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Limitless (2011)

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Directed by: Neil Burger
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish
2nd Viewing: DVD

“And then I began to form an idea. Suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to do. It wasn’t writing, it wasn’t books, it was much bigger than that. But it was going to take money to get there.”

Edward Morra, Limitless (2011)

What was Edward Morra’s idea? Doesn’t matter, that line is there to imply he has a masterplan. He doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have been later pondering his destiny like an over-praised schoolboy. “Maybe [I'll become] president. Time someone shook up the free world and get things done.” In the end, Morra’s fate seems to be poltics as he is last seen trying to become a Senator. But in what way would he change the world? Edward Morra’s actions in Limitless suggest the answer to this question would be pathetic.

Since utilizing the nootropic wonderdrug NZT, Morra has answered the film’s premise (What would you do if you were 20 or 30 times smarter than anyone else on Earth?) by making money and getting laid. Big whoop. As if to highlight the character’s epic underachievement the film climaxes with him fighting a small time hoodlum. Maybe if it was a reflective scene questioning the limits of abstract intellect versus the brutish realities of physical force, then maybe it would have value. But it’s not. It’s just a ruckus with some goons. A goon ruckus.

Ok, so maybe the events of the film were just teething problems while our protagonist got to grips with his new abilities. After all, he’s super smart not infallible. Nonetheless, the choices he made in the course of the film still give us insight into his instincts, his personality, who he really is.

NZT makes everything is 2 f-stops brighter with a warmer white balance.

Edward Morra was introduced to us as a writer. Maybe if we understand what it is to be a writer then we can better understand what Morra wants.

Writers aspire to share their experience, viewpoint and ideas, they also want to show off their ability with words, they enjoy the process of writing and mixed up in all of it is a desire to be praised for their work and prove they have talent. It’s a mixture of ego, creative aspiration, an imperative to connect, to educate, to entertain, and simple enjoyment.

Morra rejects writing after he finishes his first book. He sees it as beneath him as evidenced by his “something much bigger” comment. It would be safe to say then that Morra’s original desire to write was overwhelmingly ego-centric and not one of cathartic or creative need.

In fact, throughout the film all of Morra’s creative activities confirm this. He learns to play the piano but doesn’t write music or explore any of the possibilities that such knowledge and skill would offer. For almost everyone music resonates on an emotional level. If Morra had even the most basic appreciation for music then wouldn’t his heightened sensory perception make it even more powerful? It appears then that music was merely a puzzle to solve. Just like languages were. Morra learnt languages, not to connect with different people and learn about alien cultures rich in history and ideas but to charm waiters and fuck women.

Morra did not persist with anything creative. He didn’t write mind-blowing books filled with revolutionary ideas*, he didn’t write heart-breaking songs nor paint beautiful pictures. He didn’t invent new technologies or even advance existing ones. Instead he made money by speculating on money markets. In essence, he took up gambling. The smartest man in the world contributed nothing of any value.

Now, you might say that at the end of the film he is twelve months older, he could have grown, and that his Senate run is part of some kind of masterplan to bring a lasting global peace, or maybe just organise the world’s food supply so that those enduring famines might eat. To that I would say, coconut horse bollocks.

'I'd come this close to having an impact on the world.' No you didn't. You came close to brokering a merger.

Remember that brief conversation with his campaign manager about the second overflow fundraising dinner? Well there you go. He’s soliciting donations. We know he can get all the money he wants, so why is he accepting donations? There’s only one reason he would begin his political career entangled with big business: because he wants what businesses want. There is no conflict of interest. Look at him there, with the same old glib slogans and shithead haircut. So much for shaking things up.

So in the end Edward Morra is just a blank-minded consumer capitalist monkeyboy. With all his knowledge and insight he still lacks inspiration and fails to transcend the mediocrity of his society. Instead, he wholeheartedly subscribes to its most lamentable elements. The smartest man in the world is a provincial conformist.

