Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000, UK release)

In this second feature about the Irish gangster Martin Cahill, Kevin Spacey plays a thinly fictionalized Belfast crook who’s so impressed with his own thieving ways, the man’s smirk and ego overtake his abilities. Or maybe I mean Kevin Spacey the actor falls into this trap. It’s hard to tell as his Irish accent bounces and goes so much it could make a man puke his Lucky Charms. Spacey is coasting in a film made in 1998, but unseen in ’Merica until 2003. With reason. He plays “Michael Lynch” (that is, Cahill of “The General”) a gang leader with two wives (who are sisters), a bundle of children, and a talent for eluding prison as he robs banks, dole offices, and –- in a scene that shits on fact -– an art museum. Director Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s story is so vacant of any danger it makes a crime all its own. But Spacey –- filmed before “American Beauty” -- smirks self-satisfied. His worst gig. Colin Farrell appears, pre-stardom. Sorry, Colin. C-

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Matthew McConaughey has been on a tear recently: “Lincoln Lawyer” and “Mud,” etc. (I have yet to see “Magic Mike.”) He dives into the true-story Fight the System AIDS drama “Dallas Buyers Club” with a live-wire nerve and swagger that is awesome to behold, it’s near terrifying. This guy burned many years in terrible, Xerox rom-coms. Now he’s killin’ it. 

Unrecognizably taunt and spoiling for a fight, McConaughy is Ron Woodroof, a swinging, swaggering, swearing Dallas country boy with a knack for liquor, threesomes with women, gambling, and generally burning life out before he hits 50. Then he learns he has HIV. In 1985. Back when no one knew what the fuck HIV or AIDS was and I (hating myself now) joined in on Rock Hudson jokes. 

Ron is a good ol’ boy, would vote GOP if he voted, and hates homosexuals. When word leaks on his health, family and friends bolt, tag him queer, and he has 30 days to live. 

But the man won’t die. Not yet. 

He blows off Big Pharma cell-killer-med AZT and finds better drugs over the border, and with the help of a waif transgendered woman (Jared Leto of “Requiem for a Dream”), he brings those meds to the U.S. And then he fights the protectors of profit. The FDA. 

Don’t think this an AIDS drama, mark this next to “Silkwood” or, dare I say, “Rocky.” Unlikely heroes. I understand much of the story here is fictionalized. Well, it’s damn fine, smart fictionalizing that rarely falters. 

(Jennifer Garner plays a doctor written so tidy bland, a hand-holder surrogate for old church-going ladies in the audience, I cringed every time her face appeared. Not a slam to the actress. I like her. But the writing.) 

This is McConaughey’s show as he bullies, taunts, rages, screams, cries, takes a pistol to his head, and just chars the screen black with his walk and burning eyes. Remarkable. Leto also nails his tragic, beautifully penned role, deteriorating into nothingness. 

(Both men deserve every award they have coming their way, although I pitch a preference to “12 Years a Slave.”)

The finale -– that we all know is coming, history -- might not punch the emotional button we need to leave weeping, but it comes close. A-

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Forget “Great Gatsby” comparisons. Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” is the greatest black comedy satire since “Natural Born Killers.” Trade phones for guns, gold watches for scalps. This crazy F.U. gem is being crucified as overlong and obnoxious, a pointless drug- and sex-smeared stain of debauchery focusing on Wall Street brokers who strikes it rich fleecing common Americans on shit investments. People, that is the point. Scorsese playfully crashes and flames his epic movie as often as real-life Wall Street scum bag Jordan Belfort (a never more alive Leonardo DiCarpio) crashes and flames yachts and cars, snorts coke, screws whores, and rallies his team to make more money. I cheered. This is America. Scorsese, writer Terence Winter, and DiCaprio are daring us to hate this movie. Our hate is misplaced. They are revealing the strings of the soulless puppet masters who run our banks, buy our congressmen, and control our 401K futures. More so: Our nation’s wealth and the whole stock market is the ultimate con we all buy into. Again and again. Refocus your anger. Best character: Jonah Hill -- gold! -- as a fat Alfred E. Neuman geek who drives Belfort’s scam. Mad men. A

