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Buried

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Paul

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Buried is the kind of movie cinema was made for. It takes your darkest fears and magnifies them ten-fold, as you watch transfixed, unable to look away. Buried is 90 minutes of the most mesmerising, powerful, bleak and claustrophobic cinema you’ll see this or any other year. Paul Conroy is in a coffin, and you’re in there with him. As he breathes, so do you. He panics and you do the same.

Paul wakes, gagged and bound, in a wooden coffin. He’s a contractor, buried as a hostage in Iraq. In the darkness, he fumbles around for his lighter, as if there’s anything you’d want it to show you. Above him is wood, and below him the same. He’s in a coffin, that much is clear. Then a cell phone goes off, the glow of its display gentling pulsing. I suppose at this point he should be thankful there’s signal; there wouldn’t be much of a movie without it.

The phone was left so he’d call for help that would bring a ransom. And he does. He calls and he calls: some people pick up, many do not. His family all being unavailable might strike you as implausible, but life can sometimes be cruellest when we need it the most. He tries to remember a safety number his contractor gave him, but can’t. He phones the operator to get connected to the FBI. “Which city?” she asks, “I have Chicago, New York…”. Dumbfounded. “Does it matter? I’m in a coffin in Iraq. Any of them”

Of the many things it gets right, Buried’s depiction of the slow cogs of bureaucracy rings most true. It’s not like the people he calls don’t care to help, they just don’t know how. Some have scripts and protocols to follow; others wonder aloud where to connect a man who’s buried in the desert. You might laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, but if you were Paul, what would you do? If you had no phone book and no listings, who would you call? I suppose you’d do as he does: phone the operator, only to find yourself being passed from desk to desk.

I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re in there with Conroy. You don’t leave. There are voices on the phone and occasional noises up above, but otherwise the film is entirely of Paul in the most universal of nightmares. It’s a setup that start as a mere curiosity, but grows to become overwhelming and suffocating. As the minutes tick by and his oxygen runs out, it’s as though the walls are closing in and you’re powerless to do anything but watch. The camera never cuts away; never offers us another point of view. It doesn’t go back in time to show you how he got there. It doesn’t cheat.

It’s a wonder the film ever got written, let alone made. But it did, and Buried is a lesson in how to make a compelling narrative from a wooden box and a desperate man. I’m not sure it’s a challenge even Hitchcock would have taken on. Yet somehow, Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés and Ryan Reynolds, they manage it. With just a lighter and a phone, they have you holding your breath and imagining the worst. Many films are powerful, but I can’t think of any that work as effectively on that level as Buried does.

There’s no question that Reynolds gives the performance of his career as Conroy. He cycles through anger, desperation and sadness with plausible naturalism. As its sole star, the movie must rest entirely on him, and he is flawless in his desperation: emotive messages he’s forced to leave on answer phones, frustrated screams to those who can’t help him. He records tortured videos on his mobile, for reasons that alternate between fear and acceptance. The flickering light captures every emotion on his face, of which there are many.

The voices he reaches are just as complex, only we can’t see their faces. We’re forced to imagine what a contact at the State Department might be thinking as he tries to reassure Paul help is on the way. They’re tracing the call. Just try to hold on, he says, as if there is much of anything else to do in a coffin. One call gets him through to his employer, only to be led through a legal circus that exempts them from matters of guilt or compensation. If there’s any disbelief, it’s only that it feels all too close to our cynical reality. Imagine that as your very last phone call.

Buried is one of the bravest movies I can recall, and easily one of the most gripping. There wasn’t a second in which my attention wavered, nor a moment when I felt tempted to look away. Buried is part thriller, part torture, and a film that will haunt you as much as it entertains. I’m not even sure entertain is the right word: you’re subjected to it, really. You experience being buried in a coffin in Iraq. You experience it without hope, as he might have done. You’ll only do it once, but Buried is a nightmare you’ll never forget.

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You Again

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Paul

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The cardinal rule of comedy is that 90 minutes is enough; there’s rarely a justification for going longer. With ne’er an exception, all that have tried have failed, and any that might have succeeded would have been funnier with brevity. You Again comes in at nearly 110 minutes, and not only isn’t it the exception that proves the rule, but the rule has been fortified and reinforced by the film’s very existence.

For a little while, You Again skips along with an enjoyable trump to an appealing enough premise. Marni Olivia Olsen (reduced to ‘Moo’ on an unfortunate necklace) is riding high as the New York VP for a leading PR agency. She heads home for her brother’s wedding, and is introduced to his fiancee who, as luck would have it, was Marni’s highschool nemesis, Joanna. In the manner of ‘Easy A’, a series of flashbacks and monologues detail her sorry plight: she had acne, she had glasses, she had bangs. She was a walking cliche as clumsy as she was awkward looking. A troop led by Joanna once carried her clean out of school, to a stomping chant of ‘We Are The Champions’ that placed careful emphasis on the “No time for losers” part.

Marni blossomed into a swan and Joanna claims not to remember her, but neither of them are buying it. To the rest of the family, Joanna is the sweetheart who stole their son’s heart with the goodness and light of selfless charity work. Mother Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis) seems particularly enamoured, and even the family dog has taken to her as its new owner. Marni seems alone in her pain until Joanna’s Aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver) shows up and the movie’s high-concept is fully realised: gosh darn it, would you believe she was Gail’s nemesis way back when? Two generations of sworn enemies in one house. Poor Gail. Poor Marni. Poor us.

