Med City Movie Guy

"Fighting” packs quite a punch

In Fighting, the new drama from Universal Pictures starring Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard, director Dito Montiel takes us through a gritty underground New York where the detached dregs of society finance their dreams by scalping Broadway tickets, hawking counterfeit Harry Potter books, brawling in violent winner-take-all bouts and most reprehensibly of all, pay no taxes whatsoever on any of this revenue.

     For Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum), selling videos on a Times Square sidewalk is as far from the Broadway high life as his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Such is the lot for not only the unfortunate transplants to the Big Apple who eek out a subsistence far under the radar but for their handlers, as well; handlers like Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard), for example, who navigate the underground like a Sherpa navigates the Himalayas. After observing a street scuffle one afternoon, Boarden offers to guide MacArthur to a similarly high apex – for a cut. They team and MacArthur gradually fights his way to the top where the only thing between him and the score of a lifetime is his college nemesis, a seemingly unbeatable rival.
     Fighting may very well be one of the most underrated films of the year. With very little actual knock-down bloody carnage (in fact, probably no more than Rocky III), it focuses on the coarse life and survival of the iconic New York hustler made famous in many celluloid efforts not the least of which is the Academy Award-winning Midnight Cowboy, where the parallels are unmistakable.
     Howard, who most recently starred in Iron Man but whose best roles include those in Mr. Holland's Opus and The Brave One, singlehandedly drives this film to Oscar territory. His Harvey Boarden has all the charm and cadence of Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo (and even some of the accent). Tatum’s Shawn MacArthur, while not quite as naive as Jon Voight’s Joe Buck, artfully balances the duo. Perennial favorite Luis Guzman (Traffic, Carlito’s Way, Fast Food Nation) rounds out the cast.
     Filmgoers who can overlook the violent premise and unseemly life of these outsiders will find this to be one of the most insightful movies in a long time. Many already have. Fighting took the number three weekend box office spot besting even The Soloist the more anticipated Jamie Foxx / Robert Downey Jr. collaboration. Which should be some consolation for Terrance Howard who wasn't invited to reprise his role in the latter’s sequel to Iron Man.

3 Honks
MPAA Rating:  PG-13 for intense fight sequences, some sexuality and brief strong language.
 
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810048882/trailer

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"17 Again" (and again, and again, and again)

In Zac Efron’s first film since graduating from High School (“Musicals,” that is), the tween idol plays a man who gets a second chance at life when he is transformed back into his teen self. Seventeen again, hmmm, the abs are tempting, but moving back in with the parents? No thanks.

     Mike O’Donnell (Efron) hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since throwing away a basketball career to marry his high school sweetheart Scarlett (Leslie Mann). Separated from his wife, estranged from his kids and just passed-over for a promotion, he wanders back to Hayden High to relive the glory days. There he meets a mysterious janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray) who works some mojo after which O’Donnell finds himself back in his seventeen year-old body with a chance to do it all over again. Unfortunately, fate has other plans. In school, his two children are now classmates each with problems of their own making it even harder for him to rekindle a marriage that’s reached an impasse. Think Kathleen Turner’s Peggy Sue Got Married meets Drew Barrymore’s Never Been Kissed.
     On the surface, 17 Again is just another take on a plot we’ve seen again and again (Tom Hanks’ Big, Jennifer Garner’s 13 Going on 30, and Lindsay Lohan’s Freaky Friday), but there’s much more in Efron’s go-round. It’s clever, for one thing, with gags running the spectrum from wry to laugh out loud. O’Donnell’s response when first introduced as a teen: a measured pause and then, “’Sup!” His retort to a bully’s “what’re you gonna do about it?” “I’m going to call your father!” Well, maybe you have to be there, but it works.
     Efron, who is easy to dismiss as just another high-hopping pretty boy, does a great job as does Leslie Mann who’s uncomfortable “with this cougar thing.” Thomas Lennon is a standout as Ned Gold, the water boy O’Donnell protected twenty years ago, now his patron -- a wealthy software game developer who sleeps in a modified Star Wars X-34 landspeeder and pursues the school’s principal (Melora Hardin from TV’s ‘The Office’).
     In spite of almost universal panning (or because of it), 17 Again took the weekend top box office spot, besting even Russell Crowe’s latest and more critically acclaimed State of Play. Notwithstanding some overly preachy moments that parents will certainly find more entertaining than teens, there’s something here for everyone, even for the HSM fans who get about fifteen seconds of a classic Zac Efron high-energy cheer. But go anyway.

