Posts Tagged ‘Elizabeth Marvel’

Disclosure Day

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Elizabeth Marvel, Tommy Martinez

Running Time: 2 hours and 25 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp collaborates again with Oscar winning director Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) in his new film Disclosure Day which is a strange mix of a 1980’s action movie and a weird throwback to Spielberg’s earlier 1977 alien film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

On one level, Disclosure Day is extremely well made with beautiful cinematography with long-time collaborator Oscar winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) and features some extraordinary scenes particularly the train sequence when the two main leads Margaret Fairchild brilliantly played by Oscar nominee Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer) and Dr Daniel Kellner played by Josh O’Connor (Challengers, God’s Own Country) are escaping some gun tottering government agents.

In Disclosure Day, the aliens are not out there in the galaxy but they have already arrived on earth and they have two human emissaries: the weather girl from Kansas City, Margaret and the young and hot headed Daniel Kellner. British actor Josh O’Connor does well in a big budget blockbuster as the male lead and has sufficient screen time with Emily Blunt and his former co-star Oscar winner Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) who he starred in together in the British period drama Mothering Sunday back in 2021.

Firth plays Noah Scanlon, the leader of a shady organization with links to the government who is intent on keeping the alien existence secret from the rest of the world.

Luckily the headstrong Margaret, a feisty weather girl from Kansas City who suddenly develops telepathic powers and dumps her guitar loving blonde boyfriend Jackson played by Wyatt Russell, son of Hollywood stars Golden Hawn and Kurt Russell, as she goes on a mission to meet up with Daniel and his girlfriend Jane played by Irish actress Eve Hewson (Bridge of Spies, Robin Hood).

As Daniel and Margaret rush to the location of Hugo Wakefield played by Oscar nominee Colman Domingo (Rustin, Sing Sing), who is committed to exposing the truth about the existence of extraterritorial life forms, Scanlon and his private army try to eliminate the couple before the imminent disclosure.

Audiences must remember that this is all set in the Midwest – Missouri to be exact in a film featuring mostly a British cast. Disclosure Day starts off exceptionally promising with the usual Spielberg flourishes which made such films as War of the Worlds and Minority Report so brilliant.

Unfortunately, David Koepp’s script goes off the reservation when the actual moment of disclosure occurs in a world filled with instant news. The critical moment of Margaret telling the world about the existence of aliens lacks the profundity required to make Disclosure Day memorable.

The narrative becomes weird and characters start falling off the screenplay never to be seen again. There is even deer, wolves and aliens that appear in strange wheelchairs….

Disclosure Day has a great director, an adequate cast but the narrative is clunky and unsubtle. It becomes too literal and obvious which is done to appease an American audience.

Disclosure Day gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is an enjoyable film but not ground-breaking. Spielberg needed a better scriptwriter and a more American cast if the entire film is set in the Mid-West.

It’s not believable that a weather girl from Kansas City would become the chosen one for representatives of E.T. Recommended viewing but not essential.

A Most Violent Year

Director: J. C. Chandor

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac, Albert Brooks, Alessandro Nivola, Elizabeth Marvel, David Oyelowo, Christopher Abbott, Ben Rosenfeld, Elyes Gabel

Margin Call director J. C. Chandor directs Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Golden Globe nominee Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) in the atmospheric thriller A Most Violent Year about the corruption and double dealings in the trucking industry circa New York City 1981.

Chastain and Isaac play a hard core 80’s couple, Abel and Anna Morales who have mysteriously made a substantial sum of money through their transport business Standard Oil which Anna’s father helped set up. Abel is trying desperately to remain an honourable man in his business dealings despite the fact that his trucks seem to be constantly being hijacked on the New York freeways. At first Abel suspects a rival trucking billionaire who has links to the Mafia, Peter Forente beautifully played with a lithe sinister style by Alessandro Nivola (Coco Avant Chanel).

The title of the film refers to the statistics that 1981 was New York’s most violent year in the city’s history, with crime, corruption, hijacking as well as shootings and murders. Despite this, the film itself is not as violent as one would assume, but director J. C. Chandor maintains the pace and at times even leaves visual signifier that the film alludes to violence as opposed to showing actual violence.

