Mud

Possession is 9/10 of the Law
or
Lookin' for Love in All the Wrong Places

The last film that Jeff Nichols wrote and directed was the very interesting, very odd, and quite layered Take Shelter.  His latest Mud is part coming-of-age movie, part Southern Gothic, part classic romance and part tragedy and complete curiosity.  It features a couple of great kid performances and a top-tier cast supporting them.

Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland play two tweeners living on the Mississippi River.  They're a couple of restless kids who hired help in their families, but with minimal supervision, have the freedom to sneak out at night exploring.  On one of those pre-dawn excursions they motor over to an island and find a wonder—a boat nestled in a tree.  Checking it out, they're in for a shock.  Someone's living there.  

That someone is Mud (Matthew McConaughey) who is eking out an existence there.  How he got there is a mystery.  Why he's there is not.  He's killed a man, who was messing with the girl he loves, and that man has a powerful family (led by Joe Don Baker).  He's hiding out, waiting for word from Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), and when he hears, they'll run off together, where...well, that's a little unspecific.  In the meantime, he uses the little go-betweeners to get food, supplies, and word out, that includes to one of Ellis' (Sheridan) neighbors, a solitary man named Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), who Mud labels "an assassin." Blankenship calls Mud a liar, making Ellis slightly conflicted; he's willing to do anything for Mud in his quixotic quest, out of a young man's puppy-love instincts, in part a response to the fracturing marriage of his parents (Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson) and his own interactions with "townie" girls, particularly May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant).

It's to Ellis' advantage that he and "Neckbone" (Lofland) are under the radar of everybody's notice, his parents have other concerns and Neckbone's uncle (Michael Shannon) is in his own little world, so the two boys go back and forth between mainland and island with messages and supplies, which becomes increasingly complex when Mud decides he's going to get that boat out of the tree.  And Ellis in his come-to-the-rescue way to interfere when one of the goons keeping an eye on Juniper gets aggressive with her trying to get information about Mud's whereabouts.

Things begin to spiral out of control to a conclusion that can't come to any good, despite everyone's best and worst intentions, due to the breaking of borders between the insular natures of the players.

But, there's something else going on here that creeps like an adder through the Louisiana swamp, something to do with misogyny.  Maybe it's just the timing of events—no accidental as it's all in the control of the writer-director—but all the problems seem to generate from the war between men and women.  The women here—Juniper, Ellis' mom, May Pearl—have an edge of capriciousness and undependability (in the males' eyes, anyway) that derails their plans and dreams.  The men are hardly blameless, going through their lives with their eyes wide shut, totally aware that the women in their lives may prove disastrous in the short term, quixotically playing the hero or the rescuer, anyway.  Everybody has some romantic view of life that is not theirs, and their pursuit of it proves their undoing.  One leaves the theater with the sense of a good story well told, but with a stake through the heart in the futility of good intentions.  One wants the waters of life to be smooth and transparent, but the reality of it is that it's the consistency of the movie's title.

Mud is a Matinee.

Genre/Gender-Bending with Mr. Soderbergh

Haywire (Steve Soderbergh, 2011) Fairly standard actioner about a wet-ops unit for hire, and one particular freelancer who's beginning to suspect harmful links between gigs, directed by Soderbergh (written by past collaborator Lem Dobbs), with some unusual qualities of note.  For one, the director stages his fights like they were dance sequences from an M-G-M musical—full-frame/full-figure (but without the Lion Studio's "stage" angle on the axis of the central figures).  There are no tight shots, tight editing, it's all composed of mis-en-scene, rather than montage, just an angle/reverse angle one-two parrying between perspectives.  It's tough, athletic, and the only real reason to cut away is if something goes wrong—a fluffed punch, or bad timing that creates a lull in the fight or a disconnect with "reality."  There's no "lull" between hits because the way the altercations are staged you never see the connections, and there's no simulation of connection, because they're composed mostly of gymnastics, wrestling and fast action—the opposite of The Bourne Identity style of rapid cutting and implication of "hits." Soderbergh does something different with this style, while accomplishing the same intensity of the edit-dependent fisticuffs of the last few years.  The most critical part, however, is who's doing the fighting, and that's where Haywire is really different and utterly dependent on its athletic lead.

