to prove again what a great talent he is, and for Reynolds to have a bash at that thing called ‘acting’ he has heard so much about. Unfortunately we are snatched almost as quickly from this location as we arrived at it.

What follows is an action movie by numbers. Washington and Reynolds trade blows, trade roles and trade objectives in a journey across Cape Town that will leave, one, either or both bullet riddled by the end of the third act. This is a massive shame. Not so much for Reynolds, who excels at bringing his ‘ooof’ face to the party, but to waste the talents of Denzel in this middle of the road fair is not only massively over sighted but also a huge insult to Washington fans who were sold the movie on his strengths as an actor. In the moments that Washington is given to shine, he illuminates the scene, destroys the other performances and show just how extraordinary he is, these moments are fleeting and that is unforgivable, even for a rookie director.

There are some decent performances in the supporting cast, Vera Farmiga proves again her skill at playing ‘faceless bureaucrat’ and while this doesn’t stretch her talents it is becoming her bread and butter role. Brendon Gleeson turns in one of the stronger performances as the older guide to Reynolds live wire youngster and Liam Cunningham and Ruben Blades bring some heart to scenes that needed further development and a continuation of their tone into other parts of the picture.

As a first Hollywood movie for the director Daniel Espinosa the youngster shows his skill with action sequences but it is confusing how anything other than the pay check convinced his star to get involved. The screenplay is neither complex or clever, there is not a lot for him to do apart from look mean and run around a bit. This is par work for Reynolds and he is fine it in, but a lot more could have been made from the premise of this movie.

The set pieces are strong, especially the sequences shot around a sports stadium, but ultimately this is low rent action movie fayre of the nuts and bolts variety.

*** (with one star given solely to Denzel)

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Fair Game

Filed under: 2 Star, Reviews — Leave a comment
March 26, 2011

Sean Penn’s political finger pointing gets in the way of a potentially gripping story.

Did you know Sean Penn was all political and that? He, like, really cares about who runs things and stuff. You remember George Bush? He was a bad guy kids. He took his country to war on a lie! Did you know that? Did you? He killed a lot of people in a foreign country, which was bad, and Sean Penn is going to make sure you know about it, ok? Because it’s important to remember that politicians sometimes do bad things.

And you know what’s even worse? When they do bad things it doesn’t just affect the people whose homes are destroyed and families killed by bombs falling on their villages, or the soldiers who are killed in action, sometimes really wealthy American people, who live in massive houses and have a retreat in the country lose their jobs and have to write books and become celebrities to cope with the outbreak of a war. Can you imagine the horror of having to sit and talk to television hosts and news anchors because a war started? If only humanity could understand how hard it is to sit in a leather backed chair, wear make-up and say things.

This is the problem with Fair Game, an adaptation of the true to life story of Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, the CIA agent leaked to the press as a distraction away from the fact that the American government had no evidence on which to base its invasion of Iraq.

The film demands us to care primarily about an ex-politician and his wife whose lives are turned upside down after her name appears in a newspaper linking her to undercover work in the Middle East. There are two main problems with this, we are not given the space to really engage with the person at the centre of the story, Plame, due to the frequent soapboxing and political posturing by her husband and secondly, we are supposed to care about two people being mildly inconvenienced while others are having their homes blown to pieces by a government intent on imposing regime change on a rogue nation.

The story of Plame is probably the most gripping of the film, especially as she tries to deal with the balance of being an undercover agent and live a normal life, as well as her loyalty to the people she is working with ‘in the field’ when she is uncovered. Naomi Watts, plays the role with an emotional intelligence that belies the lack of intelligence in the script and direction. The scenes where she tries to manage her work/life balance and the threat this poses to her marriage are the best in the film, it’s just a shame they get lost in all the political point scoring.

This is what the rest of the film boils down to, a long list of reasons why politicians are corrupt, a long list of instances where the American government changed things to suit their way of seeing things and a series of scenes where Sean Penn, while somehow managing not to stare straight down the lens of the camera, tells us in a loud voice that we should not accept this and should do something about it.

As an exploration of the affect this situation had on a family and a marriage Fair Game was an interesting drama, on all other counts it became an exercise in the actors and creative team shouting constantly at the audience, reminding them, ‘politicians are bad, mkay?’

**

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