Tag: Jamey Sheridan

True Life Twofer – ‘American Made’ and ‘Battle of the Sexes’ – Nothing Special

Nothing really connects these two films other than the old “based on a true story” moniker, but they did go wide the same day, so here we are.  I wanted to like them; I tried, but…

American Made

Directed by Doug Liman
Written by Gary Spinelli
Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Lola Kirke, Jayma Mays, Alejandro Edda, Benito Martinez, E. Roger Mitchell, Jed Rees, Jayson Warner Smith, William Mark McCullough, Mickey Sumner
Soundtrack: Christophe Beck

The last time Tom Cruise and Doug Liman got together resulted in one of the best action movies of the new millennium, so I had reasonably high expectations going into this one.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed fairly quickly.

For one thing, somebody decided it would be a good idea to shoot American Made like a Duplass Brothers film (complete with annoying snap zooms), which, for the life of me, I cannot understand, anymore than I can understand all of the praise for Tom Cruise that I’ve been seeing.  I mean, I like Tom.  He still does great movies from time to time (mostly of the Mission: Impossible variety, but that’s fine), but boy oh boy can he not pull off even the slightest of accents.

Really though, these are just nitpicks compared to the bigger issues.

There are two fatal flaws with American Made.  One, despite the “based on a true story” label, the movie is severely lacking in verisimilitude, especially in the performances (and I mean across the board), and, two, we’ve seen this kind of story done better already, and in particular I mean Blow.  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I don’t mind if you play fast and loose with the truth, but the movie better be interesting and at least feel real within the world of the story, and American Made largely fails at both.

This is not to say it’s entirely bad.  There’s a fair amount of entertainment value from the flying scenes (which are sadly shrouded in deadly controversy), and a few moments of good humor, but other than that there’s not a whole lot to grab onto.

I wish I could rate it higher, but my heart tells me no.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

 

Battle of the Sexes

Directed by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
Written by Simon Beaufoy
Cast: Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue, Natalie Morales, Eric Christian Olsen, Fred Armisen, Martha MacIsaac, Mickey Sumner, Jessica McNamee, Austin Stowell, Wallace Langham, Bridey Elliott, Lewis Pullman, James Mackay, Enuka Okuma, Mark Harelik, Jamey Sheridan, Chip Chinery, Chris Parnell, John C. McGinley
Soundtrack: Nicholas Britell

Speaking of lack of verisimilitude, let’s talk Battle of the Sexes.

To be fair, this one doesn’t play with the truth nearly as much as American Made, but outside of Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs, and the fantastic period costuming, this one fell rather flat as well, not to mention obsolete.

I say obsolete because ever since ESPN debuted its 30 for 30 series in 2009, and showed the world the depths to which sports documentaries could now reach, the idea of the classic “based on a true story” sports movie has become rather outmoded.  Not to say that any genre can’t still be done well, but I’m not sure Battle of the Sexes did justice to the story it attempted to tell, nor, frankly, did it do justice to being an entertaining film.  I tell you what though, if ESPN ever does a 30 for 30 on it, I’m all in.

One of the big problems is the pacing, due largely to the fact that the movie spends an inordinate amount of its two hour runtime tightly focused on the affair between Billie Jean King and her lover, Marilyn Barnett.  Undoubtedly, it was a crucial part of King’s life, and I’m not arguing it should go without any mention, but it doesn’t add much to the film other than to set up a moment that was obviously made up for dramatic purposes.

Beyond that though, there’s just a lot about this movie, performances especially, that feels one-dimensional.  Maybe much of the dialogue was inspired or directly quoted from real conversations, I don’t know, but most of the characters in Battle of the Sexes feel more like caricatures than real people, which would be fine if it was more of the comedy it was advertised as, but not in a film attempting to deal with real life drama.

Again, Stone and Carell are great, but they’re not enough to push this one into recommendation territory, which is sad.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

P.S.
No stingers of any kind on either film.

Movie Review – ‘Sully’ – One Fifty-Five

Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Todd Komarnicki, based on the book “Highest Duty” by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow
Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Valerie Mahaffey, Mike O’Malley, Jamey Sheridan, Anna Gunn, Holt McCallany, Chris Bauer, Ann Cusack, Sam Huntington, Jeffrey Nordling, Michael Rapaport, E. Roger Mitchell, Pascal Yen-Pfister
Soundtrack: Christian Jacob and the Tierney Sutton Band

Almost immediately, this film raises the question, “Is it appropriate to release a movie featuring sequences of a plane crashing into New York City on the weekend of the 15th anniversary of 9/11?”

The answer is most definitely, “No.” (Although, much like 9/11, I remember exactly where I was on January 15, 2009)

Of course, in reality, Flight 1549 was successfully landed on the Hudson River with zero loss of life, but the movie features some nightmare sequences in which our heroes are unsuccessful, leading to some questionable imagery.

Despite this, I’m going to say that ‘Sully’ is worth seeing overall, but it’s pretty far from a must-see, because I have some problems (and, let me tell you, seeing it in IMAX doesn’t really add anything either).

Perhaps the most frustrating element of the film is the story structure and, in turn, how it’s edited.  I’m not saying every movie (especially based-on-a-true-story types) needs to be a slave to chronology, but much of the time-shifting in ‘Sully’ is ridiculous.  On multiple occasions, the movie would come back from a flashback that went on so long I forgot it was a flashback.  Also, I wish the movie would have just picked its spot to show the incident as a whole, rather than showing some here, some there, and then going over it a couple more times; maybe show it at the beginning in “Hollywood time” and at the end in real time, but what do I know?

In addition, as much as there are good performances from the leads (Aaron Eckhart’s mustache is perfect) and most of the supporting roles (Mike O’Malley’s best work?), many of the ancillary performances took me out of the movie; whether this is a result of bad acting, bad direction, or simply bad dialogue, I don’t know, but it’s definitely a detriment.  I would’ve thought a movie like this would have put a priority on making everyone feel as real as possible, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

All in all though, ‘Sully’ is a story worth telling, even if the movie doesn’t quite match the magnitude of the real life event.  It sheds light on many unsung heroes, but also deals with the issue of instant celebrity for those not even seeking it.

Worth a matinee, but that’s about it.

Rating: ★★★☆☆