*Yes, he wrote that one book but that was at the beginning of his new mindset. Most of it would have been based on his old views and it was probably some trendy bullshit anyway, like those bores Little Dicky Dawkins or Malcolm Gladrags have written. And I bet it included yet another tedious retelling of the Kitty Genovese incident. Arseholes love telling that story because they think it bestows upon them a profound insight into human nature. Besides, the fact that he abandoned writing demonstrates that Morra undervalues the power of ideas and the importance they hold in changing the world. Not that he has any ideas on how or why the world should be changed, the slob.

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Other thoughts:

  • While Edward Morra is undoubtedly a schmuck, and Limitless woefully under-performs when it comes to its premise, there are some good things about it: It rushes along its 95 minute run time in a frenetic, exciting way. There’s energy in its camera work and editing, and an inventiveness in how intellectual pursuits are depicted -the infinity zooming effect is excellent.
  • In the long term, what would the world be like for a person on NZT? Would you come to find everyone else tedious, feel alienated, feel lonely? Would you look at your partner and think they were an idiot? Would you treat them like a pet? I think you’d end up a bit like Dr. Manhattan, might even feel a bit blue.
  • “With Verne’s cash combined with an unprecedented surge in motivation I was able to complete the book in four days.” What the hell kind of fallacious reasoning is that? What’s Verne’s cash got to do with writing a book? Nothing. Bloody idiot.
  • When John Travolta in Phenomenon gets mysteriously endowed with super-intelligence and telekinesis, he sketches out new car park designs and farming strategies so that his friends might benefit. He also gets Forest Whitaker laid with a Portuguese maid. He’d get my vote.
  • When I saw it in the cinema last year, Limitless seemed longer. This time it was as if they decided to just stop the film, nothing seemed resolved, only established, like a too-long act 1 or a TV pilot.

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Contagion (2011)

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Lawrence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Demitri Martin, Elliot Gould, John Hawkes

Spoilers everywhere. Watch first, read later.


I’ve often wondered what a film would be like if it were entirely populated with top actors. Contagion has a good stab at answering that question. Anyone who’s seen Breaking Bad will know what a truly great actor Bryan Cranston can be. Here, he’s pretty much an extra, playing an unremarkable army bureaucrat in three brief scenes. How opulent this film is to cast an actor of such talent in a role so inconsequential. Same with Elliot Gould, same with Marion Cotillard. Kate Winslet has a leading role but only for half the film, taking early retirement to a mass grave.

A good question would be “why?” Why fill your movie with famous, and therefore expensive actors, especially in roles that don’t really matter? Of course, there are obvious business answers to this. Steven Soderbergh is a director who can handle both big budget Hollywood (the Ocean’s series, Traffic, Erin Brockovich), as well as indie/experimental features like Ché and The Girlfriend Experience, and often mixes these sensibilities to great effect; so who wouldn’t want to work with him? Also, big names help sell the movie and are an investment. And for the actors, working in a big budget all-star production connects them with other successful players thus elevating, or at the very least, maintaining their status. But the most interesting reason lies in what kind of film Contagion is and what its relationship is to the viewer.

Contagion depicts a global pandemic. It’s a disaster/apocalypse film. As such, there are bunch of different characters in all sorts of places all over the world. Despite their cosmetic differences -ethnicity, language, culture –they all retain ‘everyman’ qualities. The characters are broadly drawn, ciphers, foils to our common human fears, hopes and concerns. And their lack of complexity isn’t a problem because we’re bombarded with so many of the prosaic folks that we don’t have time to notice. So perhaps, just maybe, the decision to employ all these brilliant actors in roles that don’t come close to testing their abilities has something to do with their familiarity to the audience. For the global pandemic to be meaningful, we’ve got to not want it to happen and for that we’ve got to care about the people in peril. But if we’re bouncing across the planet and only spending a few moments with each character, it’s tricky to care, no matter how much you highlight their universal humanity.

