Now playing at home: HARRY BROWN (Rated R)

Stars: Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Charlie Creed-Miles, Ben Drew

Director: Daniel Barber

Genre: Action/Thriller

Not far back I wrote that Michael Caine was one of a select group of actors that I would go to watch, even if his movie sucked. I've followed up on that statement by viewing Harry Brown, a film as violent, cynical, and mean as they come.

Caine plays Harry Brown, an elderly widower and ex-marine. When his old compadre Leonard (David Bradley) is slain by young London street thugs, he turns into a British version of Clint Eastwood's vengeful character of Walt in Gran Torino, with a little Dirty Harry mixed in. Harry goes on a vigilante rampage --trying to find the punk who did the deed--blowing away anyone who gets in his way. The once mild-mannered pensioner becomes as cold-blooded as his adversaries, and that's the tragedy of the eye-for-an-eye ethos--it brings everyone down to a sub-human level.

Caine is superb in his portrayal of a man who slowly (and chillingly) morphs from average, look-the-other-way citizen into a calculating and relentless force to be reckoned with, despite his advanced age. The drug-addicted low lifes he's dealing with put the sadistic delinquents from A Clockwork Orange to shame. They rule the streets, as the police are portrayed as lamebrained, wimpy, and ineffective-- the one exception being the talented Emily Mortimer in an understated performance as the police detective who begins to sniff Harry out when the bodies start piling up.

Harry Brown will appeal to the vigilante justice crowd--feeding into the frustration ordinary folks feel about a world seemingly out of control (an erroneous perception fueled by the media).

Technically, the film is well done, but there is no subtlety in its uncompromising message. Dirty Harry did it with more panache, and the old spaghetti westerns did it with more style and imagination.

GRADE: C-

THE AMERICAN (rated R)

Stars: George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Violante Placido, Johan Leysen

Director: Anton Corbijn

Genre: Thriller

Not your normal Hollywood fare, The American grabs hold of you with one of the most startling opening scenes you're ever likely to see. And then the movie becomes brooding and introspective, but we've been put on notice of the kind of thing that can--and will be expected--to happen again. We're just waiting to see who, how, what, when and where.

George Clooney is Jack, a hired assassin. We don't know who he's working for, other than the weathered dude (Johan Leysen) who gives him instructions over the phone. Other assassins are after him, trying to knock him off before he can knock them off--kinda like the old Mad Magazine's Spy Vs Spy. We don't know who they're working for either...CIA? KGB? Or just some murderous SOB? This uncertainty has the effect of bringing all events into the immediacy of the NOW--which is where, ideally, life should be lived anyway. Every small thing that happens is magnified in significance, and with all those shadowy folks out gunning for him, Jack is naturally a little paranoid. So just sitting down for a cup of coffee with someone has him second guessing himself--as well as the person he's with--his finger constantly poised upon the trigger.

After the opening incident, which occurs in the snowy white Swedish countryside, Jack is instructed to hole up in a small Italian village. There, he is to deliver a custom made weapon to a mysterious female hit woman named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). We don't know who she'll be targeting, but it's going to make a big splash in the newspapers.

Jack is befriended by a local priest, Father Benedetto, (Paolo Bonacelli) who senses that the American is up to something, and talks to him about sin. But the hired gunman is a cold, hard customer...until he gets involved with a beautiful prostitute named Clara, (Violante Placido) who wants to have more than a business relationship with him. (After all--it IS George Clooney!) Jack discovers that his conscience--deeply buried--is still alive in there somewhere, and decides he wants to get out of the killing game and start a normal life with Clara. BUT--with the kind of karma he has incurred for himself, will it be too late?

The American has a traditional plot, but refreshingly so. You don't need a scorecard to follow it, like a lot of thrillers these days (Inception, for example) that leave you scratching your head, wondering if they made it so complicated because they wanted you to come back and pony up your money a second or third time, just to try to figure it out.

The scenery is pleasant to the eye--not the least of which is the oft-naked Violante Placido as Jack's love interest.

If you're the type of moviegoer who needs to have everything spelled out at the end with a neat little bow on top, you'll be displeased. But if you can take the larger view and grasp that The American is about "sin" on a universal scale--and that all those tidy little details would be superfluous, I think you'll come away satisfied.

