What happens when a car hits a pane of glass? The glass shatters.

I’ve never seen the feat in person, but November Man treats us to this classic sight gag early. Admittedly, the panes of glass are on a truck instead of carried by jaywalking delivery guys, but still. If you see it happen firsthand, truck and pane of glass in congress, it’s probably pretty rad. Shrieking tires, the crunch of pulverization, the spray of glass, quite a spectacle. Though, in the end, when you walk away, you won’t be able to help but notice how the whole bit is laughably cliché. In November Man, a car hits a pane of glass, and the glass shatters.

It isn’t James Bond, but it’s hard not to correlate the two when former Bond Pierce Brosnan plays CIA super-agent Peter Devereaux. November Man is a die cut coaxed-out-of-retirement spy thriller. Predictable is a generous way to describe any plot element, but the film offers a few nice character wrinkles to complement Devereaux’s aging face. All the things that make James Bond intriguing and sexy cannot age well.

Peter Devereaux is a clumsy nudging of a “Bond who’s seen too much,” type. The guy who sips martinis after choking some villain’s crony to death becomes an alcoholic who chugs four mini liquor bottles after gunning down a room full of men. Any super spy left to reconcile the blood on his hands and secrets in his head is some sort of high functioning sociopath. One scene in particular, we’ll call it the knife scene, is the quintessence of using a human being as an end to serve, and Devereaux does not disappoint.

Outside of Peter’s occasional moment and a rather enjoyable—if unimaginative—core plot, everything related to November Man is dumb. I hate to use a word so reductive, but any other word seems dishonest. All attempts at characterization, intrigue, political commentary, lack grace, wit, or substance. It’s just dumb. To revisit the aforementioned knife scene—in a moment where tensions between our key players are meant to be so taught drama should ooze from the screen—I was, no shit, stifling my laughter.

It’s hard to believe how tone deaf November Man is at times. One of the favored targets seems to be women. Whether they are being denigrated verbally, used as vessels of sexual pleasure, physically assaulted, or at times all three, they are paper thin characters. Olga Kurylenko who turned in a promising performance in Malik’s To the Wonder is given nothing to work with. Even the male players are housed inside hackneyed archetypes. Luke Bracey is served up on a platter as young, dumb, and full of cum Mason. If it even needs to be typed out, Mason and Devereaux used to be partners. Oh, and Mason thinks he’s the cock of the walk now.

Instances like this manifest again and again submarining any chance November Man has to at least be fun. When the story is in high gear, plenty of generally pleasing things happen. Action sequences are relatively well constructed, fisticuffs are often, and sure enough I wanted that badie to go down. So where did it all go so wrong? November Man tries desperately to be something we don’t require it to be.

In some more generous reading, perhaps the film is so aware of genre and self it’s truly sublime, but you know it ain’t true. November Man deemphasizes the most important part of the equation. Brooding spies, one night stands confused as love, conspiracies hatched by wicked men for "the greater good," it's all immaterial to a film so intelligence averse. Car + pane of glass = smash. AndNovember Man didn't even know a good thing when they held it in their hands.


—Monte Monreal

The transparent moral lesson of When the Game Stands Tall is lazily propped up on a bible verse about ten minutes in. As much as I’d admire the self-awareness of Ecclesiastes 1:9, they instead opt for Luke 6:38. “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” You reap what you sow, as interpreted by one of our gridiron heroes depicted in the film. You make a lazy, cliché ridden sports melodrama, you bear bad fruit, no matter how strong the premise.

When the Game Stands Tall does have a good premise. In a somewhat unique turn for the archetypal sports movie, this is a story about losing. Adapted from a book of the same name by Neil Hayes, When the Game Stands Tall tells the true story of De La Salle High Football’s unthinkable 151 game win streak. The coach at the helm of this juggernaut is the soft spoken and earnest Bob Ladouceur. This all happened in real life, but anything resembling actual life doesn’t make it into the film.

To put 151 straight wins into perspective, the De La Salle Spartans won 13 consecutive state titles. According to the film, all of the success goes back to Ladouceur’s message of the ‘perfect effort life,’ above all else, even winning. This is not unlike what every coach tries to tap into, but the real marvel is in Ladouceur’s message resonating with class after class of young men.

