By Brett Blake DON’T BREATHE is a movie that will benefit from lower expectations. It is an incredibly solid little chiller, anchored by truly excellent direction and strong performances which elevate the subject matter... but it is far from the masterpiece some have hailed it to be. We follow a trio of small-time robbers, Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette), and Money (Daniel Zovatto), who plot to break into the home of a reclusive blind man (Stephen Lang) who is supposedly sitting on a cash fortune. Once inside the man’s home, things go south almost immediately and the friends begin to realize that their mark has more up his sleeve than they could have ever imagined. More than anything, what we’ve got here is an inverse WAIT UNTIL DARK, the classic thriller where Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman being harassed by a trio of sinister criminals who proceed to invade her apartment. Broadly speaking, DON’T BREATHE turns the Hepburn character into the source of the danger, rather than the recipient of it. Instead of the blind character being defenseless against home invasion, Lang’s character is deadly competent and efficient. For some, this simple twist on the home invasion formula has been enough to label the movie an ingeniously-plotted exercise, but honestly... the script is easily the weakest element of the film. It’s by no means bad, there are no unforgivable gaffes or plot holes, but as a whole, the narrative is pretty standard stuff, even taking its subversion of various tropes into account. There is a delightfully sick interlude that arrives out of nowhere about two-thirds of the way through the movie, and it’s cringe-inducing in the very best way, but that’s really the extent of the plot showing us anything we haven’t already seen in some form in other stories. Where the movie really does excel is in the direction. Director Fede Alvarez brings the same level of intensity to DON’T BREATHE that he did to 2013’s EVIL DEAD remake. There’s a “go for the jugular” quality here, a feeling of the movie grabbing you by the throat and slowly squeezing the life out of you. In only a couple of films, Alvarez displays a mastery of tone, knowing where and how to ramp things up. He is obviously no director-for-hire, no mere journeyman. This is a guy with a certain amount of vision, the technical skill required to execute that vision at a high level, and the confidence to say to the audience, “I’m in control here, now watch this.” He joins the likes of directors Robert Eggers (THE WITCH), Jeremy Saulnier (GREEN ROOM), Jennifer Kent (THE BABADOOK), Mike Flanagan (HUSH), and David Robert Mitchell (IT FOLLOWS) as part of the most promising group of up-and-coming genre filmmakers to emerge at the same time since perhaps the 1980s. The staging of the more suspenseful sequences in DON’T BREATHE is absolutely wonderful; Alvarez allows the camera to play with space and depth in compelling ways, things that greatly heighten the feeling of claustrophobia which overtakes the film. He creates mini setpieces of suspense, all of which have their own little crescendos and climaxes that somehow manage to fit into the overall escalation going on. I don’t want to oversell it, because I can certainly see a scenario where the more jaded horror fans in the audience will just shrug this movie off, but I also believe that the sustained tension - particularly once the story moves into its second half - might be too much for some in the audience to stomach. This is a good, exciting thing, and it’s what serious genre tales should do: put you on edge and make you uncomfortable. DON’T BREATHE does that. Whatever the movie’s narrative limitations are, the tonal cohesion and cinematic craft displayed by Alvarez are enough to compensate. It also doesn’t hurt the movie to have some effective performances carrying the day, either. As was the case in Alvarez’s EVIL DEAD remake, Jane Levy is put through absolute hell in the film, and she’s incredibly convincing; in order for the audience to side with someone who is - fundamentally - a criminal, we have to buy that Rocky is a character desperate for a change, and Levy conveys that perfectly. Dylan Minnette provides steady and level-headed support as the “everyman”-type in the film, the guy who understands just how badly their situation could end up. And then there’s Stephen Lang as the blind man, looking at times like an archetypal boogeyman with his dead eyes and vacant expression; Lang brings an impressive and imposing physicality to the role, and he really allows us to believe that he could pull off the kinds of things he pulls off in this film as someone who’s lost his sight. A quick word about the musical score: Roque Baños reunites with director Alvarez after EVIL DEAD, and delivers a really effective underscore to accompany the visuals. In contrast to the operatic orchestral sound he conjured up for EVIL DEAD, Baños here goes into more droning, industrial, and atonal directions. It may not end up making for the greatest listen on the album, but it fits the film perfectly. Adding on to what is quickly turning into a banner year for horror, DON’T BREATHE delivers shocks and a level of intensity that most fans of the genre should be satisfied by. The top-notch direction and acting paper over any blandness in the plotting, and though I didn’t completely love the movie, I liked it a lot.