And if you're the ruthless sort yourself--not an assassin, but a business person, let's say--who tries to screw your customers by running TV commercials with a lot of unreadable fine print at the bottom of the screen that contradicts everything that's coming out of your mouth--you may find yourself reassessing your skulduggery, and developing perhaps a tiny speck of conscience, after viewing this film.

GRADE: B+

EAT, PRAY, LOVE ( PG-13)

Stars: Julia Roberts, Richard Jenkins, James Franco, Viola Davis, Billy Crudup, Javier Bardem

Director: Ryan Murphy
Genre: Adventure/drama


Ryan Murphy directs Julia Roberts and a capable cast in the screen adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love--wherein the writer sets off on a year long quest to find enlightenment, romance, and great Italian pizza.


Bored with her marriage to Steve, (Billy Crudup) Liz files for divorce and takes up with a young actor (James Franco) who whets her appetite for spirituality--unwittingly sewing the seeds of his own demise with the flighty wordsmith--who seems to burn out quickly on guys who really care for her.
So she's off to Italy, where she'll engage in philosophical discourse with her new acquaintances while stuffing her face a lot; then to India where she hangs out in an ashram, looking like she's always feeling slightly out of her depth; and finally to Bali, to soak up wisdom from a toothless medicine man and get involved with a Brazilian dude--another nebulous relationship--because she's never quite sure about anything.

And now to my biggest pet-peeve about films that are adapted from nonfiction: The central character is always played by someone who is noticeably better looking than the real person. (Unless it's like, Ernest Borgnine.) So that is the first thing that gets fictionalized when a nonfiction book hits the silver screen. Liz Gilbert is a reasonably attractive woman, but she's no Julia Roberts. However, when I read the book some years back, I got the distinct impression that the author thought of herself as being this super hot chick, so she must have figured the selection of Ms. Roberts to play her was spot on.

Richard Jenkins' performance as the down-home Texas dude who befriends Liz at the ashram in India, dispensing nuggets of wisdom as he deals with the spectre of his own past, is already being touted as Oscar worthy, and I agree. And Javier Bardem as Felipe, Gilbert's love interest in the latter part of the film, is an affable presence, and sure-fire swoon material for this chik-flick's primary audience--though I think that Eat, Pray, Love does have broader appeal than that--if for no other reason than there's been a ton of hype about it, and guys will inevitably get dragged into the theatre at the behest of their girlfriends and spouses.

Now, how shall I describe the soundtrack? Well, it's one of the most curious, surprising, delightful, and baffling amalgamations of sound accompanying a major film in recent memory. From breezy samba rhythms, to Sly and the Family Stone, Kool and the Gang, Neil Young, and something that nearly made me fall out of my seat...a piece lifted right from Gato Barbieri's exquisite soundtrack from Last Tango In Paris. Never have I seen such a blatant recycling of something so wholly identifiable--for all time--with one particular movie, and a classic at that. I was delighted, (to hear it) yet cringing at the same time, as the melody that originally accompanied graceful tango dancers gliding across the floor was now being set to the image of Julia Roberts stuffing her face with pizza! BALLSY--I'll give them credit for that.

There's gorgeous cinematography--which you might expect considering the locales they had to work with--but Eat, Pray, Love suffers from some choppy editing. Had some of those scenic shots been held just a second or two longer, it would have given the film more of a seamless feel. As it is, it looks like the editor was rushing to finish. (The movie runs about two and a half hours.)
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Non-fiction brought to the screen often feels rather plotless--we're so conditioned to those traditional story arcs--but there is growth and transformation here, so if you've got the time and the bucks to spend a year galavanting about the globe, you too may gain some insight into who you are. But unless you can write a blockbuster bestseller about your experiences, that may be a jobless schmuck who is flat broke.

GRADE: B

Now playing at home: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Rated R)

Stars: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Sven-Bertil Taube

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Genre: Mystery/Suspense Drama

(In Swedish with English subtitles)

Two strange bedfellows--middle-aged journalist Mikael Blomkvist, (Michael Nyqvist) and a young computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) --team up to solve a forty year old mystery: The disappearance of a teenage girl, presumed murdered, from a gathering of greedy, self-serving family members, each of them now under suspicion. Adapted from the late Stieg Larsson's blockbuster novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a twisting and twisted tale of intrigue and suspense.

