Captain America: The Winter Solider

 Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Starring Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, and Toby Jones

Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B+

Click here for my prior RyMickey Rating review

The Old Man & the Gun

The Old Man & the Gun (2018)

Starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, and Tom Waits

Written by David Lowery

Directed by David Lowery

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

The Discovery

The Discovery (2017)

Starring Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Jesse Plemons, Riley Keogh, Mary Steenburgen, and Robert Redford

Directed by Charlie McDowell

Written by Justin Lader and Charlie McDowell

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Summary (in 500 words or less): Scientist Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) has proven the existence of an afterlife and in the years since his discovery, the suicide rate around the world has risen astronomically.  Following a television interview that goes horribly wrong, Harbor goes into hiding.  Several years later, upon visiting his secluded father, Will (Jason Segel) discovers the almost cult-like atmosphere taking place at his father's homestead where Thomas has hired people whose suicides have gone awry to help him.  Thomas's latest experiment involves videotaping one's afterlife experience, but Will rightfully worries that this new experimentation may result in even more folks wanting to end their lives.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Pete's Dragon

Pete's Dragon (2016)

Starring Oakes Fegley, Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford, Oona Laurence, Wes Bentley, and Karl Urban

Directed by David Lowery

The original 1977 Pete's Dragon doesn't hold a particularly fond place in this Disney fan's heart simply in that it wasn't a staple in my household growing up.  I was hoping that would bode well for the prospects of Disney's 2016 remake, but unfortunately the updated version was a bit of a disappointment.  Although it was well acted, I found the film to be rather dull, lacking enchantment considering the somewhat whimsical subject matter.

While driving with his parents through the forests of the Northwest United States, a horrible car accident occurs and leaves six year-old Pete the only survivor.  Wandering the woods with no one to help him, Pete comes across a green, furry dragon whom he names Elliot and the two become close friends.  Six years later, an eleven year-old Pete (Oakes Fegley) is discovered by Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), a national park ranger, who brings the young boy back to town.  Despite having the luxuries of modern-day conveniences, Pete misses his friend Elliot, but he has a difficult time convincing people that his dragon/friend/caretaker is real.

Throw in some bad (though not necessarily "evil") loggers, Grace's somewhat kooky father (played by Robert Redford), and a bit of an unnecessarily destructive climax involving a bridge collapse and you end up having a film that feels like it needed a little more focus in order to succeed.  As mentioned, the acting across the board is quite good, but the cast isn't given much to work with here.  This is a kid's movie about a dragon for goodness sakes -- it should scream "fun" and "enchanting," but director and co-writer David Lowery's film lacks any charm and fancifulness.  While Lowery crafts a film that looks good and creates a believable atmosphere for its characters (including the computer-generated Elliot) to inhabit, I found myself not wanting to spend all that much time with them with the heavy dreariness that seems to permeate throughout the piece.

Once again, as is often the case, Disney's live-action remake machine disappoints.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Truth

Truth (2015)

Starring Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, John Benjamin Hickey, and Dermot Mulroney

Directed by James Vanderbilt

Despite a solid performance from Cate Blanchett (who, lets be honest, rarely disappoints), Truth feels as if it's not quite doing what its title implies.  Based on a true story, Blanchett is Mary Mapes, a producer for the venerable CBS news series 60 Minutes.  With the 2004 presidential election on the horizon, Mapes and segment host Dan Rather (Robert Redford) present a story that claims that then-current President George W. Bush received preferential treatment from Air National Guard officials in the 1970s.  Nearly immediately after the airing of the segment, a variety of sources begin to question the thirty-plus year-old documents that were the building blocks and particularly damning evidence of Mapes and Rather's report.  As Mapes attempts to quell the criticism, she finds herself at odds with her CBS bosses who keep questioning her journalistic ethics.

Taking politics out of the equation, the ultimate problem with Truth stems from the fact that it is based on Mapes's memoir and it makes out her CBS bosses and the litigation team investigating her journalistic ethics to be manically devilish in their attempts to take her down.  You can almost see Dermot Mulroney's lawyer character twirling his comedically villainous mustache as he tries to silence Mapes, and a lengthy and vindictive diatribe against the CBS honchos spoken by Topher Grace's ambitious reporter (and Mapes colleage) proves laughably farcical rather than substantive.  While there may be some truth behind the preferential treatment Bush received (and there may very well not be), the lack of well-roundedness in the side players of Truth and the need to make Mapes seem "right" hinders the film greatly.

