The Intern

3 Stars (out of four)

It is nice to see a comedy come along that don't insult or condescend to its audience or demean its characters.  The Intern is not broad or farsical entertainment, just a very sweet look at a bunch of people with their own set of problems trying to make it in the world.

The Intern starts with Ben (Robert DeNiro), a genuinely nice widower and retiree at a bit of a crossroads in his life.  He has learned what many retirees learn, the boredom of retirement.  He has already traveled the world, picked up hobbies and spends a lot of time with his children and grandchildren, but still cannot find enough to fill the time or hole in his life that was left without his wife and job.  One day, he finds an Internet company that is advertising for an internship program for senior citizens.  He obviously gets ithe job and quickly ingratiates himself on everybody with his laid-back and very friendly attitude.  He ends up working for the company's founder, Jules (Anne Hathaway), a very driven young woman trying to keep the company vibrant and profitable.  She has a reputation of being hard to work for as she is very peculiar how things have be.  While they initially don't mesh very well, Ben begins to break down the walls she has and they eventually become a great team.

This movie is a joy to watch because it is fun, but never really insults any of its characters.  Yes, personal quirks are sometimes the butt of some jokes, but those jokes are more sweet than mean.  Instead of being a sardonic satire like The Office or Office Space, The Intern is more of a lighthearted look at making your way in the world in today's new business environment.  No character is cruel or mean.  Even though Jules is very hard to work for, she is not the Glenn Close she-devil in The Devil Wears Prada (another Hathaway film), but merely a driven, detail-obsessed woman used to getting her way because her way generally works.  She deeply loves her company and vice-versa, but it has grown too fast and she is overwhelmed.  Ben, meanwhile, could come across as the sage old guy, like Yoda in a tie, but it doesn't do that either.  He is instantly likable because he is a hard-working, genuinely good guy who sets an example that everyone sees and is drawn to.  It is after they know him that he touches everyone with advice that comes from experience.

But the winning element for me is that the movie never condescends to anyone.  The people are real people with real problems.  There are no broad caricatures or mean depictions.  There is no one talked down to.  This movie could easily degenerate into simple, easily digestible pigeonholes, but it never does that.  What is particularly nice is the relationship Ben and Jules have.  It starts warily, but not antagonistic.  As they grow to know and understand each other's problems and quirks, a genuine friendship develops.  Nothing is too over the top or unbelievable.  This is just a genuinely fun and warm comedy that is thoroughly enjoyable.

Sicario

3.5 Stars (out of four)

In preparation for this review, I looked back at my review for Prisoners, the first film I had seen from Dennis Villeneuve (who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite directors), and I was struck by how similar I felt about the themes of both movies, reflections on the consequences of morally questionable actions when you are reasonably sure about the reasons for those actions.  If it's possible, Sicario is even darker than its little brother in terms of scope and tone and took me to very unpleasant places.  It is also disturbingly and unflinchingly accurate in its depiction of the drug war raging on our border.

The movie opens up in a small town outside Phoenix, where FBI Special Agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is on a team to investigate a kidnapping.  After a brief shootout and bombing, it is discovered there are 42 bodies wrapped up in the house's walls.  She is then selected to be part of a special task force to go after the drug lords behind it.  She agrees, and thus becomes our eyes and moral center for much of the rest of the film.  Throughout the movie, we are then taken on a brief tour of the enormous scope of the drug war on both sides of the border in an operation that becomes increasingly dark and illegal.

It's interesting they chose a woman to be the center of this film.  She unfortunately doesn't do very much but watch and become increasingly appalled at the lengths and methods the task force is running.  Perhaps they chose a woman to be the antithesis of every man in the film, who, apart from her partner, are all complicitly evil at various levels?  In a way, this is very effective as the film's moral ambiguity needs a moral center.  This movie is being compared a lot to Steven Soderberg's multiple Oscar-winning film Traffic, not the least being their similar themes.  But while Traffic was more of a wake up call based on its timeframe, this movie finds us smack dab in the middle of a war in all but name (i.e. our military fighting the drug lords).  The only thing that kept me from giving this four stars is that it degenerates into a little bit of wish-fulfillment, similar to Clear and Present Danger, where we strike at drug lords, but there is no real retaliation or consequences.  This smacks a little bit of unreality, but otherwise, everything leading to the climax of Sicario is dead on.

