Contagion

Films about infectious diseases typically try to make it easy for the audience to relate.  Maybe a madman is trying to infect the others (12 Monkeys), or the quarantining of an area puts your loved ones at risk (The Crazies), or people stop acting nice when survival is on the line (28 Days Later).  Contagion takes the relatively novel approach of not giving the audience a straw man to hate.  Instead, this is a thoughtful, realistic story that is not sensationalized.  But does that make for a movie you want to see?

Two days after returning home from Hong Kong on a business trip, Beth Emhoff's (Gwyneth Paltrow) nasty cold escalates from coughing and looking ugly to seizing and death.

Death: When you're too ugly to live

She's not alone.  Her son died less than two days after being exposed to whatever the hell his mother had, and cases pop up in Hong Kong and London, as well.  This mysterious disease appears to be highly contagious and kills in a matter of days, but there is worse news: with airline travel, the disease quickly becomes a pandemic, reaching most major metropolitan areas before anything can be organized to stop its spread.  Some people, like Beth's husband, Mitch (Matt Damon), are immune to the disease, thanks to a lucky genetic twist.

"I get it.  She's dead.  I've got an owwie on my soul.  Do I get a lollipop?"

Most others are not.  For instance, the mortality rate of Academy Award winners appears to be 50%.  It is up to the Center For Disease Control's main man, Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), and his team to figure out what the disease is, how it is spread, and ultimately how to stop it. 

"Relax...you won't die.  You're just part of the Matrix"

That means that there are researchers working around the clock in horribly unflattering hazmat suits, trying to decode this virus.  The military are worried that this might be biological warfare.  Obnoxious conspiracy bloggers like Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) see this as an elaborate get-rich-quick scheme by a government and pharmaceutical industry that are supposedly working hand-in-glove.  CDC workers try to pinpoint where the disease began by tracking who encountered who once Beth Emhoff returned to the US, as well as when she was in Hong Kong.  People keep getting sick and people keep dying, leading to riots, supply shortages, and a general breakdown of civilization in some areas.  The world just plain sucks, but there are silver linings around every cloud.  Hopefully, the silver isn't poisonous mercury.

I'd wear a raincoat, just the same

Contagion was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and it is obvious from the very first that this one of his "Issue" movies.  The storytelling style and camerawork are often reminiscent of Traffic, but without the complex moral dilemmas.  Of course, that film had the benefit of moral decisions in the plot, while Contagion is more about survival.  Not having a humanoid enemy makes a big difference, doesn't it?  It's not that I disliked Soderbergh's direction here; it is simply pretty standard fare for a movie with so many interlinking plots.  The one bit of artistic flair that you will see from the director comes when he focuses on what sick people have touched --- I thought that was a clever bit of work that showed how vulnerable everyone is to a disease that is spread through the germs we leave via physical contact.  Soderbergh also deserves some credit for getting such a noteworthy cast into so many small roles, even if some of the actors were underutilized.

Speaking of the actors,even with such a large cast, the heart of the story was dependent on just one.  Matt Damon was very good as the surviving husband of patient zero; normally, a role like this would be painful to watch, since the character is essentially grieving for the whole film, but Damon handled it beautifully with a believable and sympathetic performance.  Jude Law probably leaves the second biggest impression as the closest thing to a villain that the movie has.  He was slimy, despicable and annoying.  I thought it was interesting that the film portrayed a blogger with such power and reach, and yet made sure to make him a complete douche bag.

Complete with his matching suit

Most of the rest of the cast was solid, but their parts weren't spectacular.  Kate Winslet and Laurence Fishburne were good.  Elliot Gould, Bryan Cranston, Demetri Martin, John Hawkes, and just about everybody else's parts basically amounted to cameos.  Even Gwyneth Paltrow and Marion Cotillard, who are featured on all the posters and commercials are barely in the movie.

Unless Cotillard was actually kidnapped during filming, in which case I'm a jerk

Looking back, I kind of want to criticize Contagion for focusing so much on the plot and not enough on the characters, given the excellent cast and Soderbergh's ability to make ensemble casts work.  But that's not really fair.  Soderbergh set out to make a frighteningly plausible film about a pandemic in the modern world, and he succeeded.  The film is disturbing at the very least and horrifying if you're anything close to a hypochondriac.  The straightforward tone of the narrative makes sure the effect of the plot on your intellect isn't diluted by a sappy love story or anything like that.  While something more character-based certainly would have made for a more entertaining film, that's not the point of Contagion.  This film was meant to be as realistic as it could be, and it succeeds. 

