IMPERIUM Review

There have been a number of different, interesting, and downright strange roles Daniel Radcliffe has taken in what publicly has felt like an attempt to distance himself from the role that will forever define him, but Radcliffe seems a smart enough fella to understand and realize that no matter what movies he makes in his post-Harry Potter years that it is "the boy who lived" that he will forever be most known for. Rather than necessarily distancing himself from that role, Radcliffe seems more intent on exploring territory he never was able to during his years at Hogwarts. Whether that be Allen Ginsberg, a guy with mysterious horns sprouting out of his head, or a farting corpse-Radcliffe has ventured into areas that even the fearless Mr. Potter might have had some trepidation towards. There is no exception with Radcliffe's latest film as the actor portrays Nate Foster in a story inspired by real-life FBI agent Michael German, who helped co-write the script with director Daniel Ragussis. How is Foster different than anything Radcliffe has played before if he's simply an FBI agent you ask? Well, after displaying the necessary skills in the eyes of higher-up Angela Zamparo (Toni Collette) to go undercover Zamparo requests Foster infiltrate a radical white supremacy terrorist group. In short, Radcliffe is a skinhead in a role that asks him to play with the moral complexities of remaining true to the identity he has assumed while attempting to navigate this dangerous world without forgetting the principles that brought him to this line of work in the first place. It is a role worth salivating over for sure, but the question with such potential in a leading role is will the movie itself be able to keep up with what this intriguing character is doing on its own. With Imperium, the answer is 50/50. Though there are plenty of tense moments via Ragussis' script that come with the nature of the subject matter and a few sequences that test the resolve of Radcliffe's Foster it is largely Radcliffe's performance that brings the otherwise meandering narrative to possess real purpose. It isn't necessarily that the plot is bad as it follows a somewhat standard undercover storyline where the viewer can't help but feel our protagonist is under suspicion because we know the truth thus giving way to moments when that protagonist puts on display why they were chosen for such a mission. Beyond the routine story beats though, is there something the film is trying to say? It feels like there is and that there should be with Imperium, but what exactly those things are never come across.

First Trailer for IMPERIUM Starring Daniel Radcliffe

After seeing Daniel Radcliffe last week in Swiss Army Man it was difficult to imagine the actor going further out on a limb to distance himself from the role that will always define him and yet now we have a trailer for Radcliffe's next film and while it certainly might not be initially as strange as playing a farting corpse it could definitely prove as challenging. In director Daniel Ragussis' new film, Imperium, Radcliffe plays a neo-Nazi. Before you get too concerned, Radcliffe is actually playing Nate Foster, a young, idealistic FBI agent who goes undercover to take down the radical right-wing terrorist group, but nonetheless-most of what you see in the trailer is skinhead Radcliffe. All of that said, while some aspects look rather generic, the film looks like it has a fair amount of intensity to it and could be a fairly exciting drama if not exactly the type of entertainment one necessarily likes to use to escape. With director Ragussis not having much of a filmography and only this first look trailer to gauge exactly what we'll be getting I can only hope and assume that the film not only tackles the obvious conflicts one would have with going undercover as a white supremacist, but having to deal with the psychology of those who truly believe in and live their lives by what they believe in even if it is as crazy as their own race being superior to another. There are definitely a few moments in the trailer to make us believe this is the case and that much of the film might deal in the contacts Radcliffe's character makes and how the nurturing of these types of individuals only continues to breed ignorant mindsets, but we'll have to wait and see if Ragussis is more of a layered and thoughtful filmmaker or if he is here purely for the action such characters can provide. Imperium also stars Toni Collette, Tracy Letts, Nestor Carbonell, Burn Gorman, Sam Trammell, and opens on August 19th, 2016.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS Review

What makes The Fault in Our Stars such a massive yet precise story is that in its universal themes we find the story of young love. You can call young love universal as everyone's lives have no doubt been touched with some slight experience of it. To couple that young love with the less innocent, more universally crushing realities of knowing someone who suffers from the malady we call cancer make it all the more affecting. The Fault in Our Stars, a film based on a young adult novel that features a different kind of lead female heroine is not so much a story intent on making you cry, but at the very least intent on making you realize. As written by John Green we experience the trials and tribulations of being a teenager with cancer through the eyes of Hazel Grace Lancaster. Hazel Grace, as she is so lovingly and consistently referred to by the great star-crossed love of her life, is a highly articulate and intelligent young woman whose diagnosis (because to say battle or fight would be to label the situation as something it so clearly isn't in the way we typically think of those terms) has allowed her serious perspective for her age. For Hazel everything is about perspective and everything that consumes her life is a measure of leaving as little hurt as possible behind when, not if, she dies. This selflessness is admirable and we understand her reasoning despite the fact our natural tendencies are to make sure we leave some kind of legacy, but it is this string of thought, and this need to feel substantial that comes to form the backbone of the relationship that develops between Hazel and Augustus Waters. As a film, this story is still able to exist solely within the view of Hazel and how she appropriately approaches her world. As she tells her story there is never a sense of pretension or ingenuity that would strike one of expounding these ideas on others solely for the satisfaction of the attention it might receive. Hazel's ideas instead simply relay a story that meant a lot to her as Peter Van Houten and his novel, An Imperial Affliction, did for her. She doesn't need the acknowledgments or the congratulations to know she and her love story are appreciated. It is in the power that has come in the form of the real-world reaction to this material that we believe in Hazel Grace and that the tears she causes come from the most sincere of places.

First Trailer for THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

The Fault in Our Stars is a book I will soon be reading as I've just finished Divergent and intend on completing that series before the release of the first film in March. It will no doubt be disarming to read these two vastly different novels while picturing the same actor inhabiting both leading roles, but if the first trailer for the John Green adaptation is any indication Shailene Woodley has somehow seemed to pull off a performance that will in no way be hindered by her showing as a tough, dystopian soldier a few months prior to this films release. Another disarming factor is that while The Fault in Our Stars is clearly a love story, albeit an unconventional one, the male lead of Gus will be played by Ansel Elgort who portrays Woodley's brother in Divergent. I don't know that it will be weirder than seeing her prior love interest in The Spectacular Now, Miles Teller, as her sworn enemy in Peter in Divergent, but it will certainly be a competition. Why Woodley has decided to include many of these same people in all of these major projects she has landed as of late can hopefully only be attributed to the fact she has great chemistry with them. Again, if this first trailer is any indication that would seem to be the reasoning why. As I've yet to read The Fault in Our Stars I cannot comment on how well it seems to capture the tone and convey the story, but simply as a movie taken at face value I am interested in seeing how this turns out simply because of the performances the trailer hints at and the relationship at the heart of the story. This could easily be taken as a sappy and overly-sentimental akin to a Nicholas Spark film, but the wit, the realism and the accuracy in the depiction of the characters are what made Green's novel a smash and the film seems primed to do the same. The Fault in Our Stars also stars Willem Dafoe, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Mike Birbiglia, Emily Peachey and opens June 6th.