So did I care more because all these big and little roles were filled with actors that I know and like? Not really. I will say this, it was a fun distraction. On a metatextual level, there was a giddy uncertainty as to what fate would befall these characters simply because we meet them in roles that show a rare disregard for an actor’s perceived value and status. What other film would snuff out Winslet at the half way mark? Other than that, humanity could have died out and it would’ve been fine by me.

Luckily for Contagion, the main character is actually the disease and as it turns out they’re pretty interesting. As the film plays out the global pandemic from beginning to end, there are all sorts of issues that are raised, from little background mentions like that of law enforcement absenteeism being at 25% while looters raid peoples homes, to debates over what is more dangerous: the disease or the fear of it. Pedestrian as the characters may well be, the nitty gritty of the disease and its effects are enough to keep us entertained as we enjoy the vicarious thrills of a worldwide catastrophe.

Having said that, for a genre that thrives on spectacle, Contagion is notably low-key in that respect. Yes, there are mass graves, sudden deaths, stampedes, but such events are in the minority. This film is about the process of the disease. It aims to give a realistic picture of what would happen if such a disease were in our world. I think it succeeds in this but along the way there are a few missteps.

Other than the disease, the only other villain is Jude Law’s character, Alan Krumwiede, an Australian (when Jude can be bothered to maintain the accent) who claims to be a freelance journalist but is really just a blogger, albeit one with a big following. Alan fakes contracting the MEV-1 virus and claims to his readers that he’s been cured with Forsythia, a homeopathic product that Alan has a financial interest in and subsequently makes $4 million. Strangely, Alan is the only character that brings the internet into the story and as he’s a venal scumbag and his readers are contrary conspiracy theorists. By association, the internet is dismissed as an irrelevant, negative side show. This is incredible. At one point “social distancing” is advised. That is, no shaking hands, physical contact, etc. In such a world where physical contact could be fatal, wouldn’t the internet become an even more important part of people’s lives? Contagion has made itself look old-fashioned by not thinking about what role the internet would play. And when you consider how careful and accurately the film uses epidemiology, it’s all the more disappointing.

Contagion’s other boo-boo is its obstinate desire to remain apolitical. Again, this weakens the verisimilitude by ignoring the fact that governments would be an incredibly important factor in how things went down. As Contagion tells it, the US Government-run CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), with a little help from the business world, manage to tame the disease, and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) more or less do ok helping people. But this is all based on the massive assumption that governments are basically trustworthy and capable in times of extreme crisis. Perhaps, it was best that they didn’t get bogged down in politics, admittedly it could have been very boring, but Contagion’s lack of scrutiny towards its authority figures, the vilification of its sole dissident, and the dismissal of populist medium The Internet, leaves a sinister aftertaste.

Nonetheless, Contagion is a good film. The techno-political follies are only noticeable because the rest of the film is so well conceived. It lacks an emotional kick but works well as a brain tickler. I’m glad I’ve seen it. I think others should see it. I’m going to bed.