From the power dynamics of families colliding comes the deja vu of romantic comedy 101, as Marni tries to sabotage her nemesis and save her brother in the process. As far as revenge comedies go the concept has legs, but try as its talented actors might, You Again never escapes mediocre material utterly lacking bite. Kristen Bell brings an enjoyable, sneering quality to Marni that we can root for well enough, but her relatable opening monologue breaks for petty female sniping of the kind pioneered in the odious Bride Wars. The jokes fall flat, and rely on slapstick so broad it ceases to register as amusing. She’s out for a run, she falls down. That’s the centrepiece joke.

Curtis and Weaver, meanwhile, are a fine pairing, but the script does everything it can to prevent them engaging, and so their motherly sparring goes wanting. Likewise the groom’s father, Victor Garber, who remains as watchable and versatile an actor as ever, but is relegated to the background when – like many of the supporting cast – he should be front and centre. Perhaps the only character pitched correctly is Betty White’s whimsical Grandma Bunny, but as good as she is with even the weakest of material, the charm is surely beginning to wear off her late-career renaissance.

If it was a struggle to make it to the film’s halfway point, then the even more wearisome second hour feels like a real test of endurance. Kyle Bornheimer briefly threatens to bring some joy as Joanna’s ex-boyfriend, but his uncomfortable turn as wedding singer is cut short by yet another wrong turn that sees the filmmakers put their faith in dance and the Glee-ified and irksome Kristin Chenoweth, who is surely far too pleased with herself to possibly belong in this tedium.

You Again, then: a comedy bereft of jokes, bloated and sluggish, and another tick for Kristen Bell’s continuing efforts to sabotage a once-promising career and finally go the way of Anna Faris. And if the film thought its late reinvention into serious drama could save it, then all I can say is the Disney-grade saccharine they come up with is several times funnier than the parts they hoped you’d laugh at.

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Piranha

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Paul

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It’s a struggle to think of what possible cultural relevance a review can have in the face of something like Piranha. Where do you pitch your analysis of a movie that likely rejected ‘Something In the Water’ as too highbrow a title? At best, you’re throwing words at a blockbuster juggernaut in the futile hope something sticks. You could be brave and perhaps label the movie an allegory of state occupation, but of its maybe 10,000 and a bit words of dialogue, I’d wager it’s an 80-20 split between Piranhas and breasts, which leaves ‘and a bit’ for political subtext.

In the interests of absolute fairness, my review will stick to a similar ratio.

If fishing near a Mesolithic-era dig isn’t the dumbest thing Richard Dreyfuss ever did, then it’s certainly his last. All action films of this stock begin as they mean to go on, and by tipping it’s hat to Jaws then promptly devouring it’s star, Piranha lets us know it’s just that kind of movie and you can leave if you don’t like it. It comes from the deep like a great many things you’re scared of – and plenty you aren’t – and that’s as much as you need to know. It’s here, it’s now and it’s Spring Break. It’s always Spring Break.

Against a backdrop of a Girls Gone Wild extravaganza, thousands of teens congregate to revel in freedom they express via the medium of wet t-shirt competitions, or “Weapons of mass-turbation!” as Eli Roth likes to scream as he hoses down a busload of bountiful hopefuls. Sleezy porn mogul, Derrick Jones, circles the crowd with two of his stars, spotting shy Todd amongst the throng. He’s the sheriff’s son and is supposed to be spending the weekend babysitting his kid brother. But when two attractive women with a camera come calling, what’s a young man to do?

Whilst Todd is otherwise occupied, the Sheriff (Elizabeth Shue) is busy sending divers to pull Dreyfuss’ mutilated body from the lake. There’s more to follow but the kids are none the wiser, so it’s all lesbian romps and tequila shots with Mr Girls Gone Wild out at sea. Danni and Crystal cavort naked in the crystal blue sea, oblivious to what circles just beneath, though I dare sare they’re safer in the water than on the boat with Joe Francis there.

The partying continues unabated back at the beach too, but now there are darting shots of flailing legs beneath the water. Duuuhhh duh. Duuuhhh duh. The divers discovery of a Piranha origin story right out of Alien – all darkness and fields of translucent egg sacks – heralds the beginning, and under a sign proclaiming “We’re dying to get wet!”, mayhem kicks in that recalls movies and moments so numerous you’ll be in awe of its dizzying spectacle. Consider Titanic as the luxury boats sink with their starboards in the air, people clinging on. Recall Spielberg’s Omaha as bodies wash up, screaming in blood-soaked pain. Hear the revellers moans as they claw at the escaping lifeboats, and tell me George A. Romero isn’t behind the camera.

The body count keeps on rising, and I’m breathless just to recall it. “They took my penis!” screams the disembowelled porn guy, as Crystal’s silicone implants bob along in the water. Ving Rhames stands alone, selflessly defending the beaches with an improvised chainsaw. In a far-away lab, Christopher Lloyd hams it up for the camera with his very best ‘Great Scott!’ voice to warns us it’s too late. There’s Eli Roth again, decapitated in a manner befitting a man who gave us Hostel and slept with Peaches Geldof. And alongside it all is Kelly Brook, the once-presenter now cast as lesbian porn star, solely so the producers might say the film stars a naked Kelly Brook. As far as artistic compromises go, it’s one I’ll live with for the Adwords revenue alone.

Beyond the visceral thrill of gore, a half-hour onslaught of breasts, blood, guts, porn, sun, sea, and sand, Piranha comes down to a simple scene of survival: a sheriff’s suicide mission to save her family, and a lovers plan so doomed to failure you can’t help but root for them. If it’s true there’s no other effective way to judge a film as shameless, exploitative, shallow and ridiculous as this, then perhaps we should allow it that simple human connection as it’s offering to the art of criticism: proof that, on some level somewhere, the movie works for what it is and what you absolutely must leave at the theatre door.

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