Gina Carano, mixed martial artist—and frequent participant in "American Gladiator"—plays Mallory Kane, and she is disciplined enough to pull off the fight sequences with a savage speed.  Any actress can train to look convincing, but Carano has the moves down for her character who is supposed to be a berserker weapon of mass-destruction, so there's rarely a cut-away or an insert shot to betray the use of stunt-doubles.  There aren't any.  So, Soderbergh (who also shot the film) keeps his camera out of the way and keeps everything and everybody in frame as best he can.  We've seen women in fights before—fights with men (Tarantino loves to do that)—but it's slightly unnerving to see these, knowing full well that everything was done in-camera, with few editing tricks.  The speed makes it a bit more visual—there's no 1/4 second adjustment/orientation lag between cuts—and more upsetting initially, but one does, as the fighting continues for minutes unabated, used to it (except for the question of what kind of make-up she uses to hide the bruising).

Because Carano is largely unknown except for her MMA career—she's fine in her dramatic scenes, just not great (but then, have I ever complained about Jet Li or Jason Statham's acting?)—the cast is a little top-heavy with big-name victims...Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender (the latter doing a fine riff on Bond coolness—of course, he gets his ass kicked in the film's best fight), Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas.  Nobody is required to do anything beyond displaying detached coolness.  But the internal logic is there, so at least this one is a better example for the experiment than, say, Salt.

The girl breaks bones and furniture.

Welcome to the Crazy Club!
or
The Moon's Just a Cheap Shot Away


And what's good for the goose...

Soderbergh's next film after Haywire (if we don't count his second-unit work for The Hunger Games), also goes against the grain in the traditional genre/gender roles that we come to expect in movies—a dance/backstage drama movie, but with male leads.  Magic Mike is Flashdance with testosterone, the only thing missing is the "if you give up your dreams, you die" line.  Here, the basic dream is moving out of Tampa, Florida...to a bigger venue, or a better life.   The clutch of male strippers each have their own motivations—mostly money—and for them, the gig is a better alternative than slogging through a 9 to 5 job, wearing a tie.  So, at night, they dance, flirt, tease, and as club owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) "pry the cash out of their purses."

We're introduced to the skin-trade by Adam (Alex Pettyfer) irresponsible brother of Brooke (Cody Horn), who makes a good enough living for him to sponge off by having a steady job dealing with medical claims.  At a construction job that he's ill-equipped for, he runs into Mike Lane (Channing Tatum), who, despite seeing Adam as a loser, takes him under his wing, giving him a job as a "gopher" for the Xquisite dance club, where Mike, he finds to his surprise, is a featured dancer.  Well, you know how these backstage stories go: one of the performers can't go on-stage—he's passed out from a growth hormone overdose, and so Adam must make his stripper debut.  Dallas and Mike watch from the wings and simultaneously offer an opinion: "Can't dance worth shit." "But..that..can..be..taught," replies Dallas.

Wish the rest of it could be.  It'd save us all a bunch of time.  Mike's the hero of the tale, the veteran, "the guy most-together," but Adam is the neophyte and must go through the unfulfilling one-nighters, the drug problems, the crack-ho relationship, the debts to the hood-pushers, the spiral down to the bottom.  Mike just goes home to a brewsky and a night of uncrinkling his Benjamins on the edge of his self-designed furnishings (the establishment of such a business is his dream).  He's the cleverest of the bunch—Tatum developed the story based on his own experiences dancing in Tampa, so naturally he's the cleverest—and he's the most romantic of the bunch, mooning over a past-patron (Olivia Munn*) and very interested in Adam's sister.  He probably stays around being The Kid's Obi-Wan just to keep her in the picture, because there's only so many times you can say "You don't want that in your life, bro'" before it gets tiresome.

It does, but it could be a lot worse.  It could be "Showboys," and in outline form it resembles it, but it avoids the smarmy camp quality of that film by having a sense of humor about itself** and what it is (and what it doesn't aspire to, which is anything with an overt message) and it stresses the economic times that drop the unskilled (but ripped) into such night-work (day-jobs being rather scarce, especially when you party until 4 am) without having any pretensions about suffering for your art.  And the performances are fine, especially Tatum and McConaughey, who clearly relishes playing an out-and-out bad-boy with no shame.  But, all the men throw themselves into the roles of buck-a-throw sex-objects, with a brio and swagger that's fun to watch—as long as nobody takes it for anything more.  

It's the old "show-biz is a rough road, kids" movie, but with a "y" chromosome in the script of its DNA, a morality tale with enough immorality to make it worth watching.  And it's a healthy thing for Soderbergh (or anybody) to be turning the tables on these themes with their built-in sexism—even if the tables have some dancing on them.

