Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a few reviews from our Toronto regular RoloTomasi. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is one of the big hits of the festival judging by the reviews we've gotten, but RoloTomasi was a little disappointed in it, though still has a ton of great things to say about it. I'm also dying to see Bale's HARSH TIMES! Enjoy the reviews!
Hi Harry, Quint,
Well, the Toronto Film Festival's Done. I am a week behind on Reviews, so I'd better get started:
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is a movie I've been dying to see since I read Chris Buckley's hilarious book almost a decade ago. And for the most part, director Jason Reitman gets it right. The book and movie tell the story of Nick Naylor, ace lobbyist for the Tobacco industry. An expert in the arts of Rhetoric, Nick can convince you that cigarettes not only won't kill you, but they'll clean your teeth, provide the Recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C and bring about world peace. Nick loves being able to defend something as popularly reviled as Tobacco, he loves being the "Yuppie Mephistopheles". If it were easy for Nick, it wouldn't be fun. And Nick loves going after the self-righteous defenders of American youth who get massive government funding to tell people what to think about smoking. Nick is an ardent believer in freedom of choice, to the extent where he will tell a classroom of 10-year olds to think for themselves about smoking rather than listen to their parents.
The movie has a tough job finding a narrative thread in Buckley's book. Reitman makes what's probably the best character angle for Nick by making the film about his relationship with his grade-school age son, as he tries to be a morally positive father figure to his son while pursuing a career that revolves around spin, confusion, and skirting the shoals of lying. The scenes between Nick and his son have a nice, non-condescending feel to them, as Nick tries to explain what he does for a living. While he defends his way of life, he never sugarcoats the fact that his job is to confuse people rather than inform him.
As a lover of the original material, I can't help but be a bit disappointed. Reitman touches on a lot of the plot threads in the book, but lets the book's major thread drop almost entirely without any resolution. He may have shot this at one time too, and in the editing suite, made some decisions. There's one scene I won't describe other than to say it involves Katie Holmes' character and some slides. It leads us in a direction the movie never actually goes in, and it doesn't make any sense for the character. If Reitman gives the film another look he might edit it out, because it's the loose thread on a sweater.
Otherwise, the film's a lot of fun. Kicking off with a great opening title sequence (Musical choices throughout the film, and particularly here, are inspired), featuring great performances, especially from Aaron Eckhart, who is born to embody Nick's Macho swagger. Also standing out are David Koechner as a gun lobbyist, Adam Brody in a riff on Seth Cohen, the always loveable J.K. Simmons, and Rob Lowe.
It's interesting to note that no one in the film ever smokes. Fox Searchlight picked it up in a bidding war. It's worth seeing.
HARSH TIMES marks Christian Bale's first post-BATMAN appearance. It's remarkable how malleable Bale is, here playing against type as Jim, a damaged Iraq war vet, honorably discharged, trying to get himself respectable as an L.A. cop. But Jim is not respectable, and LAPD doesn't want him. Jim cruises the streets with his old buddy Mike (Freddy Rodriguez), both unemployed, both out in suits and ties trying to find a good job, but ultimately spending their days drinking, smoking weed and jacking gang-bangers in South Central. Jim is violent and prone to fits of rage, so while LAPD isn't interested, Homeland Security has zeroed in on him as an ideal candidate to wage their war on drugs (ironically, druggie Jim will be busting growers). Life starts to turn around for Jim and Mike, but Jim's rage threatens to destroy him, and take Mike down, too.
Bale is as usual, fantastic, becoming this 3-sided coin. At work, he's a born soldier, obedient, robotic, repressing all emotions. With his Mexican girlfriend, he's tender, romantic, caring. With Mike, he's a wannabe South Central player, all "Dogg" and "Homie", but it's there that the horrors he's repressed from Iraq come out. Slowly they spill over into his relationship with his girlfriend and best friend Mike. Ultimately I could sympathize with Bale's character, who might have been a good person at one time, but is ultimately unable to silence his killer reflex from Military training. Rodriguez is also excellent next to Bale. And again, stellar character work from JK Simmons!
TRAINING DAY writer David Ayer writes the story and dialogue tough and brutal. Ayer grew up in South Central, and directs with a great sense of location. Ayer works in L.A. as integrally as Shane Black in KISS KISS BANG BANG, even though it's another side of the city. Both movies couldn't take place anywhere else.
HARSH TIMES has been picked up for distribution by Bauer Martinez Films. I suspect they'll release it this fall to try to qualify Bale for the Oscars. Worth Seeing.
I will be as brief as possible about SLOW BURN. This is nothing more than a rip-off of USUAL SUSPECTS, complete with a mystery Keyser Soze-like character, told around a series of interrogations, where people are telling conflicting stories, and no one can be trusted. Arbitrary twist after arbitrary twist, preceded by a relatively obvious twist about Jolene Blalock's character. This is painful stuff, from the half-baked Noir dialogue, the cheap special effects (direct to video trash all the way), and the muddled resolution, where everything is doled out through laboured exposition.
And yes, losers, there's some partial nudity from the lovely T'Pol. There's better ways to spend your money too.
Rolo Out. Still a lot to cover, including RIVER QUEEN, THE GRONHOLM METHOD, WHY WE FIGHT, THE MYTH, WALLACE & GROMIT, SPL and L'ENFANT. Soon, I promise.
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