Ford v Ferrari

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

Starring Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Ray McKinnon, and Noah Jupe

Directed by James Mangold

Written by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Big Short

The Big Short (2015)

Starring Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Hamish Linklater, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Adepero Oduye, Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo, and Brad Pitt

Directed by Adam McKay

I know that The Big Short is a well-made, well-written, and well-acted film.  The issue is that the film which delves into 2007-08 the financial meltdown in which the housing market went belly up causing catastrophic damage to regular folks and the crooked big banks simply didn't resonate with me likely because I had no personal attachment to the crisis.  Granted, I don't need to have a personal connection to a film in order to become invested in it, but the overarching theme kept me at a bit of a distance despite being cleverly directed by Adam McKay so that the hefty and complicated subject matter seems a bit more relatable (and understandable) to the average moviegoer.

Quite frankly, there's no reason to delve into the story aspects of The Big Short in any greater detail than has already been mentioned because the film is a bit too complex to really simplistically explain.  Needless to say, the flick focuses on three groups or individuals who attempt to bring attention to the impending meltdown and are greeted with blank stares and laughs by those in charge.  Christian Bale is hedge fund manager Michael Burry who discovers the unsteady housing market and tries to use this to his advantage.  (Burry, admittedly, isn't really trying to "solve" the meltdown problem, he's just the first person who realized he may be able to use it to his advantage.) Steve Carell plays hedge fund manager Mark Baum who is approached by trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) to do the same thing Burry is doing, although Baum (whose Wall Street trader brother met an unfortunate demise) tries to uncover how the government is allowing it to happen.  Finally, up-and-coming young investors Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock) uncover paperwork by Vennett that reveals his thoughts on the crisis and enlist the help of noted financial guru Ben Rickart (Brad Pitt) to make money on the housing collapse only to have a change of heart as they realize the chaos that the collapse will cause.

All of the aforementioned actors do an admirable job of making their sometimes convoluted plots seem understandable and there's not a weak link in the cast.  That said, as I mentioned before, there's a lack of connection for me here that I wasn't quite able to overcome.  While the film doesn't necessarily play like a college finance course, it sometimes doesn't quite succeed in altogether abandoning that mindset.  McKay (who co-wrote the film with Charles Randolph) does some clever cutaways with celebrities to try and make the intricacies of the convoluted housing trade at least comprehensible, but in the end, there's somehow a lack of dramatic tension and human connection here.  The Big Short is still a surprisingly enjoyable watch, but it just never quite hit home with me despite a valiant effort.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - American Hustle

American Hustle (2013)

Starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, and Michael Peña

Directed by David O. Russell

Quite simply, American Hustle is the most overrated movie I've seen as of yet that's gained prevalence during this awards season.  (Captain Phillips is a close second.)  For a movie that is inherently about backstabbing and thievery, there wasn't a moment of tension or excitement and the characters failed to make any impact on me whatsoever.

David O. Russell who directed and co-wrote the picture was also behind the lens and put the pen to paper for last year's Silver Linings Playbook, another film I found to be incredibly overrated and undeserving of the heaps of praise thrown its way.  There's something about Russell's writing style that just doesn't grab me in the slightest (and would also explain why I enjoyed his previous film The Fighter seeing as how he didn't write it).  Silver Linings Playbook felt like two disparate halves that failed to come together.  Similarly, American Hustle is a mishmash of different genres, none of which resonate.  When the comedy is culled from jokes about people's perms or comb-overs or the sassiness of a "New Yawk" broad, it makes me wonder if Russell has any original ideas.

But perhaps Russell wasn't going for original.  Much has been said about American Hustle being Russell's ode to the 1970s films by Scorsese and while that very well be true, that doesn't make this worthwhile.  While the film itself is fictional, it has its basis in true events.  Back in the 1970s, Atlantic City was looking to rebuild its name as the gaming capital of the world.  In order to do so, Camden mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) tries to bribe other politicians to help the city flourish.  You'd think that'd be the basis of the film considering it's a story that could have some depth to it.  You'd be wrong.

