Don't Breathe (****)

It's rare for a movie to have me on the edge of my seat, genuinely curious as to what will happen next. In a genre where cliches are now the running gag, to make a film that is full of original ideas and creativity is a relief to say the least. I had heard a lot about "Don't Breathe" mainly through word of mouth, so I decided to finally see it without having so much as read a brief synopsis. I was skeptical about how a movie like this could sustain itself for a feature runtime. I was pleasantly surprised by how effective it is.

The movie borrows major ideas and elements from some of cinema's best thrillers, and I mostly recalled "Panic Room" and "Wait Until Dark" as antithesis versions. The plot is almost laughably simple: 3 small-time burglars are hoping to strike it big when they hear a retired war veteran has won a settlement over the death of his daughter for upwards of $300 million. They assume the cash might be in his house, and even better is that they realize he has gone blind. These are barely kids in their 20's. Alex (the logical one of the group) uses his dad's spare keys from his security companies to disarm these homes, quietly loot various goods, and rearm the home and stage a fake robbery. Money, the wild one, is head-to-toe tattoos and carries a gun even though this could lead to a longer jail sentence should they be caught. Rocky, the heroine, sees the money as an opportunity to relocate her and her daughter to a better life. The plan is so simple.

In a run-down Detroit neighborhood where the blind man is the only house that is occupied for blocks, they quietly enter his home and begin the quiet search for a safe. The time is 2am. In the modest 2-story home, they see photographs of his deceased daughter, and he plays home movies of her as a child. Money uses a homemade gas bomb in attempts to neutralize him to sleep. Of course we know that won't work. The blind man is quickly awoken, and in a shocking moment of confrontation, his combat skills come out and he quickly murders Money, believing him to be the only robber. With Alex and Rocky standing breathless in horror, they see him board up the house from the inside out, and begin to remove the body. They are now the victims.

The story becomes a cat-and-mouse game as the blind man soon discovers that there are more intruders in his home. Blind as he is, the man is still a dominant figure, rippling with muscles and a ghostly face that shows his aged gray beard and white eyes. He passes within inches of Alex in the hallway like a ghost, and retrieving a gun from his safe, Rocky can visibly see the code to reenter at a later time. I don't know if this classifies as a thriller or horror, since much of the drama comes from the chase that ensues throughout the house. Yes, he is blind, but the old man knows this house like the back of his hand, and indeed the dark rooms are full of terrifying secrets.

The director, Fede Alvarez, is known for making "Evil Dead" in 2003, but this is a clear exercise in tone and suspense. With each new moment, he adds a new layer to the dread, and the camera floats through the house to remind us where spare guns are hiding, which windows have bars... It's a technique that someone like Alfred Hitchcock might appreciate: showing the audience more than the characters know. When they first enter the man's home, there is a steady shot of a hammer hanging on a rack of tools. Nothing becomes of it, but our minds begin racing with ideas of how this will come into play or what it might be used for. Later, we see a spare gun strapped to the underside of a bed. Only the audience knows what dangers are in store.

I won't spoil too much more of the film, only to say that the robbers' tour of the home lead to nearly every room of the home and some in between. A dark discovery in the basement finds them trapped with the blind man amongst rows and rows of shelving units, and as casually as he begins hunting them, he turns the fuse box over and leaves them in utter darkness. This scene (about midway through the film) harkened back to the chilling climax of "Silence of the Lambs" and yet raises the stakes tenfold from what Clarice Starling encountered with Buffalo Bill. We know his basement can only be so big, and we see the man wandering through the darkness touching familiar landmarks to remind himself the path he needs to take. Both Alex and Rocky are blind, shaking, barely moving forward. The scene is photographed in a smoky black & white, and the quiet breathes of the victims move in and out of earshot. Rocky moves down a hall, at the end of which slowly materializes the blind man, quietly waiting.. Listening. It's without a doubt one of the most effective horror scenes I have ever seen and the crowning achievement of the film.

