End of Watch (2012)

A heap of movie critics (even Ebert) are throwing praise on “End of Watch” -– a visceral, bloody, gut-punch police drama/thriller than goes against the endless grain of cops as corrupt, greedy, psychotic thugs -- as one of the best films of the year. It could have been. Damn it comes close, often with pitch-perfect dialogue, and harshly with haunting violence. But gimmicks from 1999 abound with shaky-cam overload -- times 10.

Dig it James Ellroy style: Jake Gyllenhaal gives his career-best showing (and he’s been good for years, especially in “Jarhead”) as Brian Taylor, a veteran Marine now working a black-and-white on Los Angeles’ toughest streets, South Central, a land of shit streets, crap homes, and closed businesses plagued by poverty, drugs, guns, and the growing power of Mexican drug cartels that know no border. It’s a near Third World, except the bad guys carry gold-plated AK-47s in some sick “Scarface” fantasy world come true. 

Taylor’s partner is Mike Zavala, a Hispanic-American with a wife and 3.5 children, played by Michael Pena. The men are brothers. Not by blood. But the job. Each will take a bullet or more for one another. No questions asked. The men bullshit banter in the squad car in the best movie back-and-forth since “Pulp Fiction,” but when the hammer drops, they are stone silent and careful, especially when they stumble upon a massive crime spree of human-trafficking and other horrors all right under their noses. They also “fight” the “parents,” that is, the Sarge and all the powers-that-be at work, but playfully. Zavala is the settled one, smart and cautious, Taylor is gung-ho and first out of the car.

The film, written and directed by David Ayer (he wrote Training Day”) drops us in this L.A. Story with no escape, and he shows the ugliest scenes –- ghastly murders, grpahic assaults, endless deaths, and child abuse -– with no let up. The settings never smack of a film set, or some obvious stand-in. I have never been to South Central L.A., but this feels real, down to the litter and alleys and bars on house windows. 

But damn it, where Ayer goes maddeningly wrong is in a ridiculous decade-old plot contrivance that has Taylor touting around digital cameras 24/7 to film his life on the job for an art class. (We never see the guy in class, despite his wanting to earn a law degree.) For all the on-the-street realism Ayers constantly pushes, I call “bullshit” on any relatively intelligent officer anywhere in the world, much less South Central L.A., that would enter potential hot spots and crime scenes carrying a freakin’ camera in one mitt and one-handing his side arm in the other. Especially for a Marine such as Taylor. 

Even what little I know as an ex-crime reporter, when entering an unknown location, searching room by room, any police officer keeps his hands, both hands, on his or her weapon because that weapon will save his or her life. Nothing. Else. Matters. Disagree? Ask a cop. Ask a soldier, for that matter. (If your partner chooses a Sony over a Glock, seriously, trade the hell up.) Call it a movie, sure. I get it, fantasy. But, guess what? The soulless gang members also happen to carry around cameras to share their exploits. For art class, too? YouTube? All this “Blair Witch” shaky-cam crap is mixed in with normal cinema capture, from the sky, floor, whatever, after Taylor’s camera is down. 

I dig and appreciate Ayer’s attempts at showing what policemen and women face each day, the gallows humor they (absolutely true) employ to stay sane, and a refusal to show every cop as worse than the bad guys (I’m look at you “Freelancers” and “Safe” and 1,005 other films), but he should have stuffed the gimmicks and played the film straight. This seriously could have been well atop my Top 10 List of the year. But for the gimmicks.

 God bless Pena. A consistently great actor in “Crash” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” and a few dozen other films, he gives an amazingly tough, smart, funny, and humane performance here. His officer is a full human being, jumping off the page. Watch his horrified silent reaction as he comes across a squalid dungeon full of Mexicans held as drug-runner slaves, and, damn, the man deserves an Oscar nomination. And leading man status on par with Gyllenhaal and any other actor out there. B

Safe (2012)

