Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

The Two Faces of January

9/28/2016

C-
1.67

An expat amateur conman helps out a pro and his wife in Greece.

Directed by Hossein Amini
Starring Oscar Isaac, Viggo Mortensen, and Kirsten Dunst
Initial Review by Sean Riley

Netflix describes The Two Faces of January as “A tour guide and part-time con artist finds himself caught in a dangerous arrangement when he meets a wealthy couple sightseeing in Greece” Genres: 20th century period pieces, thrillers, crime thrillers. Suspenseful.

Based on that description I added to my list and was excited. I loved Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst are recognizable so I was expecting a combination of excitement and beautiful scenery. We start strong. Oscar Isaac is very charismatic as tour guide conman Rydal and you can see all the girls on his tour swooning over him and his quick exchange rate swindles over lunch establish who he is. Viggo and Kirsten as Chester and Collette are introduced as the typical rich American tourists heavy on the cash and light on the local knowledge and language. The exchange in the bazaar when they overpay for the bracelet is brilliant. Rydal begins with throwing out a price that is more than enough then “negotiates” it down while tacking on a chunk for himself to the delight of the salesman as he gets paid and a couple American fat cats get screwed because they don’t know any better. So far I’m feeling like we’re getting a version of The Talented Mr Ripley.

When the private investigator comes to shake down Chester we learn about who he is but the movie also breaks down for me. If Chester is a conman/swindler type he’s way too easy of a mark for Rydal. That type of guy doesn’t so easily get ripped off on flea market sales and being involved in investments he’ll have some knowledge of exchange rates. After he kills the PI he has 2 choices- immediately go to the authorities and say this man pulled a gun on me and my wife and I defended myself- the investigation would show the man has stalked this couple. Or he can run, if run is the option he knows he needs his passports. Get them now before the guy is even found and be gone. He not only screws this up he gets ripped off again by Rydal on the passports and is forced to count on him in his escape.

This movie wasn’t particularly suspenseful to me. The only question was Did Rydal and Collette have sex or not. But even then who really cares. They tried very hard to play up the father figure relationship throughout, Chester reminded Rydal of his father, Rydals dad recently died and he didn’t attend the funeral, dads disappoint their children as they grow up because flaws become evident, Rydal went to Chester’s burial, etc etc. But the relationship they had was never like that. Rydal had a connection with Collette but was always distant from Chester, and if that’s the idea that it mirrors the relationship with Rydal’s dad it failed. If someone is a stand-in for your father because you feel guilty about failings in your real father/son relationship there is some overcompensating for that.

Isaac shined from a performance standpoint otherwise I didn’t care about these people. The cinematography fell flat and missed out on great opportunities based on the locales.
C

6 Comments

Bryan

9/30/2016 10:00:22 pm

I'm not sure what the appeal of this movie was supposed to be. Odd things that stood out in the second half.

*Rydal is on the phone talking in Greek. His friend says in Greek, "I didn't know he was wanted for murder." Rydal responds in English, "I didn't know." Then starts talking in Greek again. Is there not a Greek phrase for "I didn't know." And how did his friend understand him?

*They bail on the bus and are told it's 5km. How could they not walk 5 km without needing to sleep for 8+ hours?

*At the very end, Rydal and Chester are running from the cops and have lost them. The cops say, "They must be headed for the square" or something. Then Rydal and Chester proceed to run to the square. How dumb.

I'm with Sean that it started strong, but I'm not sure there were many other redeeming qualities. A lot of morons on the run.

D+

Jon

10/1/2016 06:47:39 pm

This should be a can't-miss movie. Oscar Isaac is one the best actors of his age group, as is Viggo Mortensen, and Kirsten Dunst has cashed out her big budget chips for more interesting work in things like Melancholia and the second season of Fargo. Put those three together in an old-timey pot boiler that takes place amongst Hellenic ruins and it's easy to see how this film got made. The result is something bland and boring. First-time director Hossein Amini, whose previous writing credits include Drive, Snow White and the Huntsman, and 47 Ronin, injects minimal life into The Two Faces of January, a film so flat that even people as talented as the central trio can't elevate it.