The message of Contagion is clear: we are not ready, and probably never will be prepared for a true pandemic.  We are damned lucky that the worst thing we have had to deal with is the bird flu.  That message is clear.  In terms of delivering a message, this film definitely succeeds.  However, it's surprisingly dry and emotionally remote for a subject that can hit so close to home.  I like the basic idea of Contagion.  I like the acting.  I like most of the direction.  Unfortunately, something doesn't add up; this is a well-made film with purpose that somehow finds a way to underwhelm.  Of course, that's compared to what you might expect from so many big names in one movie.  It's not perfect, but it's still worth a watch.  Those of you who are nervous about germs and sickness...you might want to take a pass.

Syriana

 Syriana is a challenging film to watch.  Its title alone --- which I don't believe the movie ever directly addresses --- refers to the idea of people or countries molding other nation-states however they see fit, and the hubris behind such thinking.  As you might have guessed, this isn't a romantic comedy.

The plot behind Syriana, while comprehensible, is very complex, so I'm not going to waste any time detailing it.  It would take me forever and you wouldn't want to read it anyway, since this is a film where paying attention to the story is the only way not to get lost.  The basic idea is that the world dependency on foreign oil is bad for a number of reasons.  Way to take a stand, Hollywood.  It also addresses the need for oil states to develop their own identities, the effectiveness of the CIA, and the costs/benefits of high-level corruption.  What makes Syriana interesting is that it chooses to handle these issues simultaneously, so we can see how each issue impacts another.  You won't see how everything fits together for some time, as there are four storylines that exist largely independent of each other until the final quarter of the movie.  When they dovetail together, though, you are left with something to think about.  Or not.  One thing that everyone can agree on is that this is definitely not an action movie.

I did a Google Image search for "syriana action" and found this.

The cast of Syriana is shockingly noteworthy, although many of these actors do not get a whole lot of screen time.  George Clooney won his only Oscar for his role as a CIA agent who specializes in protecting American interests in the Middle East.  The big news with his performance here is that Clooney gained some weight and a beard to play the part; I don't know how much that impacts his character.  Was this an Oscar-winning performance?  Eh.  It's a fine effort among an ensemble cast, but I don't find it particularly outstanding.  Matt Damon is also fine as a consultant hired by the prince of the oil-rich emirate to make the nation more fiscally sound.  His character is also handling marital issues and a family tragedy, so Damon has the opportunity to show off some complex skills in this film; I thought he did a very good job, given the businesslike script.  Jeffrey Wright plays a lawyer that has been hired to smooth the way for an enormous oil company to merge with a smaller one that has cornered a key market; his job is convince the antitrust people that the merger is corruption-free.  I like seeing Wright in key supporting roles, but I thought his character here was a too void of emotions.  I never really had a sense of his character, and the recurring attempt to give him depth just felt clumsy.  Those are the big three, as far as characters in this movie go.  None of them are fascinating in their own right, but they are all quite believable as ordinary people that are good at their respective jobs.

This is not Ocean's 14

There is a fourth storyline that addresses the plight of immigrant workers in the Middle East and the allure of militant Islam.  Of the three actors in this story, only the missile-buying militant (Amr Waked) acts with any sort of regularity, and it shows.  The two innocent youngsters are played by two innocent actors without much more than half a dozen visible emotions between them.