• Other Contagion Reviews

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Ghost Town

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

So here it is, Ricky Gervais’ first lead role in a Hollywood film, and a romantic lead at that. Does the chubby funster melt our hearts? Well, sort of. In an unexpected twist, Gervais isn’t that funny but does manage to pull off the dramatic side of things quite convincingly. Perhaps this is a uniquely British viewpoint. We’re used to his high-pitched, exasperated outrage from his sitcom Extras and on his regular TV appearances, but this trademark comedy manoeuvre has certainly lost its charm and makes for few laughs. Nonetheless, Gervais deserves credit for braving a sincerity not previously seen. He plays Dr. Bertram Pincus, a lonely, misanthropic dentist who dies for seven minutes during a routine operation and awakes with the ability to see ghosts. One of the ghosts, Frank (Greg Kinnear), pesters him to break up his widow Gwen’s (Téa Leoni) relationship. Naturally, the moody dentist begins to thaw and falls for Gwen, making him a better man. It’s a familiar story. Charles Dickens wrote the ‘grouch redemption via supernatural intervention’ prototype with A Christmas Carol. If anything, Ghost Town is a step backwards; its ghosts can’t even time travel! But there are lots of modern influences too. Obviously Pincus “sees dead people” á la The Sixth Sense and then there’s the Patrick Swayze opus Ghost with its broadly similar plot (rest easy, Gervais doesn’t strip to the waist for some saucy pottery). There are touches of Groundhog Day too with its wisecracking cynic lead. But most reminiscent is As Good As It Gets, another redemption story set in Manhattan’s Upper East Side that had Jack Nicholson as its rude neurotic and which also starred Greg Kinnear. That film won Oscars, Ghost Town won’t. It’s haunted by all these predecessors and never establishes its own identity. The settings -Central Park, Museum of Natural History -have all the meaning of a postcard. The apartment buildings with doormen and plush cocktail bars continue the sterile, upper middle class, urban fairytale. And the soundtrack is pure Hollywood -a rich, sumptuous and safe sound that is as snug as open fires and magical as Christmas but clichéd as hell. In many ways, writer-director David Koepp has got the classic New York romantic comedy he clearly desired, but with its homogeneous feel, was adhering to that template such a good idea?

Thankfully, David Koepp is a much better writer than director. His CV is packed with modern Hollywood classics; Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Mission: Impossible, Men in Black, Spider-Man, to name but a few. As a screenplay, Ghost Town is a fair addition to that list. It’s well-paced and goes down smoothly. In fact, the sub-plot in which Pincus is pestered by different ghosts to help their dearly remaining is set up so well that one can’t help but wish the film saw Pincus spend more time with these other characters. However, such is Koepp’s skill, that the sub-plot delivers an emotional punch that few could have predicted. What’s strange about this rom-com is that there is no kissing. Stranger still, you won’t miss it. Just as understatement defines Ricky Gervais’ performance, it also defines the romance. Basic human connections are the order of the day here and it’s just as well. Pincus was so successfully set up as a misanthrope that a transformation any greater than not being a twerp would have been too much. In light of recent successful rom-coms, Knocked Up for example, Ghost Town even with all its clichés is a pleasant experience. It’s hard to say is whether it underused the talent of its three leads, but the ‘less is more’ attitude of this film works just fine as it is and we should be grateful for that at least.

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The Rocker

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

You know what you’re getting with this one. An aging, immature nearlyman gets a second chance at rock and roll success which puts to rest the ghosts of his youth and allows him to grow up. Although these formulaic genre films can sometimes be entertaining (School of Rock for instance!) The Rocker is a waste of time.

Rainn Wilson plays Robert ‘Fish’ Fishman, a drummer who got unfairly kicked out of 1980s poodle rockers Vesuvius just before they were signed. Twenty years later Vesuvius are rock legends and Fish answers phones for a living. He gets sacked, moves in with his sister and ends up playing with his nephew’s band A.D.D. Then they get famous and yeah yeah yeah.

It shouldn’t be so bad, its cast and crew is a veritable list of accomplished talent. Writers Wallace Wolodarsky and Maya Forbes cut their teeth on The Simpsons and The Larry Sanders Show. Director Peter Cattaneo proved himself with The Full Monty. The cast is handpicked from the some of the best sitcoms around: Jeff Garlin from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Will Arnett from Arrested Development, Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock, Christina Applegate from Married With Children, and finally Rainn Wilson from The Office (US).

But the script is bad. There is none of The Simpsons’ gags or Larry Sanders’ superbly observed character comedy. Instead laughs are begged for with endless pratfalls from Wilson: falling into his drum kit, falling off stage, getting hit in the balls, sticking his head out of a bus window and getting whacked by a tree branch, sticking his head out of a bus window and getting a bee in his mouth, etc. And as if all that wasn’t lazy enough, the opening scene has a lengthy pastiche of Robert Patrick’s chase in Terminator 2. As one of the characters says later in the film, “1991 called, they want their joke back”.

