American Son

American Son (2019)

Starring Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, and Eugene Lee

Directed by Kenny Leon

Written by Christopher Demos-Brown

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Movie Review - Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012)

Starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

There aren't any surprises in Django Unchained.  This is just like every other Quentin Tarantino movie you've seen.  The dialog is clever.  The acting is all above average.  The violence is outrageously over-the-top.  The direction is off-the-wall at times, but totally enjoyable.  In other words, Tarantino doesn't really bring anything new to the table here, but what he does provide is a flick that you know is inherently his own.  I will admit that I have to be in the mood to watch one of this auteur's films simply because they walk the fine line between serious film and B-movie exploitation, but admittedly that tricky balance is what makes Tarantino the filmmaker he is.  While Django Unchained is much too long for what is an incredibly simplistic story (perhaps his most basic to date), the thing still works...as long as Tarantino is your cup of tea.

Despite stretching to nearly three hours, the story of Django Unchained is relatively simple and lacks the epic scope of most movies this length.  German bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) has come to mid-1800s America for the prospect of making some easy money capturing bad guys and the biggest baddest guys of them all are the trio of the Brittle brothers.  The only problem is that King doesn't know what the Brittle brothers look like.  However, he soon discovers that the brothers recently sold away a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) and King decides to set out to find him in order to have Django assist in capturing his former captors.  [It should be noted that all that story above occurs before the movie and is simply implied.  I only include it to show you how measly the rest of the story really is.]  King meets up with and frees Django, discovering that the former slave has a flair for shooting guns and utilizes him to assist him in making a boatload of money.  In an effort to show his appreciation, King agrees to help Django track down and attempt to free his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

And that's it in a nutshell.  Two sentences stretched out over three hours pretty much sum up what we see onscreen.  Somehow, though, Django Unchained works because of clever sequences filled with witty repartee and wordplay.  Still, it's quite obvious that the film didn't need three hours as there were certain scenes that, while enjoyabe, could have just been completely snipped out without any damage to the overall product.  At the heart of the story is Django's desire to be with Broomhilda, but we never even make it to the Candie Land plantation until over halfway through the film.  With the emotional crux of the film riding on Django's reunion with his wife, it's just too long of a tease to get to that point.

While the film is called Django Unchained and I will admit that this is one of the few roles in which I could actually stand Jamie Foxx as a performer, the film belongs to Christoph Waltz who once again makes the most out of a nice role written for him by Quentin Tarantino (Waltz placed second on my 2009 Best Actor List for his Oscar-winning work in Inglourious Basterds).  Whereas Waltz's Hans Landa had meatier villainous tendencies behind him, his King Schultz is conceived a bit one-note, but Waltz makes the absolute most out of what he is given, hitting just the right amount of humor and a surprising amount of heart.

Mr. Dicaprio takes on a different role than we're used to seeing from him as the rather disgusting Calvin Candie who has a penchant for watching his slaves fight to the death in brutal one-on-one boxing matches.  Considering this is the first image we see of Calvin, his deviant nature is apparent right from the beginning.  DiCaprio, however, imbues Calvin with an odious Southern charm -- his sly smiles attempt to hide his repugnant nature.  It's a nice change of pace for the actor.  The film also contains some nice work from Kerry Washington and a surprisingly strong turn from Samuel L. Jackson whose role is actually surprisingly deep.  As Mr. Candie's head house slave Stephen, Jackson takes on a complicated character who proves to be just as damaging to his fellow African Americans as their Caucasian owner.

Ultimately, I respect Quentin Tarantino for who he is as a director and writer.  However, with the exception of Kill Bill (which I'm due to rewatch to determine whether it's as good as I hope I remember it being), I'm not sure Tarantino has it in him to create anything more than fun romps.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a cinematic jaunt, but a "jaunt" implies something fleeting and Tarantino does need to learn how to trim his ideas into something a bit more cohesive.  Still, Django Unchained is a good film filled with everything Tarantino does best...though it may certainly not appeal to all.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Mother and Child

Mother and Child (2010)

Starring Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Smits, Cherry Jones, and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by Rodrigo García

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

I'm usually a big fan of movies like Babel or 21 Grams that have distinct storylines that eventually converge or are revealed to be interrelated.  There's a similar tone on display in Mother and Child (the director of those aforementioned films, Alejandro González Iñárritu, executive produced this flick), but writer-director Rodrigo García has a difficult time creating believable characters.  Adoption (which is the underlying societal "issue" tackled in this drama, much like Babel discussed gun control and 21 Grams delved into drug addiction) apparently causes women to turn into harsh ice queens with a hatred for men, themselves, and children.  With nary another characteristic beyond "bitter" to describe the three talented actresses onscreen -- Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, and Kerry Washington -- the film becomes overbearing and almost a chore to watch.