And then there's the rest of the cast.  In George's storyline, William Hurt does his typical good acting thing as a confidant and Mark Strong plays a very very bad man.  Both roles are easily within the acting range of these men, but it was nice to see them handled so well.  In Damon's story, Amanda Peet plays his wife; while not a particularly strong role, she didn't screw it up, which is much better than Peet's leading roles.  I thought Alexander Siddig was very likable as the progressive-minded Prince Nassir, possibly the most positive portrayal of a Middle Eastern Muslim I have seen in years.  In Wright's story, Chris Cooper plays a domineering business owner with an abrasive personality (shocker!), Christopher Plummer is one of those white men who like to be the power behind the throne, David Clennon is interested in corruption, and Tim Blake Nelson plays a corrupt oilman.  Of all these capable actors, only Nelson delivers anything exceptional.  He gives a speech about corruption (he's unapologetically pro-corruption, by the way) that was the highlight of the movie for me.  I would show a video clip of his rant, but apparently nobody on the internet cares about TBN (as his buddies undoubtedly call him) laying some truth down on Jeffrey Wright.  I was able to find my favorite scene of his from O Brother, Where Art Thou? though:


This is a difficult movie to direct, I'm sure, and I thought that Stephen Gaghan did a respectable job here.  I do not believe he got any great performances out of his wealth of actors (with the exception of Nelson), but he did do a good job piecing this film together in a comprehensible whole.  He doesn't dumb down the story (which was loosely based on See No Evil, a memoir by an ex-CIA agent), instead choosing to overwhelm viewers with the plot.  That choice may alienate some viewers, and that's understandable.  Personally, I was able to follow along, even though I was irritated by his seemingly arbitrary choices on when to cut to another storyline, which storyline to cut to, and when to include a caption on the screen to indicate where it was taking place.  The film looks decent enough, although the camera work is nothing special.  That's not too surprising, since Gaghan is an award-winning writer, not a director; he co-wrote this movie, as well as Traffic.

As much as I appreciate what Syriana does right --- an interesting and relevant political story, interweaving plot threads, and moral shades of gray --- there are just too many things that it does wrong or simply avoids to make it a great movie.  The only character in the film that has a full character arc is Clooney's, and that development is mostly off-camera and is cut short.  There are so many characters and so little time given to them that it was hard to care about any.  I realize that, as a plot-driven "issue" movie, that isn't really the point of the film.  I also don't care.  There are three potentially interesting stories in this film (the terrorists-in-training one was predictable and dull) and all three had the acting talent to make them work.  The fact that this isn't an acting tour de force (or at least fun to watch) is almost criminal.  There are five Oscar winners involved with this movie, and the best scene features Tim Blake Nelson monologuing?  That makes no damn sense, and I like Nelson.

Not as much as Lisa does, though.

I also didn't find the story to be particularly revelatory.  Maybe I'm cynical, but the CIA trying to control foreign governments to get America what resources it needs sounds pretty accurate.  The stuff of bastards?  Sure.  But it makes sense, from a "me first and screw everyone else" point of view.  Nelson's speech was the only interesting take on these issues in the whole movie, and that's a shame because I think this could have been so much more interesting.  The whole story with Damon and Siddig had potential --- how to introduce political and socioeconomic change effectively within an orthodox Islamic culture has relevance, right? --- but didn't have enough time to develop on its own.  Clooney's CIA agent (with a heart of gold) could have had his own movie.  Wright's legal storyline takes on thriller overtones as soon as his boss starts playing king maker.  But when you squeeze these stories into one (well-edited, mind you) movie, they don't have room to grow.  Syriana has some great ideas in it, but the barrage of plot simply distracts you from the fact that you can't care for any of these characters.

Ocean's Eleven

Now this is how you should remake a movie.  Taking the basic idea of an eleven-man Vegas heist from the 1960 Rat Pack original, Ocean’s Eleven discards most of the other story elements in favor of presenting an overwhelming sense of coolness.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has a plan to do the impossible.  He wants to rob not one, not two, but three Las Vegas casinos at the same time; no one has ever successfully robbed a single casino, much less three.  Of course, it helps that he doesn’t like the owner of those three casinos, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), or that Terry is now dating Danny’s ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts).  Yes, Danny has the master plan, but he needs help.  A lot of help, all of it talented, and each person playing parts in multiple cons that will all factor together to achieve the big prize of stealing $160+ million from Terry Benedict’s ridiculously theft-proof vault.  Can Danny rob the vault and win back Tess?  Do you really care?  This is a heist movie, and it’s all about the con.

When you're risking arrest and jail time, a tuxedo is always the right choice.

