DIRECTOR: Anton Corbijn
CAST: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton
THE PLOT: A profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer for Joy Division whose personal, professional and romantic troubles led him to commit suicide at age 23.
BEN'S VIEWS: The story of Ian Curtis, Joy Divisions lead singer, is a tragic one and it gets appropriately depressing treatment in Anton Corbijn's above average bio-pic. If you know anything about the band Joy Division then it is no secret that Curtis took his own life right before the band was about to break through into the United States with a two week tour. This isn't a spoiler. The films point is to understand Curtis psyche (or realize that there is no understanding these things) and why he did what he did. If you are/were a fan of Joy Division then this film is a must. Any other music fans would be doing themselves a favor by seeing the film. The film does everything you would want a musician's bio-pic to do. There are plenty of Joy Division songs played throughout the film and many of them are played live by the actors. Sam Riley, who plays Curtis, does a fine job of portraying the man. He has the singers mannerisms on stage down perfectly and is able to show us some of the inner struggle Curtis was going through. The film is in black and white which is an effective technique for the dour tone. 2007 was a great year for music-related films and this one should be added to the list.
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
CAST: Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies
THE PLOT: A U.S. fighter pilots epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam war.
BEN'S VIEWS: Rescue Dawn is better than most action/adventure movies but not quite as good as you'd want it to be. Luckily, the story (which is true) is an incredible one and it's gripping enough to cover most of the flaws the film has. Rescue Dawn tells Dieter Dengler's story of survival after being shot down in Vietnam and taken to a POW camp. Christian Bale plays Dengler with a certain goofiness that is a little off-putting at first. But considering Bale is one of the best actorsof his generation I would bet on the real Dengler just being a goofy sort of guy. The real highlight performance is Steve Zahn who surprises with impressive complexity in a supporting performance. The film takes about half its running time to really grab your attention, unfortunately. But when it does it becomes pretty compelling and even a bit inspiring in the end. Highlights are a tense sequence during an attempted escape and the films final half hour. This is a solid film and well made but when there are much better Vietnam POW movies out there (The Killing Fields) this one is less than memorable.
DIRECTOR: Brian De Palma
CAST: Patrick Carroll, Izzy Diaz
THE PLOT: A montage of stories about U.S. soldiers fighting in the Iraq conflict, focusing on the modern forms of media covering the war.
BEN'S VIEWS: Redacted has great ambitions of being an in-your-face wake up call about the Iraq war. Director Brian De Palma obviously wants his film to open people's eyes to the horror of this war and change things. It's too bad he couldn't employ actors that were up for the challenge. Acting is one of the most important parts of a film, if not the most important. When acting rings false it will take the audience out of the story and make them realize they are just watching a movie. The technique that De Palma uses makes the low quality of acting all the more apparent. He attempts to film the movie with a Blair Witch fake documentary technique. The whole film is being shot by a soldier named Angel who is trying to capture his experience in Iraq on camera. This would have been fine and dandy had the actors used a naturalistic acting style, such as in Blair Witch. It is blatantly obvious that everything is scripted. So without the suspension of disbelief all we're left with are a few gruesome, shocking moments. The impact of these moments and the film as a whole would have been magnified times 10 if we believed the soldiers were real people, not actors. Kudos to De Palma for attempting something this controversial. But you can't forget the basics of filmmaking; without them a film doesn't stand a chance.
