Despite the Idiotic Title, "Silver Linings Playbook" Is Worth Watching

Silver Linings Playbook - Written and directed by David O. Russell, starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, Dash Mihok, and Chris Tucker - Rated R

 

 

   

Writer/director David O. Russell made one of my favorite films a couple of years ago with The Fighter.  I was impressed with the style, the music selection, and, most importantly, the story that was ingrained with the location.  Oh, and the great performances helped a bit, too.  Now with Silver Linings Playbook, Russell has created a movie on the same level as The Fighter, though Silver Linings is a bit weaker than that great film.

 

Before a critique of this film can truly begin, I have to mention the idiotic title of this film.  Silver Linings Playbook.  When people hear or read that title, they have no clue what you’re talking about, even if they’ve seen the previews.  It’s just such a needlessly stupid title.  This is not as bad as Russell’s other effort, I Heart Huckabees, but it’s close.  The problem with these quirky titles is that it drives people away.  Hell, the title made me want to hate the movie before I saw it.  There’s a very easy fix for this.  Drop the Playbook part.  Yeah, football factors into the film quite a bit, but this film could just as easily been called Silver Linings and lost nothing.  You can tell the film company felt the same way because in every preview I have seen, the narrator drops Playbook from the title, and the word is extremely smaller than the other words on the poster.

 

Title aside, this is a fun, touching film.  Bradley Cooper plays Pat, a former teacher who has a mental breakdown when he catches his wife cheating on him.  He’s recently out of a mental hospital and is trying to get his life together in the hopes of rekindling his marriage.  When he meets fellow troubled person Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), things get a bit more complicated. 

 

This is a film that hinges on performances, as both leads are mentally unstable.  Cooper does a very good job with a character that could easily become infuriating to watch.  He gets into these rapid verbal trains of thought that can be tiring, but he handles them quite well (the direction from Russell helps).  He has this natural charisma that makes it impossible to hate him no matter how rude or exhausting he becomes.  It is truly one of the year’s best performances. 

 

Jennifer Lawrence continues her streak of great performances with Silver Linings.  She doesn’t get to do as much as Cooper here, but she has plenty of emotionally heavy scenes that she carries with ease, and she complements Cooper quite well.  The rest of the cast, including Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Shea Whigham, John Ortiz, and Chris Tucker, is fine, but this film belongs to Cooper and Lawrence.

 

Writer/director Russell makes it an easy film to watch, too.  This could be a darkly serious tale of mental health, but Russell is beginning to trademark this serious-funny element.  In The Fighter, Christian Bale’s addiction was treated seriously, but there were also moments of comedy.  It’s awkward, but it’s life.  Plenty of times I found myself laughing during Silver Linings even though I knew it was kind of wrong, and I think that was the intent of the filmmakers.  Also, Russell has developed this style of following the characters with the camera that is very effective, especially when you’re dealing with mentally troubled characters.  When Pat is about to lose it, the camera swirls around him as he tries to rein things in, only to lose control.  It’s not in-your-face style or anything; it creates a sensation similar to what the character must be going through.

 

If Silver Linings ever loses anybody, it might be with the slightly goofy plot.  The film’s final moments hinge on the result of a football game and a ballroom dancing contest.  As weird as that is, it gets even goofier as the characters plan out these moments and literally root for their side to win.  I suppose it was meant to be figurative as they cheer for their sports but are actually cheering for their loved ones, but it still felt a little stupid at times.  Also, the plot element with the police officer who shadows Pat felt a bit incomplete and, at times, ridiculous.  I would have to spoil a few things to get into that point, so just look to the end of the review if you’ve seen the film and want to know what I’m talking about.

 

Aside from those shortcomings, Silver Linings is a fine film.  It’s not going to make my top ten list or even my honorable mention (it just didn’t grab me like The Fighter did), but it’s certainly one of the better films to come out this year, and it deserves a larger audience than it has gained so far.  If you get a chance, check it out.  You’ll laugh, maybe cry, stare in bafflement, get annoyed, you know…life stuff.  Just try to ignore that stupid title.

 

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

 

All I want to get into here is that cop, played by Dash Mihok.  I enjoyed Mihok's performance and everything, but I was left very confused by the character's presence.  So the cop is set up as this neighborhood officer who is supposed to keep an eye out for Pat since he's just been released from the mental hospital.  First off, does that actually happen?  Is Philadelphia such a safe city that police officers can be assigned to body guard duty for random citizens?  That rung completely false to me.  Things get extremely strange when the cop just happens to show up every time Pat starts to mess up.  if it's at his house, fine, but how was the cop so close to Pat outside the movie theatre that he could step in so quickly?  Was he really just following Pat around?  It got to the point that I thought the cop was part of Pat's subconscious and the cop represented his mind physically attempting to calm the situation down.  Maybe that is the case, but it's certainly never explained that way, and I feel that there should have been more explained concerning the cop.  But maybe it's just me.

