The Book of Henry

The Book of Henry (2017)

Starring Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay, Sarah Silverman, Lee Pace, Maddie Ziegler, and Dean Norris

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

Written by Gregg Hurwitz

Summary (in 500 words or less):  When teenage Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) suspects the father (Dean Norris) of his next door neighbor friend Christina (Maddie Ziegler) of abusing her, he concocts an elaborate scheme in order to save her.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Movie Review - Remember

Remember (2016)

Starring  Christopher Plummer, Bruno Ganz, Jürgen Prochnow, Heinz Lieven, Henry Czerny, Dean Norris, and Martin Landau

Directed by Atom Egoyen

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

A rather simplistic revenge drama steeped in historical intrigue anchored by an appropriately melancholy performance from Christopher Plummer, Remember proves intriguing.  While director Atom Egoyen's film is a bit episodic because of the nature of Benjamin August's screenplay, this unique tale is an interesting success.

From the moment they met each other in the nursing home, Zev Guttman (Plummer) and Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau) recognized each other -- decades ago they had been in the same Jewish concentration camp together.  Having survived that ordeal, Zev and Max begin to formulate a plan to seek revenge on their block attendant Otto Wallisch who, after an extensive amount of research, they know emigrated to America under the alias Rudy Kurlander.  Following the death of his wife, Zev sets out to find Kurlander and kill him.  Unfortunately, Zev suffers from dementia and with his memory failing him, this proves to be a difficult task.  As he travels across the country meeting with a variety of Rudy Kurlanders in an attempt to find the man who wreaked havoc on the Guttman and Rosenbaum families (as well as innumerable others in the camp), Zev desperately tries to remember a past that is quickly fading from his mind.

The key to Remember is Christopher Plummer.  The 87 year-old actor is in nearly every scene of the film and Zev's deterioration is palpably sad to watch.  Story-wise, as mentioned, it's a bit of a stilted flick made of of chapter-like scenarios, but these similarly themed scenes build Zev's paranoia and emotional commitment to finding the man who harmed him long ago.  Interestingly, Remember is a Holocaust pic that is unlike any Holocaust pic I've ever seen.  The elderly vigilante angle in this serious drama is certainly unique and while the end cheapens the proceedings before it by a smidgen, Remember is one you should add to your queue and not forget to watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Secret in Their Eyes

Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole, and Zoe Graham

Directed by Billy Ray

In 2002 in the months following the September 11 attacks, a group of Los Angeles investigators find themselves keeping a close eye on a mosque for any signs of terrorist activity.  One afternoon, they are called to a parking garage adjacent to the mosque to investigate a girl's body found in a dumpster.  Upon arrival, Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers that dead girl is Carolyn (Zoe Graham), the daughter of Jess (Julia Roberts), a fellow investigator in his office.  Devastated, Ray sets out to find out who committed this heinous act, but he's met with resistance within his office as his prime suspect - Marzin, a young Russian man (Joe Cole) - is a mole within the mosque.  With his boss (Alfred Molina) and the new district attorney Claire (Nicole Kidman), Ray seeks out justice on his own, but unfortunately doesn't succeed.  Thirteen years later, Ray, now an independent investigator, has never stopped looking for Marzin, whom he believes is Carolyn's murderer, and he may have discovered his current location.

Thus is the story of Secret in Their Eyes, a remake of a well-regarded Argentinean film from 2009.  Spanning more than a decade and told in two parallel-running time frames, director-writer Billy Ray's film doesn't achieve the emotional resonance that a revenge-driven story should innately contain.  The heaviness accompanying the piece is understandable - I mean, we're dealing with the murder of a teenager - but the film never converts the hefty drama to palpable emotional connections with the characters.  We're given three talented actors in Ejiofor, Kidman, and Roberts, yet their scenes together lack oomph.  Something just doesn't quite click here which is unfortunate because this is the kind of movie - steeped in tones of film noir - that I'm inherently drawn to appreciate.  Perhaps I should watch the original...but I'll wait a few years to get the memory of this disappointing flick out of my mind.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Men, Women & Children

Men, Women & Children (2014)

Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie Dewitt, Judy Greer, Dean Norris, Kaitlyn Dever, Ansel Elgort, Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Crocicchia, Elena Kampouris, Dennis Haysbert, J.K. Simmons, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Jason Reitman

Are you aware that the internet can pose a dangerous threat to our youth?

Are you aware that the pressures of being a teen nowadays are amplified exponentially by the power of social media and texting?

Are you aware that some people get so lost in the internet worlds of role-playing games and pornography that they lose touch with their actual reality?

If you've been living under a rock for the past ten years, then writer-director Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children is the movie for you!  However, if you're anything like me and pretty much everyone else, I'm sure that none of the above questions are altogether surprising.  Reitman seemingly thinks that these notions are somewhat new as he tries to present all of them to riveting, shocking, and dramatic effect.  Unfortunately, we've seen this story before in both movies and television -- and we've seen it done much better.

This is one of those movies where you simply try to guess at the beginning which teenager is going to commit suicide and which one is going to get pregnant because you know it's going to happen -- and, sure enough, Reitman doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel because halfway through the flick someone gets knocked up and three-quarters of the way through we witness the suicide.  Neither of which surprise us in the slightest as we could see them telegraphed from the film's opening five minutes.  Reitman hasn't crafted characters here, he's simply created stereotypical avatars of what he must think sex-crazed teens (Olivia Crocicchia, Timothée Chalamet) or loner teens (Kaitlyn Dever) or jock teens (Ansel Elgort) or overprotective parents (Jennifer Garner) or cool parents (Judy Greer) or emotionally detached spouses (Adam Sandler, Rosemarie Dewitt) are really like.  He then tosses in a tongue-in-cheek British narrator (Emma Thompson) to spout pithy remarks about the goings-on which confused the heck out of me as I couldn't tell whether Reitman was trying to craft something serious or whether this whole film was just an awful attempt at satire.

Across the board, some typically solid actors are left wallowing.  Kaitlyn Dever (so good in Short Term 12) and Ansel Elgort (quite a charming surprise in The Fault in Our Stars) fare the best, but maybe it's simply because their roles felt the least cookie cutter.  Also, would it be too hard for Judy Greer to land some more gigs?  She makes the best of her part as a mom who posts risqué pictures of her daughter on the internet by imbuing a bit of heart and personality into the film -- something that Men, Women & Children is missing in spades.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+