Drive (2011)

 A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong.

There are plenty of times when you see a great film but still find a few things wrong with it. Rarely do you walk into a film and right from the start love every second of it, but   daresay that Drive is one of the few exceptions. The movie just flows at you in such a smooth but vibrant way, you cannot help but fall in love with everything. It’s a film that will leave its audience with its jaw dropped having just spoiled them with something that just doesn’t happen all that often. Films just don’t come together and be executed effectively as well as Drive did; that’s why it’s my lock to be the best film of 2011.  

Its story has been one that has actually been told quite a bit in cinema but the creative manner in which it is handled has it stand out from the rest of the pack. Driver as the film likes to call him, gets caught up in a romance that could be the end of him. It forces him to do things so crazy, so violent, and so brutally awesome, you cannot help but just cheer for him to kill every last one of them.  Where the film is at its best is when it does very little. It lets scenes play out and interactions take place between characters with loud music pumping and very little dialogue between them. It adds a tense emotional vibe to each scene that makes every moment seem like it’s better than the last. Where it seemed to be most shocking is in its violent moments. They don’t hold anything back and ends up being one of the more brutal films I have ever watched. The violent scenes are there for entertainment, but if you give it some thought it opens up the possibility of a backstory you dare wish to witness. It’s not entirely original, but when you handle so many things right, it feels like you’re watching a refreshing classic.

The strongest points in the film stand with its characters. Ryan Gosling as Driver gives one of the best performances of the year. Gosling has always been a dynamic actor who goes full out in his roles, but here he gives something you’ve never seen before. He’s a killer willing to do anything to protect what he loves, but you flip to that soft side and wonder where he channels all of that rage. It’s scary to think about. It is not his best performance of his career, but it’s definitely my favorite. It’s a character that should leave its mark for years to come. The cast around him all make springing turns in less than predictable roles. Carey Mulligan plays a sweet innocent woman who channels her emotions effortlessly through her body movement and tone. Bryan Cranston delivers a small, but vital role turning in a complete reversal from his TV alias. The two protagonists in Albert Brooks and Ron Pearlman create a foe with high tension. They effortlessly place fear into anyway who stands in their way.

One of the more creative inputs into Drive comes from its musical score and overall use of the city of Los Angeles. Around every scene comes a score that symbolizes the tone of what’s going on. Every film does this, but here with this film, it’s almost flawless. Outside of a few mismatched moments, it creates a tension in your blood that keeps it flowing from beginning to end.  The use of the city helps it become a character in itself. It’s hard to put into words, but once you see the camera pulling back and catch a sight of the landscape you’ll now it’s so damn controlled and authentic.

Drive is a movie that must be seen in the theater. Seeing it at home won’t dampen the quality, but the audio comes roaring to life sitting there on the big screen. It’s just another part of the film that was well thought out enhancing an already great experience. I don’t care if there is nothing about this movie that appeals to you, this is an absolute must see and come award season, should be worthy of earning a lot of gold, whether it does or not remains to be seen, but I cannot tell you how much you will love this film. It’s a film fans wet dream.

Overall Score: 10/10

Moneyball (2011)

 An all-star cast brings to life the true story of Billy Beane, a former jock turned general manager who uses unconventional methods to bring the best players to the Oakland A's, a major league baseball team struggling against financial hardship.

It’s a very unfair comparison because the two films have almost nothing in common, but Moneyball is very similar to The Social Network in a lot of ways. They both came around a little before the award season started swinging, both are quite bit of buzz to them, but most importantly their approach to the subject matter is different than just its surface reflection. Where the Social Network was a movie about Mark Zuckerberg that just had Facebook as a fuel to get going, Moneyball is about Billy Beane and how he viewed the game of baseball rather than the game itself. It has a few moments just like its trailer, where it wows you, but simply falls short of matching The Social Network in most ways.

Billy Beane struggling to put together a winning team with a severe lack of money is a tale of unbalanced sides. On one hand you get a natural semi-slow pace of a man going against a wave of criticism to do what he feels is necessary to win. This is when the film is at its best because it has that great musical score playing while Billy Beane battles himself in whether this scheme is as crazy as it looks. The dramatic tone and underdog scenario helped you want him to succeed while enjoying the successes of risk. What the film struggled with most was its comedic light-hearted approach the rest of the film took. Can the film be funny? Yes, but it didn’t feel quite right with its subject matter. I didn’t come and see Moneyball to laugh; I came to see the struggles Billy Beane placed upon the game of baseball. It just felt so out of place, yet is heard in most scenes. That tone seemed overshadowed a lot of the positive notes the film established and dirve the momentum of seriousness into the ground.