This is especially evident in the scene when the Morales, driving on the way back from a late night dinner hit a deer and Anna, wonderfully played with a hardness by Chastain promptly gets out the car and shoots the animal dead, when her husband hesitates.

Oscar Isaac also reunites with Drive co-star Albert Brooks who plays the couples shady attorney Andrew Walsh. With a running time of 125 minutes, the second half of A Most Violent Year could have picked up the pace, the 1980’s crime thriller is held together tightly by the performances of Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, especially the latter who is superb as the hard edged wife who continually persuades her husband to fight violence with violence. Naturally this eventually occurs when Julian, an immigrant truck driver, played by Elyes Gabel goes missing and also another truck belonging to Standard Oil is stolen.

Audiences that like a sophisticated thriller with a more contextual character study will enjoy A Most Violent Year, but those expecting an action film should give it a miss.

The cast also includes David Oyelowo (The Paper Boy and Jack Reacher) as assistant DA Lawrence who is constantly threatening the Morales livelihood. A Most Violent Year is a fascinating film, layered with each textured shot  paying homage to film noir aimed at viewers that enjoy a more intricate narrative despite its nefarious title.

True Grit

Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper

Running Time: 1 hour and 50  minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Joel and Ethan’s Coen rendition of True Grit is a classic Western with the cowboys unshaven, filled with whiskey swigging gun-slinging characters who all appeared to have been beaten by the harsh environment of Arkansas in the 1870s frontier towns.

True Grit is a revenge tale with pitfalls both figurative and literal and as the old Chinese saying goes, when seeking revenge, it’s always best to dig two graves. At the centre of this Western, is Mattee Ross a determined 14 year old girl who is beset on avenging the death of her father.

Hailee Steinfeld delivers a superb performance, rightfully getting an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Ross hires Rooster Cogburn, an unsavory US Marshal who drinks too much whiskey and is not very fond of personal hygiene. Cogburn in his rough and scraggly demeanor is brilliantly portrayed by Jeff Bridges. A third character who makes up the unlikely trio of adventurers is La Boeuf, a dandified Texas Ranger, played with panache and egotism by Matt Damon, who quite frankly looks like a fellow who takes pride in his appearance.
This darkly comic journey reminiscent of the Coen brothers earlier film Oh Brother Where Art Thou? is more richly textured with symbolism and myth, complimented by beautiful cinematography by Roger Deakins. With the occasional spats of violence which as always in Coen Brothers films are swift, untimely and always shocking are tapered down in comparison to their Oscar winning masterpiece No Country for Old Men, which was drenched in the suspense of inevitable violence and pervading menace.

A Gritty Game of Rancher and Outlaw

As Westerns goes, this is not 3:10 to Yuma, James Mangold 2007 action packed gun tottering film featuring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale as the cattle rancher and captured outlaw, but True Grit is closer to a period piece, shot in sepia colours complimented with stark black costumes and musing more on the legends of the Old West as opposed to the violence that characterized the era.

True Grit is more a homage to the film genre, a respectful and beautifully directed representation of a mythical error of the Wild Frontier, where the only real law of the land was each individual’s right to seek revenge where injustice had occurred, whatever the consequences. Nominated for 10 Oscars, unfortunately True Grit was beaten at the Academy Awards by the more technically brilliant film, Inception and the popular David Fincher film, The Social Network. In the acting stakes, Hailee Steinfeld is definitely a rising star, since receiving an Oscar nomination at age 15, a testament to her talent. Of all the Oscars True Grit should have won, it should have been for cinematography which was flawless.

Besides the accolades not heaped on the latest Coen Brothers film by this past Awards season, True Grit is nevertheless a terrific film about revenge, mortality and the myth of the Wild West. Watch out for a great cameo by Barry Pepper, all dishevelled and wearing sheepskin chaps as the outlaw leader Lucky Ned Pepper.

True Grit gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10.