B- | A Boston bank robber crew fends off the FBI and each other. Directed by Ben Affleck Starring Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, and Rebecca Hall Review by Jon Kissel |
With his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck crafted a thriller with no easy answers and rooted to its location, but the film’s success was limited to the critical realm. For his follow-up, the actor-turned-director steps back in front of the camera for The Town, a far more conventional film whose safer choices paid off with big box office. No child molesters and thorny moral dilemmas here, just a straightforward cops and robbers story starring actors on the upswing of their careers, as opposed to the potato-faced goons who populated so much of Gone Baby Gone. Another book adaptation, Affleck moves from the well-regarded Dennis Lehane source material of his debut to a book from Chuck Hogan, who would go on to write the Michael Bay Benghazi movie. For twice the budget, Affleck makes a louder but not better film. The Town is a slicker production, but it represents a step towards the predictable from Affleck, who will be hoisting Oscars and putting on a leather bat suit a few years later.
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If three is a trend, 2023 is turning into the year of the corporation movie. The upcoming Flamin’ Hot, about the pseudo-true story of how a janitor at Frito-Lay invented the Flaming Hot Cheeto, and the excellent Blackberry, about the tech company and their titular device, both praise the innovation of visionary employees and executives, though at least Blackberry isn’t a story with a happy ending. Ben Affleck’s Air is in the same vein, an underdog story about one of the world’s foremost apparel companies and the signing of their most famous client in Michael Jordan. Some amount of skepticism towards this kind of storytelling is necessary to make this project anything other than rank propaganda, and Affleck and writer Alex Convery, with uncredited script help from Matt Damon, supply the tiniest bit, allowing the viewer to exit the film in appreciation of a competent boardroom drama that’s ultimately about the rich getting richer.
Martin Scorsese, patron saint of the grubby Mafia movie, turned his eye to Boston with The Departed, the film that moved him away from the Italian Americans of his heritage and won him his Oscar under the premise that Irish Americans can be crooked bastards, too. Scorsese’s pull in the industry gave him access to top talent, Boston roots or not. The following year, legendary Bostonian Ben Affleck chose a similar setting for his directorial debut, and based on the aesthetic disparity in casting, it feels like Affleck took The Departed as a challenge. Scorsese can play in Affleck’s backyard, but can he bring the authenticity of a person who was raised in Boston? Gone Baby Gone is a strong start for its director, in no small part because the casting of major roles and insubstantial background players is considered and real, providing the viewer with a transporting experience to a place they definitely don’t want to go. Affleck clearly loves his hometown city, but maybe not this particular neighborhood. With his 34th film, Steven Spielberg isn’t going for spectacle or the weight of grand historical events. In the Fabelmans, Spielberg is changing all the broken family subtext in so many of his movies into text, finally making an autobiographical film about his childhood unencumbered by aliens, friendly or otherwise. As he approaches his ninth decade, Spielberg is still able to connect to the wonder of a child, only this time, the child is him. A combination of finding the passion that will sustain a life and uncovering adult messiness, the Fabelmans is likely to be Spielberg’s only crack at his upbringing though there’s enough material there for another attempt. While this go is imperfect in its broad scope, one of the great American artists and perhaps the greatest pop artist is incapable of making anything less than a thoughtful and propulsive film, as long as we agree that Ready Player One never happened.
Michael Crichton was one of the first popular novelists that I dove into as an adolescent. His blend of the highly technical, embodied in pages of genetic code in Jurassic Park, flattered my intelligence while his graphic depictions of velociraptors’ penchant for disemboweling sated my bloodlust. Crichton’s ability to do both made him extremely relevant to mid-90’s media, from the blockbuster success of Jurassic Park to his creation of ER. Future adaptations of his books like Sphere, Rising Sun, Disclosure, and The Lost World would fail to replicate those earlier successes, and the same holds true for Congo. Though a financial success, Frank Marshall’s adaptation is a bit of a joke, lampooned on bad movie podcasts for its interspecies sexual chemistry and gonzo finale. For mid-90’s globe-trotting adventures that got rented from the video store for sleepovers, it works well enough. There’s plenty to appreciate from a well-cast flick that pushes the boundaries of a PG-13 rating. |
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