This is where the film gets problematic. Coach Bob portrayed by Jim Caviezel seems like a good enough guy, but his young men are perfect. This is some magical high school vacuum sealed in the 1950’s Middle American dream. There’s thankfully more diversity, but outside of that, these young men are, gosh, just good boys. One boy espouses the importance of the chastity promise he and his girlfriend made. None of them cuss. They all attend bible class (taught by Coach in what appears to be a converted science class, oh delicious irony). There’s no cussing, or drinking, or drugging. As a narrative certainty these kids have some broad lessons to learn, but they are unburdened and square enough to almost be actual footballs.

Why embrace this lie? I don’t want to live in a world where high school football players aren’t entitled, dangerous, wasters. My prejudices aside, it minimizes what coach Ladouceur was able to accomplish in actuality. Young men will be young men, but creating a worthwhile means to avoid these pitfalls is impressive. It’s the essence of that idealized mentor.

Moving outward from these cherubic youths, the story elements play out with laughable predictability. Laura Dern and Michael Chiklis wander around somewhere in there as Coach Bob’s wife and assistant, and nothing more, respectively. Everything from the score to the on field drama to the crisis of confidence all dove tail into an anticipated championship game. Just in time to beat the game clock, perspective takes hold in the huddle, on the sidelines, and in the crowd alike. Every important lesson is said aloud, and our feet never have to touch the ground.

There’s no tragic mistake in making a positive film, but When the Game Stands Tall cheats itself. For fear of knocking the angelic sheen off Coach Bob and his players, they don’t truly delve into the immensity of this team’s accomplishments. A daunting string of real life tragedies befell the team in the space of a few weeks, and then they blew the 151 game win streak. Through this medium Coach Ladouceur imparts an actual life lesson on these young men, a pillar on which to build a good life. When you understand the smallness of what happens on a football field, you can begin to understand the lessons the game has to teach.

In the end, When the Game Stands Tall trades a chance to elevate above the banalities of the genre for a cannonball into mediocrity. Perhaps they thought the core identity would be strong enough support these stick figures, but it’s like a lone light inside a vacuum of…well, vacuity. It could have been the film coaches use to shape their winning ethos on and off the field. Instead, When the Game Stands Tall will be the film coaches show their disinterested 7th period class.

--Monte Monreal

Royal Tenenbaum’s review of his 11 year old daughter Margot’s play—“This is a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes.” —pretty much sums it up. He certainly captures my sentiment regarding the rash of YA novel adaptations, and If I Stay falls right in line. No matter the scope of the themes, no matter the brooding self-seriousness, no matter the stakes—usually life and death—nothing ever seems to evolve beyond a bunch of kids unknowingly playing pretend.

My attitude hardly gives credence to the legitimacy of If I Stay’s story to tell. All films are for everyone, but this film is not for me. And I mean ‘me’ in that larger dumpy-32-year-old-movie-reviewer sort of way. It’s important to view a movie in its appropriate context, and If I Stay has a lot to offer through its particular looking glass.

I really like our lead, cello prodigy Mia played by Chloe Grace Moretz. In fact, Mia’s relationship with her cello is a fascinating element, and had it been the bedrock of her experience it might be a far different movie. I like Mia’s stock-in-trade little brother/quip dispenser/prop who listens to Iggy Pop. I like Mia’s reformed punk rocker father who tells said son to not listen to any Iggy Pop after 1978 (fact). Mom is a riot grrrl doing her best impression of a responsible urbanite. Portland is a character, music is a character, and Stacy Keach!

So what’s not to like here? Well, sadly, not much. Our tragedy takes hold early, and Mia’s woes are profound. In action telegraphed by the trailer, Mia’s entire family dies in a car accident and she falls into a coma. While comatose, Mia has an out of body experience. In limbo, she transitions between the hospital where her life is in full collapse, and her memories leading up to the accident. As the consequences of all of the above play out, Mia is left with one question, should I stay? Love, loss, family, perseverance, these are all solid themes for a young audience to grapple with. So what’s not to like here? Well, sadly, the thing that matters most.