The cast in this film is ridiculously large and recognizable.  Aside from George Clooney at his wittiest and most charming, you have Brad Pitt as Rusty, the number two man on the job.  Like Clooney, Pitt exudes coolness here, and their scenes together are the best in the movie.  Julia Roberts is okay as Tess, although I wish her character had anything appealing about her to make her worth Danny’s risk.  The rest of the cast is less famous, but still pretty good.  Andy Garcia does a very good job as the uptight villain, Don Cheadle plays a surprisingly good British criminal with a surprisingly Mary Poppins-ish accent, and Matt Damon turns in a quality performance as the relative rookie on the job.  The rest of the cast was pretty decent, although many of their roles were little more than one-dimensional.  Elliott Gould was nearly insufferable as the comically stereotypical showbiz Jewish guy, Casey Affleck and Scott Caan were solid comedy relief as bickering brothers, Carl Reiner was surprisingly serious, Bernie Mac got to make a joke about racism, Eddie Jemison played a nerd, and professional acrobat Qin Shaobo played the part of a “little Chinese guy” like he was born into the role.   

"Say hello to the human Nuprin: he's little, yellow, and different!"  Brad Pitt is racist.

There are also a handful of cameos, including Wayne Newton (it is in Vegas, after all) and a cast of young actors, playing idiotic versions of themselves (Topher Grace, Barry Watson, Joshua Jackson, Shane West, and Holly Marie Combs).

The film’s pace is quick, the dialogue is clever, and the editing is very impressive.  There are a lot of things going on in this movie, many of them at the same time, and none of them are explained beforehand.  Despite all that, the movie is never confusing.  This isn’t the best work Steven Soderbergh has done, but it is probably the most fun, entertaining, and polished of all his films.

What truly makes this movie great is just how much fun it is.  Everybody clearly had a blast working together, and that shows in their chemistry.  Sure, some of the credit can be given to screenwriter Ted Griffin, because there are a lot of gems in this script, but the timing is impeccable on all the jokes and even the ones that are winking at the camera  ---like anything Elliott Gould says, or when George Clooney and Brad Pitt leave a club with Topher Grace and some other young actors, and Clooney and Pitt are the only ones not mobbed by fans --- still work because the actors play up the jokes with the utmost confidence.

If these two can play brothers,how about James Caan and Ben Affleck?

I could go on and on about all the cool little cons they perform in this movie, but that takes away from the fun of watching them in action.  There are an awful lot of details that are often overlooked in this movie because of its pace, though.  I really liked that each character had their own identifiable style, for starters.  Some of the details in those looks would have held deeper importance in other films, but not this one.  In most movies, a character that has a tattoo that reaches out onto the back of his hand, like Rusty’s does, has a story for that tattoo, or it gives insight into his character.  Here, the tattoo is never fully revealed, or even referenced once.  Similarly, you would think that someone would have pointed out that Casey Affleck looks like a pedophile when he has a mustache, but that’s not the point of this film.  This is about style over substance, people.

And that is actually the only problem with Ocean’s Eleven.   It is so stylish and cool and fun that it never bothers to slow down and make the audience care about its characters.  Of course, the filmmakers never try to do this, so it’s not like they did it poorly.  Let’s face it, this is a ridiculous movie.  How much of this was planned in advance?  How many people are friends with Danny Ocean?  Whatever, it doesn’t matter. This is just meant to be fun fluff, and it succeeds at that.  There are other heist movies out there that I think are better movies, but it is hard to argue that there are any that are more fun to watch.

On a personal note, I would like to call out one of my favorite film moments.  When George Clooney meets up with Julia Roberts for the first time in Ocean's Eleven, he sits down and orders "A whiskey [holds his thumb and index finger about three inches apart] and a whiskey [holds his thumb and index finger about an inch apart]."  That makes me smile every time.  And yes, if you go to a decent bar and give them that exact order, they will know what you mean.  And that is awesomely cool.

True Grit (2010)

When I heard that some of my favorite filmmakers, the Coen Brothers, were remaking the John Wayne classic True Grit, I was conflicted.  The Coens usually don't disappoint, but a remake just seemed like it would paint them into a corner; I usually like the Coens best when they are free to be weird or dark or whatever they happen to feel like at the time.  The first previews I saw didn't encourage me much, either; while I don't know exactly how Jeff Bridges managed to speak that incoherently, my first guess is that he had somebody else's tongue in his mouth whenever he needed to deliver dialogue.  Nevertheless, I really liked the original film, I love the Coen Brothers, and I'm a fan of Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, so I ignored my reservations and visited my local cinema house.

