THE SNOWMAN (2017)

Rated:  R

STARS: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg
DIRECTOR: Tomas Alfredson
GENRE: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

The Snowman, adapted from the novel by Joe Nesbo,  is hauntingly reminiscent of a Stieg Larsson tale, and not just because it's set in Norway. As with most screenplays of the the murder mystery/suspense/thriller genre, the plot will have you scratching your head--lagging one step behind the action as you try to keep up--and in the end just settling for trying to enjoy the performances; after all, it has Charlotte Gainsbourg in it, so it can't be all bad. (Tell me what it is about her...TELL ME!!!)

Michael Fassbender stars as police detective Harry Hole (no puns from me required--at least they didn't make him a female detective).  He's a drunk who needs a case to work on to keep him focused. And then a young woman disappears, and other women start disappearing, and Harry figures there's a serial killer on the loose. It's all tied in with a strangely bizarre prologue about a young boy and his mother. I won't go into further detail because it's pretty convoluted, and I hate convoluted. And anyways you deserve to suffer through it the same as I--saying  HUH? all the way through, should you decide to tackle this one. 

Harry Hole is paired with a female detective named Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson). The character names are the only comic relief in The Snowman--unless you want to count when she says early on to him, "You're not going to try to sleep with me, are you?"  He responds in the negative, which normally would set the two of them up for just that kind of thing to happen...but it doesn't. What a waste. And then we have the not often used plot twist of one of the  principal characters biting the big one half way through the film. That's a shocker...you don't expect it...they've got you thinking this person is integral to the story and will be there to the end...and then they aren't. And that sucks. 

The infamous Chloe Sevigny has a bit part--she's had a lot of those lately--and likewise Val Kilmer and J.K. Simmons. A waste of an interesting cast--and ultimately a waste of your interesting money.

Grade: D + (the plus is for Charlotte Gainsbourg!)

JILL'S TAKE

Tim called it 'convoluted.' The fellow I saw The Snowman with muttered "Obtuse," as we left the theater. For me, the one good thing about this time-waster was thinking up other words to describe it: disjointed...confusing...fragmented. You get the idea. But according to my own rigid movie-viewing rules, I must now find something cinematically redeeming about this film.

I guess it would have to be the photography. Dark, moody, snow-filled and unrelenting – like the hard-to-figure-out plot. So many bit parts played by good actors, too. This only added to my befuddlement. Who was I supposed to root for? Who was I supposed to be suspicious of? And what was the damn movie about!

Okay, onto what really pissed me off. The bombastic, hit-you-over-the-head score by Marco Beltrami. "Be afraid," the music kept screaming at you. "You're watching a very scary movie!" If it were up to me, I'd make Mister Beltrami write 'subtle is good' six hundred times in his music notebook. And then, just for good measure, I'd handcuff him to a chair and make him watch Jaws. Over...and over...and over!

There is another positive: I love seeing a really bad movie and looking forward to lambasting it on this blog. Some of you may buy into that old bromide about 'saying something nice or not saying anything at all,' but I sure don't. Movie prices being what they are these days, at least venting allows me a verbal bang for my buck.

Grade: D -

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 -