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

The story of Walt Disney’s struggle to make the 1964 classic “Mary Poppins” has often been told during the past 50 years. Author P.L. Travers fought Disney on every word during production and loathed the movie (the latter is outright squashed). This cleaned-up squabble is the basis for “Saving Mr. Banks” which shows how Travers (real name Helen Goff, played by Emma Thompson) was won over by Disney’s (Tom Hanks) charm, and explores why the children’s book author was so harsh -- mainly her haunting Outback youth. This is a Disney film, though, and from the opening logos, it works to make the audience smile and cry, damn the facts. It succeed, mostly. But “Banks” is grossly off point. Walt himself woos Travers with his own uneasy childhood tale, but it’s for naught. Yes, Walt had it hard, many do, but Travers’ parents were non-functioning adults riddled by alcoholism and mental illness that reached the act of suicide. (Worst offense: Mistaking dad’s drunken fatherly doting and kindness for actual doting and kindness.) No talk from a nice old guy or spoonful of sugar can remedy that. Still, the happy tunes and sunny spirit are difficult to resist. Disney magic, that. B-

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (2013)

Timing can make or break a film. The documentary “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks” is superior in every way to “Fifth Estate,” the overcooked dramatization of anarchist/hacker “journalist” Julian Assange. I saw the fictional film before this, a reversal of their respective cinema rollouts. This is akin to fresh air. Director/writer Alex Gibney compiles deft footage of an uncooperative Assange and his empire of nerds to portray a group of rebels out to crash all-powerful, secret-obsessed corporations and governments. But with fame comes power, and corruption. Assange falls to paranoia and his own secrets, damn the costs. As well, we see painful chat-room quotes from Private Bradley/Chelsea Manning, whose story also figures heavily here. His tale is a film onto itself, a true whistleblower hero to Assange’s loud bullhorn. As talking heads, U.S. spy chiefs and military honchos alternately damn and dismiss Assange and Manning as blips on the NSA’s endless, all-powerful eye of Sauron. Gibney lets us decide who is more trustworthy, even if there are no “good guys,” and he -- thankfully -– does not need hyperbolic lines or fake CGI desk-burning to let us know this is not history, but a new, never-to-end struggle of truth. A-

12 Years a Slave (2013)

I don’t want to know anyone who doesn’t walk out of “12 Years a Slave” a crushed soul rebuilt from the ground up by the final and finally at-last hopeful moments of this true horror tale that is deft enough to show beautiful –- stunningly so -- landscapes amid recreations of terrifying acts of inhumanity that were the start of this great (and terrible) nation. 

These shots are clear: As they degrade the lives of those they see as less than themselves, the allegedly greatest of our kind –- rich, educated, and privileged beyond measure -– bring ruin to their own lives with the heinous need to control and take all treasure. 

Brit-born filmmaker Steve McQueen (“Shame”) has done what few American directors have dare tried: Tell the brutal story of slavery in the United States with unblinking detail and absolute you-are-there authority. 

This is the anti-“Gone with the Wind,” with its Southern celebration and happy slaves, and certainly the anti-let-us-have-fun-revenge-flick “Django Unchained,” which I like less and less the more I recall my two, one too many, viewings of it. 

Solomon Northup was a born free African-American in 1840s New York, a musician and engineer, until he was kidnapped and sold into bondage below the Northern line into death, rape, and forced labor that should shock anyone with a hair of decency. 

Chiwetel Ejiofor (“Children of Men”) plays Solomon, a man who must deny his own greatness and abilities, essentially his outright normalcy as a human, lest he be murdered or worse -- and yes there are worse fates -- by his white masters who will not see anyone of color as their equal. 

Solomon does this for 12 grueling years, his longest stretch as “property” of a sadistic drunkard (Michael Fassbender, a regular in McQueen’s films) who is abusive to all around him, including his own wife (Sarah Paulson) who can equal her husband’s acidic temper. 

This is an age when a black slave could be killed for learning to read or write, an act I cannot even muster in my head as a reality. But McQueen shows us many disturbing realities – including a brutal whipping that Solomon is forced to take part in – as every day, and as much a part of the American spirit as apple pie, George Washington and fireworks. 