Instead, Russell (and co-writer Eric Singer) place the emphasis on Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a slimy owner of a collection of dry cleaning establishments who has a side business in offering fake loans to people.  At a swinging 1970s shindig, Irving meets Sydney (Amy Adams), a gal from New Mexico who moved to New York looking for a different lifestyle.  She immediately falls for Irving and shows him that she's quite game to help him with his "loan" business, willing to go so far as to create a new identity for herself -- Lady Edith Greensley whose English accent will instinctively make her seem more important to Irving's clients.  One of these clients just happens to be Richie DeMaso (Bradley Cooper), an undercover FBI agent, who manages to catch Irving and Sydney in the act of fraud.  After he arrests the couple, Richie agrees to free them only if they'll assist him in helping him track down even bigger folks committing fraudulent acts.

Throw in some love triangles, a brassy wife for Irving (played way too over-the-top by Jennifer Lawrence), and Robert DeNiro as a mafia kingpin, and American Hustle is just a mess in terms of story.  Much like Silver Linings Playbook, this film just doesn't know what it wants to be.  [I criticize Ms. Lawrence there, but her character's brashness was at least a breath of fresh air in this story, and her scenes, despite not having much to do in terms of advancing the film, were some of the film's best.  However, Lawrence is the one person that I felt you could "see" acting whereas the others embodied their characters more or less.]

Granted, I'll give Russell credit that he does manage to get some nice performances from his group of actors, but overall, the film is a mess.  The costumes were groovy, though!

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Matthew Modine, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine

Directed by Christopher Nolan

I've been avoiding reviewing The Dark Knight Rises for nearly a month now and the only reason I can think of is that after concluding this film there was just a sense of apathy that has only increased as time as passed.  It's not that this final chapter in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is bad -- it's slightly better than the Batman Begins origin story, but not nearly as good as The Dark Knight -- but it's really just feels most genericly superhero-ey of the three flicks.

We've got our good guy Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale whose teeth-gritting toughness as his alter ego has worn out its welcome by this point) who has put Batman to rest after the masked vigilante took the blame for killing Harvey Dent in the prior film.  However, evil rears its ugly head again, this time in the form of Bane (Tom Hardy) who vows to fight the capitalistic rich pigs of Gotham by taking all of them down and suppressing the poor himself.  Throw in a petty thief named Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway) who will later turn into the slinky Catwoman (although I'm not sure that name is ever uttered in the movie), a new love interest for Bruce in the form of Wayne Enterprises board member Miranda (Marion Cotillard), and a young cop named Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who tries to be the voice of reason to motivate Batman to come back to Gotham after Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) almost resigns himself to the fact that the masked man won't return and the cast for this one is pretty much complete.

The problem is that despite the film's nearly three-hour runtime, the cast isn't given a whole lot to do. Bane as a villain is a disappointment especially coming after the one-two punch of Heath Ledger's Joker and Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent in the last film.  The motivation of taking down the upper class is fine (despite it sort of feeling like a retread of Ra's Al Ghul's evil plans in the first film), but the screenwriting duo of the Nolan brothers fail to make the story resonate even in these heightened economic times.

Gordon-Levitt and Hathaway were certainly welcome additions and it was nice that ample time was spent on their storylines since (as I mentioned above) Bale's incredibly one-note performance while in his Batsuit had worn out its welcome.  Unfortunately, Tom Hardy fails to really make an impression as Bane.  After the whimsically evil performance of Ledger's Joker, having Hardy behind a mask for the whole film and failing to see a single facial expression from our central villain is a bit of a letdown that isn't his fault in the slightest.

In the end, Nolan's Batman trilogy is solid, but it's not nearly as fantastic as fanboys and critics would have you believe.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight (2008)

Starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts, and Nestor Carbonell

Directed by Christopher Nolan

The two things I vividly remember about watching The Dark Knight in theaters four years ago was that the show I was seeing had a projector issue causing a "brain wrap" (in projectionist terms) which made the film stop (forcing me to head to another auditorium to watch the end) and that I thought Heath Ledger was perhaps a bit overrated in his role as The Joker.  At that point in time, I thought that Aaron Eckhart was the one who should be getting more praise for his take on Harvey Dent/Two Face and that Ledger's death was giving him some (slightly undeserved) great posthumous reviews.

Years later, I realize that perhaps I was a bit too harsh on Ledger.  Not that I ever thought his performance was bad, but I always felt that because of his death, he was being praised more highly than he would have had he been living.  While that may very well still be a true statement, the fact is that he did a heckuva job with The Joker.  Freakishly malevolent, there's an eerie psychotic presence whenever The Joker is onscreen.  

