Date Night

Meet Phil and Claire Foster, just your average suburban married couple with kids and ordinary lives.  The Fosters are played by two sitcom heavyweights, Steve Carell ("The Office") and Tina Fey ("30 Rock").  Phil and Claire have fallen into a rut in their marriage lately and barely notice each other anymore.  Desperate to spice up their relationship - and spurred by their mutual friends' separation - the Fosters decide to go out for a romantic night on the town at a trendy Manhattan eatery.  Problem is, they don't have reservations so they pretend to be the Tripplehorn party in order to steal their table.  Little do Phil and Claire know that the couple they are impersonating are wanted for blackmail by some of the most dangerous people in town.  "Date Night" is a brilliant, heartfelt comedy that meshes crazy, action-packed hijinks with touching, real moments that help keep the story grounded.  Why didn't anyone think of pairing Carell and Fey together before?  The two have a natural chemistry and rapport that makes them completely believable as a long-time couple.  These two actors riff on the most mundane aspects of married life (one such rant by Claire is especially hilarious as she sarcastically marvels at the routine of putting her kids into their pajamas every night) as if they are taking pages straight from their own lives.  The cameos by James Franco, Ray Liotta, and William Fichtner are unexpected and genius, but none more so than the appearance of a shirtless (and slightly sweaty), post-coital Mark Wahlberg.  It's not every day that a comedy, let alone an action comedy, is able to pull off being funny and also capture any semblance of genuine poignancy.  I guess that just proves that "Date Night" is full of great surprises.

4 out of 5 stars

The Town

"The Town", starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner, is part action/heist flick, part serious drama, and all heart.  Affleck (in his sophomore directing effort) plays Doug, a blue-collar working stiff from Charlestown, Massachusetts, the bank-robber breeding capital of the world.  Doug and his best friend Jim (Renner) have made quite a career of knocking over armored trucks and banks - that is until Doug kidnaps Claire (Rebecca Hall), the bank manager of their latest burglary.  Soon the two are falling for each other and Doug starts questioning his line of work.  Meanwhile, their crew has major heat on their backs from the feds, led by FBI special agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm).  With cops on their tail and a spurned ex-girlfriend (Blake Lively from TV's "Gossip Girl") willing to talk, it seems unlikely that Doug and Claire will have a happily ever after.  It's the oldest story in the bank heist book: One more job, one major score that will set them up for life, and then they're out, for good this time.  Even though you pretty much know how the story will end, it still feels fresh like you're hearing it for the first time, and the suspense as you follow these characters through car chases and shoot-outs is palpable.  Affleck, who garnered critical praise for his 2007 directing debut "Gone Baby Gone", proves with this film that he isn't a one-trick pony.  The action is fast-paced and intensely realistic, and the nearly impossible chases down Boston's narrow streets make it all the more exciting.  Renner is solid as Doug's right-hand man and makes townie Jim a likable and relatable criminal.  Hamm and Hall are also fantastic in their supporting roles and round out the all-star cast.  "The Town" doesn't tread on too much new territory, but it does tell an intricately thrilling story that has you rooting for the so-called bad guys and loving it.

4 out of 5 stars

Killers

Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher star in "Killers", an action-packed romantic comedy from director Robert Luketic ("Legally Blonde").  Heigl plays Jen, a stammering neurotic who has recently been dumped and decides to go on vacation in the south of France... with her parents.  Kutcher plays Spencer, an assassin-for-hire who is starting to question the integrity of his line of work.  When Spencer meets Jen while on a job, she falls for his hunky good looks and he falls for her girl-next-door ordinariness, so Spencer decides he wants to get out of the game for good and settle down with Jen.  There's just one problem: quitting being a covert killer is easier said than done.  The story starts off very promisingly as we see the couple meet-cute: Kutcher pulls off an easygoing charm that suits him well, while Heigl has perfected the art of playing the insecure loser.  It really is amazing to me that someone as gorgeous as Heigl - with her sunny, round face and sexy curves - is able to be convincing as a goofy, unlucky-in-love gal and someone we can sympathize with, but somehow Heigl manages to pull it off.  The banter between Jen and Spencer is witty and fresh.  But once the couple is settled into their romance and the truth about Spencer's former job starts surfacing, the film becomes rote as one action scene gives way to another action scene, and soon plot advancement goes out the window.  What makes the story interesting from the beginning is the relationship between Jen and Spencer, but that dynamic quickly dissolves once the couple goes on the run.  It was also confusing and convoluted to me how all of a sudden it seems like a small nation of assassins is after the couple... I mean, how many trained killers live in this town anyway?  The film succeeds as a likable romantic comedy, but in the end the incessant and mindless action kills the mood.

