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MOVIE REVIEWS

The Iron Lady
By Adam Shaw

Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — The British market a brand of yeast spread called Marmite. Due to its overwhelmingly strong taste, its label carries the slogan Love it or Hate it.

As a result of the visceral reactions, both pro and con, stirred by her controversial 1979-1990 tenure in office, former U.K. leader Margaret Thatcher — now Baroness Thatcher — has been described as the Marmite of prime ministers.

With critics describing her as nothing less than evil, and supporters naming her the greatest prime minister ever, it seems unlikely, in theory at least, that a fair portrayal of Thatcher’s life on screen would even be possible. Yet, with the touching biopic, The Iron Lady (Weinstein), director Phylidda Lloyd has overcome the odds to achieve exactly that.

The film shuttles between the present day — with the elderly Thatcher (Meryl Streep) suffering from a combination of dementia and short-term memory loss — and a series of flashbacks recounting significant passages in the handbag-wielding ex-leader’s life. The latter take in her humble beginnings as a provincial greengrocer’s daughter, her romance with future husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) and her eventual expulsion from office at the hands of scheming opponents within her own Conservative party. They’re led by the stealthy Michael Heseltine (Richard E. Grant).

Along the way, Thatcher survives an assassination attempt, reclaims the Falkland Islands, and becomes the longest serving British premier of the 20th century. Events are portrayed in an evenhanded, non-partisan manner, though some incidents are sensationalized for cinematic effect.
For example, there’s the treatment of the tragic death of one of Thatcher’s close colleagues, a member of Parliament killed by an Irish Republican Army car bomb. While this murder really took place, the script inaccurately puts Thatcher at the scene, hearing the explosion and desperately running toward the wreckage until restrained by a passer-by.

Viewers of faith will appreciate screenwriter Abi Morgan’s sympathetic, dignified depiction of Thatcher’s struggle with her current illness. She’s presented as more enduringly perceptive, not to mention wily, than her worried relatives imagine.

Additionally, the moving relationship between husband and wife — Denis Thatcher died in 2003, but is shown to be an enduring presence in his widow’s damaged consciousness — sends an unmistakably pro-family message. This marks a refreshing change from the increasingly common presentation of longtime married couples as bored and unfulfilled.

The emotions of the audience will be heightened also by the glorious performance of Streep, whose ability to step into the metaphorical shoes of the former Miss Roberts is so accurate that it borders on the frightening; it will be no surprise to cinema viewers that her performance has earned her an Academy Award nomination.

Moviegoers concerned that Thatcher’s forceful response to the Argentine junta’s 1982 invasion of the Falklands might be used as an occasion to glorify combat need not worry. Although her decision to retaliate is represented as justified, the miseries and human cost of war are not by any means overlooked. Thus we see Thatcher tearfully undertaking the task of writing to the mothers of the fallen.

While prone to moments of overemotional fluff, the movie nonetheless offers both an intimate portrait and an educational dramatization. The result is still one that audiences of any political persuasion can relish.

The film contains two scenes of terrorist attacks, documentary footage of real-life violence, a glimpse of upper female nudity and a few instances of crass British slang. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Shaw reviews movies for Catholic News Service.

The Grey
By Kurt Jensen

Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — The Grey (Open Road) respectfully obeys the immutable law of all story lines in which an aircraft crashes in the Arctic: Some folks are bound to get eaten.

This film, however, with its slight spiritual bent, ducks the cannibalism cliché and makes wolves the hungry ones. The animals are doing what they’re supposed to do by nature, stalking the survivors to thin out the human herd — the better, in the end, to kill them all.

Liam Neeson plays oil-rig worker John Ottway. He leads an ever-dwindling handful of men — Hendrick, Diaz, Talget, Burke and Flannery (Dallas Roberts, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Nonso Anozie and Joe Anderson, respectively) — through howling winds, deep snow, fatigue and their own anxieties after their plane crashes while en route to Anchorage, Alaska.

That misfortune is significantly compounded by the fact that they’ve come down too close to the wolves’ den, leaving them targeted as invaders.

As directed by Joe Carnahan — who co-scripted with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers from Jeffers’ short story Ghost Walker — the chases, killings and feats of courage are brisk but routine. The script’s attempts at profundity and spiritual reflection, moreover, are wildly uneven.

These oil-rig workers don’t just swear constantly and fight among themselves as they dodge their predators. Each evening around the fire, they also debate the meaning of this life and the prospects for life after death. Additionally, they demonstrate a great deal of respect for those who perished in the crash.

As the film opens, Ottway is shown to be so lonely and depressed over missing his (unnamed) wife — Anne Openshaw, seen in flashbacks — that he attempts suicide. The crash thrusts him instantly into a strong leadership role. But he eventually proves to be a fatalist, inspired by a Kiplingesque poem his father wrote that ends, “Live and die on this day.”

Toward the end, Ottway gazes into the slate-coloured sky and — as though following the advice of Job’s friends — curses God.

But this climactic moment is the strongest element among several that, taken together, make this survival story as much a morally inhospitable wilderness as its setting is a natural one. Given the meagre rewards of trekking through it, even most adults would be well advised to decline the journey altogether.

The film contains troubling themes — including suicide and one character’s blasphemous expression of despair — frequent gory animal attacks, at least one use of profanity and pervasive rough, crude and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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Jensen is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.