To deny this, to ignore it, to wish it away as a past that should be forgotten and “get over it,” -– and I heard that a lot in Alabama and here in Virginia from racist cunts who then turn around and celebrate the rah-rah-rah spirit of the Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy, or what their university did in 1881 -- is a great as sin as those who meted out this disaster of inhumanity. 

Ejiofor truly, sorry this sounds cliché, this film has robbed me of most words, astounds in the lead role. I have been a fan of his for years, and now just stand in awe. He plays a freeman forced into not just slavery and near unspeakable cruelty an acting chore, a sick live stage act that lasts some 4,400 days, an educated, bright, angry, hopeful man who must show near none of those traits. 

That’s what sticks with me. Burying oneself as dead although you are yet alive, and long to see your wife and children, and parents, etc. 

In one bravo scene, three quarters, McQueen dishes out a scene that pulls no punches: Ejiofor as Northup looks out into the sky of his “home” and then directly into the camera at the audience, daring us to not just continue in his harrowing story but to never forget his suffering and the untold numbers of his fellow slave captives in an American that only called itself free, but in a blatant knowing lie, a wink as the rich and powerful killed hundreds of thousands, or more, of people of color, all for greed, and wealth, and land. 

The final moments, and this is no spoiler that Solomon lives, where he apologies –- apologies –- to his family for missing out on their lives, just laid waste to me. Can you imagine? I simply cannot, and have no words. McQueen and company have left me near silent. 

(Note: As with “The Butler,” a host of big names pop by for cameos, Brad Pitt among them, but these roles are mostly commoners, owners, bigots, and others, and the cameos do not stick in the crawl as, say, John Cusack does as Richard damn Nixon. OK, stop, hold on, Pitt almost grinds and pops too much a saint-like liberal progressive.)

Lest we need proof this story must be told, loud and in every corner, lest it ever be forgotten, a darling of the right-wing conservative movement has written a review of “12” –- without seeing the film, and stating he has no intention to -– saying McQueen and the film are too “harsh” on slavery, which has economic merit and can actually be healthy…. That such thought still carries cultural weight today is truly paralyzing. 

And makes “12” all the more vital. (If you can, read the book source. STAT.) A

Hanna Arendt (2013)

The banality of evil. The very notion that anyone can commit unspeakable evil under the oh-so-wrong “right” condition is something of a cliché now. But back in the early 1960s as philosopher/teacher/writer Hanna Arendt coined the phrase while covering the Eichmann trial for the New Yorker, she was met with a crushing ethical/academic flame war. As played by Barbara Sukowa, this European art-house take of “Hanna Arendt” has the Holocaust survivor and NYC resident shunned here and in Israel after she not only wrote that Eichmann was just a boring mediocre shit with no brains, but some Jewish leaders helped open the door of Nazi extermination through contrition. It’s relatively accepted now. Not then. Not when wounds and memories were so raw. The move is at its best at these moments of personal drama and inner torment. Yet, often I feel left cold by these New York intellectual dramas as they seem to take anyone not in the “know” to task for not being a member of the party. I look at these square-heads here and think, “Why be friends with them?” My tweed jacket diet only goes so far. B

Silkwood (1983)

True story “Silkwood,” directed by Mike Nichols and co-written by Nora Ephron, effortlessly plays like a captured documentary of Karen Silkwood, a lowly 28-year-old worker at a plutonium plant who died in an unexplained car crash after she started investigating safety violations at her thankless job. During her ordeal, Silkwood (Meryl Streep) found herself on the end of repeated, unlikely exposures that even reached her own home, shared with a boyfriend (Kurt Russell) and best friend (Cher), the latter a lonely gay woman. Nichols makes no saints, our three protagonists are all coworkers and flawed people. Karen strays. Russell’s boozer alpha male is loyal to the company, and so on. Money and family struggles, and the damning judgment of the unrealized American Dream are harsh. I first saw “Silkwood” at age 12 and was blown away by Nichols’ unforgiving realism of humiliating decom showers, and Streep’s stunning near naked performance. Political punches? Big money corporate corruption is bare knuckle, but so is the depiction of a union that seems far too hungry for media attention. Streep’s singing of “Amazing Grace” is the most pained and therefore perfect version I have ever heard. A

Badlands (1973)