Despite some distaste I have for most of this film, Brad Pitt makes it work. As Billy Beane, he shows all the signs of a former player who struggled to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon him and use it as the key motivation behind trying to change this game of baseball. His struggles are relayed back to you through subtle moments of just Pitt gazing onto the field. These tiny moments are when the film is at its best. Now I have no idea why they decided to cast Jonah Hill in this film, but he doesn’t do much. He has a bit of his past roles shown here, but for the most part he checks down his annoying habits and just acts. It’s nothing to praise, but something could have been a disaster didn’t end up biting them in their ass. As for some of the cameos, they were fun to watch as a baseball fan, but meaningless to the average movie watcher.

As disappointing as the film was for me, I don’t really have a hard time recommending it because my expectations were far too unreachable when I look back upon them. It’s a decent baseball movie that focuses on an intriguing character that has enough layers to them to keep you entertained all the way through. It won’t be on any best of lists this year, but I can see this having a spot among many favorites lists for many others. Give this a watch if you were already planning to see, but if it wasn’t give it some thought to add to your list.

Overall Score: 7/10

Contagion (2011)

Steven Soderbergh steers big stars through this big-screen disaster-thriller about a global team of doctors tasked with tamping down a deadly outbreak of infectious disease before it annihilates mankind.

These pandemics films come and go every single year; maybe because they all usually perform well financially or lazy creativity, but it’s a guarantee to get one of these suckers. A lot of the time these films deal with the survivors and their struggle to survive, but Contagion is very different; both in tone and pace. This isn’t a fast paced thriller following the violent outcome starting from the virus, but instead leans heavily on showing the behind the scenes perspective on the people responsible for finding a cure. It’s a great change of pace and unique feel, but I hardly hope this trend continues.

The film is solid. That’s as good as it’s going to get but on the other side, it’s never at one point bad. It’s going to keep you entertained the entire time, but it will never wow you with that one moment that makes the film stand out in all of this chaos. The multiple character arcs tended to be a little too much because a few of them felt rushed with little to no screen time to develop a vital point to their stories. Some could have been completely left out and the film would have had the same effect. What it did right was its procedures. You never know if a cure can be made let alone get it out to everyone before a serious dent in the population dies away. It takes months to get things done and during that time were shown a little bit of chaos this had caused and a lot of the science that comes out of it. If you have the patience the plot can become very interesting to watch even if some of it runs by your head. It’s very smart lightly played out story.

With these characters, you got a lot of huge names. It worked and it didn’t work. In proving to be a bit ballsy, nobody is safe despite how big your name is. If a character makes mistakes they will die, as simple as that. It’s refreshing than what we have grown accustomed too. On the other side of that argument, I see no reason to waste a big name on such minor, forgeable, bland roles that never became developed. This isn’t what you’d call an actor’s showcase, but more of an ensemble cast that works well together in the same vein as the Oceans trilogy, (a fellow Soderbergh film). This is the type of film where the story trumps the characters quite a bit.

If you’re interested in watching a thriller that scares the living shit out of you without actually ever being scary, than Contagion really hits the spot. Its realistic approach to how a simple disease can spread is terrifying and will likely turn you into a germaphobe for a few days after the viewing. It’s not like any films of the genre; it moves slow, takes its time and stretches out a story over months without revealing a whole lot. Action junkies are warned to stay away, there isn’t much of that here, but a hard to form tension is created that helps the film succeed.  

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Apollo 18 (2011)

 If you buy in to official statements, Apollo 17 was NASA's last manned mission to the moon. But what if found footage of a secret Apollo mission that had taken place the following year could prove otherwise -- and explain why we haven't gone back?

In what may be an overused statement with nearly every one of these releases, all of these found footage films all seem to follow a pre-determined path because they are forced to because of the style they choose. Things begin on high hopes, strange things start to happen, something happens to the filmmakers and all that is left of their “experience” is the footage that they shot found by some unknown person who decides to make it into a movie. Apollo 18 follows this path pretty much too a tee, but all things considering, it might be the most ambitious films I have seen from the genre.