Magic Mike is an immodestly modest Rental.

The boys break rules (but not twenties)

* Interesting role for her.  She plays a woman who plays with Mike like a boy-toy for jollies, but he finds, much to his dismay, that she does not consider him someone to bring home to meet Mom and Dad.  Dude...(if I can use the language of the film) Why do you think you never went over to her place??  As they might say in Showgirls "Denial's not just a river in Egypt, honey..."

** Reviews and synopses are saying it's a comedy-drama, though.  No.  No, it's not.  It's a light drama (with sprinkles of heaviness) and some clever writing here and there.  Maybe that hyphenate was there to attract the ladies (as if all the beef-cake and pretty boys wasn't enough).

Tropic Thunder

"Nobody Goes Full-Retard"

There's a good idea in Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder," a comic story about a trio of self-indulgent actors making a Viet-Nam era war film. By a Machiavellian director's conceit, they end up abandoned in a jungle pursued by drug traffickers, with nothing but their persona's to protect them.* The film tosses in more inside jokes than a "Scary Movie" installment, and some of them turn out to be actually funny.

The trouble is the film itself is top-lined by self-indulgent actors all vying for screen-time to see how broadly they can play their parts. It's meant to be satire, and it's plenty satirical, as long as Stiller, Downey, Black and Cruise are making fun of the Hollywood excesses of...other actors.** But one is reminded of a less-disciplined, unfunny version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" in the broadness of the playing, and heavy-handedness with which its presented. Imagine "Dr. Strangelove" if every performance had the wing-nut intensity of George C. Scott's. "Tropic Thunder" brays and screeches constantly, it's soundtrack thudding with an annoying loudness for scenes even taking place in the quiet of night. There might have been some worry on the studio's part about letting the movie breathe, or fear that the pace might slacken. All well and semi-good. But it gives the film the light and airy feeling of a train barrelling into a brick wall. And the frenetic style and the frequent unintelligibility of the actors makes it a frustrating movie-going experience.

Still, there are moments: the movie starts with a commercial and previews for films featuring the characters in the film, and they are inspired little mini-movies that skewer trailer-style, as well as Hollywood hype. None too subtle, but they're mercifully short and focused. Then there's the performance of Matthew McConaughey, as the distracted agent of Stiller's Tugg Speedman, a breezy graceful performance that's funny and relaxed, but just as nuanced as the other, more aggressive performances.

At the opposite end of the scale is Cruise's studio-headcase Les Grossman. Made up with a balding pate and fat-suit, it's played with a giddily vulgar intensity that's pure hyper-Cruise; one wonders if Tom can play a real human being anymore, or for that, even recognize one. Still, it's quite the artery-popping performance.

But ultimately one is left with a bunch of absurdist little off-ramps that go no where, as in the dramatic send-up typical of the testosterone-weeper when Tugg implores Lazarus, "You tell the world what happened here!"

A puzzled look passes over Lazarus' face: "What happened here?"

"I don't know" is the reply.

I found myself laughing at the vacuousness of the exchange, but now, in retrospect, I regret it. Maybe I was desperate for a laugh at that point.

At one point Speedman and Lazarus are discussing acting techniques, and the former brings up a disastrous attempt at a feel-good Oscar-bait film playing a disabled person. "Everybody knows you don't go full-retard," says Lazarus. "Autistic, yes. Imbecilic, yes. Full-retard, no."

And yet they made this movie, anyway.

"Tropic Thunder" is a cable-watcher.

*What's really funny about the script is the cribbing of the making of "Apocalypse Now." Back in the early stages of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film factory, the plan was for screenwriter John Milius and director George Lucas to make the film "guerrilla-style" by actually dropping the actors and a skeleton crew in Viet-Nam to make the movie. Today, Lucas admits the idea was crazy. Milius still imagines it as a lost opportunity for adventure.

** It's pretty obvious who is being made fun of here: Stiller makes a wicked stab at Cruise mannerisms, Downey is tweaking Russell Crowe and heavy-method actors--his Aussie Kirk Lazarus undergoes treatments to turn his skin black and never breaks character from a dialect straight out of Amos n' Andy, and Jack Black is one of the long line of overweight, drug-addicted comedians on a short fuse. And though Cruise has cause to lampoon Summer Redstone, his movie mogul is more in the Weinstein mode (and is supposedly based on Stiller's production partner Stuart Cornfeld).

Wilhelm Alert: @ 2:25 into the film proper (if you can call it that)