It's because of both The Joker's maniacal evilness and the stalwart Harvey Dent's shift into the flawed Two Face that make The Dark Knight an infinitely better movie than Batman Begins.  These two figures bring much more to the table in terms of conflict than anyone did in Christopher Nolan's first Batman film, but it's not just the "villains" that are wreaking havoc on Gotham City.  Batman himself is finding himself loved and hated by the city and Bruce Wayne is forced to come to terms with whether he is helpful or harmful to his fellow citizens.  Now that the origin tale has been told in the first film, Christopher Nolan is able to delve a bit more into the psyche of Bruce/Batman and it's a welcome addition.

Once again, supporting turns are all top notch.  Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman all add an aire of professionalism to the film which often isn't felt in comic book adaptations.  Maggie Gyllenhaal takes on the role originated by Katie Holmes and fares a bit better.  Holmes was never bad (I feel like I'm one of the few people who actually liked her in Batman Begins), but Gyllenhaal felt a little less morose than the somber Holmes, although it's entirely possible that the role was just given a bit more life beyond "love interest" than in the first film.  Also, I find it invigorating that Nolan isn't afraid to create characters that are capable of dying.  Gotham City isn't a pristine town by any means and by having deaths occur to characters we come to know, Nolan creates a sense of urgency and fear that we don't normally feel in comic book adaptations which always seem to feature immortal characters.

The Dark Knight isn't perfect -- once again, Nolan drags the climax out for much too long -- but it's darn close to the best -- if not the best -- comic book flick I've ever seen.  Here's hoping The Dark Knight Rises finishes off the trilogy on a positive note.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Movie Review - Batman Begins

Batman Begins (2005)

Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Rutger Hauer, and Tom Wilkinson

Directed by Christopher Nolan

I must admit that I watched this back in mid-August.  I had planned on a one-two-three punch of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, but that never came to fruition.  That said, with The Dark Knight Rises just arriving in the mail today, I figured I might as well briefly discuss my thoughts on this first flick in the series.

I didn't remember being a huge fan of this when it first came out in 2005 and this subsequent viewing in 2012 didn't really change my mind.  Origin tales always border on tedious for me and this proves no exception.  While I didn't mind learning the story of Bruce Wayne as a kid, once he gets older (and turns into Christian Bale) and travels to Asia to strengthen both his body and his mind, I lost interest.  As Bruce returns to Gotham, the film picks up a bit, but by the end, I found the climax to be much too lengthy.

It certainly doesn't help that Liam Neeson's Henri Ducard/Ra's al Ghul isn't a great villain, and while Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow is more menacing, I felt he wasn't exactly placed into the spotlight his character probably should have been.  Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman are all quite strong in their roles providing nice characters for Bale's Bruce Wayne to play off of in their respective scenes together.  Katie Holmes is fine as well (although Maggie Gyllenhaal breathes a little more life into the same romantic love interest character in the second film).

As for Christian Bale, I'm not quite sure where I stand on him.  While I respect the choices of the deep voice and stoic emotionless demeanor while in the persona of Batman, it does make the character a bit one-note.  He certainly plays Wayne as a smart (though smarmy at times) playboy which allows for a bit more fun to be injected into things, but when behind the mask, he's almost bland.

While I'm mainly listing qualms with the film, I do think Batman Begins is a pretty solid comic book adaptation and certainly one of the better flicks of the genre over the past twenty years.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - The Fighter

The Fighter (2010)

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Melissa Leo

Directed by David O. Russell

I won't pull any punches here (insert rimshot sound) and I'll just say right off the bat that The Fighter is a good film.  Well acted, well directed, and well written, I was never bored during the flick's run time.  However, like most films this year, despite excellent across-the-board technical aspects on display, there wasn't a "wow" factor that made me feel like I needed to watch this movie again anytime in the near future.  I mean, don't get me wrong.  The Fighter is well worth watching and is one of the better films of last year, but 2010 was the year of the "good film" and not the "great film."

At this point, considering the fact that the movie's been out for over two months, there's no need for a synopsis except to say that the flick is based on the true story of boxing brothers Micky Ward and Dickie Eklund with Mark Walhberg taking on the role of nice, but struggling-in-the-ring boxer Micky and Christian Bale tackling the drug-addled, past-his-prime Dickie.  What surprised me the most while watching is that although boxing is the impetus for many of the goings-on in the film, the story is really about a family and the dynamic between two brothers who want the best for each other, but go about attempting to achieve that greatness in different ways.  Ultimately, it's the family struggle (rather than a strict focus on the boxing) that makes this film better than most of the other sports-related "triumph" stories that are a Hollywood staple.