"Limitless"

Limitless - Directed by Neil Burger, written by Leslie Dixon, starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, and Robert De Niro - Rated PG-13

Just wacky and entertaining enough to get in the Evil Kurgan's good graces.

You know that statistic about how humans only use a small percentage of our brains? Limitless tries to show what it would be like if we were firing on all cylinders all the time. (By the way, if you want to look into some facts of the small percentage claim, check out this article.) What ends up on the screen is an often entertaining, though ultimately dumb movie.

Limitless is about Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), an aspiring writer who has hit a wall in his life. Eddie can’t even write the first word of his novel, he is often drunk by mid-afternoon, and his girlfriend has dumped him. Things start to change when a chance encounter leaves him with a prototype pill that allows him to use 100% of his brain. So Eddie decides the most important thing to do with his newfound genius-level intelligence is make as much money as possible and where else do you go to do that other than Wall Street? In fact, the simplest way to describe this movie (and I hate these comparisons, but I can’t help it) is Wall Street meets Charly/Flowers for Algernon.

The concept, that a drug can make you super-smart but leave you addicted, is interesting from a filmmaking perspective. The film only feels convoluted and messy when the withdrawal kicks in. It is streamlined and entertaining when Eddie is on the drug. This doesn’t excuse the problems of the film, but it makes you look at them a bit differently and that’s something.

Limitless starts to show some visual flair in the segments that are meant to convey what it’s like to be on the miracle drug. Director Neil Burger employs plenty of lengthy zooms that go through endless landscapes. The scenes are a little disorienting, but they are interesting to look at. Some of the images end up making the “clarity” of a fully functioning brain seem more confusing than eye-opening. But some images work, like the multiple Eddies, which show that taking the pill is basically like having copies of yourself to get all of your work done.

This is where Limitless gets a bit strange; it’s a drug movie, but it doesn’t seem to have a message. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you stop and think about what this film is saying, you may end up scratching your head a bit. This isn’t meant to be a message film, though. The film doesn’t get deadly serious very often, and that’s a good thing. Limitless is mainly here to entertain.

Limitless is a fun watch. The montages loosen the film up nicely as we see Eddie just winning (to quote Wall Street star Charlie Sheen) at life. Getting ladies, jetting around the world, spending all his newfound cash; these scenes are clichéd (the suit buying scenes and stuff like that has a definite Wall Street montage feel to it) but amusing. Much of that is thanks to Bradley Cooper.

Cooper holds the film together. He’s in his wheelhouse with this one. Cooper gets to play his Hangover character when he’s in withdrawal and he gets to be Face from The A-Team when he’s rocking and rolling. Obviously it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but the guy has charisma on the screen and while his voiceover felt forced and largely pointless, it’s forgivable because of his presence.

The other part of the cast that draws the most attention is the inclusion of Robert De Niro as a Gordon Gekko type during the Wall Street portion of the film. He doesn’t have much to do here except give Eddie warnings that go unheeded. He does a good job of looking upset and condescending, but that doesn’t make a character very interesting.

The Wall Street character wasn’t very interesting and that segment of the film in general drags a bit. There are all of those entertaining montages when Eddie first starts out only to lead to him…analyzing stock market trends. It’s during a segment like that when you start to question the movie and Limitless doesn’t hold up too well under a microscope. I’ll avoid spoilers (definitely check the spoiler section at the end if you’ve seen the movie), but just know that Limitless does answer most questions, it’s just that those answers are either too easy and/or kind of silly.

Once again, though, Limitless isn’t trying to be a profound experience. It’s mostly fun, a little dumb at times, but it’s mostly interesting. The concept, along with the star, keeps the film going. The film isn’t likely to have a lasting effect on anyone, but it is decent as passing entertainment and sometimes that’s good enough for the price of a ticket.

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

So what’s up? Did he kill that woman? Why is he okay with not knowing? Does the drug also make you capable of committing murder without guilt? If so, that is not someone I want running the country. After doing some message board research, I found that someone claimed you see the stalker dude near that scene implying that he killed her…but I didn’t catch that. But they said the room was wiped clean. Why did the stalker kill a girl to pin it on Eddie, then wipe away any evidence that Eddie was there? What about the fact that a witness saw Eddie, but not the stalker? And if the stalker was there to do all of this, couldn’t he have captured Eddie? And speaking of that, this guy can plant a bug in Eddie’s apartment but he couldn’t find Eddie’s stash? Why bug his phone anyway? Like Eddie is going to call someone to tall them his secret hiding place.

How could this guy possibly end up in major politics? The knife in the Russian mobster’s stomach had to have had his prints all over it. How does the revelation that the previous owner was an arms dealer clear that problem up? The movie just asks you to assume a bit too much at times.