In love with Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” on my first viewing years back, I sought out his earlier effort, “Badlands.” Its brilliance knocked me off guard. Fictionalizing a true killing spree, “Badlands” has Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as lovers on the run in 1950s Midwest America, he a smooth, detached murderer, and she a teen who is more shockingly indifferent than innocent. Kit (Sheen) is late 20s and collects trash for a job until he no longer wants to, and he falls for high school teen Holly (Spacek). Her father objects and coldly kills the family pet as punishment, and that prompts Kit to kill him. Many more bodies pile up as the duo head from South Dakota to Montana, back roads and dirt. The killing of the dog hit hard this time: Holly has no reaction, and as Kit murders, she barely lodges a gasp, talking up pet birds with a gut-shot man who is bleeding out. Beyond all the romance, music and desert beauty on display, Malick has made a genius film about an America that stares unblinking and not a little amused at death. Forty years on, we’ve reached this stark reality every single day. A+

Rush (2013)

What got into Ron Howard’s blood? After two too many Dan Brown movies, the man who made “Apollo 13” back when I was in college has made a knockout film that torches the screen with a bristling, heart-puncher drama about 1970s European Formula One racing. On track, it screams loud with men relentlessly chancing death for sport, and off track it screams ego and misery, excess, and raw sex. Sex from Opie? Yes. The true story: Brit James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth of “Thor”) and Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl of “Inglorious Basterds”) were deep bitter rivals of the world racing circuit, each eyeing a championship as if it were the fingertip of God Himself. Hunt has Playgirl looks, charisma to spare, and reckless arrogant attitude, while rich boy Lauda obsesses cold stats and logic, profit margin,  and is an asshole to spare. In the eyes of Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan, a horrific accident literally burns one into a new realization of life, but dooms the other to his chosen path. Howard’s depiction of racing kicks and horror is a blast as he drops us behind wheels and inside engines at every moment, revving our pulse and dread.  A-

Fruitvale Station (2013)

I cannot recall a more timely film in recent years. Seemingly every week in some U.S. city, police and vigilante pricks (Zimmerman) are gunning down unarmed black men at a clip not seen since … pre-1960? It just happened in Charlotte, and it’s the cold plot behind true story “Fruitvale Station.” We open with cell phone footage: 22-year-old Oscar Grant is shot point blank in the back New Year’s Day 2009 by a transit cop. He dies hours later. We then flashback to Oscar’s (Michael B. Jordon) final day as he desperately steers away from peddling drugs, works his way back into the graces of his girlfriend and daughter, and helps celebrate his mother’s (Octavia Spencer) birthday. It is she who suggests Oscar and his pals take the train that night. Writer/director Ryan Coogler’s drama is full of gut-puncher tragic moments like that, but also too syrupy scenes where Oscar plays chase with his tot in slo-mo magic hour light. The best moments come when they show Oscar as just a guy, any guy, struggling to correct course, thinking he has time, not knowing he does not. One day, maybe, films like this will be of the past. A-

Twenty Feet from Stardom (2013)

“Twenty Feet from Stardom” is a music lover’s dream. If you have ever rocked to the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, or Sting, you know their songs – “Gimme Shelter” and “Young Americans” are two – infect the soul as much from the backup chorus as the lead singers. “Twenty” is the story of those background voices. For me, the faces and names of Darlene Love, Judith Hill, and Merry Clayton have glimmers of faint recognition. But their voices -– “Rape! Murder! It’s just a shout away!” from “Shelter” -- vibe in me forever. These women never reached fame or riches, one even takes to cleaning houses. Their careers were sidelined by sabotage or bad luck, or by choice. Each woman recalls memories, and they and eat together, and their talents are praised by the likes of smitten men Mick Jagger and Gordon Sumner, and director Morgan Neville shows these ladies in a divine light. Too much so. The hedonism of rock n’ roll is vaguely referenced, but never explored. These women stood close to stardom, but also madness. Oddly, those stories are left off stage. A-

Paths of Glory (1957)