The film finally sees it's own form of climax, and for me this is where it began to drag. From the old man's dog (a vicious Rottweiler with an apparent taste for human flesh) to chases back and forth inside and outside the home, I have to admit the finale of the movie became an exhausting chore to keep up with. There were many moments when it felt like the story was coming to an end, and the 'shocking' moments were realizing that it was still going. This movie requires a great suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy (the logics of this movie have to be taken with a grain of salt or I would guess one's appreciation might be somewhat lessened), and with each new "twist" I felt the movie losing it's claustrophobic feel and moving more towards a standard slasher flick with it's own set of rules and horror cliches.

Regardless, I will honestly admit this was a very fun film to experience in a theater. The photography is closed in and haunting, and the performance by Stephen Lang as the blind man is sure to become a classic in the vaults of iconic horror villains. For a movie with such a simple idea as a robbery gone wrong, boy did they get it so right. I only wish they would have pushed it further instead of drifting back to the standards a typical Hollywood revenge flick might take.

Huntsman: Winter's War (*)

It's astounding how bad "Huntsman: Winter's War" is. From the preposterous title (it would appear that the story occurs in springtime, and that the one battle in the film is a tiny 10-person battle in a throne room) to the absolute lack of reason, sense, or skill, this coldly-received sequel to an already flawed film (Snow White & the Huntsman) is like finding a diamond in the rough in terms of bad movies. In a way it's almost good how bad it is. Almost.

The movie is narrated by Liam Neeson with empty phrases like "lands to the North" and "the Good Queen built a fortress around her heart." We meet the Evil Queen from the first movie (the absurdly over-the-top Charlize Theron who is the only fun role in the film) and her sister, Elsa -- I mean Freya, a woman who's heart was broken and uses her ice powers to turn her hair white, adopt an icy wardrobe, and reign in an ice castle on top of a mountain. Her ultimate character arc is the discovery that love can ultimately be a good thing. She didn't even have to sing "Let It Go" to figure it out.

Simultaneously we have a remake of "Braveheart" occurring, as we meet the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth reprising his titular role) and his love affair with fellow huntswoman, Sara (with an off-again on-again Scottish accent). Declaring their love for one another in a forbidden encounter, the Huntsman all but states that he "wants to raise crops and God-willing a family" with his new lover. A stroke of misfortune leads him to believe Sara is brutally murdered, and thus the war is launched. I mean the battle that takes place in the last 3 minutes of the movie.

In reality, the plot seems to be about the group of heroes (the Huntsman, some of the dwarves from the first film (whoever wanted to come back, I guess), and some other female dwarves) on the hunt for the Magic Mirror, hoping to find it before Evil Queen Freya reclaims it for herself. Like the ruby slippers, it's said to have dangerous powers, but I am sure as hell unaware of what those powers could be (aside from being able to judge the hotness level of women like a caddy bitch). Why this is so important is never explained, nor are any of the plot details seemingly relevant at any one point. The story is vapid, lifeless, thrown together. As I was watching this film, things kept happening, but overall nothing was occurring. I began to doubt the reasoning for this movie's existence other than an attempts for a cash grab (the original made over $400 million in sales... This one barely made $160 million against a budget of $115 million. Ouch).

If you need an example of what is wrong with the Hollywood system right now, then "Huntsman" seems to be a textbook example. From the overly-choreographed fight scenes, Lord of the Ring's-inspired mythology (which seems to be the standard for fantasy films nowadays), and the rehashing of characters both living and dead with no regard to story (how many times can Charlize Theron come back to life without absolutely flushing brain power down the toilet?), the film churns along from one predictable beat to the next, and by the time it ends it's hard to remember that there are actually decent movies made anymore. To watch "Huntsman: Winter's War" is to lobotomize a part of your brain. Movies can be art, and they can be moving, and they can be thrilling. This movie is the cinematic equivalent of expired milk.

Blair Witch (1/2)

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. Though the odds are slim, it has a chance. I would wager, then, that in half the time it would take to reproduce a great play, a monkey could easily draft a screenplay with more skill and subtlety than "Blair Witch," easily one of the worst films I have seen in a while. I don't know if that's a compliment to the simple odds of chance or an insult to the skill and brainpower of the filmmakers behind this slosh.

In 1999, "The Blair Witch Project" began what has been dubbed 'the shakey-cam' style of filmmaking. It's borderline documentary, and the film did it with such skill and art that many people believed the three actors to be truly missing persons. Even today, rewatching this film is a powerful testament to structure, psychological horror, and growing suspense. I wouldn't say that I still find the film scary, but it does what great horror always has done: it burrows deep into our psyche. I'd even go so far to say that the final 5 minutes of the original film are some of the most genuinely-horrifying and eerie moments I have ever seen in a movie.

