Knives Out (2019)

I remember hearing about the TV show Alias.  In it, the main character’s father works for the CIA.  Except he doesn’t.  Except he really does.  Knives out is sort of like that.

Harlan Thrombey is a mystery writer who is found dead in a locked room.  It appears to be suicide.  Except his family hated him, so it had to be murder.  Except it’s impossible to prove who.  Plus, he was found dead in a locked room.  So, the police have plenty of suspects, but no real evidence.

Benoit Blanc, a private detective who was hired anonymously, is convinced it’s murder.  He presses the investigation until he figures out what really happened.

I don’t see a lot of mystery movies.  I tend to find them all very similar.  We have a few plot twists.  Some, we see coming.  Some, we don’t.  We have a lot of people who stood to gain from Thrombey’s death and they all look guilty.

Then, there’s Marta Cabrera, who is acting guilty.  She knows something.  Did she murder him?  Does she know who did?  Why isn’t she saying anything?

We come to find out that guilt isn’t so clear-cut a thing.  It’s almost like that riddle where a man falls off a roof only to be shot on the third floor.  Is the shooter guilty?  Well, it’s more complicated than that.  Yes, mistakes were made.

My biggest complaint about this movie could have easily been the bad decisions made.  It’s always easier to come forward (or at least get a lawyer) first thing.  At least it wasn’t overdone.  We understand that Marta is in a difficult position.

The family also could have been overdone.  Most of them are easy to dislike.  We don’t really want to see any of them get their share of the estate.

It’s an interesting movie that’s got an interesting set of circumstances.  It almost appears to be written by someone who dislikes a lot of the clichés I dislike, but didn’t want to necessarily parody the genre.  I wouldn’t call it wish fulfillment, necessarily.  However, it does play out rather interestingly.

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The Current War: Director's Cut (2017)

I like to make the distinction that Thomas Edison was a businessman Whereas Nikola Tesla was an inventor.  Like Henry Ford, Edison didn’t really invent anything.  He just found a new way to make a light bulb.  He basically made it so that people could buy and use them.

This isn’t to say that Edison didn’t make contributions, but Tesla was the one that had more of a scientific mind and could create new things, like the coil named for him.  He was even trying to make it so that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly.  So, it’s only natural that Edison gets all the schools named for him.  Right?

When I saw the coming attractions for The Current War, I thought that Tesla might get his due.  He was featured in said trailers.  Nope.  The movie was mostly about how Westinghouse and Edison brought lights to the people.  Part of this was the power supply, which Tesla had a part in.  However, Tesla’s part in the movie was not what I had hoped.  He was shown in a few scenes, mostly being pushed out of something he was working on.

It worries me sometimes if I can’t get at least six paragraphs into a review.  I’d go into a detailed recap, but there’s not much for me to share.  The movie focuses on Edison.  He’s shown as being very petty and driven.  He’ll resort to demeaning the competition if it means getting what he wanted.

Overall, it was very bland and plain.  Having an even pace isn’t always a good thing.  Here, it makes it monotonous.  It’s like the movie got rejected by PBS, so they toned it down a little and got a theatrical release.  (I kind of feel like I forgot most of the movie once I walked out of the theater, so if I got a few details wrong, please forgive me.)

IMDb page

 

12 Strong (2018)

sHaving MoviePass means that I’m getting movies by the month, which makes for some strange decisions.  12 Strong is not a movie I would normally have seen in the theater.  The Commuter is not a movie I would normally have seen in the theater, either, but I had already seen that.  Still, I managed to make it all the way through both movies.  I think that’s more of an accomplishment with 12 Strong.

For those that haven’t seen the coming attractions, 12 Strong is about a group of soldiers, Green Berets and CIA operatives that were sent into Afghanistan shortly after the September 11 attacks.  The goal was to take a city called Mazar-I-Sharif.  Apparently, it’s important to the Taliban.  Captain Mitch Nelson is given command of the titular 12 that are sent in to meet with General Dostum.

Dostum leads a local army that will be helping Nelson and his men.  Before the group takes Mazar-I-Sharif, they have to go through and bomb several other areas.  The first area takes a few tries to get right, but they do level it.  Subsequent areas seem to go more smoothly.  They do eventually make it to Mazar-I-Sharif and take the city, as planned.  All 12 of the men get to go home safely.