As mentioned, Blanchett is good as the strong-willed Mapes who faces a possible career-ending crisis with the actress allowing us to see the pain Mapes internally confronts, but the film steers her wrong at the end and the self-aggrandizing, boastful attitude of the film does Blanchett no favors.  The film is blatantly telling us how to feel about her character rather then letting the audience naturally come to that conclusion.  The rest of the typically solid cast isn't given much to do at all with Redford in particular inhabiting a role that feels underwritten and shockingly sidelined for much of the film.  Then again, this is Mary Mapes's story and despite its attempts at trying to balance both sides, the film, although adequately produced and lensed, just doesn't land in the way it hopes.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Starring Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, and Toby Jones

Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

I was not a fan whatsoever of the first Captain America film presented by Marvel.  There was something about the eccentric over-the-top villain, supporting actors that added nothing to the story, and a bland leading actor that had me yawning and finding the film the second worst Marvel movie to date (it's only ahead of Thor 2).  Needless to say, because of this disappointment in the first film, I was dreading the second in part because the only thing I liked about the initial installment -- the 1940s setting and aesthetic -- was now going to be completely removed from the equation seeing as at the end of the first film our title character had been frozen and woken up thawed nearly seven decades later.  Color me surprised to discover that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is Marvel's best movie to date and a massive upgrade from its predecessor.

Although he fought alongside all of the Avengers not that long ago, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is still getting acclimated to modern society as Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens.  Working for intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve goes on various missions alongside Natasha Romanov AKA The Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) under the direction of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who heads the agency.  Fury has doubts about a major new initiative -- Project Insight -- that will utilize three helicopter-ish devices to link to spy satellites and eliminate potential threats before they happen.  After discussing his concerns with project leader and S.H.I.E.L.D. official Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), Fury ends up being ambushed by a large group of men headed by a masked man known as The Winter Soldier whose identity will create a bit of chaos for Steve and his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues setting up a battle within the falls of the spy agency itself.

Although the film blows it at the end by creating a much-too-long final battle sequence, the build up to that in directors Anthony and Joe Russo's film is surprisingly tense and exciting.  Anchored by a very strong opening scene in which Captain America and Black Widow invade a spy ship, the directing brothers up their game in each subsequent action sequence culminating in an intense showdown on the streets of Washington, D.C.  Unfortunately, that showdown comes in the middle act of the film as opposed to the end, but the lack of a really taut finale actually proved to be less of a let down than I thought perhaps because everything prior to that was so darn good.

As a character, I found Steve Rogers to be bland and lifeless in the first film, but he came alive in The Avengers and continues that streak here.  His repartee with his fellow agents was dryly amusing and Chris Evans more than carries the film with the help of his humorous and captivating co-star Scarlett Johannson.  The duo work extremely well together and create an atmosphere that exudes fun and amusement in all their scenes together.  Nice work from Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Mackie, and Robert Redford round out the very good ensemble.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier works best, however, because I think this is the Marvel film that's most based in reality.  While many of the devices that are utilized and inventions that are created are rather preposterous, the stakes feel the most real here in this film as opposed to many others.  Main characters are put into situations that are incredibly difficult from which to escape and it's entirely possible they won't.  This sense of tension adds a great deal to the impact of the film which is the best flick I've seen thus far come out of the Marvel Universe.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep (2013)

Starring Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Terrence Howard, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Sam Elliott, Stephen Root, and Jackie Evancho 

Directed by Robert Redford

Just take a look at that talent listed above -- that's a helluva lot of names, most of whom are known for giving good performances.  Robert Redford's film The Company You Keep (culled from a script by Lem Dobbs) plays like a novel, introducing each of these actors for a chapter and then having them disappear.  This episodic nature proves very tedious about halfway through once we realize what's going on.  It fails to allow us to connect to anyone...then again, I'm not sure we really want to connect with any of these people.

The film opens with a brief flashback in newsreel/news footage form about a series of protests in the 1960/70s by a homegrown American "terrorist" group known as the Weather Underground -- a real-life "activist" group that bombed government buildings and banks as public demonstrations to gain notoriety in an attempt to overthrow the US government for what they perceived as wrongdoings during the Vietnam era.  The last blip of the flashback tells us about a 1980 bank robbery in which a civilian was killed and how the three people responsible are still at large.

Cut to present time and Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) is arrested when buying gas at a convenience store in New York.  Solarz was one a Weather Underground member and one of the three people responsible for that ill-fated bank robbery that resulted in a death.  She had lived her life -- got married, had kids -- but the guilt of that day always stayed with her and Solarz, a Vermont resident, specifically crossed the New York state border to buy gas in order to get arrested and turn herself in.  This sets the FBI on a hunt for Solarz's colleagues in the crime, while also piquing the interest of Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), a young reporter at the local Albany newspaper.  Shepard ends up discovering more than the FBI (which doesn't sit too well with the FBI chief played by Terrence Howard) when he uncovers the fact that a local lawyer named Jim Grant (Robert Redford) is actually Nick Sloan, a presumed dead Weather Underground member suspected of taking part in the murder at the bank in 1980.  When Shepard confronts Grant about this, Grant immediately grows suspicious that the FBI will soon be on his tail and he sets off across the country trying to evade the FBI, while also trying to clear his name.