This movie took me to some very unpleasant and dark places I don't normally like to think about, which tells me just how effectively presented this material was.  As good as Prisoners was as far as suspense, Sicario makes it look like a garden party.  I have rarely seen such a perfect mix of music, angles and subject matter to keep the viewer totally rapt. This film never lets up the tension, and it is both disarmingly blunt in its depictions of the atrocities of the Mexican Drug War and subtle in its use of beautiful composition mixed with evil intent.  Every scene is claustrophobic and suffocating, filled with low angles, low lighting and tight spaces to make you subconsciously feel trapped.  As I listened to people afterward, that was the recurring element over and over again, the non-stop tension.

I have seen enough of these movies in my life and know the craft enough to know when I am being manipulated, as all movies expressly do to their audiences.  So, it is a mark of excellence, to me, when I find myself really being really affected by the events I see on the screen.  This movie is excellent in every way, other than it ends a little too cleanly for my taste.  However, from what I have seen, there is already a sequel in the works that deals with the outcome of the events set forth in this movie, again to be directed by Villeneuve.  I can only hope it is as good as this one.  Be warned, this is not the normal actioneer or suspense movie.  It hits really close to the bone and will disturb many who see it who are unaccustomed to real violence.  There is nothing glitzy about this film.  It is exciting, yes, but very cruel an unrelenting, just like its subject matter.

Black Mass

3 Stars (out of 4)

Well, Oscar season is now upon us and our first major contender is here with Johnny Depp in Black Mass, and it opens with a bang.

Black Mass is a story about the South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, played with a steely menace by Depp.  It is actually a pretty straightforward biopic depicting a point in time when he went from a small-time neighborhood boss to one of the biggest gangsters in Boston.  The trick was that a childhood friend, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) ended up working for the FBI, an organization that at the time, was trying to bring down the Italian mafia.  So, the ambitious Connolly naïvely suggests to his bosses the use Bulger as intelligence asset against his rivals and protects him.  Bulger, like the wily criminal he is, sees this as an opportunity to force out his enemies and take over their businesses, which he does with gusto under the full sponsorship and protection of the FBI.  Connolly then cajoles, obfuscates and even threatens colleagues and criminals alike to help Bulger no matter what, until their mutual downfalls.  Another complicating fact is that Bulger's brother, Billy (amazingly played by Benedict Cumberbatch, no hint of his British accent, ever), is Massachusetts' senator and arguably one of the most powerful men in Boston, if not the entire state. The film is ambiguous about whether or not Billy actively helped his brother at any time, which helps the tension.

While Martin Scorsese's multiple Oscar-winning film The Departed was a remake of the great Chinese potboiler, Infernal Affairs, the setting, and in particular, Jack Nicholson's character, was primarily based on Whitey Bulger.  The interesting thing to me about Black Mass is that gangster films usually depict both sides of the criminal life, the danger and the glamor.  In this case, there is nothing glamorous about Bulger's life, setting. or the man.  Depp plays him as a very cool, but angry menace that could snap into murderous intent instantly.  Depp's makeup, sunglasses, and generally dour expression throughout the whole film make him look like a living skull, which I am sure was deliberate.  At times, it is almost distracting as he goes through the movie more like a coiled snake, ready to strike anybody or anything without a trace of emotion except anger.  The movie makes the point that his son and mother's deaths left him an angry shell, but it is almost as if he is in a red haze for the whole movie.  

Edgerton is also very good as Agent Connolly, in a role that I think will be overlooked because of its extreme unlikeability.  He is so desperate to make a name for himself, so driven to prove that he is not "Southie" gutter trash, that he unleashes this menace on Boston and protects him at all costs.  Now, one of the double-edged issues of using criminal sources is that they are criminals and will continue to do criminal things.  But they are a necessary evil for the bigger picture.  This movie, however, demonstrates a particular problem, how far should you go to protect a source?  The movie suggest Bulger strung the FBI along for some time before he gave them any actionable intelligence.  But when he did, it was a gold mine that allowed Connolly, and by extension, the FBI, to take credit for major arrests that effectively ended the mafia influence in Boston.  But as a result, they got a worse devil in Bulger, who Connolly thought he could control.  The movie doesn't explicitly say whether or not this case is why FBI agents are not allowed to work in areas they grew up, it certainly seems plausible this is why.  In any case, the movie is good and a fine entry into the gangster genre.