  
 
2 ½ Honks
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, some sexual material and teen partying
 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810038675/trailer

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They should have just roughed-up an Easter Bunny in “Observe and Report”

In Seth Rogen’s new film, Observe and Report, the Knocked Up star plays a heavily-armed and quick-to-taz mall security chief who just might make you think twice about refilling your Sbarro cup from the Taco Bell self-serve Pepsi machine.

     Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen) is the underappreciated head of security at the Forest Ridge Mall. By day he patrols its corridors and parking lot perimeter making them safe for both customers and cosmetic make-over artists. By night he practices for the police exam hoping one day to trade his ridiculous golf cart for a Crown Vic. The problem is: Barnhardt is the only one who takes himself seriously. A flasher on the loose, though, presents an opportunity for him to right his image. If Ronnie can take-down the “perv” before the real cops do, specifically his nemesis Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), he’ll get the girl and the academy.
     Sound familiar?
     Observe and Report is basically a raunchier version of January’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but with twice the language and none of the charm. In fact, not only are laughs too often absent, at times, this dark comedy is downright creepy. And it’s not because of the incessant language or substance abuse—Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob raised these vices to an art form—the film just misses.
     Seth Rogen does an adequate job as the schlemiel who goes overboard in his mall security gig but brings little more than the same character we’ve seen in most every one of his other movies, last year’s equally unfunny Pineapple Express for instance. The rest of the cast is a cliché: Brandi, the hot blonde (Anna Faris), Harrison, the hardnosed cop (Liotta, phoning it in), and goofy sidekick Dennis (Michael Peña). As is often the case, the biggest laugh comes from the smallest character: after being named a suspect, kiosk owner “Saddamn” accuses Barnhardt of being a racist and gets back, “Race has nothing to do with it. You fit the profile!”
     Of course it isn’t all laughs, there is a curious scene in a bad part of town where Barnhardt, left to fend for himself, remarkably bests a legion of crackheads. It’s shockingly intense but is left undeveloped. In that way, Observe and Report is like a store map with three different, “you are here” arrows. It can’t say for sure, and moviegoers never really know, where we are ... in a comedy, in a drama, or just in a really bad movie.  

 
1 Honk
MPAA Rating: R for lots of reasons

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“Adventureland” is an emotional roller coaster

In Adventureland, the new comedy from Greg Mottola, the Superbad director takes us on a nostalgic journey back to Pennsylvania in 1987 using scam midway games, rancid corn dogs and unsafe amusement park rides. Apparently, much of this movie was filmed at last year’s Olmsted County Fair. 
 
     Until his father’s untimely demotion, James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) had planned to spend the summer before grad school vacationing in Europe. Now he has to take the only job his Comparative Literature degree qualifies him for: an amusement part carny. In between bilking customers with games that are impossible to win he commiserates with those that fate, and poor choices, have brought together. One he admires (the maintenance guy Connell). One he desires (the broody Em). Others, like the ridiculous pipe-smoking Joel and jerk of a friend Frigo, are just along for the ride as James and Em sort through some very complicated relationships eventually coming to find what it is they really want from life—and what it is they can expect from it, which are often two very different things.
     Mottola hasn’t forgotten his college days working at a second-rate amusement park. Like the games he no-doubt operated, there is a bait-and-switch here, as well. While there are some laugh out loud moments (and you see them all in the trailer), Adventureland is not the comedy it purports to be. It is a heavy drama punctuated with quips that only seem humorous until you consider how truly depressing they really are. For example, when Joel (Freaks and Geeks’ Martin Starr) says he’s majoring in Russian Literature and Slavic Languages a potential girlfriend asks “what career path is that?” He responds, “Cabbie, hot dog vendor.”
     The ever Twilightful Kristen Stewart turns-in a fine performance as the introverted Em, who’s seeing Brennan, but hasn’t yet broken-off her relationship with the married Connell (Ryan Reynolds from TV’s “Two Guys and a Girl”). SNL gems Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are a scream and there is just the right amount of them (stick around for the end credits, their TV commercial is a treat).
     As a period piece, though, Adventureland is a miss. All too short sound bites of great, but atypical, songs from the era like Shannon’s “Let the Music Play,” Mary Jane Girls’ “In My House,” and David Bowie’s “Modern Love” do not an 80’s film make. That’s forgivable, especially since “Adventureland” doesn’t inflict us with shameful hackneyed remnants of the decade like “Where’s the beef?” and “Gag me with a spoon!”

 
2 Honks 
MPAA Rating: R for language, drug use and sexual references.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809942145/trailer

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