MYSTIC RIVER
If Clint Eastwood proved anything in Unforgiven, it was that actors don’t have to be showy to be effective. Too bad that nobody told Sean Penn, who brings his full actor-y powers to bear in Mystic River, Eastwood’s latest effort. Too often, the film feels less like the well-crafted whodunit at its center and more like a freshman acting class: Penn thrashes and grimaces, Tim Robbins acts numb, and Marcia Gay Harden wobbles her voice so much that you wonder if she’s standing on the San Andreas Fault. On the other hand, Kevin Bacon does some of the best work of his career as a reasonable cop beset by marriage problems. He strikes a note of casual verisimilitude and, in an Eastwood film, that’s about the only note that’ll work. (BJS)
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
Director Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ represents the teachings of Jesus through a gore-drenched recreation of the final 12 hours before his death. Here, the son of God is a wholly human figure, and Gibson constantly reminds his audience of this with an unceasing depiction of shredded flesh and spattered blood. The effect is alternately piercing and numbing. Nevertheless, Gibson eventually succeeds in overwhelming his audience with the kind of potent visual poignancy unseen in his previous directorial work. The telling of the story is equally effective, as screenwriters Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald (Wise Blood) find most of their narrative might in the passion plays’ minor characters. Though violence is the film’s major theme, what resonates from The Passion of the Christ is not necessarily its brutality, but rather the significance of his sacrifice. There are only glimpses of Christ’s words in the movie, and his resurrection is given minimal screen time, but these are provided in such well-timed respites that their resounding impact is ultimately The Passion’s greatest, most awe-inspiring achievement. (BBC)
There are three fatal flaws that damage Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for nonbelievers: almost no characterization or narrative, a spectacularly large amount of violence and almost all of the Jews are evil Christ-killers. In Gibson’s mania to present the extent of Jesus’ suffering, character is lost, and by the end of the film, Jesus begins to resemble a piñata more than a man. The effect is that it is hard to understand quite what the point of all this is. It is never clear why he is so dangerous. It is never clear why he doesn’t take his numerous opportunities to speak up and prevent his death. It is never clear why everyone is so passionate about this presence, who, in the film, shows as much depth as Tyrese in 2 Fast 2 Furious. Oddly enough, the only deeply felt character is Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov), who comes off as nuanced but ultimately unwilling to risk a rebellion to save one madman. The film’s violence is physically exhausting and, ultimately, numbing; ultimately, these shots begin to resemble pornography, complete with a money shot. (SAW)
SPARTAN
After the president’s daughter is kidnapped from Lowell House, shadowy super Secret Agent Scott (Val Kilmer) is assigned to track her down using whatever means necessary, in writer-director David Mamet’s newest film. Although the dialogue often bounces with Mamet’s rat-a-tat flair, this movie’s deep flaws destroy the elgently crafter political thriller that might have been. Cheap budgets, mind-numbing incoherence and incoherent plotting overshadow the few genuine surprises and admirable political idealism to leave only a square-jawed action movie for pseudo-intellectuals that doesn’t live up to its ambition. (SAW)
TOUCHING THE VOID
This story of a 1985 Andes mountain-climbing disaster comes courtesy of director Kevin MacDonald, whose film One Day in September won the Oscar for Best Documentary a few years ago. But in the vein of his last work, Touching the Void is not a clear-cut documentary; the events it examines are real, but MacDonald uses re-enactments of the story’s events to supplement a narrated account from the disaster’s survivors. The nut of their crisis: halfway through a climb, one of the two team members falls and breaks several leg bones. The other climber decides to lower his injured partner to safety, 300 feet of rope at a time, until he accidentally lowers him over a precipice. Knowing that soon both of them would tumble to their deaths, he makes a critical decision and cuts the cord. (BJS)
THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE
This film bears absolutely no resemblance to Japanime or any Disney movie, and is undoubtedly the best animated feature released in 2003. Sylvain Chomet’s film aims for a multinational texture and is largely devoid of dialogue, but nevertheless retains a distinctly French sensibility with a penchant for shrewd cultural allusions. A clubfooted widow, Madame Souza, trains her chubby grandson Champion to become a stick-thin cyclist with the help of bulky canine Bruno and her restless whistle. One day, Champion is mysteriously kidnapped, along with two of his fellow Tour de France riders, by amusingly ominous members of the French mafia. In hot pursuit, Madame Souza travels to the Dionysian metropolis Belleville, where she enlists the help of the eponymous triplets—former scat singers turned household-item instrumentalists—in liberating Champion from the clutches of a diminutive wine magnate. A marvelous fusion of color, music, and caricature, each splendid offbeat frame restores faith in traditional hand-drawn animation, and we have Chomet’s superbly macabre imagination to thank. (TIH)
TWISTED
Although a formulaic thriller at heart, director Philip Kaufman’s Twisted still manages to entertain, effectively playing on its setting in the San Francisco Harbor area to create a dark and seedy atmosphere. Combined with dank sexual undertones, the ambience gives Twisted the key components of a suspense film to hold the attention of a thrill-seeking audience. The mystery begins when homicide inspector Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) finds herself deeply intertwined in the new series of murders she is investigating. It turns out the victims are all past lovers, and soon Jessica is the primary suspect in the case. The police commissioner (Samuel Jackson) and Jessica’s partner (Andy Garcia) work hard to keep her on the case, but it becomes increasingly difficult with each new murder. Soon, Jessica’s own life becomes endangered. (HRM)
WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT
Like his hit CBS sitcom, Ray Romano’s first foray into the world of live action movies is straight out of the 1950s, in ways both amiably amusing and jarringly old-fashioned. Welcome to Mooseport finds Romano in the role of Handy Harrison, a small-town plumber whose most ambitious plans involve buying a new pick-up. As Handy’s long-suffering girlfriend of six years, Sally, Maura Tierney does a great impression of Patricia Heaton, Romano’s similarly impatient TV wife. Mooseport and Handy’s relationship are shaken up by the tumultuous arrival of the recently retired U.S. president, a Clinton-hating, Yale-loving jerk named Monroe “Eagle” Cole (Gene Hackman). Through a series of mind-numbing mix-ups (the less said, the better), Handy and the ex-president end up running against each other in the town’s mayoral race. Soon they’re playing a round of golf to decide not only their respective political futures, but who gets to date Sally. In one significant way, Mooseport diverges from its “Leave It to Beaver” sensibilities, ultimately telling its audience that government is best left to cheats and liars. It’s a message that dovetails nicely with the film’s in-your-face easygoingness, but one that seems distastefully simpleminded near the start of an election year that is likely to be one of America’s most ugliest and most bitter. (NKB)
—Happening was compiled by Nathan K. Burstein, Michelle Chun, Ben B. Chung, Adam C. Estes, Julie S. Greenberg, Tiffany I. Hsieh, Lucy F. Lindsey, Halsey R. Meyer, Mickey A. Muldoon, Douglas G. Mulliken, Will B. Payne, Gina C. Schwartz, Nate E. Smith, Sarah L. Solorzano, Benjamin J. Soskin, and Scoop A. Wasserstein.