Here we meet Adam Wilde (Jamie Blackley), our heartthrob. Adam, for all intents and purposes, is a rare bird…as far as high school crushes go, anyway. Sure, he’s a handsome, sensitive, song writing, local God—we’re still in the ideal fashioning business, here—but he’s kinda, you know, pretty cool. Instead of Mia falling head over heels for him, he’s smitten by her and initiates the pursuit. The language of their love is music. Adam is even good for a grand romantic gesture, the sort teenage girls don’t really want, but teenage boys want, and then they go on to make movies to make it seem like it’s what teenage girls want.

Foolishly, their love story tries to take up the mantle of main plot. Look, high school kids fall in love and make too much of it. It’s redundant to point out how these movies indulge irrationalities young people attach to their developing sense of love, but If I Stay is especially misguided in its execution. Instead of trying to find a guide rope out of the darkness in the form of her exceptional talents, or lifelong relationships, Mia only sees Adam. Her entire family is dead, and she hitches her will to live to her dumb high school boyfriend.

As a resounding moral I could think of nothing more poisonous for a young mind. Your high school boyfriend will not save you. Your most important love should be love for yourself. Even where the film fails to tell a visually interesting story about Mia’s life of the mind, there is no more grim misstep than crafting the narrative on such a false promise.

Perhaps Gayle Forman’s novel is more balanced. Perhaps the young viewers informed by If I Stay will eschew the cheap romantic notions and embrace more important lessons about black coffee and punk rock. Perhaps I’m just a heartless prick. But as long as I see films about overstated high school love being teenagers’ answer to the convoluted mosaic of our existence, I’ll just see a bunch of kids dressed up in animal costumes.


--Monte Monreal

Questions of faith are central to the Irish drama Calvary. Of course the most identifiable of those, between man and maker, is examined, but faith manifests in countless ways. Faith in the world, faith in self, faith in nothing, all forms of belief, and all trying to work their way into John Michael McDonagh’s massive film. It’s a wide scope, and as with any premise so broad, the temptation to validate it, to overstuff it increases. 

Calvary features its fair share of sinners, but none as acute as the creator lacking faith in his creation.

I use the word massive only in terms of ambition, and Calvary’s aspiration lies in its story. McDonagh made a fine film and his devotion is readily apparent. A dialogue-driven meditation on expansive topics—god, religion, love, death—that manages to avoid painful clichés endemic to the conversation is rare. But in the effort to reach for the brass ring, Calvary overextends. Calvarythinks it has to explain itself.

Brendan Gleeson, as Father James, plays a priest with a week to live. Or so you’d believe from the opening scene’s smelling salt kick. From there we meet the panoply of ne’er-do-wells who color Father James’ congregation. Herein lies the root of Calvary’s critical drawback. The performances are consistent and commendable, but each character is used as a mechanism. Every character functions as little more than a moral dispenser. Not to say they all trade in uplifting edicts—far from it—but they all deliver an object lesson meant to further illustrate their pre-assigned complexity.

From here the lovely scenery (and Larry Smith’s cinematography is gorgeous) doesn’t get chewed, it gets devoured. Horked down in stultifying, overly scripted monologues, when every character has a point to make, focus begins to scatter. The endless jawing at the audience becomes white noise, and it all feels tied into an effort to justify the film’s lofty thesis. Somewhere there is an exceptional 95-minute cut of Calvary, but the gap between what we have and what the film could be is an unkind inch.

With such a high volume of players on the payroll they’re impossible to recount here. Chris O’Dowd plays an aw-shucks, cuckolded butcher. Dylan Moran ably portrays a wounded, wealthy husk of a human. M. Emmet Walsh even does some light lifting as, well…an old guy. This scarcely covers the rest of the ensemble up to and including Aidan Gillen in the throes of his growliest Littlefinger snarl. When we cycle through the viewfinder there are some sublime moments, a scene set in prison in particular, but all told the story equates to a parable. As with any parable, the lesson is the character, and the characters are disposable.

Calvary's inability to whittle down to a more confident, manageable size only harms its best asset, Father James. A performance crafted by Brendan Gleeson with vision and sensitivity, his immovable quiet has never been more potent. Harried by his unrepentant, indifferent, and sociopathic flock of sheep, the story of a worldly man trying to filter his experiences through the rigidity of the priesthood becomes obscured. Does Father James die at the end of the week? You’ll find out, but it’s hardly the most important question.