Completely random, but I have to point out the stupidity and awesomeness of a couple things. First, watching Bradley Cooper slurp up drug-laced blood like a meth-addled vampire was ridiculous and hilarious. Second, I love how a drug that makes you smart makes you realize that the best way to attack someone in a park is by brandishing a little girl in ice skates as a weapon. How was that a better idea than a baseball bat or any of the other possibilities shown? So dumb…but kind of great, too.

"Little Fockers"

Little Fockers - Directed by Paul Weitz, written by John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey, starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, and Owen Wilson - Rated PG-13

"Are you ready to be the Godfocker?" Noooooooooooooo!!!



When Meet the Parents came out back in 2000, it was a surprisingly funny comedy with the payoff of a main character having the name Focker. Then came 2004’s Meet the Fockers, which was decently funny, though the Focker joke was wearing thin. Now with Little Fockers the question is, “Do we need more jokes about a last name that sounds like an expletive?” Well, not really, but Little Fockers is a harmless enough comedy to sit through.

The third film of the franchise deals with Greg and Pam Focker (Ben Stiller and Teri Polo) dealing with marriage and young children. They worry about keeping their relationship fresh while also worrying about how to properly raise their children. Of course, things get much more complicated as their parents get involved, especially Pam’s father, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro). The added aspect this time around is that Jack has lost faith in a different son-in-law and is now looking to Greg to be the patriarch of the family…or as Jack puts it: the “Godfocker” (shudder).

The problem with this film is that it takes the kitchen sink approach to comedy sequels: throw in as many returning characters as possible…and then add a few new ones to top it all off! It’s just too much. The dynamic of the original film is enough, why mess with it? The awkward conversations between Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro are what made the first two films enjoyable. There are still a few of these, but they get squeezed out of the film to make room for outrageous visual gags (puke and erection stabbing) and needless co-stars (this film didn’t need Laura Dern, Jessica Alba, or Harvey Keitel added to it). The first movie was memorable and funny for its more random moments (“Mums” champagne and an overly lacquered altar carved from one piece of wood). This film has no room for things like that.

The Stiller/De Niro moments are still funny, though. And those, along with a few other aspects, make Little Fockers passable. One of the other aspects is Owen Wilson. His ridiculous character, the overly perfect and rich ex-boyfriend, is still amusing in his over-the-top proclamations and gestures. But the funny elements don’t outweigh the mundane in this comedy.

It can’t be stressed enough that this movie has too many characters in it. Here’s the cast list: Stiller, De Niro, Danner, Polo, Streisand, Hoffman, Wilson, Alba, Keitel, and Dern. This isn’t a Robert Altman film, for God’s sakes. It’s not that these actors are bad or even unfunny. The problem is that none of them have the screen time to make a good impression. The movie is just a mess. It could have been easily solved by scaling back this cast.

Streisand and Hoffman were zany enough to be slightly amusing the last time around, but they should have been cut from this one. Apparently Hoffman felt this too as he initially turned down the role. Unfortunately a deal was struck and some scenes of him dancing the flamenco like an idiot were crammed in. Keitel appears as a conniving contractor and his few scenes showed promise but then he utterly disappeared from the film. It is quite possible that there is a more focused, funny film that was left on the cutting room floor.

Little Fockers also suffers from repetition. Obviously the name joke is repeated, but the plot is as well. Who would have guessed it? Ben Stiller gains De Niro’s trust only to start acting suspicious seconds later. Lie upon lie stacks up leading to a ridiculous and lame conclusion. Sure, no one expects a great story from a movie like this, but it’s hard to ignore such shortcomings when the laughs are so sparse.

Comedy is subjective, though. My audience laughed consistently (well, consistently more than I did, anyway). Some people still get a kick out of the use of the word Focker, particularly when De Niro says it with such degradation. That’s the thing with the kitchen sink approach; at least some of it ends up being humorous. It depends on the viewer as to how much of it is humorous, though.

Judging Little Fockers from a comedic filmmaking standpoint, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that it just isn’t a very good movie. Overused gags, disappearing characters, needless subplots, petty gross out humor, these things are too much to ignore. But if you are able to look past the faults more power to you. There are worse comedies out there. But even the fans of this latest installment have to agree that the series has run its course. Here’s hoping that these Little Fockers are the last Fockers we ever have to see.


Random Thoughts

Was it really necessary to add the plotline involving erectile dysfunction pills? Even the most boring of people consider Viagra jokes lame these days.

To immediately contradict my previous comment, the boner stabbing scene did make me laugh for one reason: that crude drawing Stiller's kid makes of the scenes was pretty funny. Well, it was to me, anyway. Subjective! Remember?

Further contradicting: I am sick of the Focker stuff, but it was funny when De Niro was saying "Focker" into the oxygen mask near the end and the paramedics asked why he was cursing at them.