For those that are unfamiliar with the plot, young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), aged fourteen, goes to the town where her recently deceased father's corpse waits for her.  Quite the little businesswoman, she sends the body back to her hometown, buys and sells some horses, and goes to the sheriff, expecting to hear news about the search for her father's killer.  The news is that the cowardly killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), has left the state and entered Indian Territory, where the law is unlikely to pursue him.  Mattie wants to see Chaney die for his crimes, and she learns that she can hire a US Marshall to act as a bounty hunter for her.  There are competent trackers, and all-around good men that are well-suited for the job, but Mattie opts for the meanest Marshall around: the surly, one-eyed drunk, Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges).

It takes quite a bit of convincing, but Mattie manages to hire Cogburn for the job.  However, no amount of convincing talk will make him follow her wishes to the letter, which include taking her with him on the manhunt and making sure that Chaney dies for killing her father and not any other crime.  After all, a Texas Ranger named La Boef (Matt Damon) wants to bring Chaney to justice in Texas, where a sizable reward would be split between him and Cogburn.  And, as for the idea of Mattie joining the manhunt in person, that's just ridiculous.  But, as many older men find out as this film progresses, Mattie Ross is not a ridiculous young woman, but someone with the will to get exactly what she wants.

This film is certainly centered around the story of Mattie Ross, but the star of the film is definitely Rooster Cogburn. Jeff Bridges does not disappoint in his role, and he manages to not echo John Wayne's Oscar-winning performance.  Bridges' take on the character can be summed up as simply "dirty."  He looks fat and greasy, he fights dirty, and he is generally a rough, unlovable person.  And that all works out great; he's believably tough, socially awkward, and genuinely funny, depending on the situation.  And Bridges' physical acting was superb; he walked the walk of an aged roughneck very well and this might be the most believable "guy with an eyepatch" role I have ever seen.  The only thing I didn't like was his bizarre mumbling, but more on that later.  Hailee Steinfeld does a great job as the calm, collected, and damn stubborn Mattie.  She manages to be stubborn, persistent, and pushy, but still likable.  This is a great role with depth for a young actress, and Steinfeld (in her feature film debut) does a fantastic job.  Matt Damon made his character less charming than Glen Campbell did in the original, and I liked his character far better because of it.  I like Damon best when he is not trying to be funny, and he comes across as earnest and occasionally exasperated here, which I thought fit this film well.  The rest of the supporting actors have limited screen time, but benefit from the Coen's tendency to make their bit role colorful.  Barry Pepper looked every part the Wild West nomad as the villainous (Ned) Pepper.  Josh Brolin played his character as fairly dim-witted and brutish, which I thought was a good choice.  Domhall Gleeson (Brendan's son and Bill Weasley in the latest Harry Potter) is stuck with a fairly whiny role as the doomed Moon, but I thought he handled the part well and didn't overact, which is high praise, considering what they do to his character.

Joel and Ethan Coen did a great job writing and directing the film.  Every single character in the film is memorable, many are funny, but the viewer is never distracted from the main story.  Why does Rooster Cogburn go out of his way to kick those Indian children?  It doesn't matter, it's just something he does; on with the plot!  They got a very good performance from a very inexperienced actress, and they let Bridges have fun as a crotchety old man.  More importantly, though, is the overall tone of the film.  The word "quirky" is often (justly) applied to Coen Brothers projects because they enjoy going off on tangents and having a cast of extremely colorful characters.  Here, they are able to keep their cast of goofy characters, but they all serve the plot, so they don't feel like diversions.  The cinematography, done by frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, is noticeably impressive; this movie looks and feels as filthy and smelly as the Old West must have truly been, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't full of harsh, broad, and beautiful landscapes.  This might be the best looking Coen film since O Brother, Where Art Thou? (also shot by Deakins), and it is perhaps their best balance of gritty stories and funny characters to date.