Blomkvist is hired by Henrik Vanger, (Sven-Bertil Taube) of the aforementioned clan, to delve into the disappearance of his neice, Harriet, which has haunted him lo these many years. Salander is drawn to Blomkvist by his well publicized (but questionable) conviction for libel. Lisbeth is 24--a pierced, tattooed, black leather clad, sulking enigma who works as a researcher for a private security firm.

We do know that Lisbeth's dark past includes confinement to a mental institution. She's now on probation for an unspecified crime that will be revealed near the end of the film. She isn't crazy about men, and if anything could serve to reinforce that particular prejudice, it's her probation officer--a brutal rapist who is the embodiment of institutional subjugation and cruelty the world over.

But then there is Blomkvist, and how interesting would a pair of coed sleuths be if they didn't develop the hots for each other? We follow their collaboration with fascination, as they navigate a maze of clues, red herrings, dead ends, mysterious Nazi connections, a serial killer on the loose, staring death in the face--and, of course, making some hot monkey love along the way!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is gritty, graphic, and gorgeously filmed (in its images of the Swedish countryside) . It's not for those with tender sensibilities.

And Noomi Rapace is an actress to watch. That she was willing to get "down and dirty" for this role shows me that she is dedicated to her craft and willing to do whatever it takes to bring stark realism to a scene. But as her star rises, will she be like most actresses when they make it big--unwilling to revisit some of the darker places that got them there to begin with, just because they no longer have to? Hope not!

I'm now looking forward to the sequel: The Girl Who Played With Fire. It's the next installment of Steig Larsson's "Millenium" trilogy--with Rapace and Nyqvist reprising their roles as the intrepid investigators from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

GRADE: B +

Now playing at home: CHLOE (Rated R)

Stars: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson

Director: Atom Egoyan

Genre: Erotic Thriller

Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried hook up in a steamy lesbian scene in director Atom Egoyan's Chloe. Moore has played some lesbian/bi-sexual roles before--though I don't know that she's ever come out and said ""I'm bi-sexual." It doesn't make a hill of pinto beans to me--but what gets me is actresses who are doing all this graphic stuff with other women on film, and then try to tell you they are straight--and that it's just part of the story, and they are making "sacrifices for their art." Like Cameron Diaz, who said: "If I'm going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn't make me a lesbian." No, it doesn't, Cameron. But bare minimum, it makes you bi-sexual.

Hey, if I'm an actor and I do a bunch of movies where I play a guy who likes asparagus, in scenes that require me to chow down on oodles of it...I wouldn't have taken on those roles if I really DIDN'T like asparagus! I"d spit that stuff right back in yo face!

Be whatever you want to be, (and be all you CAN be) but just don't insult my intelligence about it, is all I'm sayin.

AND NOW...BACK TO OUR STORY!

Julianne Moore is Catherine, a gynecologist who suspects her professor husband, David, (Liam Neeson) of cheating on her. She runs into Chloe, (Amanda Seyfried) a beautiful young call-girl, in a public restroom, and later gets the idea to hire the tart to approach her hubby and see if he will take the bait. When the two women subsequently meet to compare notes, Catherine finds herself getting aroused by Chloe's lurid descriptions of the things she's been doing with the doc's husband. Is Catherine living vicariously through the young temptress, thinking about the things she and David used to do together, but don't seem to have the time or the inclination for anymore? Or is there more to it than that? Well, yes there is...as the women become intimate with each other.

When Catherine must ultimately end the affair, Chloe crosses over into Fatal Attraction territory, as the scarlet woman spurned begins to find ways to ingratiate herself into Catherine's family. There's a twist at the end that I saw coming rather early on, and that you may catch onto as well if you're paying attention during the opening scene of the movie, and putting two and two together from there. The character of David is really window dressing here, as Chloe is all about the repressed desires of two women from disparate backgrounds finding common ground through their sexuality.

Michael Danna's brooding soundtrack is psychological thriller appropriate.

Temptation often leads us into sticky situations, from which we must try to extract ourselves--as best we can--hoping we haven't triggered the kind of karma that will come back to bite us on the butt...but that is often just what it does.