Of course, with three Oscar-nominated acting roles, the talent on the screen is top notch and also helps elevate the flick to a higher level.  Christian Bale is probably one of the greatest actors working today and he doesn't disappoint here.  Getting scarily skinny again (a la The Machinist), Bale injects the drugged-up Dickie with a surprising amount of heart which only makes things even harder for us in the audience when Dickie heads down the wrong path.

Melissa Leo is the front-runner in the Best Supporting Actress race and her role as Micky and Dickie's mother, Alice, could have easily veered into caricature, but Leo somehow manages to never take it there.  To be honest, I'm surprised I liked the role, because every time I saw a clip of the overbearing, thick-accented, sassy broad prior to seeing the movie, I got a hint of the "overacting" vibe emanating from Leo's performance.  In the movie, however, Leo's take on Alice was spot-on.

That being said, I think Amy Adams may have stolen the show despite the fact that her role as Micky's girlfriend Charlene is much more subdued than Leo's.  It's a gritty part unlike any I've seen Ms. Adams tackle before.  She's no Enchanted princess here, but underneath Charlene's gruff exterior is a woman who sees potential in Micky, but is devastated that he's ruining his chances at success by catering to his coked-up brother.

With a surprising amount of humor and heart plus a very tense and exciting final boxing sequence, The Fighter is certainly a good film.  Don't let the first paragraph of this review fool you into thinking otherwise.  

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)

Starring Christian Bale, Calista Flockhart, Dominic West, Anna Friel, Rupert Everett, David Strathairn, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Kline, and Michelle Pfeiffer

Directed by Michael Hoffman

I liked this movie more before I watched a recent stage production of Shakespeare's lighthearted comedy.  However, after watching the Bard's words performed live onstage, the movie's faults began to surface and one begins to realize that watching this many "celebrities" perform Shakespeare makes you focus more on the stars (and their lackluster acting) than the actual story.

I'm not going to delve into a summary (that's what sparknotes.com is for when it comes to Shakespeare's works), but I'll simply say that A Midsummer Night's Dream tells the tale of the meeting of the human world and fairy world.  Wacky mayhem (at least wacky in terms of Shakespeare) ensues.  One portion of the tale deals with young lovers while another looks at a lower class group of actors trying to put on a play for the upper class.  The young lovers side (for the most part) works, but the "play within a play" aspect kind of fails.

Christian Bale and Dominic West are both capable of performing Shakespeare's words as the two men who are vying for Hermia's affections.  Anna Friel as Hermia is far and away the best actor in the film and anytime she was onscreen, it made me want to watch her now-cancelled tv show Pushing Daisies.  

While those three young actors fare well, the "bigger" stars at the time of the film's release -- Calista Flockhart, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kevin Kline -- aren't as successful at relaying Shakespeare's words.  Kline, in particular, just didn't work for me.  Watching this and then watching the play made me dislike Kline's take on the comedic character of Nick Bottom even more.  Kline goes over-the-top and while that works onstage, it doesn't onscreen.  

The film looks pretty and rich, and, in the end, it's certainly not a bad Shakespeare adaptation.  Still, the back-to-back viewing of A Midsummer Night's Dream on film and then stage made me realize that I think the stage may be the best place to view the Bard's work.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Machinist

The Machinist (2004)

Starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and John Sharian

Directed by Brad Anderson

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

This one's been in the ole Netflix rental queue for a long time, but I just never got around to renting it.  I'm actually quite happy I did because this odd little film was an interesting character piece that was well worth the watch.

This is the movie that Christian Bale famously lost a ton of weight for.  He looks like an anorexic teenager at a mere 120 pounds.  You can tell he's not healthy and it certainly made is character Trevor Reznik infinitely more believable.  Trevor's problem is that he hasn't slept in over a year.  365 days without sleep can make you a little nutty and not quite at the top of your game.  I don't really want to spoil a lot because I knew nothing except the above going into this film and I think it worked in my favor.  Needless to say, the lack of sleep begins causing some problems in Trevor's life and it slowly begins to spiral out of control.

Christian Bale is pretty great here.  I know there was some talk in 2004 about him getting an Oscar nomination for this role and looking back over the nominees that year, I can't say he would have been a bad choice.  There's more on display than just his frail-looking body.  There's a real character study going on here and Bale is quite adept at letting the audience really feel what's going on in his sleep-deprived mind.  

