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Brian Cox

Movie Review: The Boxer — An Anti-Pugilist, Pugilist Film

by Dustin Freeley on September 1, 2011 · 0 comments

Despite its title, The Boxer might be the antithetical pugilist-movie. There is a boxer, Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis), and he does box, a little. At the same time, Flynn’s boxing is less a profession, and more a metaphor for the waning but never dying conflict between Irish Catholics and Protestants. And, it feels as if this is where the film fell short on critical and audience acclaim. Characteristically, the boxing genre is beloved; perhaps because of the contradiction within sanctioned violence that allows rage to be articulated through a surrogate party who moves fluidly along confined canvas while marrying aggression and grace, or perhaps because boxing films provide the emersion and evolution of a solitary being from an underdog to a champion a la Rocky, The Fighter, or Million Dollar Baby.

Regardless of our reasons for indulging in this genre, The Boxer shies away from the carrot that tempts us. There is no montage. There is no emergence of an underdog. Rather, Flynn was the “best boxer in Ulster” before his incarceration for his involvement with the IRA in Belfast. As the film opens, it’s clear this desire has never faded: Flynn shadow boxes in the courtyard before being sardonically asked “fourteen years wasn’t enough time for you?” Initially, we’re led to believe that the entirety of his fourteen years was spent in training, and because of this, we’re looking for his assimilation into boxing clubs and a climb through the ranks until he claims boxing’s top prize as Heavyweight Champion of the World. But this doesn’t happen. Because The Boxer isn’t about boxing – not really. In other boxing films, the narrative arc demonstrates that a will is necessary to overcome the domineering, oppressive challenge. The Boxer avoids this rout. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about demonstrating courage by knowing the limits in a situation that is rife with physical harm. It doesn’t endorse acquiescing or giving up, but it encourages the recognition of the other fighter, something that is illustrated best when Flynn fights a Nigerian heavyweight, but refuses to finish the match when his opponent is bleeding profusely and dazed. As Flynn walks from the ring, the Nigerian is propped up by two trainers, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his hand raised in victory. The Boxer isn’t about the victory so much as it’s about knowing when the fight needs to end.

Heavy handed metaphor? Admittedly, and with a lesser actor than Lewis and a lesser actress than Emily Watson (Maggie), the film could have tanked beyond belief in that it often dances on a fine line between tempered restraint and hyperbole. Ironically, some of these precarious moments arise during scenes between Watson and Lewis.

Prior to his prison sentence, eighteen-year old Danny was in love with Maggie, the daughter of Joe Hamill (Brian Cox), the head of the Belfast IRA faction. When Danny goes to jail, Maggie naturally moves on and marries an unseen man who is also eventually incarcerated for his role in IRA activities. As Danny surfaces, the flame is rekindled and a forbidden love story blooms – not just because Maggie’s married (something that seems to be forgotten at the end of the movie), but because she has a teenage son, Liam, who is witness to his mother’s temptation with transgression and is none to please about it (something else that seems to be forgotten by the end).

However, the wonky narrative isn’t as troubling as the expository scenes between Danny and Maggie. While well-acted, they seem a bit forced and develop inorganically, as if a love story – or a repeated clarification of a love story — needed to be woven into the fabric. Granted, prison snuffed the progression of their love and makes Maggie a more “dangerous fucking woman,” but the redundant interjections and exclamations that they “can’t do this,” “this is fucking ridiculous,” and “all this talk…I love you” are a bit heavy-handed, particularly because they are delivered in three scenes over fifteen minutes as if the audience was oblivious to the forbidden love – or needed to be reminded of it.

Admittedly, the introduction of love makes sense in a genre that often tackles the “fight for what’s yours” trope; at the same time, The Boxer often ascribes to the theory that “you need to know when to stop fighting.” Perhaps this ascription is only applicable to physical or gun violence and not when it involves personal desire breaking up a family. Is Flynn’s interloping made acceptable by Maggie’s belief that “my marriage was over before Liam was even born?” I’m not so sure about this. Does Flynn’s refusal to name names make his time served more heroic than Maggie’s husband – who clearly also didn’t name names, given that he didn’t “get a fucking bullet in the head”? Not so sure about this either.

Either way, Lewis should be applauded for delivering yet another characteristically solid performance. He might be one of three actors who can believably emote anger and frustration through the line “just fucking tell me” without raising his voice to convey such emotions through volume. Director Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) should also be credited with applying a different lens to a boxing film that imagines the bout between two men as both a symbol of peace and a lesson for the masses. If not the current generation then, ideally, the subsequent.