It's almost 17 years later, and we find Hollywood churning out work like this; a movie so riddled with inconsistencies and jump scares that it's a wonder it was ever at all greenlit. The plot is so thin that it's barely there: a young boy tried to find his sister (Heather, the girl from the original film) who he believes is still alive in the woods based on footage he found online. Why he would assume a girl missing for over 20 years (don't forget, the original was footage found from 1994) would still be alive is one thing, but he convinces 3 of his friends to journey with him to find out the truth. At this point in the movie, he should have become concerned at seeing his friends are all attractive teenagers who fit the standard slasher lineup: a couple who is more interested in sex than anything else, a single and beautiful brunette, and a single teenage boy. Perfect.

In the woods, they quickly begin a camp out and are joined by a local couple who originally discovered the online footage. In the night, many of the iconic 'stick-figure' voodoo dolls are mysteriously hung up. I wonder who's to blame? So forth and so on, the characters find themselves stuck in a loop as in the original: unable to find their way out of the woods. The local couple admits to stringing up the figures to conjure up fear, and yet the next night when they return, the group is again terrified of the mysteries of the woods.

Where the original found horror in the unseen (I think the most horrifying moment is hearing a baby laughing in the distance while the campers sleep in the safety of their tent), this movie throws it all at the screen, with mutilated bodies and scary naked monsters roaming free at any given moment. There is no suspense, no build up, and justly no pay off. What the original mastered, this isn't even a pale comparison. It is garbage.

I give the film 1/2 a star as opposed to zero based solely on the performance of Callie Hernandez (the single, attractive brunette) who in the final minutes of the film gives one of the most authentic performances of panic I think I have ever seen. The quiver in her voice, the inconsistency with her breathing. For only a moment, I found myself actually understanding the horror meant to be felt by the characters on screen. Too bad for me that I only began caring in the last 30 or 40 seconds of the entire film. What a mess.

Sully (**1/2)

Clint Eastwood has nothing to prove to anyone anymore. Having won a handful of Oscars and directed two Best Picture winners, we are only so lucky to have such an esteemed veteran behind the camera (he just turned 86 this past year). His repertoire covers a wide range of subject and setting, from westerns to historical pictures to modern fiction. He has hit's and misses. It's unfortunate that such an inspiring story as the Miracle on the Hudson could wind up so flat on the big screen.

It wasn't but a few years ago, and I know we all know the story - how Captain Sullenburger successfully ditched his US Airways flight into the river just outside of Manhattan and miraculously kept everyone on board alive and well. It was a 1 in a million landing, all the more spectacular and alarming for taking place so close to Ground Zero. The world proclaimed him a hero, but (you guessed it) some had initial doubts.

The story itself follows Sully in the immediate aftermath of the landing, when he and his copilot (Aaron Echart as Jeff Skiles) are hotel-bound while a hearing is underway to investigate the cause of the crash. Sully frequently calls his wife Lorraine (Laura Linney) at home to assure her that he is okay and will be home soon. The hearings proceed simultaneous to an endless barrage of news coverage and late night appearances. In the same day, Sully met with both Katie Couric and David Letterman.

The trailer promised a somewhat suspenseful story with a crash scene that would rival that of the movie "Flight." We flash back several times in the film to the actual incident, when birds struck both engines and caused the plane to lose forward thrust. The entire incident was so quick (200 seconds or so) that Eastwood devotes several scenes to show the crash in it's entirety from various perspectives. It's a Rashomon approach in many ways, and the effect is a powerful testament to the quick wits of not only Sully but the flight crew and the Coast Guard and even passersby watching a plane descend into the frigid Hudson River in disbelief.

Tom Hanks, of course, plays the titular character. He is barely there, so steadfast in his beliefs and quiet in his doubts, I don't think any other man would be as suited for the role. One would think that this would be a sure bet for an Oscar nomination (and well overdue: Hanks hasn't been nominated since Cast Away in 2000) but his performance is as muted and subtle as anything he has done. From crash to court hearings, Sully is played as a man you understand to be a real hero. He is quiet, determined, scared of being wrong but persistent when he knows he is right.

