ALLIED (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard
DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis
GENRE: Drama/Action-Adventure/Romance

Allied has a little something for everybody. Action...adventure...intrigue...espionage...suspense... romance...and the eye candy of Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. (So I guess they can be forgiven for not coming up with a more imaginative title!)

Pitt is Canadian intelligence officer Max Vatan. Cotillard is French resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour (don't make me spell that name again). Eye candy meets eye candy behind enemy lines in 1942 Morocco, where they devour each other upon first glance. It's not love at first sight, but it is marriage at first sight, as their cover story is that they are husband and wife. They hit the ground running with their act for the benefit of friends and Nazis. Their mission is to assassinate a high ranking German official and high-tail it outta Dodge (or Casablanca in this case).

Playing a role can sometimes put you in the mood for the real thing, and Vatan wants to make her his wife for real, which they take care of in London. Before you know it, a little one--Anna--pops out, and the three of them have one idyllic year together before the feces hits the fan. Max is called to Special Operations headquarters where he is informed that Marianne just might be a double agent, working for the Germans. Imagine his conflicted emotions when he is informed that if suspicions are true, HE will be expected to eliminate her. His wife...the mother of his child! Everything that comes after that would be a spoiler. But there's a lot to reflect on, primarily about how loyalty to duty and country trumps all human considerations in time of war. Could he carry out such a mind-bogglingly horrific order--if it comes to that--or will love conquer all (or at least take a valiant stab at it) in the end?

There is one quirky little scene in Allied that seems out of place. Vatan is shuffling cards like a magician to prove to a skeptical Nazi that he's a serious poker player, but the sequence goes on for so long it becomes cartoonish. I started to wonder if we were going to veer off into serio-comic territory, a la Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but fortunately the rest of the film plays it straight.

Pitt and the doe-eyed Cotlllard create some onscreen steam together, which probably wasn't difficult since rumor has it they were hooking up romantically for real throughout the filming.

That's called taking your work home with you.

Grade:  B +

JILL'S TAKE

Tim pretty much covered the main points of Allied and he'll get no arguments from me. As for the two lead's pheremone-filled chemistry? I definitely feel Angelina had just cause to worry! And all through the movie, I kept being impressed with how well-preserved Brad is at age 52. Nary a wrinkle graces his cherubic face -- and he's got a nice ass, too! But enough about the film's more profound points...

Allied is definitely an attention-grabber. Just as I thought I knew what was happening, a new plot twist would emerge and foil my assumptions. Is Vatan's wife a spy? Will he be forced to execute the woman he loves? This brings up my one bone of contention which is how Brad Pitt's character could be, on the one hand, such a cold-blooded killer and, on the other, so blinded by love? I'm not sure director Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future, Cast Away,Forrest Gump) could have directed it any differently. And if he had, the film might have lost a lot of its impact.

I won't give anything away by this, but I do want to mention and praise the acting of Marion Bailey who plays Mrs. Sinclair, a kindly baby sitter. 

Grade: B+ (sorry to be such a copycat, Tim)

THE RAILWAY MAN (2014)

Rated: R

Stars: Colin Firth,  Nicole Kidman,  Hiroyuki Sanada,  Jeremy Irvine, Tanroh Ishida,  Stellen Skarsgard

Director: Jonathan Teplitzki

Genre: Drama

So if you are really screwed up with PTSD and nightmare flashbacks to your war experiences that are severely affecting the quality of your life, you should probably tell your fiancee about it so she can make an informed decision about whether or not to go ahead and cohabitate with you.  Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) doesn't, and there we have the crux of The Railway Man. 

Lomax is a seemingly mild mannered middle-aged guy who has a fondness for trains. What his wife, Patti, (Nicole Kidman) doesn't get the whole scoop on until later is that he was a POW in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, where he was subjected to heinously cruel torture, including water boarding.  Lomax discovers that one of the guards at the camp who assisted in putting him through this hell on earth is still alive and living a pretty good life in Thailand. The story question becomes whether Lomax should find the guy and give him a taste of his own medicine.  

The Railway Man is based on the real Eric Lomax's autobiography of the same title. I haven't read the book, but I already knew going in how the film was going to turn out.  There was only one way that it COULD conclude in order for Lomax to maintain the connection to his own humanity and end up writing a bang-up story that would touch its readers. Despite that, there is still plenty of suspense in the climactic scenes as to how the human drama between these two men will play out.

Nicole Kidman as the concerned wife, Patti, isn't called upon to display all the fiery brilliance she is capable of (if you want to see that, go rent 
Eyes Wide Shut), but she does a fine job here in a rather subdued role.   

And I don't know how anybody can watch the water boarding scenes in this film and not harken back to Dick Cheney and the White House gang that permitted this practice to be performed on our own war captives without feeling a twinge of guilt, or at least a question forming in one's mind as to whether any type of torture can be justified--no matter whose side you are on or how strongly you may be convinced that "God" is on your side. I don't think it's a coincidence that the filmmakers chose to include it. 