Now, let's discuss the mumbling.  When I saw the trailer for this movie, I assumed that Bridges just had his cheeks full of chewing tobacco, because the Old West was a disgusting place and chaw is nauseatingly fitting for that time and place.  Sadly, it was simply a choice by the actor and the directors.  I guess it could be the side effect of being a rough-and-tumble character in an age where medical attention was both lacking and deficient; theoretically, they could have invented a back story for Rooster than involved a few broken jaws that healed crooked.  Whatever the reason, it was kind of obnoxious, especially when it obscured a witty quip from Bridges.  Later in the film, Damon also joins the mushmouth parade, but at least his character is given an excuse.  These atypical verbal deliveries may have been realistic for the times, but I found them generally irritating and actually kept me from understanding some key moments of dialogue.

How does this stand up to the original?  Quite well, actually.  The performances (mumbles aside) are all very good, and Bridges does a good job with an interesting character.  Honestly, I think the primary actors are all worthy upgrades over the original film; the supporting cast is far better this time around (although Robert Duvall is still better than Barry Pepper), since the original film had many unmemorable bit players.  The one thing that the 1969 film did better was show the developing relationship between Cogburn and Mattie; when John Wayne starts calling her "sister" in the film, you can feel a loving bond in his words.  That closeness is not shown in this version, although some affection is clear.  I also prefer the ending of the original better (not the climax, but the falling action) because it summed up the story of Mattie and Rooster so well.  The Coens made a very grim and gritty Western, but they did so at the cost of the sweet sibling-ish relationship between the two lead characters.

That said, this is a very good movie, and it is a Western that will appeal to those that are not already fans of the genre (read: women).  It is funny in many parts, with sharp dialogue and three characters that mesh well together.  It is painfully raw and brutal in other parts, with uncompromising violence and some truly nightmarish dental prosthetics.  And, despite all of that, it is a story of accomplishment, above all else.  Does this eclipse the original movie?  No, but it certainly makes a case as a deserving peer.

Green Zone

Yeah, I know...you were really hoping that Green Zone would be a true-story Bourne movie, right?  It's got Matt Damon as the lead and Paul Greengrass directing, so that's not a bad assumption, actually.  Greengrass even mimics the cinematography from The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, so the look and feel of this film matches his earlier work.  Hell, this is even a government conspiracy movie, too!  Unfortunately, Green Zone is based on the non-fiction book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City.  I don't mean to demean the book, but any movie based on a non-fiction account of anything from the Iraq war is going to be heavy on government screw-ups and relatively light on the awesome hand-to-hand combat and driving sequences that helped make the Bourne series so unique.

That comparison may seem unfair, but it's the filmmaker's own fault.  Green Zone is essentially a political conspiracy movie disguised as an action movie.  If they wanted this to be a conspiracy movie, that's cool.  I'm down for some convoluted conspiracy plots.  This film throws in a decent amount of war movie-type shootouts, though, so the action and the political intrigue sometimes seem disjointed.

Since the movie is very plot-driven, with all the twists and turns that implies, I don't want to give away any spoilers; I'll just give a quick recap.  Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is in charge of a US squad looking to capture Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in 2003 Iraq, right around the time where President Bush gave his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech.  As you might have heard, anyone looking for WMDs in Iraq was going to go home disappointed, and this film is about that.  After finding zip, zero, and nada for a while, Miller begins to openly question the value of the military's intelligence.  This movie deserves some credit for not once making any "oxymoron" comments about military intelligence, despite several obvious opportunities to do so.  Miller begins to dig for the truth behind the intelligence being supplied to the military.  On his side, he has CIA agent Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), a local Iraqi man that is willing to bastardize his given name and be called "Freddie" so stupid Americans don't mispronounce his given name (Khalid Abdalla), and a Wall Street Journal correspondent (Amy Ryan).  On the "Truth?  You can't handle the truth!" side, we have Iraq's resident Pentagon guy, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), Iraqi General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor), and a Special Ops guy, Briggs (the always evil Jason Isaacs).  Of course, nothing is as simple as Miller would like, so he chooses to bypass the chain of command and wage a one man campaign to capture the truth.

Side note: bypassing military chain of command in military situations has absolutely no negative repercussions, as long as you are Matt Damon.