The movie wasn’t quite as exciting as I would have expected with a war movie.  Part of this may be because the movie seemed to be going through the motions rather than writing an interesting story.  I understand that there’s only so much you can do with a true story before it becomes fiction, but the movie seemed somewhat bland.

Take the fact that they had to go through several cities before capturing the big city.  I didn’t really understand why they couldn’t go to the important city first, then maybe work their way back if they the other areas.  I’m sure there’s a reason for this, but I don’t recall it being covered in the movie.  Nelson and Dotsum lead their respective troops from area to area, blowing stuff up as needed.

The movie even starts with two of the soldiers telling their wives that they‘re leaving.  Captain Nelson even promises his wife that he’ll come home alive.  Bad idea?  Yes.  Cliché?  Most definitely.  Does it make the story more poignant?  Not really.

I think the biggest negative for me was that there wasn’t much of a sense of accomplishment.  It’s not really stated why any of the targets had any value, other than that’s where the enemy was.  There was mention of another team being sent in to take a different path, but any sense of competition wasn’t brought up that often.

When I came out of the movie, I felt like I was missing any sense of new perspective.  It seemed like this was the version of the story you’d tell to someone who had been there.  I get that the mission was accomplished in abut three weeks when it was supposed to take about two years, but it just didn’t seem that difficult.  The movie didn’t seem to convey any sense of scale or tension.  It just told the story.  If you want to see it, I’d wait for it to come out on Netflix.

IMDb page

The Shape of Water (2017)

My mother and I were talking about Trading Places shortly after she had watched it.  She was wondering if the use of a derogatory term by one of the Duke Brothers was called for.  I felt it was, as they weren’t really meant to be sympathetic characters.  They were the antagonists and nothing else.

In The Shape of Water, Richard Strickland fills that role.  He’s a racist, misogynistic creep who happens to be in authority.  The movie is set in the 1960s and he seems to represent everything about that decade that humanity should have overcome by now.  This shows in his interactions with the other main characters.

When he first encounters Elisa and Zelda, two female janitors, he doesn’t seem to mind them watching him urinate.  This is after they complained that men can’t hit the broad side of a urinal.  (I guess aim doesn’t make you a good person.)  He also leaves his cattle prod in plain view, mentioning how dangerous it is.  (Compensate much?)  He also prefers to wash his hands before doing his business.  (Who even does that?)

It doesn’t take long for The Asset to arrive.  What the main characters call The Asset, IMDb has listed as Amphibian Man.  He was captured in South America and brought to Baltimore to be studied.  Amphibian Man is kept locked up with Elisa and Zelda going in to clean the room as needed.  When it becomes apparent that Amphibian Man will be killed, Elisa knows she has to free him no matter the risk.

This is the movie that Bright could have been.  Instead of using the fantasy element as just another aspect of the movie, we have the fantasy element worked subtly into the plot.  A creature is brought in for study and is treated like crap.  I would normally complain about the character being called The Asset, but that’s exactly what I’d expect.  If you’re going to a vivisection, you don’t want to get too attached to the organism in question.

Strickland is a results-oriented guy.  That’s why he was brought in on the project.  However, many of the characters are minorities.  Elisa is mute.  Zelda is African-American.  Elisa’s neighbor is gay.  There’s even a Soviet spy mixed in.  These are not people that were welcomed with open arms in 1960s America, which breeds a certain level of empathy for Amphibian Man.  How we treat others, especially those not like us, says a lot about who we are.  This is where Strickland comes across as pure antagonist.

It’s worth noting that the movie doesn’t hold any punches when it comes to minorities.  A couple is turned away from a restaurant because people of color simply didn’t sit at the counter.  Strickland talks down to Zelda and Elisa with open hostility.  He’s also not afraid to torture Amphibian Man (and others) to get what he wants.  (For parents thinking of bringing their children to the movie, these aren’t the only issues.  There is sexuality and language.  I would say that 18+ should be safe.  13-17 is maybe a judgment call.  12 and other should probably wait.)

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