This movie really made me want to watch the original...I think I'll go do that right now.

"Machete"

Machete - Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis, written by Robert Rodriguez and Alvaro Rodriguez, starring Danny Trejo, Steven Seagal, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lindsay Lohan - Rated R

Bring on more fake preview movies!

Machete started as a joke, in a way. It was one of the fake movie previews from Quentin Tarintino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double feature. Rodriguez claims he always thought of it as a feature, but the fact is that the preview was made before the feature film, which is definitely odd. Either way, I am very glad that they ended up making a full movie out of the idea.

The strange origins of this film aside, the cast may create a bit of head scratching as well. The star of the film is Danny Trejo, one of those actors you’ve seen a hundred times (he usually plays a tough guy), but you don’t know his name. Okay, so a character actor gets a starring role in an ironic B-movie. But he’s backed up by Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Tom Savini, and Don Johnson. That’s a weird cast, to say the least. But it’s also quite awesome.

The story, if you care, goes a little something like this: Machete is a federale who has been targeted by the evil Torrez (Seagal). He ends up in America, looking for jobs with fellow illegal immigrants. Machete ends up in the middle of a political and literal war over immigration. Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as serious as it sounds. In fact, if I had to classify this movie, I would call it “Mexsploitation.” That is absolutely a compliment, by the way.

Much like a blaxsploitation film, Machete is about a Mexican who is fighting the government while also getting with every lady who looks his way. It’s also made in an intentionally poor manner and meant to be funny. The important thing is that it accomplishes all of this. What makes it all possible is the use of Danny Trejo. It is great to see him as a star. I had a grin on my face just for the sheer fact that I was watching a movie starring Trejo. It makes sense for him to be a star, though. He’s not nice to look at, sure, but what a perfectly grizzled action star.

Trejo is not alone, though. Like I said, this cast is quite the anomaly. I’ll try to stick with the highlights. Steven Seagal is very enjoyable in the villain role. It was nice to see him in a theatre for a change. De Niro is obviously having fun here and he gets to ham it up as a redneck politician. Rodriguez (who I usually abhor) is actually okay in this one. Alba is just kind of there, but she does have a moment or two. Marin was fun in a short role. Jeff Fahey made for a great shady political advisor. Lohan wasn’t bad. And Don Johnson stuck out as a vigilante border patrol agent. In all honesty I had no idea Johnson was in this until the opening credits rolled (it was doubly amusing when he was credited as “Introducing Don Johnson”). My only complaint is that Tom Savini seemed completely wasted. He was set up as a rival to Machete, but it never came to pass. Here’s hoping that the DVD contains an awesome deleted showdown between the two.

The acting and casting is superb but this is still an action movie at heart and the action holds up. It’s a bit CG heavy at times (but that’s understandable since Rodriguez runs his own production company and CG is probably cheaper than practical effects at times). For the most part, this is a hilariously brutal film. It’s called “Machete,” after all, and there are machetes aplenty. So body parts get cut off and blood sprays everywhere and it’s all in good fun. If anything, though, the movie is not as bloody and action packed as one might assume.

The movie actually has a kind of statement, though it’s not to be taken seriously. Once again, this is a Mexsploitation film, which means that illegal immigrants are going to be portrayed in a heroic light. That may rub some people the wrong way (I’ve already come across some message board complaints about the film being too “left wing”). I can understand that, I guess, but this movie is so tongue in cheek that it shouldn’t bother anyone. I was just thankful that it didn’t stick with the Grindhouse look. The beginning is grainy and all, but it gets cleaned up after the opening.

Machete is a weird movie no matter how you look at it. But, more importantly, it is a very good time. I don’t care what your stance is on immigration, if you’re so bitter when it comes to that subject that an intentionally goofy movie like this bothers you, then you should stay away from film in general. If you have a sense of humor and you like a good ridiculous action movie, then you should check out Machete.

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

The music, done by Rodriguez and his band Chingon, is flat out awesome throughout.

Machete uses a man's intestines as a rope in this movie...that is fantastic.

The guards at Fahey's house are great. The funniest moments in the film involve them. When Trejo pretends to be the new gardener, packing a weedeater and a pickaxe, they just let him go on by, only to ponder, "You ever notice how you'll just let a Mexican onto your property if he's packing landscaping tools, no questions asked?" (That was paraphrased a bit, by the way.)

The promised sequel titles at the end made me laugh: Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again.

Steven Seagal committing seppuku with a machete is one of the best things I've seen on screen this year. Not to mention he claims that a machete sticking through his gut is "nothing." Awesome.

I loved how they incorporated nearly every bit of the original Machete trailer into the film.

Machete packs a ridiculously long machete near the end of the film. It is damn near comical and it's completely fitting with the rest of the film.

I really wanted to see Machete use the weedeater fitted out with blades instead of strings...come on, DVD...