2 out of 5 stars

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Based on the popular video game series, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is a swashbuckling good ride.  Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Prince Dastan, a lowly peasant who, as a young boy, catches the eye of the king and is brought to the palace to be raised as royalty.  There he is brought up alongside two brothers and a watchful uncle under the loving care of the king, and Dastan grows up to be a reckless and fun-loving warrior.  However, when Dastan stumbles upon a mystical dagger that gives its holder powers over the sands of time, it's up to him - aided by the fiery and beautiful Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) - to make sure the dagger doesn't fall into the wrong hands.  Needless to say, movies based on video games don't have the best track record.  While there isn't much to the plot here, the story does at least stay true to the game and the special effects are high-def worthy.  Casting a star such as Gyllenhaal in the lead role was a smart move to lend some credibility to the cast - in addition to Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley as Dastan's uncle - and while Dastan is a pretty 2-D character, Gyllenhaal does a great job of bringing the mischievous, acrobatic prince to life.  It is also worth mentioning the intense physical labor that Gyllenhaal put into the role, which is quite apparent in every shirtless scene that shows off his impressively toned and gorgeous physique.  As for Arterton (who I praised recently in my "Clash of the Titans" review), she shows off more of that spunky fire in this role.  My prediction is that you'll be seeing a lot more of this elegant beauty in the future, and hopefully not just in films that fall into the mythological fantasy/action genre.  For now, you can follow this great cast on a fun adventure through sumptuous desert lands and exciting action scenes that will have you jonesing for your game controller.

3 out of 5 stars

The Road

Based on Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Road" is a gloomy tale of a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son's (Kodi Smit-McPhee) quest for survival.  Set in a period several years after an apocalypse of unknown origins, the earth is a burning, ash-covered wasteland where any remaining humans are either starving or resorting to cannibalism.  On their journey in search of a better life, it's the Father's goal to teach his young son how to fend for himself.  But with the Father's health failing and nomadic clans of cannibals on their trail, it's uncertain whether they will reach safety before the Father's time runs out.  The characters' names are never spoken in the film, and this is symbolic both of the fact that we could be watching any pair of father and son survivors as well as the dispensableness of names in this era of epic disaster.  The Father explains to his son that they are "the good guys" - probably the only ones left in this world - but when he kills a member of a cannibal gang to save his son and later robs a fellow traveller of all his clothes out of revenge, you realize that there is no such thing as "good" or "bad" anymore; people are just doing what they can to survive, no matter what the cost.  It's difficult to get through this film because it's painful to watch such hopelessness and desperation.  The movie depicts a place of such heartbreaking desolation that you could never imagine, nor would you want to.  And as you watch, you get the sinking feeling that there can be no happy ending in store for this pair.  Mortensen is at his best here.  From his emaciated frame to his mournful eyes that stare blankly out of his bone-jutting face, Mortensen looks and feels every bit the part of a post-apocalyptic survivor.  The direction is also impressive.  Every frame is shot in such a way to emphasize the utter barrenness of the landscape and the perpetually overcast sky, that the scorched planet becomes a character in its own right.  Overall, though, the pace was a little too plodding and some of the imagery too discomforting to watch.  I appreciated the film's efforts - especially the tender moments between the Father and Son - but could not get past the sadistic torture of these human beings.  And for that, I can only hope "The Road" is the one less-travelled.


3 out of 5 stars

The Fourth Kind

"The Fourth Kind" is a horrible mess of a film that attempts to deliver what it thinks is an important message about alien encounters, but instead fails miserably on all counts.  Based on alleged actual events, the film stars Milla Jovovich as Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychiatrist in a small, remote Alaskan town.  When her husband is brutally and inexplicably murdered in front of her very eyes, Abigail feels lost and confused because she can't recall any clear details about what happened or remember the killer's face.  Soon after several of her patients begin experiencing strange sleep patterns with mysterious visions that are too similar to be discounted as coincidence.  Could all these happenings point to alien abductions, or is all this just happening in Abigail's mind?  The filmmaker tries to lend credibility and pathos to the story, but the device he uses - a split screen between actual audio and video recordings of the events blended with dramatized scenes of the film - is distracting and serves no purpose other than to give the film an unnecessary edginess.  At best, this technique is gimmicky and at worst it is outrightly disjointed and unintelligible.  Also, we never see any actual scenes or images of the aliens, which the director probably thought was cleverly mysterious but instead comes off with an air of cheapness, almost as if the production was not allowed any budget for special effects.  It seems like the purpose of this movie is to prove the existence of aliens and extraterrestrial encounters, but if anything I believed less in them than before I watched this film.  By the end, you are so bored and confused that you'll be praying to be abducted.


1 out of 5 stars