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Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes — Clever Homage or an Experiment With Motion Capture?

by Dustin Freeley on August 16, 2011 · 0 comments

Should a 2011 prequel that resembles its 1968 sequel be hailed for paying homage to its predecessor, most notably with a cultishly referential line like “Take your hands off me, you damned dirty ape!” or its melodramatic construction of the head of the ultimately demonized Gensys Corporation, Jacobs (David Oyelowo), who asserts that Will Rodman “only has one shot” to ensure the success of AOZ12? If Will, who assures Jacobs that “one shot is all I need,” is successful, he could potentially cure Alzheimer’s. If not, his toiling will be for naught because Jacobs runs “a business, not a petting zoo.”

 Or, should Rise of the Planet of the Apes be seen in the same regard as the original Planet of the Apes – just without a feeling of nostalgia that has transformed a rather campy, predictable, and obvious racial metaphor into a cult classic. It is because of this paradox that Rise of the Planet Apes might be worth seeing, but it also might be worth skipping.

The primary reason to catch this film is Andy Serkis, the actor behind Caeser, the progeny of Bright Eyes, the ape that was originally Rodman’s one shot to prove that AOZ12 was a marketable product, but who was killed after escaping from two rather inept chimp handlers and being hastily labeled “violent.” As the dead body lays on the conference room table and Will is left to try to explain himself, the unknown baby Caeser is found in Bright Eyes’ cage. Preferring not to let the baby chimp be exterminating like the other dozen in the laboratory, Will takes him home and deems him Caeser. While Caser is never directly exposed to AOZ12 chemical, it was passed to him through his mother, so his intelligence is amplified ten times that of a normal chimp – or three year old human for that matter.

The anthropomorphic Caser could have been a detriment to this film inasmuch as the visual achievement runs the risk of exposing itself as blatant CGI. However, Serkis – much like he did as Gollum in Lord of the Rings – gives his character emotion, and quite frankly, the most heartwarming and emotional moments in the film are evoked because of Serkis’ subtle facial expressions as Caeser in reaction to his human counterparts.

Ironically, the human counterparts James Franco, John Lithgow, and Freida Pinto leave a bit to be desired. Perhaps they were directed to capture the melodrama of the original by only delivering predominately one line, expositive responses that rely on inflection more than content to convey the seriousness, sadness, or happiness of each scene. If so, I guess I get it, but it makes the film choppy and swings dangerously close to cheesy whenever they’re on screen.

The melodrama certainly isn’t restrained when Caeaser attacks Hunsiker (David Hewlitt), the next door neighbor who accosts Charles Rodman (John Lithgow). Somehow, throughout the documented years that Charles and Will have lived next to Hunsiker, he never grasps the concept that Charles has Alzheimer’s, though it’s not something that is hidden throughout the film, but I digress. The main issue that arises here is that Caeser is, in effect, put into an animal sanctuary that more closely resembles a prison run by sadistic warden John Landon (Brian Cox) and his son Dodge (Tom Felton).

The scenes within the sanctuary are effectively depressing, and ultimately serve to convince Caeser that he is not human, despite how he was raised and the way in which he sees himself as a cognizant, sentient being. At the same time, certain scenes also devolve to cartoonish moments that evoke images of Cruella De Vil, or the sadistic guards from Midnight Express. I suppose that Rise tries to use these scenes to mirror the racial allegory so endemic to the 1968 original, but our knowledge of the former makes the references in the latter a bit heavy-handed.

All in all, Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a fun ride and a successful endeavor in the progression of motion-capture filmmaking. At the same time – and similarly to Avatar – the script and direction of the human actors seems to have been compromised in a showcasing of what can be done with a camera.

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Guilt-Laden Memory Vs. The Lack of Memory in Superhero Mythology and X-Men Origins: Wolverine

by Dustin Freeley on June 16, 2010 · 3 comments

Halfway through 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Logan (Hugh Jackman) delivers the line “I come with you. I’m coming for blood. No law. No code of conduct,” which marks a departure from the moral, yet stigmatized killing machine who ventured heroically through the Civil War, World War I, II, and the Vietnam War. And, this seems to be the first facet of Wolverine’s depth as a superhero – or more aptly, anti-hero.

The impetus of Logan’s wrath is the presumed murder of his girlfriend Kayla (Lynn Collins), who he has grown to love in the six years since he abandoned his group of fellow mutant/elite military killing machines in an attempt to suffocate his compartmentalization as an “animal,” a stigma he softens by kissing Kayla in public and holding his temper when confronting token bullies who refuse to let the two of them drive over a bridge. At the same time, Logan’s fear of his potential rage rests lightly on his psyche inasmuch as he needs Kayla’s constant reassurance that “[He’s] not an animal. What [he] ha[s] is a gift.” While we find this is eventually part of a ruse that will be discussed a bit later on, it ameliorates Logan’s latent rage that occasionally manifests itself in the form of night terrors that end in ruined sheets and a mattress that absorb the bone claws driven into them.

