"50/50"
Richard's Review: 4 1/2 stars
50/50, as Kyle (Seth Rogen) says, is pretty good odds. "If you were a casino game you'd have the best odds!" But he's not a casino game, he's Kyle's best friend Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Twenty-seven-year-old Adam is a clean living guy. Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, he even recycles but yet after having some back pain a routine check-up reveals he has a rare form of cancer. The main people in his life, girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), best friend (Seth Rogen) and mother (Anjelica Huston) all react in their own, distinct ways. Only two fellow chemotherapy patients (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) seem to understand what he is going though. A bubbly but inexperienced therapist (Anna Kendrick) provides some comfort, but may not be able to keep a professional distance.
Cancer is no laughing matter, we all know that. But "50/50" breaks taboos left and right, using Adam's cancer as the basis for a comedy. Luckily it's tempered with great performances, a smart script and real emotion. There's no a false moment thanks to a script written by Will Reiser, the real life inspiration for the story. Reiser, a pal of Seth Rogen (who also produced the movie) and cancer survivor, finds just the right balance between mortality, romance and cancer jokes -- one character says the more syllables the name of your tumor has, the worse it is -- in a script that will have you laughing and crying at the same time.
Gordon-Levitt is the film's centerpiece, giving a natural, authentic performance as a person facing his own mortality even though he can't quite believe he's in that situation.
Rogen, not surprisingly, is the comic relief. Once again, after getting sidelined by super hero movies and the like, Rogen is doing the work that reminds us why we liked him in the first place. As Adam's skirt-chasing best friend he's lewd and rude but he's also brimming with warmth. His talent is his likeability.
The rest of the cast performs well. Bryce Dallas Howard, who seems to be making a career of playing villainess characters, brings her A-game. Ditto Angelica Houston who breathes life into Adam's over-dramatic mother. Kendrick also impresses as the therapist in over her head both professionally and personally.
"50/50" is a unique film. It takes a realistic approach in portraying a cancer patient's life, but doesn't forget to present a fully rounded view. It never pokes fun, but also doesn't deny its darkly (and not so dark) humorous moments.
"Machine Gun Preacher"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
"Machine Gun Preacher" is set in a world where the line between mercenary and humanitarian is very thin. Gerard Butler plays the title character, a man who preaches fire-and-brimstone and can shoot the tail feathers off an ostrich at fifty yards.
When we first meet Sam Childers (Butler) he's a tough guy fresh out of jail. He finds that old habits die hard -- especially old drug habits. When his hell raising ways catch up to him something remarkable happens; he finds God. The former biker shifts gears and becomes a model citizen, even funding and building his own church. A sermon about the plight of Sudanese children prompts him to become a crusader for thousands of orphaned African children. He earns a reputation as a gun toting saviour but his faith is severely tested when all his efforts to save the children seem to be for naught.
"Machine Gun Preacher" is based on the real life story of Sam Childers, a former trigger-happy biker who founded the Angels of East Africa orphanage. It's a very compelling story, almost in the territory of stranger than fiction, but this fellow's colourful life hits a few rocky patches in its translation to the screen.
In an effort to hit all high points of Childers's life, director Marc "Monster's Ball" Forster speeds through the early part of the story, the transformation from hellion to angel, very quickly. The conversion is a crucial plot point and if we don't buy into it we'll have a hard time being on side for the rest of the story.
The rest of the movie skips and jumps around as well, as though it was cut down from a much longer movie. Luckily it moves along at such a clip that the strange blend of revenge and religion is never given the chance to settle for too long. That's a good thing because it's an uncomfortable mix. One minute he's preaching, the next he's gunning down Sudanese rebels. He's Rambo with a Bible.
The movie is inspirational and shines a light on some poignant issues, but feels more movie-of-the-week than serious drama about a man's transformation.
Butler brings some intensity to the role, but Michael Shannon and Michelle Monaghan, as the junkie biker who learns to walk a different path and the born again ex-junkie stripper wife respectively, are wasted in roles that give them little to do.
"Machine Gun Preacher" suffers from playing fast and loose with the events that lead up to the story's main thrust -- one man's ability to change not only his life, but the lives of people around him -- and as a result the transformation doesn't have the impact it should.
"What's Your Number?"
Richard's Review: 3 stars (for Anna Faris)
I'm not going to suggest "What's Your Number?" is a great, or even good movie. It has a typical rom com plot gussied up with some Judd Apatow style barbs and some gratuitous shots of its almost naked stars, but it also has Anna Faris, and for me that's enough. She has crack comic timing and an unpredictable way with a line that takes a Kathryn Heigl level script and turns it into something watchable.
Faris is Ally, a young Bostonian with a bad relationship track record. Weeks before her sister is due to tie the knot she reads a magazine article which suggests the number of sexual partners a woman has had will determine her romantic success later in life. More than 20, it says, and you have virtually no hope of ever settling down. She does the math and realizes she's in the danger zone. To prevent going over 20 partners she revisits all her ex-boyfriends in hopes of finding a husband.
"What's Your Number?" is a strange movie that mixes and mingles both the standard old cell phone switcheroo plot device AND edgy rape jokes. It doesn't have the laughs of an Apatow movie or the heart... but once again, I'll say it, it has Anna Faris.
Faris is working hard here, playing against a script that casts her as the most clichéd of all rom com characters, a desperate woman on the hunt for a man. She's a harlot with a past but her male next door neighbor (Chris Evans), who has hundreds of notches on his bedpost, is a charmer who simply hasn't found the right woman yet. Just another example of how wrong headed the sexual politics of rom coms are, even in 2011.
A love scene with a puppet and Andy Samberg is a highlight and one of the things -- did I mention Anna Faris? -- that make this movie almost special. There are just enough funny scenes (and shots of co-star Evans's abs) to almost make this an in-the-pocket rom com, but then the good stuff is followed by long stretches of by-the-book writing. It's a shame to see this kind of potential wasted.
"Breakaway"
Richard's Review: 1 star
Two things occurred to me while I watched "Breakaway," a new hockey comedy set against Toronto's cultural mosaic. 1. Russell Peters does the worst drunk impression ever. 2. Only one letter separates the word "hokey" from "hockey."
Vinay Virmani plays Rajveer Singh, a first-generation Canadian with a passion for hockey and a father (Anupam Kher) who wants him to join the family trucking business. Determined to follow his dream, he cobbles together a team, the Speedy Singhs, and takes on the reigning Hyundai Cup champs. Cultures clash on and off the ice as his traditional father pushes him toward devotion and truck driving and the predominantly white hockey league looks down on his team.
It's amazing that a country which professes to love hockey makes such lame movies about the sport. Ripe with sports clichés -- goals scored just as the buzzer rings, determined underdogs and a life flashing in front of a player's eyes as they storm down the ice -- bad puns -- Mahatma Gretzky anyone? -- and jokes so old they were moldy when Bob and Bing used them seventy years ago -- "You just have to stay positive." "Oh, I'm positive. Positive we're going to embarrass ourselves!"—"Breakaway" isn't so much a story but a place where sport movie truisms go to die. The movie has some heart, but feels like an echo of many other sports movies, most noticeably "Bend it Like Beckham."
There is probably a good movie to be made about the colour wall of hockey, or the first generation Canadian experience of the game but "Breakaway" isn't it.