If I had to diagnose this film's biggest problem, it would be how unsurprising it is. The father-son dynamic between Mortensen's Chester and Isaac's Rydal is openly addressed in an uninteresting way, the simmering chemistry between Rydal and Dunst's Collette is wholly expected, and Chester's jealousy is the most predictable note that character could play. There's a 23 year difference between Dunst and Mortensen, and while that gap works for the time period and the specific circumstances of the plot, it's obvious that a relationship like that would have foundational cracks in it even with Chester's embezzlement exacerbating their problems. Of course he's going to be jealous of suave Rydal, to the point where it doesn't even matter if Collette and Rydal consummate anything or not. I never buy these kind of stress-induced infatuations in the first place. Escape danger first, then worry about getting some.

I would wager this story plays better on the page. Adapted from a Patricia Highsmith novel (who also wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley), I have no doubt there's more life in her prose than through Amini's lens. I'm not surprised to see cinematographer Marcel Zyskind has a skinny resume, though I was surprised to see that the editors (Nicholas Chaudeurge and Jon Harris) have some well-cut work in their filmography. It's all under Amini's supervision, and there is very little that is cinematic about this film. No shots stick out in my 4-day-old memory, and the chase scenes or the intercutting between characters arriving at the same destination added minimal tension to what should be a tense story.

The redeeming factor, by a little, are the actors, who would have to be working with the dregs of the industry to not have some measure of screen presence. I don't think any of the three are bad; they're just not given much. Women panicking is increasingly tiresome and one-note and a little sexist, so Dunst sadly gets the short straw, but like The Great Dictator, a film that actively annoyed me instead of bored me, there's at least one A-level scene. Unsurprisingly, it's one that contains no dialogue. When Rydal finds Chester on the boat , and they wordlessly sit down across from each other, with Rydal stewing and Chester putting his resolve back together, I'm in it based solely on the performances. However, that too eventually tapers off and while the film is building to its climactic standoff, I'm back to checking how much more time is left.

The Two Faces of January is a big disappointment. On my radar since its release, I'm glad I can tick it off but am not pleased with the experience. I can't say I didn't like it, exactly, but I 'nothing' this movie, getting it the lowest of C-'s. I probably would've had more fun with it if it at least pissed me off.

Sean

10/1/2016 07:01:11 pm

You're much better at describing things from a cinematic perspective but it seems we couldn't possibly agree more about this movie.

10/1/2016 08:34:15 pm

Oktoberfest Bryan clicked Jon's Letterbox review on Facebook, clicked thru Letterbox, read the review, and thought "that does sound like a Jon review. Weird that they'd both bring up Mr. Ripley." Turns out it was Sean's review. Go me.

Cooker

10/4/2016 10:20:13 am

I understand the two-face part of the title, but can only assume it takes place in January. Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned from the book’s page that the month January was named after Janus, the Roman God with two faces (one looking in the past and one the future).

So, we’ve got an American tour guide ripping off tourists in Athens, a New York con-man who stole money from investors and the con-man’s wife, who are on a high-spend vacation in Greece. It was one of those “who’s ripping off who? Who’s framing who?” type of movies. I was honestly waiting for a pair of the trio to have had a previous encounter or relationship at some point, and that two were somehow screwing the other. Once Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst, or Colette, or whatever her real name was in this movie) met her demise, I pretty much figured out this was not the case. This is where I started losing interest as Viggo and Oscar tried to con one another.

I think the whole father figure aspect fell flat, as well as the suspense in the latter half of the film. And I know the difference between Viggo Mortensen and Liam Neeson, but for some reason I just kept envisioning Liam Neeson in his role.

A pretty good start to a movie that eventually became kinda meh. Going C on this one.

10/4/2016 07:28:41 pm

I meant to comment this morning about the title given my love of Roman history.

Janus was typically put above doorways to indicate coming and going, past and future, time, etc. I fail to see how that is related to this movie. Chester had a past and what he thought was his future, but his character was a slime ball through and through. Colette never went above in it for the money to me. Rydal was a swindler through and through.

The Two Faces of January

C-
1.67

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The Two Faces of January

C-​1.67

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C-
1.67