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By Brett Blake SUICIDE SQUAD is a complete mess. There’s just no getting around that. It is deeply flawed on multiple levels, both in writing and execution, and though there are some things in the movie that are undeniably good, these positives are far outweighed by elements which feel, frankly, botched. The plot of the film is kicked into gear by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), a powerful mover-and-shaker in the United States government who sees the need for a covert, “off the books” task force in the wake of the death of Superman (as depicted in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE from earlier this year). As such, she assembles a team of convicted - but gifted - criminals, including Deadshot (Will Smith), an assassin who never misses, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), an insane former psychiatrist and the Joker’s (Jared Leto) main squeeze, Diablo (Jay Hernandez), an ex low level thug who can generate and control fire, Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a mutant animal man, and Boomerang (Jai Courtney), an ace thief. Led by commando Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) and his mysterious bodyguard, Katana (Karen Fukuhara), the so-called “Suicide Squad” are given a deal: defeat an ancient and sinister menace known as the Enchantress (Cara Delevigne) - who has taken over an entire city in an attempt to subjugate the planet - and receive commuted sentences. The best thing one can say about SUICIDE SQUAD is that - with one big exception - the characters work and are fun, even as the movie they’re in sort of stinks. Will Smith’s work here is nothing less than a triumphant return to form for him after a few years of low key turns; he’s funny, charismatic as hell, and when asked to shoulder a few key emotional moments, pulls them off flawlessly. Margot Robbie embodies the Harley Quinn character as though she jumped right off the comics page or the television screen (Harley had her initial origins on the BATMAN animated series in the 1990s); she’s a blast of exuberance and energy, tinged with just a hint of vulnerability. And yes, she’s also quite sexy in the role, even as the movie emphasizes this to such a degree that one starts to feel a bit icky about it. Jay Hernandez gets to play perhaps the most interesting and complex character in the story, Karen Fukuhara and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje totally sell their characters’ physicalities, and Joel Kinnaman holds everything together with a no-nonsense attitude which we gradually come to learn is shielding some vulnerability of his own. I would love to see another movie with these characters on some other adventure. It’s just that this particular adventure leaves much to be desired. Those good performances are almost (but not entirely) undone by a screenplay that is nothing short of shoddy. On a structure level, the story is bizarrely told, with a jarring and slapdash (and seemingly endless) first act introducing us to the various members of the Squad (which is entertaining enough in itself because of the strength of the performances), then brings forward second and third acts that exist as basically a singular big chunk of story (and one which rather shamelessly apes John Carpenter’s ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, right down to the explosive charges that are injected into the Squad members). There’s no major escalation heading into the final third of the film, which leaves it feeling rather limp. It’s not only structurally flawed, though. Characters repeatedly make incredibly poor (sometimes outright stupid) decisions which, when looked at once the movie is over, make no sense; Davis’ Amanda Waller is particularly ill-served in this regard. And that is to say nothing of the central villain of the piece, the Enchantress, who is decidedly not the Joker (in case you were hoping he was the primary antagonist, because he isn’t), and who is underwhelming in the extreme; there is nothing memorable about the villainous scheme at the heart of the tale, and the character makes basically no impact at all. She’s ultra-generic, to the point that it feels like the filmmakers (writer/director David Ayer chief among them) didn’t bother to even try to hide the perfunctory nature of her existence. There’s also a considerable lack of narrative momentum or drive. The titular Squad is assembled for no great discernible reason pertinent to this particular film; it’s a pre-emptive move by Waller to counter potential threats in the future, not to thwart an imminent catastrophe. Ironically, it is this pre-emptive move which, from a certain point of view, actually brings about the central villainous plot of the story, which is pretty hacky, coincidence-reliant storytelling. Also hacky? The inclusion of the Joker, who has literally no bearing on the plot; he just shows up a couple of times (in full-on gangsta/pimp-style settings), mugs, and departs. The Joker could be entirely removed from the film and little would have needed to be changed. Leto, by the way, is technically fine in the role, in the sense that he does what is asked of him, but this conception of the Joker is truly awful, a gross and sleazy version of the Clown Prince of Crime without even the hint of an ideology or world view motivating him. I understand the need for letting people have different interpretations of the character, but this is a Joker I never want to see again. Some of these issues, I’m certain, have been exacerbated by choppy and damaging editing choices, choices likely imposed on director Ayer and his collaborators by the studio. You can literally feel the moments and scenes