It may have been over ten years since The Full Monty but director Peter Cattaneo has only made two other films, both indies, and this lack of experience must be the reason that The Rocker is so confused in its tone. It’s never sure if it wants to send up or celebrate rock and roll and doesn’t come close to either goal. The redemption of Fish is an inevitability yet the romance between Fish and Kim, the mother of A.D.D. front man is sidelined to make room for needless exposition -doesn’t Cattaneo realise that such a paper-thin premise doesn’t need to be explained so much?

As for the cast, they don’t do much. Wilson works hard but can’t save it. The charisma of the other stars is non-existent to the point that they might as well be anonymous, but it’s only through the good will these actors have earned in previous work that this film is tolerated at all. Fish’s nephew Matt is played by newcomer Josh Gad. He’s a soft-hearted fat boy with curly hair just like Knocked Up’s Seth Rogen, Superbad’s Jonah Hill, and that kid out of Drillbit Taylor. They must be cloning these guys. Hollywood hasn’t seen a bunch of weirdly similar people like this since the Baldwin brothers came to Tinseltown.

For many people in the UK, this will be their first encounter with Rainn Wilson. In America, Wilson has become a big name TV star thanks to a memorable guest turn in Six Feet Under and through his role as Dwight Schrute in the highly acclaimed American version of The Office. The Rocker was clearly meant to be a vehicle to launch Rainn Wilson’s movie career but the question now is whether it will scupper it?

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Burn After Reading

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Following last year’s Oscar-laden cat-and-mouse thriller No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers return to more familiar light-hearted territory. Burn After Reading is a screwball comedy in which its wonderfully convoluted plot is the biggest joke of all. To explain the plot is to spoil some of its fun but it all has something to do with a recently fired alcoholic CIA-analyst called Osborne Cox; Katie, his uptight lawyer wife who wants a divorce; an aging, body-conscious gym trainer called Linda Litzke whose greatest desire is cosmetic surgery; her relentlessly upbeat boyish colleague Chad; and Harry Pfarrer, a happily married philanderer with an appreciation for quality flooring.

You could also say Burn After Reading is a spy film. Joel Coen has said that “this is our version of a Tony Scott/Jason Bourne kind of movie – without the explosions. And although there is secrets, lies, espionage, double dealing, CIA analysts, government agents, and foreign embassies, there is also yuppie gyms, internet dating and children’s book readings. Just like the kidnapping in The Big Lebowski took place around a bowling tournament and the prison break in O Brother Where Art Thou is interrupted to record and perform a bluegrass hit single, Burn After Reading has far too many quirky characters with bizarre ideas to stick to any one genre. And at this point, I should warn you that Burn After Reading is also responsible for the scariest basement scene since The Blair Witch Project.

Where the Coen brothers have always excelled is in their characters. They are nearly always defined by their foolishness yet also celebrated for it. The audience not only love these idiots but even empathize with them. Here, surgery-obsessed Linda cuts a sad figure. An airhead, to be sure, but innocent also. It’s the Coen’s skill that amidst these absurd antics there exists an engaging amount of pathos. And because those characters and their motivations are so easily understood, we have no trouble grasping the intricate machinations of the story.

At the end, two peripheral characters try to make sense of it all, to understand what lessons, if any, there are in these events. Still confused, they conclude that it was all kind of pointless. But Burn After Reading is loaded with meaning. Clearly, it’s a product of George W. Bush’s America, its world one of misplaced suspicion and staggering incompetence.  Another reading Burn After Reading lends itself to, is the corrupt reality of the American Dream, where the pursuit of happiness is mistaken for the right to instant gratification. The only answer Linda can imagine to her loveless live is surgery. Harry indulges every lusty twinge. Osborne’s self-regarding arrogance motivates him to write his “memoirs” (which he pronounces with a pretentious French accent) despite the fact he was low-level analyst with no real insight into the CIA. And his wife Karen reacts to his drinking and sacking as an excuse to escape the marriage. And as each character perseveres with their unthinking selfishness their superficial antics brings lots of laughs but not happiness.