Jason Statham does what Jason Statham does best in “Safe,” an action thriller that has our hero playing a haunted, homeless, lonely ex-policeman having a bad day as he slices, punches, kicks, stomps, and shoots his way through 100 gangsters, thugs, loons, and dirty cops. No shit seriously, some 200 people die in this film as Statham’s Luke Wright vows to safe a girl (Catherine Chan) enslaved to Chinese mobsters for her mad math skills, the Russian mobsters who want what’s in that brain (one way or another), and the corrupt cops who work for the highest bidder. In short, everyone in New York, even the mayor, is out to kill Wright. Most Breitbart fans will understand this as normal. I mean, foreigners, right? Look, director/writer Boaz Yakin (“Remember the Titans” must have been a fluke) knows we are not in this for the brains, but the blood. And much blood is spilt. Untold gallons. In the real world, the National Guard would have been called in after the first civilian massacre. Much less the fifth. But not here. This realm belongs to Statham. Take it or leave it, or die... C+

Explorers (1985)

Not sure how I missed “Explorers” upon its release at the height of adventure films starring children, with “Goonies” reigning as king. Joe Dante (“Gremlins”) directs this fantasy about three boys (Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, and Jason Presson) who create a fantastical bubble that allows them to fly across town and out into space where an alien race awaits. How? Don’t ask. Just dig on the old Atari-level VFX by Industrial Light and Magic. Dante hones in on all things junior high in the “Star Wars”-and NASA-fueled 1985, and it’s a grand memory. Strangely, “Explorers” drags once the trio make first contact, pop culture jokes and finger-wagging lessons repeated ad nauseam. The film could have lost 30 minutes or been made into an episode of “Amazing Stories.” Two hours? No. Presson – who!?! – impresses far beyond Hawke (“Training Day”) and Phoenix (RIP). Watch J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8.” The boy there echoes Presson’s look and character, with an attitude that jumps off the screen. Loved the Charles M. Jones Junior High School joke. “What’s up, Doc?” B-

Rocky (1975)

“Rocky” is near religion to me. No, it is religion. I grew up in Philly, and Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, was our god. These were not just “movies” to us kids back then. They were documents of our home. Rocky was one of us. Enough sentimentality, onto the film itself: Rocky is 30, piss poor, working for a “second rate loan shark” in Kensington, boxing on the side to make a couple bucks. He hates his life. Then he’s plucked from his rut to box Heavyweight Champ Apollo Creed for a set-up, bullshit New Year’s Day 1976 fight to marks the U.S.’s 200^th anniversary. The fight is fixed. Rocky does not stand a chance, and knows it. He cares not. He wants to prove to himself, his shy pet shop girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire), and anyone who is ignorant of where Kensington is, that he matters, that he can go the distance, as he says. It’s hilarious that conservatives see “Rocky” as their film, when in fact this story is about the people left out of the American dream, pushed and punched around a boxing ring in a match where the rich always win. Always. One of my favorites. A+

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Leave it to Joss Whedon, creator of the self-aware “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” film and TV series, to turn the horror genre on its bloody head, with a film inside a film that blasts apart the decades-old pattern of character types, predestined deaths, third-act disasters, and tired climaxes that can be graphed to the last “gotch’ya.” With “The Cabin in the Woods,” Whedon and co-screenwriter Drew Goddard (who directed) show us the masters behind the genre movie curtain as a subterranean set of directors, writers, and technicians punching buttons and giving orders to ensure that every horror cliché appears. That in itself provides more than half the laughs. Who knew every dumb college-age dope move in, say, “Friday the 13^th” was so essential? Is it scary? No. Should it be? Maybe. The skewering of other’s attempts at scary more than makes up for any lack of fright. Chris Hemsworth -– before “Thor” -- leads the college-age side as the “jock,” while Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins lead the control side, riffing as if they are in a serious Aaron Sorkin production by Tarantino. Beware Merman! B+

Ruby Sparks (2012)