 As far as the cast goes, almost everyone does a solid job.  I like Damon, even when his role requires him to look frustrated or impassive for an entire movie.  Brendan Gleeson and Jason Isaacs are always entertaining character actors, and they don't disappoint here.  I wasn't familiar with Khalid Abdalla or Yigal Naor, but I thought both did well with surprisingly complex supporting roles.  I was not impressed with Amy Ryan or Greg Kinnear, though.  Ryan's seemingly indifferent performance might be an accurate representation of a journalist (I'll give her the benefit of the doubt), but it makes for a boring character to watch.  Kinnear had the opportunity to play a slimy politician and he does that well.  He kind of overdoes it, though; I'm pretty sure I've seen Cobra Commander display more human complexity than Kinnear did here.

The directing was fine, too.  I like Paul Greengrass as a director.  I liked how the movie looked (kind of gritty) and the pacing of the action.  He was able to capture some pretty good action sequences, as you might expect.  Greengrass is able to make complex plots understandable with his direction, and that was a key to enjoying this movie.

Despite a lot of quality ingredients making up this movie, they don't quite add up.  Part of that is due to the plot and part is due to the presentation.  The plot is effective as a suspense/political intrigue movie.  There's just one problem: the audience already knows that there were no WMDs in Iraq.  Well, maybe I'm wrong...you know the P.T. Barnum quote: “You will never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”  Let's pretend that you don't know about the WMDs.  Even then, the big reveal doesn't deliver the dramatic punch that you would expect it to.  When Miller confronts the person responsible, he is essentially blown off, and the eventual ending is missing the catharsis that the story demands.  Obviously, the hero is going to do something heroic, right?  Even after Miller makes his big play, I was left unsatisfied.

Presenting this movie as a thinly-veiled fictional story about our recent past was probably not the way to go, either.  If they had just mentioned that the names of the people involved have been changed, etc., etc., then the lack of catharsis would be more understandable.  Sometimes, real life doesn't provide the ending you want.  Still, even if the filmmakers had played up the "true story" angle, it wouldn't explain the lack of consequences shown in the film.  I don't want to give anything away, but when the movie ended, I was waiting for some sort of postscript to tell what happened to who after the plot is resolved.  But nothing is added and I was left with the impression that nothing had changed.  That's a bad feeling to have after watching a conspiracy movie. 

This movie was well made and I enjoyed it while I watched.  I just feel that the conclusion was lacking.  That might not be a huge problem for a comedy, but plot-driven movies need to have effective resolutions.  I think the flat-out evil portrayal of Kinnear's Pentagon insider is overly simplistic (I'm fine with him being evil, but at least have him justify his actions!) and Miller's actions had several severe consequences that are brushed over.  I think this is an important story, but it is told in a good-guy vs. bad-guy way that cheapens the message.  Unless the message is "Screenwriters: Stay in school until you cover 'Satisfactory endings' in class."

The Informant!

The Informant! is the real-life story of Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon), a man who became an informant to the FBI and yet was still prosecuted by them.  Whitacre is an upper level executive in a company that does some boring stuff with corn.  They make corn into other things, like ethanol and whatnot.  He is overseeing a project that is supposed to increase the output of the additive lysine, which is used in commercial livestock; the project isn't doing well.  Whitacre goes to his bosses (Thomas F. Wilson and Tom Papa)and explains that he has been getting phone calls from a competitor; the competitor alleges that there is a mole at Whitacre's company, ADM, that is sabotaging the lysine production.  For a fee, the competitor will identify the mole and/or explain how to bypass the sabotage.  The boss contacts the FBI, who announce their intention of tapping whatever phone Whitacre uses for these calls; when FBI agent Shepard (Scott Bakula) arrives at Whitacre's home to install the tap, Whitacre drops a bomb on him.  ADM executives (including Whitaker) have been secretly negotiating with their global competitors for years to set the price for lysine on a year-by-year basis.  That allows the lysine companies to make hundreds of millions of dollars by keeping the price of lysine artificially high; this affects farmer, which in turn affects consumers, which means that the general public has been bilked out of tons of money because these corporate fat cats were greedy.