that were clearly reshot, because they awkwardly jut out of the narrative instead of smoothly locking into place. The movie stops numerous times so characters can state - and re-state - information and plot points that the audience already knows about (complete with flashbacks to things we’ve already seen!), as if the studio expects most of the viewers do not have attention spans of even a short duration. At the end of the day, SUICIDE SQUAD is a big misfire, albeit one full of characters I enjoyed. That’s a weird position to be in as a viewer, but it’s symbolic of the movie as a whole: good elements poorly implemented. By Brett Blake Looking at it as objectively as possible, JASON BOURNE is not a very good movie, and it’s even worse when viewed as a continuation of the trilogy that Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass completed (or so we thought) back in 2007. This movie is the very definition of unnecessary, and the ways in which it strains to be relevant - both thematically and narratively - threaten to literally rip the film apart. It is slight, grasping to feel important even as we reach the finale and realize that the movie has been, basically, about nothing at all. And to think... Matt Damon came back for this? A full plot synopsis would be incredibly redundant for anybody who’s seen any of Damon’s three previous outings, as very little new is brought to the table here. Once again, Jason Bourne is on the run from sinister government assassins as he tracks down pieces of information about his past. Once again, Bourne’s discoveries pose a threat to corrupt individuals in the United States intelligence apparatus. Once again, vehicular chases and violent fisticuffs ensue. The plot is paper-thin this time around, existing only as the flimsiest of excuses to generate suspense and action scenes. The things that made the first three BOURNE films so engaging - inventive, visceral action sequences and a heaping helping of post-9/11 anxiety - feel positively trite over a decade later. There are faint attempts to make this film feel relevant to the privacy concerns of this new decade, but these attempts feel wholly inorganic, in contrast to the ways contemporary themes and concerns were seamlessly woven into the earlier movies. Edward Snowden is name-checked, and a subplot involving a Facebook-type web company helping the CIA datamine the habits of its users feels shoehorned into the proceedings and never pays off in a satisfying way. This is all filler material, existing awkwardly on the margins of yet another personal odyssey for Jason Bourne. The BOURNE films (particularly Greengrass’ second and third entries in the trilogy) gave the fights and chases an injection of immediacy and vitality (through a technique that has come to be referred to as “shaky cam”) that hadn’t been seen in big budget films up to that point, and it was an exciting stylistic choice, one which influenced action cinema of the late 2000s in a big way. However, in the years since, the appeal and uniqueness of shaky cam aesthetics have totally worn off; there’s nothing special about the technique anymore, which makes much of JASON BOURNE’s action feel like a throwback to 2004, and not in a good way. That said, the action here is pulled off competently, and the final sequence - an extended climax in Las Vegas - does have a bit of vitality to it that is welcome. By that point, though, it’s too little, too late. The chief sin of the movie is a huge one, and it’s the way the story bends over backwards to motivate the Bourne character this time out. His journey in the previous three films was completed in THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM - he found what he was looking for (the truth about his real identity). Now, the filmmakers have concocted a truly insulting and infuriating extra layer: it turns out Bourne actually didn’t find out everything about his past life, and he now discovers an even more immediate and deep personal connection to the circumstances which led him to join the shadowy Treadstone program and become an assassin. This new revelation - which one could call a “twist,” and which Bourne spends much of the movie pursuing - is, frankly, lame as hell, and is contrived to such a degree that it made me angry. It smacks of the filmmakers not trusting the audience to just go along with a new, self-contained story, and the end result is that they’ve made a total hash of Jason Bourne’s already labyrinthine backstory and elevated it to improbable, nearly fantastical levels. Whatever the rest of the movie’s flaws may be, Matt Damon’s return to the title role does herald good work on his part, even as the script manipulates the character into the same general arc as the previous movies. Nevertheless, Damon sells Bourne’s complicated psyche quite well, and he’s perhaps even more of a physically imposing presence this time than he was in the past. Surrounding Damon are a handful of very fine actors - Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, Julia Stiles - but all are extraordinarily underserved by a script which paints all of them with the broadest strokes possible. Vikander is particularly wasted, and that’s truly upsetting considering she’s coming off one of 2015’s finest performances in her role from EX MACHINA. At the end of the day, JASON BOURNE is a massive waste of time and talent. Though not bad on a technical level, it’s a movie that has nothing in it to justify its existence. It’s a limp, reheated attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle. This is not a character or a franchise that should have been resurrected, and JASON BOURNE is one of 2016’s biggest disappointments. |
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