UNCUT GEMS (2019)

Rated:  R

STARS: Adam Sandler, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, Julia Fox, Eric Bogosian
DIRECTOR: Josh and Benny Safdie
GENRE: Drama

The new Adam Sandler vehicle, Uncut Gems, is so...New York! Meaning it's loud. Meaning it's crass. And in the first five minutes we find ourselves gazing up the main character's ass (a live colonoscopy!).Some things you just have to look away. So I'm thinking oh boy--what's next?  

What's next is a first half of a film that can only be truly appreciated by east coast denizens who are used to hearing New Jersey pronounced as "Joizy." It's a constant barrage of the F word...and the N word. The reason certain individuals communicate in this manner is because they don't have the education, the intelligence, or sufficient command of the English language to communicate in a more creatively appropriate style. And frankly it gets tiresome to observe, amidst the spiritually bankrupt rap culture (money, bling, and twerking hoes) that's taken over and become standard fare in even mainstream entertainment programming now. (Rant finished.)

Howard Ratner  (Adam Sandler) is a shady Manhattan jewelry dealer--a compulsive gambler who can't keep up with his debts, so he robs Peter to pay Paul and ends up being chased and getting the shit beat out of him by thugs who feel that a responsible person should pay back what he owes in a timely manner. 

Howard has obtained an uncut stone with black opals from Ethiopia that he thinks might be worth at least a million at auction. Enter retired NBA superstar Kevin Garnett (playing himself) who gets a look at the stone and becomes enamored of it. He wants it for himself. Here is where Howard does the kind of stupid thing that is the hallmark of horror films (and this is a horror film of sorts) that is required to provide the plot complication that will move the action forward. He loans the stone to Garnett overnight so the athlete can sleep with it, or whatever he's going to do. But getting it back won't be that easy. 

The movie careens along like a jolting New York cab ride with a wild-eyed Iranian at the wheel. And I'm starting to wonder if this isn't going to be another Little Nicky--one of Sandler's early films that was the most insanely out of control and messed up movie I've ever seen. Fortunately, Uncut Gems settles down midpoint, and Howard becomes humanized to a degree. He has a wife (Idina Menzel) who's ready to leave him because she doesn't like his antics with his mistress (Julia Fox). There is a poignant scene where he tries to cajole her into giving him another chance, and we see some of the affable Adam Sandler to which we've grown accustomed.

The film is set in 2012 when Kevin Garnett was still playing in the NBA--and as the tense, skillfully building drama leading to the film's explosive climax plays out, Howard Ratner has wagered his life on Garnett's performance in a big game. It's an uncut gem of a movie that doesn't reach its full potential, as the ending feels like a morality play.

Sandler is superb. And the film itself is just brilliant enough--despite its drawbacks--to avoid a Little Nicky type report card. 

Grade:  B

JILL'S TAKE

I want to take back the "F" I gave Last Christmas and give it to Uncut Gems instead. I have never walked out of a movie in my entire life. But this one had me seriously tempted. I lived in New York for years and this film is an insult to that city. Yes, The Big Apple is loud. Brassy. And yes, it houses some pretty nasty people. (What city doesn't?) But this twisted, hard to follow, screamfest was not only hard on the ears, it seemed almost criminally slapstick at times. (Tony Soprano meets The Marx Brothers.)

I'm an Adam Sandler fan, especially a recent comedy on Netflix he did with JenniferAniston. ("Murder Mystery") But the brothers Benny and Josh Safdie, who wrote and directed this travesty, are light on shading. I'm sure their goal was to outdo The Coen Brothers. They failed with flying bullets.

What did I like? Oy. If I have to say something positive about Uncut Gems, it would be the face of Eric Bogosian who played Arno, one of the three thugs (AKA Three Stooges) and also attended the superfluous and tasteless Seder.

Billed as a 'Crime-Drama-Mystery,' it was a kitchen sink of a movie. It touched on myriad subjects and didn't deliver on any of them. The ending—which I won't reveal—was, in my humble opinion, the only good thing about it.

Grade: D- (only because I can't be too flagrant with my Fs)

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (2016)

Rated:  R

STARS: Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Rebecca Ferguson, Luke Evans, Haley Bennett, Edgar Ramirez
DIRECTOR: Tate Taylor
GENRE: Thriller

Watching a film adaptation of a book you've read is different than if you were totally unfamiliar with the story. Since you know all the plot elements, you pretty much are just looking to see how true the film is to the source material. We can say that The Girl On The Train, starring Emily Blunt, is a lot more faithful to the best-selling book by Paula Hawkins than any of the married characters in the story are to each other, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Rachel  is a lush of the first magnitude. A furtive alcoholic who blacks out and can't remember a thing about what she did the night before. In the book she's overweight and no longer terribly attractive. In the movie she's Emily Blunt. So there's the first change. They do a pretty good job of making her look haggard and stressed out, but she's still Emily Blunt. So who was going to put more butts in the seats--Melissa McCarthy or Ms. Blunt? The bottom line is still king.

Rachel drinks because of her divorce from Tom (Justin Theroux), who is now happily married to Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). She got fired from her job due to her drinking, but rides the train everyday from the suburbs to Manhattan to keep up the appearance of still being gainfully employed. (In the book it's London--that's the second notable change.) Along the route Rachel passes a house where a happy looking couple are frequently observed getting frisky on their back balcony. She entertains fantasies about who they are and what they are like. One day while riding by she sees the woman in the arms of another man. Rachel is shocked and disillusioned. Then the woman, whose name is Megan (Haley Bennett), disappears. There is a police investigation. Megan's husband, Scott (Luke Evans), becomes a suspect. But who was the other man Rachel saw Megan with on the balcony? She's going to get to the bottom of it (before she bottoms out herself). It's the stuff that taut thrillers are made of. 

Emily Blunt, surrounded by a cast of relative unknowns, turns in a gritty performance--one of her best. But as The Girl On The Train speeds toward its gotcha conclusion, much of the nuance of the characters in the novel is left at the station. 

Grade:  B 

JILL'S TAKE

From my perspective, the best thing about The Girl On The Train is Tim's review. Well done, Timoteo! There's always a danger of turning off an audience when the main character is so unlikable. And Emily Blunt's character is definitely not someone you'd want to befriend. Until the very end when the wife of her ex husband's boss, played by Lisa Kudrow of "Friends" fame, reveals a shocking truth.

Quite honestly, I went to this film with the wrong attitude, convinced that it would never be as good as the book. And I was right. That's the second danger with making a movie from a hit novel. Author Paula Hawkins' best seller was such a literary blockbuster that expectations about the movie version were unrealistically high. Even though screenwriter, Erin Cressida Wilson, wrote one of my all-time spooky film favorites (Secretary with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal), many of the scenes in this thriller dragged on endlessly.

As I watched the final credits roll, I at least felt a frisson of recognition when I realized that the actor who played Emily Blunt's ex, Justin Theroux, is the current husband of Jennifer Aniston. My advice? Read the book and forget the movie...

Grade: C -