GRADE: B

INCEPTION (PG-13)

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Tom Beringer

Director: Christopher Nolan

Genre: Action, Sci-fi thriller

Inception feels like it was adapted from a long and complicated novel--though it was, in fact, concocted inside the brain of Christopher Nolan, (Memento) who wrote, produced, and directed the film. Anyhoo, screen adaptations of long and complicated novels often have that feeling of being condensed and compacted--where each plot twist is given only sketchy attention because we have to move along at lightning speed and try to get all those myriad elements in during the allotted time--in this case, creating a two and a half hour, mile-a-minute thriller that's a real challenge to follow.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, a guy who can enter someone else's dream and either extract information, or plant a seed in that person's mind that can trigger a change in his behavior in the real world. Cobb is hired by an Asian businessman (Ken Watanabe) to screw with the head of a dead rival's son, (Cillian Murphy) to implant the idea to disband his father's empire, and thus save the world from more corporate consolidation.

A subplot involves Cobb's deceased wife, (Marion Cotillard) with whom he has some major unresolved issues. She keeps showing up in the dreams, distracting him from his mission and potentially throwing a monkey wrench into the whole operation.

Inception's real fascination is its dream within a dream within a dream dreaminess, (ahem) and the fantasy--one that I suspect most of us have had--of forsaking "reality" to reside exclusively in the dream world.

While the film tries to present itself as a psychological thriller, its real appeal is going to be to action fans who revel in shoot-em-up and crap exploding all over the place. And even though the action is highly imaginative, with wowie-zowie special effects, (Paris folding in on itself, and other mind-bending images) the wild action is taken to the extent of overkill, and I found myself getting numbed out and just kind of bored with it after a while.

Hans Zimmer's soundtrack is one of the best things about Inception, but unfortunately, it's ceaselessly loud and overbearing. On top of that, there are times when you really can't make out what the actors are saying, and that's a bummer in a movie that needs your total unblinking concentration, or you are lost in a maze of WHA- WHA HAPPEN?.

Final analysis: Just like my geeky cousin Marvin, Inception has a lot of warts, but shows flashes of brilliance.

GRADE: C+

Now showing at home: TETRO (R) 2009

Starring: Vincent Gallo, Alden Ehrenreich, Maribel Verdu, Klaus Maria Brandauer

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Genre: Drama

Tetro is a grand spectacle of a movie, masquerading as a small film in the early going.

18 year old Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) looks up his estranged brother, Tetro, (Vincent Gallo) in Buenos Aires. Tetro, a once promising writer who hasn't lived up to his potential, has distanced himself from the family--for reasons that ostensibly have to do with their famous composer-conductor father--who is something of an amoral sh*t--and a tragic accident involving Tetro's mother. Bennie gets a tepid reception from his brother, but a hospitable welcome from Tetro's common law wife, Miranda, (Maribel Verdu) who was once the older brother's psychotherapist. Tetro is a haunted soul--a loose cannon ready to explode at the drop of a hat--and he freely takes his frustrations out on others, especially Bennie. When Bennie discovers an unfinished play Tetro has written, and has no intention of finishing, he surreptitiously tacks on his own ending and submits the play to a prestigious local festival.

Tetro, a vaguely autobiographical work from director Francis Ford Copolla, (his dad WAS a famous composer) slowly builds the tension between the brothers as Bennie attempts to rescue Tetro--flailing and kicking all the way-- from pissing away any more of his unrealized life. Is blood thicker than urine? That's the question to be answered as Tetro takes some fascinating detours into the world of quirky amateur theatre along the way. (And there's just enough nudity to keep those of us who get disappointed without some baring of the body along with the soul, engrossed.)

There are echoes of Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces here, and not solely because of the unexpected climax you won't see coming.

Vincent Gallo is effective as the loose cannon. You just have to look at him--whether he's in character or not--and something shouts PERSONALITY DISORDER at you.

And while Alden Ehrenreich is a newcomer, there's this deja vu feeling that we've seen him before, as he evokes a younger Matt Damon.

A haunting accordion/guitar flavored score from Osvaldo Golijov that senses just the right moments to fall in on, perfectly complements the rich visual feast that is Tetro.

GRADE: A