Whitacre volunteers to act as an undercover informant for the FBI, gathering hundreds of video and audio tapes of these back-room dealings over five years.  The case against ADM is pretty good.  Then everything goes wrong for Whitacre.  The District Attorney begins prosecution against ADM, but is shown some interesting things in ADM's paperwork.  It turns out that Whitacre, who voluntarily blew the whistle on a multimillion dollar case of price fixing, spent those same five years defrauding his own company out of millions.  The FBI was embarrassed to realize that their star witness was, in fact, a high-level criminal himself while he worked with them.  Whitacre tries to cover for himself, weaving a dense web of barely coherent lies, but he is prosecuted for his crimes.

 As you can probably tell, this is a plot-heavy movie.  If you're going to watch this, the details will matter, so don't bother if you're tired or bored by legal stuff.  In the end, it's not the plot that is as important as what Whitacre says throughout the film.  Whitacre is constantly lying and contradicting himself throughout the film.  Remember the corporate mole and sabotage from the beginning of the movie?  Completely made up.  And that's not even an important point in the movie.  The film makes a brief (if insincere) detour to blame some of his behavior on bipolar disorder, but the fact remains that he lies in every scene in the movie.  The more you pay attention to his initial claims, the more you will appreciate him getting caught lying later.

I say "appreciate" and not "laugh at" for a reason.  While this is categorized as a comedy, I would say that it is probably as comedic as Fargo.  Yes, there are funny things in both, but neither is light-hearted and the comedy does not come from jokes or gags.  Really, this is a movie-sized Law and Order with a complete idiot as the main character.  Maybe I shouldn't say he's a complete idiot; he did manage to steal millions from his own company and spy on them without getting caught.  In fact, the only reason he got caught for embezzlement is because he blew the whistle on the price fixing.  No, he's a complete idiot.  His primary motivation for blowing the whistle was to get all the other executives fired, so he could take over the company.  Gaps in logic like that are the most common sources for comedy here, but Matt Damon does a series of voice-over non sequiturs that are genuinely funny.  Still, branding this a "comedy" does the film a disservice by setting up unreasonable expectations, like jokes.

The acting in the movie is fine.  Matt Damon gained about twenty-five pounds to play the role and he does seem more down-to-earth here.  I also have to admit that I was consistently frustrated by his character's lies, so Damon was convincing . I don't think his performance is exceptional, but he does a good job.  I was particularly impressed by his mustache. The rest of the cast is decent, but nothing special.  Scott Bakula and Joel McHale are fine as FBI agents.  Melanie Lynskey does a lot with the given material as Whitacre's wife, but it's ultimately a bit part.  Clancy Brown, Paul F. Tompkins, Patton Oswalt, Tom Papa, Thomas F. Wilson and several other recognizable faces and voices (one of John Cusack's sisters has a small role) all do their jobs, but they are essentially playing straight men in their two or three minutes on screen.  There are a lot of stand-up comedians in this cast, which makes the lack of outright jokes in this movie all the more apparent.

That brings the direction into question.  Steven Soderbergh is a director that has no problem using style to make a point in his films.  Normally, I like his choices.  He has used interesting cinematography, split screens, and hand-held cameras to good effect in the past, but here is plays it pretty straight.  Too straight for my liking.  The actors all play their roles as if they are in a drama, which is fine, given the script.  However, the casting of so many known comedians undercuts this.  While the comedians are not being funny (not their fault), their mere presence implies that something should be found funny.  Normally, I like seeing comedians branching out into drama, but this just seems insincere.  I also don't like being told (subtly or not) what should be funny.  This isn't as insulting as a laugh track, but I still don't like it.  Another odd directoral choice is the music Soderbergh used.  I get that it adds a whimsical feel to a movie that is largely light take on Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich.  I get that the juxtaposition of the music with the monotony of big business is intended to remind viewers that this is a comedy and make Damon's voice-over lines feel less random.  It doesn't work for me.  I found the music annoying.

I don't mean to criticize this movie for what it is not.  I think the script is smart, if a tad dry, and I think Damon's character worked, but would have been better in a movie that was more overtly comical.  I just don't think this movie achieved what it set out to do.  Damon's voice-over, the music, and the constant presence of comedians all indicate that this movie was meant to be funny.  I didn't laugh or enjoy this movie much.  While I found the story interesting and the plot well-paced, I just didn't enjoy this alleged comedy.  This isn't a bad movie, just one that's lying to itself about what it wants to be

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