One for the Money
By John Mulderig

Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — The title of the forgettable fish-out-of-water comedy One for the Money (Lionsgate) recalls Carl Perkins’ seminal hit, Blue Suede Shoes, a song covered most famously, of course, by Elvis Presley. While this lukewarm cinematic offering won’t knock you down or step in your face, its surfeit of profane dialogue does slander God’s name all over the place.

So our advice: Go, cat, go — away from any theatre showing it.

In a project that seems to have been conceived as a vehicle for her, but which turns out to get her nowhere, Katherine Heigl plays unemployed New Jersey department store saleswoman Stephanie Plum. With repo men on the trail of her expensive sports car, and her landlord dunning her for back rent, Stephanie accepts an unlikely job opportunity working as a bail bondsman.

Via a degree of coincidence not often encountered off the silver screen, Stephanie’s first target for recapture turns out to be an old flame from high school days, Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara). An ex-cop and current murder suspect, Joe is also the man — so Stephanie ruefully informs us — who took her virginity then promptly spurned her.

(Perhaps, instead of Blue Suede Shoes, Stephanie should have been listening to the Shirelles’ plaintive inquiry of a few years later, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. But we digress.)

As Joe and Stephanie evolve from rivalry to co-operation in trying to solve the crime of which he stands accused, she gains the protection of formidable fellow bondsman Ranger (Daniel Sunjata). Ranger teaches her how to pick a lock and shoot the bad guys where it counts.

She also encounters representative denizens of the wrong side of town, most prominently John Leguizamo as gym owner Jimmy Alpha and Sherri Shepherd as hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Lula.

Director Julie Anne Robinson’s slack adaptation of Janet Evanovich’s 1994 bestseller — the first in a series of 18 mystery novels revolving around Stephanie’s character — tries to get by on jauntiness but fails to charm.

In part, that’s due to the mild skewering of the very Catholic milieu of Stephanie’s working-class background, an environment where Marian statues and crucifixes abound and where Stephanie’s female relatives greet every item of bad news by blessing themselves. Stephanie’s favourite among these off-handedly pious distaff kin is her breezily eccentric Grandma Mazur (Debbie Reynolds, channeling — so it seems — the late Ruth Gordon circa Rosemary’s Baby or Harold and Maude).

An attempt to capitalize on sexual tension — Stephanie still carries a torch for Joe and waxes eloquent in praise of Ranger’s physique — and such gags as an elderly, devil-may-care exhibitionist whom the novice bounty hunter takes into custody are further deficits.

On the qualified upside, an incidental character’s reckless foray into blasphemy draws instant, albeit spectacularly violent, retribution.

The film contains some action violence, brief rear and partial nudity, an instance of blasphemy and at least 20 uses of profanity, much sexual humour, frequent crude and crass language and a couple of obscene gestures. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.

Man on a Ledge
By Adam Shaw

Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — When an ex-cop is falsely convicted of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond and sentenced to 25 years in jail, there’s just one course for him to follow: Break out of prison, check in to Manhattan’s landmark Roosevelt Hotel, order lobster — then clamber out onto a cornice hundreds of feet above street level.

Such, apparently, is the logic of Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), the protagonist of the tedious thriller Man on a Ledge (Summit).

Sent up the river for stealing the fabulously valuable Monarch Diamond from morally stained, cigar-smoking moneybags David Englander (Ed Harris), Nick settles on a convoluted plan to vindicate his innocence.

While he distracts a crowd of New Yorkers from his high-story perch, his brother, Joey (Jamie Bell), and Joey’s girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez), will crack open Englander’s vault and prove that the putatively purloined jewel is still in situ.

Worthington’s character is thus left in the bizarre — and soon tiresome — circumstance of spending over half the movie cavorting on that precipice, whence disgraced police negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) tries to coo him down.

Mercer is supposedly depressed at her recent failure to prevent a fellow cop from hurling himself to his death. But her habitual growls and grunts come across as little more than crabbiness.

The movie as a whole aims for cynical edginess, with results as unconvincing as they are unpleasant. Screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves infuses his risibly bad dialogue with an unusually high amount of profanity. These assaults on the Lord’s name reach a crescendo in a scene where the Second Commandment is violated a trio of times in less than 30 seconds.

So feebly cardboard are the perpetrators of this verbal sacrilege, though, that they are more likely to rouse impatience than ire.

Along with would-be remorse maven Mercer, there’s stereotypically hard-edged Latina Angie. She pouts a lot and, so we’re told, used to burgle houses during what was presumably a challenging youth spent on the mean streets of Anybarrio, U.S.A.

What Angie lacks in depth she makes up for on the surface by serving as all-too-obvious eye candy. When the break-in requires her to shimmy down a vent, she prepares herself by undressing down to her frilly unmentionables (seen in close-up, of course) and squeezes herself into a skintight, Catwomanesque one-piece.

Director Asger Leth’s wronged-innocence caper piles conspiracy on top of collusion with dull consequences.

The one flicker of light comes from that stogy of Englander’s as Harris illumines the screen whenever he’s on it. Unfortunately, his appearances are far too short to prevent Man on a Ledge from taking a suicide leap into the depths of mediocrity.

The film contains occasional action violence, an implied premarital situation, much profanity, at least two uses of the F-word and considerable crude and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Shaw is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.