“Paths of Glory” is Stanley Kubrick’s dramatization of a doomed French army attack on a German-held hill during World War I, and the immoral trial that follows where three soldiers are accused of cowardice. Or, rather, not sacrificing themselves for country, God, and their general’s careers. Kirk Douglas plays the defense attorney turned Army colonel who survives the ill-planned attack and will damn himself rather than see one of his soldiers die for false pride. This is pitch-black, dead serious satire, a liberal’s film from the go as it eviscerates the essence of war and the military brass that strategize in palaces while their men die in muddy trenches. Kubrick’s direction is tight and powerful, there’s not a wasted scene in this razor-sharp film. His long tracking shots along endless trenches are breath-killing claustrophobic, nailing what must be the true fear of battle, where doomed men debate how they will go out: bomb, bullet, or knife. A scene where a sociopathic general berates to a soldier, “there’s no such thing as shell shock,” slices hard. American hero Patton did that. This film is no fantasy, but depicts a true, terrible story. A+

Argo (2012)

Ben Affleck’s directing career has hit orbit. “Agro” is the crazy/ genius/brilliant/true tale of CIA agent and the Iranian Hostage crisis of 1979. I was five. “Star Wars” defined me. Thousands of miles away, Iran burned under a sick and violent Islamist dictatorship. Our embassy was rushed by zealots out for blood. Hostages were taken. The world panicked. War considered. A ray of hope unbeknownst to us: Six Americans escaped and hid inside the home of the Canadian ambassador, blind from Iranian grip. (Chris Terrio’s crackling script takes liberties here, as the six were split up. But never mind that.) How to extract the six? Enter CIA agent Chris Mendez (Affleck) and a bold plan: Ferret the group through the main airport as a “Star Wars” rip-off film crew, all under the Iranian Army’s watch. Pumped with tense drama, and dark political and Hollywood humor, “Argo” may be 2012’s best film, gripping and ingenuously played from the start. Affleck as a Hispanic-American is bullocks, but 10 minutes my qualms fell silent.The kicker: Our 2012 is no different, outside of shaggy hair and five channels. “Star Wars” still defines me, our embassies fall to madness, and Iran burns. I love this film.  A

The Sessions (2012)

When the Academy Award nominations come in, 2012 Sundance-Festival-favorite “Sessions” will be mentioned. For sure. But when the awards go out, it will be left empty. This is a drama destined to become movie trivia and “Did you ever see?” probing among die-hard, art-house cinemasts, loved by a few, unknown to most. 

That’s a shame. This is a smart, amazingly uplifting, funny, poignant, and, yes, heartbreaking adult tale of a man (John Hawkes, from “Winter’s Bone”) attempting to get laid despite his own body being left motionless from the neck down after being stricken by polio as a child. (He has full sensitivity. His muscles do not work.)

Based on a true story, “Sessions” focuses Berkley, Calif., resident Mark O’Brien’s desire and need to lose his virginity before he dies, and he knows he won’t live terribly long. His sell by date is approaching fast. Mark spends his nights in an iron lung, a massive tube that alleviates breathing problems, and his every waking moment is accompanied by an oxygen tank for much the same purpose. I said he cannot move, but he can get an erection, and, like any living being, longs for intimacy. 

Here’s the beauty of this film, small in the best of ways: Newcomer writer/director Ben Lewin -– himself partially crippled by polio -- refuses to go sentimental or booming give-us-a-big-cry movie soft accompanied by a swelling orchestral score from loud Hollywood. 

Instead, he beautifully lays out the film with clear-eyed, sobering journalistic precision. O’Brien himself was a poet and journalist. The mood, the smallness, fits. Perfectly.

Before the opening credits are through, Mark has finished university (in footage of the real O’Brien) and now works as a freelance writer, typing and dialing the phone with a stick inserted in his mouth. When he makes a house visit for an interview, as he does in any outside trip, a medical assistant pushes O’Brien along as he lays flat prone on a gurney. 

His latest paid gig: Write about sexuality and the disabled. That assignment gets his own wheels (and libido, and sexual fantasies) spinning. He’s 38, never had sex, and hitting the bars, clubs, and other singles hot spots, is out of the question. 

But a sex surrogate is within the bounds, and O’Brien seeks out Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt, of “As Good As it Gets” fame, and gone too long from cinema screens), a specialist dedicated to physically helping people cope with sexual hang-ups. (If you’re thinking “prostitute,” don’t, and the notion is handled quickly here, in fine form.) 