It’s difficult to sum up Burn After Reading. No Country for Old Men was a weighty film and a definite evolution for the Coens. Consequently, we now have heightened expectations of them yet this is a return to old techniques. To paraphrase one critic, if this were made by a new filmmaker our socks would be rolling up and down. And in of itself, Burn After Reading is hard to evaluate. Its dense plot is filled with jokes and subtle classic film homages, not to mention its ensemble cast of top class stars, and clocks in at a tight 97 minutes. It rushes by so fast that it’s hard to see what works and what doesn’.ttSecond viewings might be needed to completely understand it, but the first viewing is enough to really enjoy it. Unequivocally, Burn After Reading is very funny, captivating and intensely likable.

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Death Race

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

“In 2012 the economy collapses…” reads the opening frame of Death Race. Therefore, given the current state of global finances we must take this film as a dramatic pre-construction, facts from the future, and so let me tell you all about the inevitable. Our markets will collapse, unemployment will reign, crime will escalate, prisons will be privatised and within one of these prisons there will be a three-stage race to the death with armoured cars driven by psychopathic inmates which will be broadcast on a pay-per-view basis via the internet, $99 for each stage or $250 for all three. Ok, maybe this isn’t the prophecy I thought it was. Maybe this is just a ludicrous Hollywood action film. But it’s a pretty good Hollywood action film.

Jason Statham stars as Jenson Aimes, a former racing driver who is framed for his wife’s murder so that Hennessy, a ratings-hungry prison warden can have him take the place of Frankenstein, the viewers’ favourite driver who was killed in the last race. The swapideedoo is made easy by the fact that Frankenstein 1.0 was so badly disfigured by his frequent crashes that he wore a mask. And because winning five races earns a driver their freedom and because Frank had already won four, all that needs to be done now is for Jensen to win.

Some of you might recognise the premise as The Running Man meets Wacky Races. It is, but it is also a vague remake of Death Race 2000, the 1975 cult film that had a similar dystopian setting and gladiatorial motor racing. That film was made by Roger Corman, the so-called “King of the B-movie” for his prolific output of exploitation movies. Death Race 2000 was the epitome of an exploitation movie. Its race took place from one side of America to the other, the drivers were normal citizens and they had to kill other citizens as the highest kill count won the race, not the first across the line. In this Hollywood remake there are all sorts of qualifiers: the lead character is an innocent man, the race is set in prison, and only convicted criminals participate. But that’s not to say this film is morally superior. We’re encouraged to enjoy the vicarious thrill of Jensen’s murderous revenge. We’re supposed to giggle at the hubris of a driver who survives a massive crash only to be run over moments later while boasting of his indestructibility. And most notably, when one character smugly explains the presence of sexy women in the passenger seat as being “all about ratings, fast cars, pretty women,” the line is delivered without a hint of awareness that this film is guilty of the exact same exploitation. At least the 1970s version was honest about its manipulations.

Nonetheless, Death Race is pretty good at what it sets out to do. The script is tight, the one-liners are terrible, the action set-pieces are well-paced and thrilling and the whole thing rushes by very smoothly. In fact it’s like watching someone else play a computer game. Each race stage/game level has its puzzles, baddies and end-of-level boss. The second level, for example, culminates with a super-armoured juggernaut that is decorated with manned gun turrets, has its own soundtrack and runs on testosterone.

So if it’s fast cars, big guns, pretty girls, gratuitous violence, and the uncomplicated, rasping tones of Jason Statham that you are after…  Death Race!

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