While the premise above is actually interesting that all takes place in the film's opening thirty minutes after which things quickly fall apart, digressing into scenes in which Redford's character meets up an old, hardened former Weather Underground member who then gets tracked down by the FBI just as Grant manages to make an escape.  This seriously happens four or five times and maybe it could've worked if any of these scenes ended up being anything other than two old people reminiscing about how shitty the government's treatment of the less fortunate is.  (Of course, the majority of these old fogies are now living in expensive houses, sailing yachts, or working at prestigious universities...so their sympathetic allegiance with the poor feels disingenuous...then again, that's the good old liberal mindset, ain't it?)

There are a couple of decent performances here -- LaBeouf is strong as the go-getting reporter, Sarandon makes the most of her small role with a particularly good scene in which she explains her actions -- but the typically strong cast isn't given much to work with and Redford doesn't really pull great performances from their small parts.  For someone who was a supposed sex symbol and movie star back in the day, Redford himself is uncharismatic and particularly bland here which is a disappointment considering he and LaBeouf are the only two actors who we see throughout the entire film.  The Company You Keep may very well have the most prestigious cast assembled for a 2013 film, but despite the high quality of actors, Robert Redford's film just meanders along for two hours failing to be anything more exciting than a game of "Which Celebrity Will Appear Next?"

The RyMickey Rating:  C- 

Movie Review - All Is Lost

All Is Lost (2013)

Starring Robert Redford

Directed by J.C. Chandor

Even moreso than movies of its ilk like Cast Away and Life of Pi, All Is Lost is a bit more of an experiment in filmmaking.  Whereas the lost and foresaken travelers in those two films had either a beach ball named Wilson or a tiger named Richard Parker with whom to converse, the man in All Is Lost -- and he is just a nameless man played by Robert Redford -- has no one but himself to pass the time.  And he's not fond of talking to himself.  So, what you get is a film that has perhaps one minute of dialog combined across its 105-minute run time.  That's a ballsy move on writer-director J.C. Chandor's part because it forces the visuals to be captivating.  Fortunately they are, but the film itself -- perhaps because of the lack of dialog -- failed to allow me to connect with the main character despite his hard-fought battle against Mother Nature and Mother Earth. 

The film begins with the voiceover of Redford's weathered older sailor reading a letter to his daughter which tells her that he fought hard, but was unable to overcome the perils of the sea despite his best efforts.  We then flashback eight days already knowing that something awful is going to happen.  This foreshadowing certainly provides the movie with some much needed tension and does its job by keeping us on the edge of our seat until the man's inevitable downfall.  As the seventy-something man sails the Southern seas on his lovely boat named the Virginia Jean, he wakes up one morning to his sailboat taking on water thanks to having a run-in with a large crate (the type carried on those giant cargo ships).  While he manages to get his boat detached from the crate, the gaping hole left behind causes some problems...and the impending stormy weather doesn't help things either.

The story in All Is Lost isn't the film's problem.  In fact, the simplicity is actually refreshing and feels incredibly natural.  The issue with the movie is that I didn't really care what happened to Redford's character -- whether he lived or died made no difference to me.  In films like Life of Pi and Cast Away where we've been given glimpses of the main characters' home lives, I had a rooting interest for the shipwrecked folks to get home.  Here, it was really just a struggle of man vs. nature which inherently is intriguing, but didn't allow me to connect with the character the way I desired.  I respect what J.C. Chandor and Robert Redford did here (although Redford's Oscar buzz seems unwarranted in a year that contained so many fantastic leading actor performances) and All Is Lost is still a really solid film, but they didn't create a film that had me hoping for the man's success which inherently seems like a bit of a problem.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Three Days of the Condor

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, and Max von Sydow

Directed by Sydney Pollack

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

I have a problem when conspiracy thrillers become so convoluted that the viewer is unable to follow them. As we watch, we know that there's something nefarious going on, but because of the way the film is structured, we're at a loss to explain things.  That's the issue with Three Days of the Condor, a flick that starts off quite promisingly, but falters in the last half because it falls into the trap of too many twists and tangles.

The most successful aspect of the film is Robert Redford's performance as the bookish Joseph Turner who, along with seven colleagues, has been hired by the government to study foreign texts to determine if they contain secret codes or messages.  While out getting lunch one afternoon, all of Turner's co-workers are shot down in their offices. When Turner returns and discovers the horror, he calls his government superior and soon discovers that something shady is underfoot -- a conspiracy that may lead all the way to the top of the CIA.

I was incredibly fond of this film for the first sixty minutes.  It was tense, nicely plotted, and provided Redford with a nice opportunity to slowly morph from "the nerd" to "the action star."  However, around the halfway point, there's an awkward sex scene between Redford and the miscast Faye Dunaway (whose character and romantic subplot are completely unnecessary) and things start to falter.  Backstabbing runs rampant and characters switch their loyalties seemingly every five minutes.  It grows to a ridiculous level and, in the end, it negates the powerful opening.  

The RyMickey Rating:  C