As O’Brien explore his sexuality, he also wrestles with his faith and what God thinks of his struggle. If He would forgive O’Brien’s curiosity. O’Brien full believes and holds no anger at God, and his faith journey is also handled sober-minded serious, no mockery. Nicely.

“I’m not getting married anytime soon,” O’Brien says, I paraphrase, to his priest, played by William H. Macy. Their talks are fascinating, to anyone of faith, or not of faith. (Macy is so damn good here. Although right-wingers will cringe at his priest. Hey, this is Berkley.)

O’Brien and Greene’s first sexual encounters are tinged with all the possible awkwardness of anyone’s first time, cranked a thousand fold as he can’t move. These scenes are funny, sad, beautiful. O’Brien carries a lifelong lack of physical contact, so he instantly falls for Greene. In his mind he sees her as love of his life. Except she is married, with a teenage son. 

I’ll stop with the film synopsis. This is a true story, if you know the outcome, I’ll just bore you. If you don’t know the story, I’ll make you mad. 

This is an adult film, no holds barred, with graphic nudity and sexual content, but it’s no porn film. The sex, as with O’Brien’s faith struggle, is dealt with clear-eyed and exact, no frills, no tricks. More so, it’s sex as human contact, an absolute need for intimacy and love. This is a story of one man under unique experiences few of us can ever imagine, but he’s a man like us nonetheless. 

Lewin doesn’t need to push his story down our throat with sugar, he lets his actors –- both deserving of Oscars, especially Hawkes -– act, and he tells his story with an exactitude that 95 percent of Hollywood could not possibly imagine: There’s a moment when O’Brien faces a life crisis, the 1989 California earthquake knocks out power, and Hawkes’s character does not cry a tear, but shrugs. Accepts. The moment almost seems comedic. 

But it’s not. The scene resounds with the serious realization of a man who knows the darkest laughs.

It’s a simple as this: O’Brien -– as played by Hawkes –- knows his time is limited, and he is making the best of it, hungry for every moment and every experience that others, myself included, take for granted. 

For a film that shrugs off miracles, “Sessions” is its own kind of magic. See it now. A

GoodFellas (1990) and Heat (1995)

Watching Robert De Niro burn his unparalleled talents in shit such as “Little Fockers” or “Righteous Kill,” it’s unbelievable that just 20 years ago he had two of the best films in his storied career and of the decade under his belt. “GoodFellas” – directed by Martin Scorsese – and “Heat” – directed by Michael Mann – are crime genre classics, eternally re-watchable and endlessly fascinating. The man is a monster in both films, of cinematic talent, and of men’s character. 

“GoodFellas” opens with this line, spoken by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a Bronx-born hood who was mobbed up by age 14: “Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Wow. This is Hill’s story, from rise to vast rule to ketchup and egg noodles in the Midwest. De Niro is his mid-level mob boss. Joe Pesci costars in an infamously profane and violent performance so shocking, it’s bewildering to know the man he plays was far more dangerous. The film is flawless, so amazing good and detailed (the food alone!), it’s a thrill to behold for a 15^th viewing. My words do not do it justice. 

In “Heat,” De Niro is a master criminal of a high-end gang (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore co-headline his crew) being chased by an obsessive detective (Al Pacino, also scraping bottom in “Righteous” and “88 Minutes”) in Los Angeles. We also follow the cop’s home life as Mann’s three-hour epic film spreads far and wide, almost too wide – an icky serial killer plot thread goes nowhere. The actions scenes are you-are-there-real and spectacular, including a long finale outside the Los Angeles airport that boomed in a theater.

De Niro is the star of both, the ballast holding each film together, keeping the madness, violence, crazy details, and other actors (Pacino goes “PACINO” a few times) cemented and whole, but let it be known these worlds are the creation of, respectively, Scorsese and Mann, both in unmatched top form. Know this: “GoodFellas” was based on a true story, but “Heat” inspired a criminal duo to pull off a daring bank robbery that eerily mimicked the mid-section scene here.

