LOCKE Review

Much is required not only of Tom Hardy in director Steven Knight's Locke, but from the audience as well in which I mean it isn't for the the likes of everyone. As someone who is deeply entrenched in the world of movies, where they've been, are currently at and where the trends point them towards going it is always nice to see a film take a certain amount of risk and to see it pay off is even more rewarding. I realize that not everyone will see the merit not only in Hardy's highly nuanced performance, but in what it actually takes to maintain interesting, compelling drama for nearly an hour and a half without resorting to anything more than a man in his car and the world he once knew falling down around him, but Locke illustrates brilliantly how it can take very little to create something of significant impact. There is hardly a minute of this film where Hardy is not on screen and when he's not we are only given brief moments to take in the dimly lit highways of England as Hardy's Ivan Locke makes his way towards London. Even Locke himself is barely able to focus on the road and the world around him because his mind only has the bandwidth to deal with a certain amount of things, granted they are highly emotional items, and in the case of this particular night where we meet him and stay with him in real time he is performing a balancing act of personal and professional tasks that see both of them going nowhere but a place he least expected to end up. It is a bleak film, with a dim color palette and ambiguous atmosphere where all of the information we are able to gather is from our titular character and those he speaks with on the phone. It is not so much what an accomplishment Locke is in terms of pulling off what it did with its restraints, but more that it was able to do so much with them. Within these confinements Knight and Hardy were able to pull off what doesn't feel like a stunt for the sake of attempting something daring but instead have crafted a film that feels as if it is all the better for using the elements it has to build the suspense and create the right kind of mood for which to most honestly convey this story to the audience. It is actually a thing of wonder as I remember being so doubtful of a similar premise four years ago with Buried, but was as almost impressed with how well it was pulled off as I am here, almost.

SAVING MR. BANKS Review

There is just that something that comes with movies about making movies and how the behind the scenes dynamics somehow connect more and serve as dramatic material in their own right that gives, at least certain audience members, a rush of fascination especially when paired with a film or some other piece of pop culture that has become a mainstay over time. There is no doubt that the 1964 Mary Poppins film has become a soft spot for generations of children that have fallen in love with the songs and the characters that are now iconic, but what many people even fail to realize is that Mary Poppins herself was not the creation of the Disney studios and it's figurehead Walt Disney, but instead of a small English woman by the name of P. L. Travers who took the nanny very seriously as she was more than a fictional character to her creator but the heart and soul of her childhood that would shape the woman she became and the code she would live by. This is made apparent in Saving Mr. Banks until the terribly particular author comes in contact with Mr. Disney and is able to find common ground with a man who'd made his fortune from portraying himself and pumping out products that conveyed the happiest man the world could offer. There is a complex relationship at the heart of this film that gives us not only a look at the shaping of one of Walt Disney's productions in the latter half of his career, but it also chronicles the creative process in a way that you realize the depths to which some people hold onto moments past in their life and how it inspires what is the centerpiece of their existence to the point they find it hard to let go, to let it become something new and how that can both be a weight lifted and a new burden all at once. I began the film, excited to see what was in store for the audience as, obviously, I love movies and so I love movies that detail the industry and how other movies are made, but as we are introduced to Miss. Travers and her constant scrutiny I was at first repulsed by the way in which she not only treated the people involved in the production, but everyone around her to which she is then somehow able to become a more respectable figure whose complexities don't excuse her attitude, but endear her more to the audience which is credit fully due to the performance of Emma Thompson.

THE LONE RANGER Review

It's hard to complain about a movie when you know so much hard work and care went into the production of it. The movie adaptation of The Lone Ranger has traveled a long and rugged road in order to reach the big screen and along the way I'm sure has seen many more tribulations than the common cinephile has been exposed to. As the whispers of production issues didn't come into play with World War Z's box office success a few weeks ago I was hoping the highly-publicized budgetary problems with Gore Verbinski's latest might play out the same way, but where the reviews were surprisingly glowing for the Max Brooks adaptation it almost seems critics were ready to jump on this latest Johnny Depp adventure before it was even out of the gate. Quite the opposite happened last summer when hopes were high for the Depp/Tim Burton collaboration Dark Shadows, but released only a week after The Avengers the film was lost in the shuffle and word of mouth was not kind. Still, I found myself enjoying the film rather immensely and have since re-watched it more than once on blu-ray trying to find what was so repulsive about it. I can't help but feel the same way about The Lone Ranger. I can certainly see where some of the criticism is coming from. The biggest issue the film faces is that of a tone and pacing crisis. There is never anything that jump starts the film and allows the audience to settle into their seats and enjoy the adventure about to take place and while there are fits and starts of rather harsh violence the film predominantly tries to take a comedic if not mostly slapstick approach to things. These kind of blunt tonal shifts can sometimes take us out of the experience we are trying to become a part of, but in the end it would be a disservice to this film and the people who might count on your opinion to decide if they'll see it or not to call this a bad movie. It is not a bad movie, it is a beautifully shot film with a layered story and some fine performances. It took a while to get going and though it doesn't really find its stride until the last half hour, one has to at least ask themselves what did they expect? It certainly couldn't have been much better than what we've been given.