We first meet Karen (Bening), a fifty-one year-old woman who is still living with the guilt of giving up a child for adoption thirty-seven years ago.  While she cares for her aging and bedridden mother, Karen has turned resentful.  Meanwhile, in some other city, Elizabeth (Watts), a thirty-seven year-old lawyer is starting a new job.  [Yes, the fact that Karen gave up her child thirty-seven years ago and Elizabeth is thirty-seven is not hidden in the film.]  We soon discover that Elizabeth (who has the exact same unpleasant acrid attitude as her biological mother) uses sex as a way to mask her hurt for her lack of a caring family growing up, going so far as to have an affair with her boss (Samuel L. Jackson) at her law firm.  Rounding out the trilogy of women dealing with the ramifications of adoption is Lucy (Washington) who is unable to have children with her husband and is longing to adopt.  While not quite as nasty as Karen and Elizabeth, Lucy isn't exactly a shining example of womanhood.

The biggest problem with Mother and Child is the simple fact that none of the three women are the least bit pleasant to watch.  They're all rather nasty.  Then, about halfway through the movie, these ice queens suddenly melt into loving, caring ladies.  The transition is so instantaneous in all three cases that it almost seems like I was watching two disparate films.  When you tack on a rather melodramatic final act, even the three lovely actresses who I've liked in many of their previous films can't rise above the flawed characters they're forced to portray.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - For Colored Girls

For Colored Girls (2010)

Starring Janet Jackson, Kerry Washington, Kimberly Elise, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, and Whoopi Goldberg

Directed by Tyler Perry

All throughout For Colored Girls, I kept trying to will myself to enjoy it.  I was witnessing some stellar performances from Kerry Washington, Kimberly Elise, Anika Noni Rose, and Phylicia Rashad, and I wanted to like this movie so I could recommend others to watch it solely to see these underused actresses.  Unfortunately, Tyler Perry has written and directed a ridiculously melodramatic movie, forcing his onscreen talent to take part in an epic and, at times, laughable misandry fest.

Based on a play which apparently is a series of poetic readings, Perry has crafted very loose interweaving stories that, I'd assume, relate to the original source material.  There's a lovely young dance instructor (Anika Noni Rose) who meets a seemingly charming guy only to discover he may not be such a great catch.  We move onto her young student who gets pregnant and heads to a back alley in the city to get an abortion (doesn't she know that in this day and age, my tax dollars support Planned Parenthood which can certainly show her the nearest clinic).  That girl's sister is a sex addict (and is played by the ridiculously over-the-top Thandie Newton) and she lives next door to Phylicia Rashad who is essentially playing the same voice of reason she played on The Cosby Show.  In the apartment next to Mrs. Cosby is an abused mother (Kimberly Elise) who stays with her army veteran husband who became insane after his stint in Iraq despite the repeated harm he causes her and her children.  That woman works for Janet Jackson who plays a magazine editor with only one overarching characteristic -- cold bitch.  Her husband is cheating on her...with another man.  This insanity just goes on and on.  Couple these ridiculous stories with actresses who are forced, mid-scene, to suddenly break into poetry.  What they were saying may have been lovely, but I couldn't help but laugh.  What are probably beautiful words about the plight of women (which I assume are written by the original playwright) are pigeonholed in between some of the silliest dialog out there (which I assume is written by Tyler Perry).

Somehow, shocking as it is, I was kind of drawn in to the awfulness of the whole affair.  It come awfully close to the so bad it's good realm, but never quite gets there.  The reason it never achieves that lofty goal is that there are too many good performances here and they, unfortunately, make the bad ones look really godawful.  Kerry Washington is actually quite lovely as a social worker set to look into the case of Kimberly Elise's abused wife.  Washington and Elise actually have moments of brilliance here and it's a shame they're stuck in such a crappy film.  Same goes for Ms. Rashad who has a presence that is felt throughout the film even in scenes where she's just on the periphery.  Kudos also to Anika Noni Rose whose character goes through quite a change with shocking believability.  She's also helped by the fact that the scene that "transforms" her is also one of the few moments in which Mr. Perry shows a vague hint that he knows how to utilize a camera to tell a story.

And it's all a shame because those four roles are pitted against the painful silliness of Thandie Newton who apparently can only express frustration through screaming.  Of course, she is playing the daughter of Whoopi Goldberg's character who also overacts to the nth degree.  Pit that against the one-note Janet Jackson who only knows stone-cold sternness as a facial expression and those leading ladies who did a great job get overshadowed by the weaker ones.

In the end, despite the rating below, it may be worth a Netflix instant watch should it ever pop up simply to see some of the great performances, but, in the end, it still proves that Tyler Perry is not the talent that his high box office grosses would make one think he is.

The RyMickey Rating: D+