As far as superheroes go, Logan initially follows suit in that the loss of a loved one, and the visceral memory of her death, haunts him enough to spur his need for revenge. William Stryker promises Logan an opportunity to “have [his] revenge” with the caveat “You’ll suffer more pain than any other man can endure.” Anodynes don’t exist for lost love, so Logan agrees and his body is injected with adamantium, covering his skeleton and transforming his bone claws into shamshir-like weapons.

Initially, Wolverine’s origin tale is rather familiar and reminiscent of Bruce Wayne, the orphaned child who witnesses the murder of his parents by a mugger who was either looking for a fix – if you follow the rhetoric of Batman Begins – or who eventually becomes the Joker – if you’re a Tim Burton cultist. The entirety of the Batman mythology is that Wayne seeks vengeance over those who attack those who can’t protect themselves or others, much like the young Bruce Wayne. That said, it seems that Batman is simultaneously haunted by his guilt of futility and cowardice – one that prevented him from protecting his parents. As a child, Wayne can’t be held accountable for their deaths, but the inability to act in a time of crisis can often lead to feelings of resentment and self-loathing. Therefore, the memory of his parents’ death and his inability to prevent their demise drives him to don the cape and cowl.

In the same vein, Peter Parker – with the help of a fortuitously precocious radioactive spider – seeks justice against the murderer of his Uncle Ben, a thief who he had originally refused to subdue, stating it is “the job of the police” (Amazing Fantasy #15). Like Batman, Spiderman is driven to protect those who can’t protect themselves by the guilt that resides within him, though this time it is the guilt of indifference. However, what these origin tales have in common is that the memory of a deceased loved one, and the inherent guilt conjured by their respective memories keeps the heroes on their path of vigilantism.

As Origins progresses, there are a number of claw wielding, berserker-style attacks that illustrate exactly how badass Wolverine can be, particularly when he seeks refuge in a farmhouse and must eventually take on a helicopter as well as a sniper with nothing but a motorcycle and six indestructible claws. While some of the casting choices in Origins differ from the story constructed in X2 – primarily the role of Williams Stryker, played by the stout, muscular Brian Cox in X2 and the physically opposite Danny Huston in Origins – the depiction of Wolverine is rather faithful and the third act leads us to the broodingly bearded and mysterious character in 2000’s X-Men.

At the same time, the third act of Origins differentiates Wolverine from most other superheroes, and it’s not because he’s the typical anti-hero that emerged in American pop culture toward the end of the Vietnam War; more so, Wolverine is atypical because he is driven by his lack of memory. The anger-impelled Logan initially sought vengeance on Vincent for Kayla’s death, and eventually Stryker because he and Vincent were working together, fostering a grand manipulation to draw Wolverine into their trap of mutant experiments. While Logan’s memory-driven vengeance is fueled by memory, the denouement of Origins begins with Stryker shooting Wolverine in the head with two adamantium bullets, which don’t kill him, but rather symbolically baptism him in the River Lathe, washing away his memory. Confused and unfamiliar with his apocalyptical surroundings, Logan is unaware of who he is, his only semblance of identity are his dog tags: one side emblazoned with Logan, the other Wolverine, a name earlier given to him by Kayla and one chosen when he embarked on his new trail of revenge – which completely obviates his given name, James. The initial irony inherent in this associative choice is that Logan, now Wolverine, is unaware of where his sobriquet derives. Instead, he associates the visual tags around his neck as a conscious choice, one that stretches prior to the embryonic moments of his new memory. The second irony is that Wolverine has now self-labeled himself “animal,” the very stigma he was trying to snuff through the first two acts of the movie.

Therefore, Wolverine’s lack of memory differentiates him from other superheroes. He doesn’t lose his morals – evidenced by his compassion for Rogue in X-Men and X2 as well as his love for Jean Gray – but his motivation does not stem from guilt as he has no idea what he might be guilty of and no true semblance of who he is. Instead, Wolverine is driven by what he doesn’t know, a quest to uncover himself and the memories that initially impelled the rage within him.

There is an overall sadness in this lack of memory insofar as Wolverine sees Kayla’s dead body on the ground and closes her eyes, seeing only a dead woman, unaware of the love that he originally harbored, and simultaneously unaware of the deceit that she was a part of – the deceit that ushered him into his current predicament. Thus, when Wolverine eventually recovers his memories, fulfilling his quest’s current purpose, those memories will conjure pain and resentment, a feeling of manipulation and betrayal.

While Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker might eventually find closure by tallying enough collared criminals to offset the self-prosecuting crime of futility and inability, Wolverine might be the Hamlet of comic books – discovering what you seek leads to what you never wished to know.

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