In summation, The Railway Man is well worth the fare.  Tickets, please.


Grade: B + 

JILL'S TAKE

Hey, I'd cohabit with Colin Firth under any circumstances! But it is, I feel, quite misleading that the character he plays in THE RAILWAY MAN doesn't reveal any of his madness—other than obsessing on railway routes—before he and his love-at-first-sight lady get married. They move to an idyllic setting by the ocean and almost overnight he becomes a different, almost scary individual.

The movie keeps switching from present to past, back to present again, using different actors. In Colin Firth's case, his younger self (played ably by Jeremy Irvine) is immediately recognizable since both actors wear glasses. However, when it comes to the Japanese guard (he's a translator not a torturer which makes the idea of redemption and forgiveness easier to believe), I found it harder to accept the two actors who looked nothing alike playing the same role. The younger Takeshi Nagase, played by Tanroh Ashida, was suitably fierce. But the older version of the guard/translator is what still haunts me. The shadings Hiroyuki Sanada gave his character were indeed memorable. I won't go into more detail but suffice it to say war makes victims of us all.

Haunting, too, is David Hirshfelder's score. (His musical skill earned this Aussie composer a Best Musical Score nomination back in 1999 for Elizabeth.) One final piece of advice: when you go see this movie—and I implore you to do so—take plenty of Kleenex.

Grade: B+

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THE MONUMENTS MEN (2014)

Rated: PG-13

STARS:  George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville 
DIRECTOR: George Clooney
GENRE: Action/Drama/Suspense

The Monuments Men--more than any other film in recent memory--demonstrates how a highly manipulative music score can turn what otherwise might have been a rather pedantic lesson about the value of art in our lives into a jaunty, and at times even a rousing "caissons-go-rolling-along" bit of mildly entertaining diversion. That's all thanks to the inventive soundtrack from Alexandre Desplat (Zero Dark Thirty, Rust and Bone, Argo) which hits all the right notes. And I say "highly manipulative," but every film score plays upon our emotions to some degree. That's what it's there for.

 Near the end of World War II, FDR assembled a team of experts--historians, architects, sculptors, art dealers and the like--and turned them into soldiers. Of sorts. And off they went to recover art treasures ripped-off by the Nazis and return them to their rightful owners before Hitler can get it all up on the walls of his Fuhrer Museum or destroy whatever he doesn't like. (You can see why he would have an interest...Hitler was an artist of some minor talent himself, and you can envision the museum's walls...a Rembrandt next to a Hitler next to a Cezanne next to a Hitler and so on...flattering himself by the company he keeps). 

The Monuments Men is an action/drama flick with more human drama than action, because the plot is one that appeals more to the art house patron (pardon the pun) than your typical moviegoer--whose appreciation of art runs more to velvet Elvis paintings than anything you would find in the Louvre. So our band of merry men on the road gets detoured into lots of familiar movie territory before they can declare "mission accomplished."  (Don't say it--ha ha.) There is a flirtation between Matt Damon's character and Claire Simone, (Cate Blanchett) a curator in occupied Paris.  The outcome is predictable because our men are totally intent upon their objective. Another time filler is when Damon finds himself standing on a land mine and doesn't dare move, while his comrades scratch their heads and try to extricate him from his predicament in one piece.

In the stellar ensemble cast, the comedic talents of Bill Murray and John Goodman aren't totally wasted, as they do have one rather amusing little scene together. And while The Monuments Men tries way too hard to be poignant in spots, at other times it succeeds. 

But the real star of the movie is Andre Desplat. 

Grade:  B

JILL'S TAKE

It's just lucky for you, Tim, that I'm not an SS officer. Otherwise, you'd be toast. Why? For daring to disagree with me so totally about a movie! For me, the musical score's manipulation was the ruination of this long, really long film. It detracted from what was happening on screen, forcing the viewer to feel what the director wanted—no insisted—that the audience feel. Achtung! Sieg heil!

We've seen zillions of band-of-brothers movies like this one. Where a group of guys, usually very different from one another, have a common goal: winning a war, surviving a plane crash, etc. Or, in this case, saving some great works of art. That's all well and good but, in my view, what makes these movies succeed or fail is simple: character development. I'm sure, when casting THE MONUMENTS MEN, the producers were licking their fiscally fat lips, thinking how much money this international cast would add to their coffers. Two actors that Tim didn't mention: Jean Dujardin from The Artist and Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey. But their individual stories were practically nonexistent and audiences care more about people than paintings. Suffice it to say, I was not as enchanted as Tim by this musically heavy-handed piece of cinema. I do, however, have to give four stars to Cate Blanchett for a muted but magnificent performance. Other than that? I'm thinking of taking my 5cm leichte Granatwerfer 36 out of mothballs so I can gun you down, Timoteo!

Grade: C -