And despite the fact that Bale got most of the acclaim for the movie, both the director Brad Anderson and screenwriter Scott Kosar provide excellent work in their respective crafts.  Even though there are some fairly obvious plot points, I must say that I found the ending to be moderately surprising and shockingly emotional, and in the case of this movie, I commend both the director and writer for that.

The Machinist is a good little flick.  Nothing groundbreaking or incredible, but a solid mystery-drama with a pretty great performance from one of the better actors of my generation.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Public Enemies (2009)

Starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, and Billy Crudup
Written by Ronan Bennett and Michael Mann & Ann Biderman
Directed by Michael Mann

I don't even know where to begin. There's hardly anything I liked about this movie.

The acting felt phoned in by all. Depp is notorious 1930s bank robber John Dillinger, and Bale is the government guy that wants to stop him. Cotillard is the annoying, irritating girlfriend of Dillinger, who, for some reason falls in love the bank robber despite the fact that the movie doesn't explain why. All three of these stars were bland beyond bland. While Depp and Bale were okay, Cotillard was awful (and she's the one with the Oscar!). Any scene between her and Depp made me want to fall asleep.

The movie is just so incredibly flat. Nothing really happens over 145 minutes. The final climax is a complete dud...and it drags on for an eternity. You would think that bank robbery scenes would be exciting, but every single robbery scene was shot in the same exact way by director Mann and his cinematographer, Dante Spinotti. Now, I don't usually call out anyone other than the director or the writer in my posts, but the cinematographer in this deserves a beating and Mann deserves one, too, for allowing this travesty to be shot this way on film. The modern-day handheld shooting may have been a "cool" juxtaposition against the 1930s story, but seemingly EVERY SINGLE SHOT is either (a) shaky or (b) an extreme close-up. I'd like to see whole faces to see facial expressions sometimes, not just an eye, folks!

Pretty much everything about this I hated...the musical score by Elliot Goldenthal was horrendous. The editing by Jeffrey Ford and Paul Rubell was heinous. The only thing that saves this movie from complete failure (yes, I hated it that much) is the stuff like the costuming, set design, and art direction. And even then, they were nothing special.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this, but this is far and away the most disappointing flick of the summer for me. I've seen worse, but at least Year One knew how bad it was...at least I think it did (how can it not?). This one thought it was something special, but it disappointed me how awful it was.

The RyMickey Rating: D-

Movie Review - Terminator Salvation (2009)

Starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, and Bryce Dallas Howard

Written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris

Directed by McG

Up front, I should say that if you actually sit back and think about this movie, you're going to hate it. There's really nothing here we haven't seen before and considering that this is really a prequel to all the Terminator movies (despite the fact that it takes place in a future after those movies...confused yet?), there's not really any doubt how things are going to turn out.

That being said, I enjoyed the two hours spent watching this popcorn flick. As we know from previous Terminators, John Connor is going to save the human race from the evil Skynet robots that have seemingly taken over the world. As the head of the Resistance, John Connor (initials=J.C.=Jesus Christ?) will be the leader that will save the people and he needs to make sure that Kyle Reese is around to go back in time and sleep with Connor's mom so that Connor's mom can have Connor. Got it? If not, go watch the first three flicks prior to watching this one.

Director McG did a surprisingly decent job with the action sequences. Right off the bat there's an action shot of a helicopter lifting off and then crashing that is seemingly done with a single camera shot with no cuts (I'm sure computers played a huge role here). That kind of impressed me from the get go. McG manages to create taut action sequences without lowering himself to the nonstop Michael Bay editing or the shaky camera that's been a staple of movies of late.

Sure, the story is lacking and full of ridiculously large holes and improbablities. Towards the end, John Connor is able to infiltrate the Skynet headquarters with nary a robot in sight to take him down. And don't even get me started on the multiple opportunities to kill Kyle Reese that fall by the wayside.

And leads Christian Bale and Sam Worthington are so one-note they are laughable. Bale is just rehashing his guttural growl from Batman, and Worthington (who is this guy exactly?) seriously switched from no accent to an Australian accent halfway through the movie.

Still, despite those pretty major flaws (flaws that would ruin other flicks), I enjoyed myself due in large part to McG's taut direction of the action scenes. I actually thought they were more exciting and just as well shot as those in the admittedly better Star Trek which came out earlier this summer.

The RyMickey Rating: C