Paul Dano, the blood in “There Will Be Blood,” is a novelist who hit big at 19 and crashed by 29, sidelined by writer’s block, insecurities that befuddle his family, and no girlfriend on the horizon in “Ruby Sparks.” For a guy named “voice of his generation,” Calvin Weir-Fields is a pipsqueak. Then one day, the perfect woman (Zoe Kazan) walks right into his life, and introduces herself as the too-perfectly-named titular character. She’s his dream girl. Literally. He dreamt her up as a writing exercise, and now she’s cooking eggs, screaming happily at zombie flicks, and meeting the family. Smart, hilarious, dark, and able to stand within the long shadow of another cinematic gem, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” this indy film was written by Ms. Kazan for herself and real-life squeeze Dano, and it’s not just a career play, but a scorching satire on artistic ego, What Men Want, and the stark difference between wishing for a devoted girlfriend and getting exactly that. Kazan, granddaughter of Elia, takes a blowtorch to every boring, submissive rom-com female stereotype with her writing and acting, both radiant. Bravo! A-

Lawless (2012)

If you watch the 1930s-set backwoods gangster flick “Lawless” and don’t know better, and you’d be a major idiot not to know better, you might think tiny, mountainous Franklin County, Va., is over the hill and through the woods and one covered bridge over from big bad Windy City Chicago. Director John Hillcoat and screenwriter (and rock god) Nick Cave, who previously collaborated on the excellent “The Proposition” and the very good “The Road,” likely believe so.

But I digress, as I always do with the details. 

The duo has taken the wonderfully titled non-fiction family-history novel “The Wettest County in the World” by (my proximity) local author Matt Bondurant and drably re-titled it as “Lawless.” It follows a backwoods trio of Bondurant brothers (Tom Hardy, Shia LeBeouf, and Jason Clarke) who moonlight as moonshiners, selling the vile-looking homemade hooch during the days of Prohibition. Sure enough, things go wrong. In the span of just a few weeks, a (1) former go-go dancer, (2) infamous mob boss, and (3) corrupt federal agent -– all from Chicago, all on separate missions in life -– end up in wee Rocky Mount, and onto the brothers, they respectively, 1) Land a job at the family diner/gas station, 2) Sniff out killer booze to sell back home, and 3) Terrorize the siblings with endlessly wicked means of unlawful law enforcement. The newcomers are played by 1) Jessica Chastain, 2) Gary Oldman, and 3) Guy Pearce. 

The Rocky Mount and Chicago depicted here each must have one only dirt road going out, and it meets in the middle, and provide light-speed travel a la “Star Trek.” Hell, today in real life, it takes roughly 12 hours to get from Rocky Mount to Chicago. Here, pre-Interstate, pre-cruise control, it is magically faster. How fast is to get to Philadelphia? Does the title refer to liquor running, or the rules of physics, time, and distance?

But no matter these logic lapses, nor the cliché dialogue, “Lawless” floats and sinks on the acting. I’ll focus on the guys as the women (Mia Wasikowska also co-stars as a love interest) are only allowed to look “purty” and be supportive to their menfolk. Tom “Bane” Hardy grunts most of his scenes to ill-advised comic effect, while Clarke howls madly with his slimly written character. LeBeouf, former son of Indiana Jones, gives his best as a wimpy runt who must become a hardened man, but his character arc is foolish in the end. Oldman’s nasty scenes are a mere but oh-so-welcome series of cameos.

It’s –- shocker -- Pearce that near kills this film. “Proposition,” “Memento” and “L.A. Confidential” are each new classics, and he excels in all. Here, he overacts himself right out of the movie as a sissy snot named Rakes, channeling Dennis Hopper playing Dame Edna playing an endlessly psychotic version of super-agent-man Elliot Ness with a subscription to GQ for Sadists. Sporting ridiculously greased and parted hair, and shaved eyebrows, Rakes fears blood, and yet –- it is inferred -– gets his thrills raping crippled boys after he murders them in the woods. In a gangster flick in the New York of Mars by David Lynch on full-tilt “Wild at Heart” craziness, his character would stick out as a ridiculous clown. Here? Please.

Oh, one piece of divine greatness: Legendary bluegrass singer and Southwestern Virginia native Ralph Stanley covers the Velvet Underground’s “White Light /White Heat” at film’s end, and it’s an absolutely riveting, soul crushing performance that deserves a far better movie to precede it. For that matter, the entire music score, led by the genius Cave, elevates the movie, especially a breath-taking church singing which hits the soul dead center with pure joy-of-God beauty that can uplift an agnostic. The film misses. C