The villains (the National Transportation Safety Board who scrutinize his every move) are often laughable and there for the obvious reason of creating more cinematic drama. I don't know how factual the film is in regards to the final scenes, but we are led to believe that Sully is on the cusp of being fired for having endangered the lives of everyone on board. Flight simulations (and we see no less than 4 entire flight simulation sequences, mind you) prove that the plane could have landed safely at LaGuardia, and it comes down to a simple speech by Sully in which human error ultimately would have made landing on a runway impossible.

When the movie is good, it's good, but when it's not, it's apparent. There are many sequences of PTSD and such from Sully's perspective that feel taped on and hasty. A dream sequence in which Katie Couric presents a news story about Sully being a fraud is forced to say the least. Clint Eastwood has never been a meticulous director known for precision edits or immaculate framing. Sully simply feels like a rough cut that required a few more trims to make it feel concise. Hanks is great, of course, and the story is inspiring. The film itself leaves a bit to be desired. Still, for a man closer to 90 years old in age, I doubt you will find a more assured director working today.

Snowden (***1/2)

Oliver Stone's SNOWDEN does exactly what a film about a whistleblower must do in order to be an effective thriller: sets up the story, sets up the motivation, and presents an opinion of the subject. It's still a fairly hot-topic situation, as Snowden's massive leak to the press regarding NSA surveillance only happened a few years ago. Though the film has a few flaws that surely hamper it's overall effectiveness, the general thought presented is that "Ed" Snowden is our generation's Karen Silkwood; a hero of unlikely background.

The film is structured in a sort of flashback, with Snowden's initial leak to the press in a small Tokyo hotel room lending itself to flashbacks of his life to this point. It's hard to imagine most people not knowing who Edward Snowden is at this point, especially considering a documentary surrounding his espionage just won an Oscar not 1 year ago. The film seeks instead to provide a backstory and shade the infamous man in a more human light - painting a portrait of what would lead a patriot to betray his beloved country.

Joseph Gordon Levitt, I'll admit, has felt miscast in the past. He falls into roles greater than himself and fails to disappear into the character we see on screen. Surprisingly in "Snowden," he actually succeeds. Deepened voice, loose-fitting clothes, and the slightest stubble, Levitt all but transforms in the role (all the more compelling when the film concludes with footage of the actual man and we barely notice that it is a new person). It's hard to classify his performance as someone who is sympathetic, but overall he does an effective job playing a man who finds himself in between a rock and hard place - that is to say the internal struggle he faces seems genuine.

The backstory we follow finds Snowden meeting his long-time girlfriend, first seeing her chat on an online dating site while in military training, and finally meeting in Washington after he begins working for the CIA. Played by Shailene Woodley, the girlfriend role oftentimes falls into the category of "emotional obstacle" and in several scenes she and Snowden fight only to keep the story juicy and the plot flowing. While good in the past (The Descendants, The Fault In Our Stars) Woodley is given very little to do in this film and tries her hardest to make the role her own.

I was very much impressed with the front-half of this picture, and I found the setup and introduction to our characters to be very effective. Snowden is initially hired on to work for the CIA and has some great scenes getting to know his supervisors and teachers (one of which is Nicholas Cage in a curiously-small role). We learn about who he is, how smart he is, and how his early work with the government would ultimately shape his story. It's too bad that the rest of the film fails to match the energy. Overly-clanky with flashbacks and flashforwards, it becomes fairly tedious to journey back and forth between present-day Tokyo to Hawaii or Europe or any variety of places in the States. Oliver Stone (co-screenwriter) had a lot of material to sort through, but it seems like the structure of the story was flawed slightly along the way.

I still praise the film, with it's strong leading performance and intriguing (albeit biased) account of this decade's most notorious government leak. Yes, the film makes it clear that Edward Snowden should be regarded as a saint - someone who uncovered mass conspiracy within our government and worked only to protect the USA's citizens. The movie serves as a supplement to the real man, and perhaps can help in forming opinions of whether or not his actions were ethical. Though Oliver Stone has made better films in the past, "Snowden" is still an effective biopic that warrants a viewing.