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Category: Movies
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 Title: Shooter  | views:273 |  Review by John L Ng Apr 07
Shooter is an action movie about men with guns, betrayal and revenge. A military sniper, Bob Lee Swagger, played by Mark Wahlberg, during a clandestine operation is betrayed by his superiors. He retreats to the woods, living a monastic existence with his dog and a vegetable garden. He seems at peace in solitude, but the world is not at peace or in solitude. Recruited on a pretense to foil an assassination plot, Swagger is once again betrayed. The story untwines in relentless gunfights, explosions, car chases and sprawling corpses. Volume and violence are cranked high and inexplicable when he bends on revenge.
Amazing Grace is a period movie about William Wilberforce (b.1759) who helped end the slave trade in the British Empire. To live out his faith as an evangelical Christian and social conservative, Wilberforce opens his aristocratic home to the underprivileged. He dreams of a monk’s pastoral life but is sought by friends to take part in the abolition movement. Reluctantly at first, he becomes a tireless and near fanatical crusader. His powerful political foes seek to do him and his causes harm, but we hope that good always triumphs and a good man like Wilberforce will win. The movie title is from a hymn composed by John Newton, a former slave trader and Wilberforce’s earlier year pastor and latter year mentor.
These two movies of different genres and plots have much in common in their subtexts. Both stories have to do with an individual who seeks to find meaning and significance in a very broken world. Swagger and Wilberforce are good men with good souls. They try to be good, make good and do good. However, Swagger, in a trail of betrayals, sees the world through cynical eyes. In much of the movie, he is weary, angry and always alone. He trusts no one and no one should trust him. His love interest, spunky and strong, played by Kate Mara, proves trustworthy only after much travail. Ultimately he seeks revenge with his own brand of justice. The audience is sympathetic, trusting that he is a good man and has done the right thing.
Plagued by physical maladies and many disappointments, Wilberforce is also weary of a broken world. The wind of history blows strongly and turns his mere existence topsy-turvy. He too retreats into his own sense of wellbeing. If there is cynicism in him, it is well guarded by good friends and his confidence in divine providence. Wilberforce is never alone. At home or in Parliament, there is a constant community of trusted and trusting friends who provide consolation, courage and comfort. Several brief poignant scenes with John Newton, played by Albert Finney, to find his paths shows a man who needs others and whom others need.
Both movies are good entertainment in different ways. Shooter is loud and fast. I am at the edge of my seat, tense and anxious. At the end, my innate sense of jurisprudence is instantly satisfied but not without lingering doubts after I leave the theater. Amazing Grace is quiet and slow. I am comfortable in my seat. The story has a strong whiff of Anglican piety but it is not stale. It begs me to believe that with God and a little help from friends good will ultimately win. With Wilberforce, I want to believe in the worst way. |
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| Review submitted: 2009/2/27
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| Category: Movies
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| Title: Starting Out In The Evening, 2007 / Heights, 2005 | views:187 | Reviews by John L Ng Oct 08
Starting Out In The Evening, 2007
Heights, 2005
Starting Out In The Evening is based on a Brian Morton novel by the same title. The movie is just as careful and intelligent in pacing a wonderful story as the book. The story is a study of contrasts of three people who are coping with their past and trying to get on in the present. Leonard (Frank Langella) is a retired teacher and out of print novelist. Stoic, slow and serious, he embodies a deep sense of self- awareness, acceptance and sensibility. In the soft amber of his autumn, he is trying another novel that he hopes would capture his past notoriety. His solitary life is rudely interrupted by Heather (Lauren Ambrose), a brash and unformed graduate student who wants to write a master’s dissertation on Leonard’s life and work. She also hopes to reintroduce his out of print books to her generation. Their encounter evolves into a tense but tender and loving relationship that breathes a new start for Leonard, albeit under towed by currents of sexual impulses. Ariel (Lili Taylor) is Leonard’s middle aged daughter whose desire for children and stability propels her insensibly toward an old liaison. Much of the movie occurs in the somber, early evening light of autumn in New York City’s upper Westside, a glorious analogous of inward unsettlement in outward serenity.
Heights, also in New York City in autumn but in the lower Eastside, is based on an one-act play by Amy Fox. Like Starting Out In The Evening, it is a story of several characters whose lives intersect and who seek to leave their past and move on in the present. Diana (Glenn Close), a legendary actress, is the center of this universe. She is a powerful and controlling master class. Her rehearsal to play Lady Macbeth forewarns us early of her power over others and powerlessness over fate. Isabel (Elizabeth Banks), a professional photographer, is her pretty but emotionally repressed daughter. She is engaged to an advertisement executive, Jonathan (James Marsden) who has a secret past. In the midst of her wedding planning, an old boyfriend (Matt Davis) barges into her life to offer a photojournalism opportunity of a lifetime if she postpones her marriage. She is pulled by her past but anxious to move on but can’t. Hovering nearby is Alec (Jesse Bradford), a starving and brooding actor who lives upstairs from Isabel and Jonathan and who has just auditioned for Diana. His present is somehow related to Jonathan’s past. Meanwhile, in quiet desperation, Jonathan is trying to keep Peter (John Light), a magazine writer, from exposing his past secret. Their converging lives struggle to cope with their past choices, what verdict these choices have rendered and what they long for.
The people in both stories are good people who are doing the best they can. Not happy with what they have become, they are trying to get on in the present. Everyone hurts and is hurting. But no one kicks, howls or screams. They only recoil into their quiet desperation and whimper in private. They hurt and are hurting because they can’t have what they want. As the Rolling Stones sing, “. . . you can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you might find what you need. . . .” Indeed. During pre-marital counseling, Jonathan’s rabbi says to him, “You cannot change the past. But you can speak the truth and move on from there.” No one has the power to change the past. The best anyone can do is to try to forgive those, including ourselves, in our past. When we are willing to face the truth of our past, then perhaps we are able to face our present. The two stories do not end neatly and tidily. Not all are willing or able to face up to the truth. When they don’t, their inability or unwillingness renders them impotent in moving on from there.
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| Review submitted: 2009/2/27
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