The Coen brothers’ limp remake of a classic Alec Guinness comedy has its occasional laughs, but ends up becoming boring in its pursuit of essentially sweet comedy. Tom Hanks is the leader of a gang of robbers forced to masquerade as a band in order to rent church-lady Irma P. Hall’s basement because it connects to the basement of their target. Although the Coens’ affection for southern tradition is sweet and the manic third act brings things up a notch, it isn’t enough to save this essentially mediocre film. (SAW)
MAN ON FIRE
A certain populist auteur made his feature-length debut with 1983’s underappreciated The Hunger, giving world-wide audiences the distinct pleasures of an extraordinarily well-cast David Bowie as an emaciated vampire and a steamy love scene between Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. Since then, Tony Scott has audaciously continued to hijack mainstream film. Now, he is reunited with Crimson Tide costar Denzel Washington for the story of Creasy, an alcoholic former Special Forces operative recruited by his old friend Rayburn (Christopher Walken) to guard Pita (Dakota Fanning), the young daughter of Mexico City businessman Samuel (Latin heartthrob Marc Anthony). Pita is kidnapped during a shootout with unknown assailants, and in response, Creasy begins his campaign to “do what I do best,” as he puts it to Pita’s mother: “Kill everyone who profited from this action in any way.” And he does, with impressive sadism. A moderate audience’s sympathies don’t always stay with the vengeance seeker but Scott wants us to care. His actors play their melodramatic roles with a grace that gives what is essentially a well-written straight-to-HBO Rutger Hauer flick a core that Mystic River never achieved. The kidnapping plot is incoherent, but in the end, certain flaws are inherent in every entry in the B-revenge genre. Tony Scott’s latest effort may have as many gaps as The CIA’s last intelligence report, but the man who brought the world Ice Man still knows how to smoulder. (SAW)
THE PUNISHER
Thomas Jane is Frank Castle, a former undercover cop whose family is massacred by Howard Saint (a flamboyant John Travolta) whose son had been killed in one of Castle’s undercover operations. In return, Castle seeks what he says “isn’t revenge. This is punishment.” Watch as Saint’s minions are brutalized in a variety of intriguing fashions with a Guns and Ammo fetishist’s dream array of tools. Often though, this revenge flick is a bit too strong for genre tourists, just for those who have come to stay. (SAW)
13 GOING ON 30
The painful yet delightful flashback scenes, wonderfully adept at tugging on adolescent girl anxieties, set the tone for 13 Going On 30, a Big story of suburban New Jersey girl Jenna Rink’s ascension into kitten-heeled city-girl life with the help of a boy, a wish, and a “seven minutes in heaven” game gone wrong. 13 year-old Jenna is, like, so not cool, until she wakes up in possession of a Fifth Avenue apartment and an editorial position at Poise magazine with her former nemesis as her right-hand woman. This Jenna (“Alias” star Jennifer Garner) is her adolescent worst nightmare—a cheating, backstabbing, lying bitch. It takes the help of her old chum Matt (Mark Ruffalo), who has morphed from the loser boy-next-door to a tanned, buff, hot-but-doesn’t-know-it in that aw-shucks way photographer, to set things right. Garner’s performance may lend itself to a Julia Roberts reference or two—both have the full-lipped, hearty laugh and smile perfectly complemented by a suitably charming on camera presence. Though the plot could have been written during a middle school sleepover, the movie is cute for cute’s sake. If nothing else, the pleasantly sappy coupling of Garner and Ruffalo is just enough to make the zits start to heal, the teeth straighten, the bra fill-out, and the baby fat and other adolescent anxieties melt away or at least until the credits roll. (LMP)
—Happening was compiled by Ben B. Chung, Adam C. Estes, Jayme J. Herschkopf, Lucy F. Lindsey, Halsey A. Meyer, Will B. Payne, Lisa M. Puskarik, Zachary M. Seward, Nate A. Smith, Sarah L. Solorzano, and Scoop A. Wasserstein.