The idea that there was something on the moon that prevented us from wanting to go back is an attention grabber. That’s the film rope to try and reel you in, but what they do next is either going to keep you guessing or turn you off from boredom. In a really slow process, the astronauts quickly arrive on the moon, and once there, they begin to do their mission of setting up surveillance equipment to spy on the Russians, but slowly they begin to realize that was never their mission. They were brought up there to discover the moons best kept secret.  This process is very slow and I realize some maybe many (according to the RT score of 24%) become bored of this routine and setup, but the people that will enjoy it witness a very authentic feeling story that is carefully constructed to make it feel like its actual found footage. The mystery on the moon isn’t copped out with them revealing full circle what it is, but what many people including me will be left in the dark on everything about the mystery. It answers absolutely no questions one might ask.

As for the actors themselves, they are all relatively unknown actors into the roles which make the film feel more authentic. They did a pretty damn good job. Typically there is one annoying character in all of these films, but with only three actors shown throughout, they all made due on their screen time. The lead, if you’d like to call him that, Ben Anderson did a great job of establishing his character and made you root for him and feel the weight of the consequences that came due to the choices he makes. To me, he felt like a real astronaut, a real husband, and a real friend.

The department that comes down to the biggest disappointment is its horror aspect. It’s simply not scary. It can be tense in a few of its moments and being stuck in space with small spaces and low oxygen, these are terrifying scenarios, but in terms of actual jumps, I can count on one hand how many times that happened. If you’re looking to watch a highly ambitious film that falls a little short, but can still appreciate what it tried to accomplish, Apollo 18 is a real winner. Its not the best, but is probably my personal favorite found footage film.

Overall Score: 6.5/10

The Devil's Double (2011)

 Dominic Cooper stars as Uday Hussein -- Saddam Hussein's depraved, decadent elder son -- and as Latif Yahia, the army lieutenant forcibly drafted to be his body double, in this drama based on Yahia's autobiographical novel. With his family's fate on the line, Yahia surrenders his identity to embody the hated figure but gains a conspirator in Uday's concubine, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier), as he plots his escape.

The Devils Double is a kind of film that is completely inaccurate of its source material but benefits because of it by giving the audience an entertaining story. If the material isn’t worth watching, you pull it all in ways to make it work and fit for the story you want to tell as a filmmaker. Despite all the inaccuracies with the language, the looks, and the cast, you allow yourself to look past all of that and enjoy what is a decent flick that is carried by a vicious yet perfect movie character.

The film opens up with a man named Latif being brought into the violent world of Uday Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein, to be his body double. They perform the necessary tasks to make the two men appear identical pretty quickly, and then the film goes off into what is a very fast approach. It never hides that its trying to be an action thriller rather than a history lesson and thus gives us a fictional portrayal based loosely on facts that allows us to see just how crazy Uday Hussein is. In just a short amount of time, you witness the corruption, vicious, mentally unstable doggie that Uday is; all seen through the eyes of his body double. Where the film takes a somewhat disappointing route is with this character. Latif is presented as the protagonist caught up in a terrible situation, but the arc was both boring and predictable. Scenes without the Saddam family felt unnecessary and stale in comparison to the rest. It felt a little rushed and if not for the dynamite performance by Dominic Cooper, the film would have been very ordinary.

As you can tell from the trailers, Dominic Cooper plays both Uday and Latif. With one character, he’s a complete lunatic, willing to kill anyone, anywhere, for absolutely no reason at all. He’s unpredictable; that’s where all the entertainment is. He has this sort of laugh he does throughout the whole film that simply is incredible and makes the character work. On the other side, he plays a character whose supposed to be pretending to be another, essentially he is trying to portray another version of himself, which seems very difficult to do, but Cooper manages to do just that. He simply is the movie and without him, the film would’ve fallen flat on its face. A brief appearance by Saddam himself is well placed and shines a light on just how crazy Uday is when even the devil himself cannot stand him for what he is. A few forgettable roles with minor side characters are present but thankfully aren’t given enough time to bring the film down farther than it was.

If the trailer fascinated you, than you should get exactly what you wanted out of The Devils Double; a violent, thrilling look into the life of Uday Hussein. If you’re a history buff looking for something more accurate, look away, this isn’t it. The performance alone comes highly recommended, but as a whole film, you shouldn’t walk in expecting whole lot, but its entertaining to say the least.  

Overall Score: 7/10