Father James was an alcoholic, widower, and single father before he picked up his vows. In contrast to the young priest being preened to replace him, Father James’ faith has been forged in the furnace of adversity, not learned in seminary. He brings this outsiders perspective into a crumbling institution, is rooted against by his parishioners, and never once grapples with some predictable crisis of faith.

In this way, Calvary never takes the easy way out, and there is tremendous merit in McDonagh’s approach. With topics so apt to devolve into sentimentality or cynicism, Calvary avoids both. People will tell you it’s a black comedy or a religious drama, and it certainly contains elements of both. But when the film comes untangled from its attachments long enough to excel, it’s a thoughtful portrait of faith. Not faith as a doctrine, but faith as a process: a process of belief, a process of patience, and ultimately a process of forgiveness. The capriciousness of morality and immorality aside, trust in one’s self is at the core of faith. McDonagh arrives at this juncture, but with so much leaden self-doubt hanging about the picture, Calvary only reaches for a moral as opposed to embodying the lessons learned. 

—Monte Monreal

Will Arnett does us an early favor and tells about where to set our expectations for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In an Arnett-y diatribe about coffee, he tries to console April O’Neal who’s had her fill of reporting puff pieces. Arnett, playing Vernon Fenwick, tells April her puff pieces are froth, and it’s a good thing. Froth is light, sweet, filled with hot air, and utterly weightless. It’s froth! Ladies and gentlemen, your 2014 Ninja Turtles.

Although this is not a Michael Bay film, his ligature marks all over this picture. He may have spent last year lovingly crafting his 2 hour and 45 minute crapsterpiece Transformers: Age of Extinction, but he made sure to give director Johnathan Liebesman some pointers. Between the cluttered action pieces, use of character actors (William Fichtner!), and almost inconsequential storyline, you’d think Mr. Bay himself was behind the megaphone.

Our ass-kicking, wise-cracking, hip-hop informed CGI turtles remain largely on the good side of Uncanny Valley. But Splinter looks…am I saying this? Too real? He kind of freaked me out, so, um, props to the animators, I guess. The least convincing CGI eukaryote is Megan Fox as April O’Neal. It’s not as though she can’t act, but she willfully does not act in this movie. At times wooden, other moments psychotic, and later cartoonish as the damsel in peril, this was not her best effort. And endless attention is paid to how hot she is, all of it from male characters—human or not. Fox does look beautiful, and if that’s all the character demands, perhaps they got the performance they wanted.

TMNT’s story plays like a 30 minute episode stuffed with action sequences until it was 101 minutes long. I’d forgive an anemic plot if this one wasn’t so stupefying in its execution. Glossing over major plot points and plodding around useless story setting, the narrative lacked grace. The filmmakers relied far too much on what we’re supposed to know about the Ninja Turtles. We’re expected to accept the absurd backstory, the tension in the turtles’ relationship, the villain’s motivations, all because it’s part of known Ninja Turtles’ lore. Oh, and they like pizza. [Insert Pizza Hut product shot here.]

Even the attempts to invoke the Turtle films of yore are clumsy. Feeding us familiar lines of a dialogue, teasing the Turtle Van™, dressing April O'Neal in yellow, it's all stilted fan servicing. Indicative of the bloated nostalgia industry, TMNT really ranks among the most shallow of these films. No risk, plenty of reward, and all because a generation who've come of age can't sever ties to some consumable product aggressively marketed to them decades ago. If we can't get over it, why should Hollywood?   

Ultimately, TMNT’s failing is their inability to focus on the relationships. The Turtles are great because they’re ninjas, but they’ve also got to be teenagers. They’ve got to be outsiders and brothers together, but still have to follow a leader among them. Hormones, crime fighting, YouTube, it’s complicated. Not to say the film needs to be dour, but make a little more time to mine these complexities. In the moments they do instill some humanity, the film can be charming, even surprising. Otherwise it lacks something to get behind, and how hard could it be to invest in mutant turtle teenagers who are also ninjas?