Category: 2000s

Loosely based on an actual FBI sting operation, struggling FBI agent Alec Baldwin devises a scheme to entrap mobster John Gotti by pretending to be a movie producer. He hires wannabe screenwriter Matthew Broderick (in what I’ve come to think of as his standard middle age schlub role) to unwittingly help with the ruse. I often find films about making movies fascinating but this isn’t one of the good ones. The potentially interesting tale doesn’t try to go beyond the silliness of the concept. The cast, which includes Toni Collette and Ray Liotta, is obviously filled with talent, but the script doesn’t require much of them nor brings forth anything but average performances.

After one of their members double crosses them, a team of thieves plan a revenge heist to get back their take. A supposed remake of the fabulous 1969 film with the same title, this doesn’t share any of that film’s charm. I love a good heist film, but this isn’t one. The double cross is projected the moment the villain appears on screen. One of the most appealing members of the crew is murdered in its first scenes. A supposed romance between Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron has absolutely no chemistry. The heists are creative but are so quickly rendered that there’s little to savor. Instead the film is filled with chase scenes that come across as uninteresting commercials for Mini Coopers. Plus it has Seth Green at his most obnoxious.    

In 1970 a plane carrying almost the entire Marshall University football team and staff crashed on its way back to Huntington, killing everyone on board. While some felt it was disrespectful to continue on the next season, a team led by new coach Matthew McConaughey managed to rebuild itself after the disaster. I do enjoy a good sports film, though I don’t relate to ones that rely on an entire community supposedly being transformed by a single team. Not that I doubt such towns exist, I’ve just never experienced one. Along with an impressive cast that includes Ian McShane, David Strathairn, and Anthony Mackie, what sets this one apart is its reflection on loss and shared grief. The actual sport takes a way back seat to this theme. 

Former children’s musician Matthew Broderick finds himself more and more isolated other than attempts at bonding with his young daughter chess matches with his sickly, philosophical roommate Michael Kenneth Williams. When Williams falls into a diabetic coma, his sister Sanaa Lathan arrives from Senegal and Matthew finally finds a new connection to life. A slight cliché of a movie which probably doesn’t do enough for its Black characters, its strengths lie directly in the hands of its central cast. Perhaps it’s just the nostalgic Ferris Bueller connection, but I find Broderick generally likable even in his most unlikable characters.

Recently released from jail, Mark Wahlberg accepts a job working with his friend Joaquin Phoenix as muscle for his aunt’s new husband James Caan’s railway car company. It’s hard to watch any gangster work, especially The Sopranos, and not know about the corruption in the sanitation business, but it wasn’t until A Most Violent Year and now this film that I realized it oozes through all contract oriented services in New York. With an impressive cast that also includes Charlize Theron, Faye Dunaway, and Ellen Burstyn, it generally follows the expected trajectory of similar stories. Wahlberg’s simple-minded, wide eyed schtick gets old after awhile which makes him a mostly unappealing protagonist. 

In 1960s Maine, Anthony Hopkins, an older man with mysterious powers, takes up lodging in a home owned by Hope Davis where he befriends her 11 year old son Anton Yelchin. Based on a Stephen King novella, it definitely shares many of his non-horror signatures (nostalgia, a Maine setting, etc.), but it doesn’t really go anywhere with it. I was surprised to discover that Hopkins’s character ties into the Dark Tower series as the mysteries that surround him seem like they would fit in with that narrative, but in this film, they remain mostly underdeveloped and unexplained. The strength in this film lies in the scenes between Hopkins and Yelchin. Even at such a young age, it was obvious that Anton had the skills to keep up with the veteran.