GoodFellas: A+ Heat: A

The Killer Elite (2011)

In “The Killer Elite,” Jason Statham is another badass with a temper, a gun, and a mission. Upfront: This is one of those “based on a true story” stories that screams bullshit! as the action spreads around the globe, double-crosses pile up, and Statham as assassin-for-hire Danny Bryce endures punishment so grim and commits stunts so brazen, they would kill all Three Stooges and Ethan Hunt. Story: A gravely ill sheikh strong arms Danny into offing the three Brit SAS agents who killed his brave sons, leaving pops with a sad-sack brat so nancy, he makes Fredo Corleone glower like, well, Jason Statham. If Danny says no, Poppa Sheik kills Robert De Niro, or rather a spry old spy played by Robert De Niro. The acting is aces, and the action all wrought iron hard curves and twists, but FML, newcomer writer Matt Sherring and director Gary McKendry go all tit-tit, blanching at violence, and mere seconds later dive into their next set-piece where Stathom rips apart packs of men. Brain drivel mediocre. Clive Owen -– stealing the film -- co-stars as an ugly spook who we only think is a villain. Alas, all bullshit. B-

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Playing Marilyn Monroe is no small feat. She’s the definitive Hollywood icon of sex and tragedy, 40-plus years after her death. Yet, Michelle Williams nails the part with astounding skill, and not just of Marilyn Monroe, but the way Marilyn played “Marilyn” for cameras, for hangers-on, and adoring, endless fans. A role that seemingly even confused herself, according to the screenplay. The lyric “I’m not broken but you can see the cracks,” from U2, comes to mind. In 1957, Monroe arrived in England to make a film with Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh, eerily good), and the screen goddess created an instant clash with her wayward, unreliable off-screen ways. The “My” in the tile is Colin Clark, a young assistant director who befriends, and so much more, the star. A guy named Eddie Redmayne plays him. True story? Don’t know. If the real Colin lied in his books, he didn’t fib big, because he and Marilyn don’t go there. This is Williams’ film. It’s dull whenever she’s not onscreen. It’s a drama and a morality tale, so, yes, drugs are bad. Williams is a pure goddess on screen. Bravo, miss. B+

The Devil’s Double (2011)

“The Devil’s Double” is the tale of an Iraqi Army officer named Latif Yahia who was coerced – under threat of death – to serve as the body double of Uday Hussein, a heinous psychopath who saw his status as Saddam’s son as a blank check to torture, murder, and rape. True story? Not likely. Fascinating? Endlessly. Uday’s life is portrayed as a depraved reality version of “Scarface,” the American dream made into a demonic nightmare of debauchery and excess. It’s a twisted analogy, but not crazy: Uday coveted American products, and likes his sports cars. Director Lee Tamahori (“Once Were Warriors” and then much Hollywood crap) mixes grisly horror, war, sex, action, drama and satire, and shows the fearful anxiety that ruled Iraq for decades. It’s not a deep film, but it’s strong and disturbs. Assisted by special effects, body doubles (heh), and fast editing, Dominic Cooper – a supporting player in “Captain America” -- burns hardcore as Uday and Latif, one a monster unleashed, and the other an everyday man scared that he may lose his soul to the beast. One wonders if Uday had come to power, how many millions he would have killed with sick glee. B+

Buck (2011)

“Buck” follows the man behind “The Horse Whisperer,” the 1995 book and 1998 Robert Redford film about a kind cowboy who tames a wild horse and therefore saves its owner, a wounded girl. The real Horse Whisperer is Dan “Buck” Brannaman, a former rodeo child star who found solace and salvation in horses after a life of hellish abuse. We follow family, horse owners, trailers and farms, but director Cindy Meehl makes it clear, this is about anyone’s life, even Philly boy, and taps into raising children, holding a marriage together, and reaching out to others. It’s not all sweetness. Just as the film turns Buck into a Zen Jedi Magic Man, he meets a troubled horse he cannot save, one that – in a jolt of shocking violence – nearly rips a man’s face off. The gush of blood is real. Buck is heartbroken. I could have saved him, he says. Old film of the dad with Buck is an unsettling peak at child abuse, the old man’s claws dug into the boy’s wee shoulder. A jolt to anyone who knows what that means. Maybe Buck is a Zen Jedi Magic Man. A-