In the opening sequence of this crime drama, Ryan Gosling is introduced as a getaway driver for two faceless thugs stealing money from some unknown destination.  The scene builds to what will be an inevitable chase scene between them and the cops.  Tension mounts as a creeping Cat & Mouse game plays out with them slowly trying to sneak down the streets of LA without being spotted.  Surely, this car chase scene is gonna be epic and kick this movie off in full throttle.  But no.  It never comes.  In fact, the sequence involves slow driving, methodical evasion moves and an  anticlimactic getaway.  Never once is any of it boring though.  And this sets the tone of Drive.

Drive is a gritty crime movie that takes place in LA but we’re not sure when due to a misleading soundtrack choice of heart-pounding synth pop and cliche costume choices.  These were deliberate choice by director Nicolas Winding Refn, who directed the brilliant Bronson in 2008, which introduced the world to Tom Hardy (Warrior, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises).  I’m sure he also had a call in the promotion of this film that uses hot pink ’80s style font for all the advertising and credits.  Coupled with the heavy female soundtrack and Gosling’s adorable manboy face, you’d expect this to be a film about crime that’s made for women.  A warning to all lovers of The Notebook, this is not the Ryan you’re expecting.

Drive is one of the most violent movies I’ve ever seen.  Sure there are movies like Saving Private Ryan or Nightmare on Elm Street that are officially more violent, but Drive is filled with unexpected brutality.  This is NOT a film for the slight of heart.  Some of the scenes generated audible gasps from the audience and people turned away from the screen.  In some cases, people got up and left the theater.  Yes, some of this violence is gratuitous but never once does it not fit the tone of the film.  It’s all done for a reason and in some cases even meant to be playful.

The entire cast is brilliant.  It also features Carey Mulligan (An Education), Ron Pearlman (Hellboy), Bryan Cranston (AMC’s Breaking Bad) and comedian Albert Brooks (Mother, Finding Nemo) as an Oscar-caliber villain.  He is a perfect baddie and nobody would EVER have guessed that.  It’s that kind of risky choices that makes Drive and Refn’s vision that deserves top notice from people.

All that being said, this is not a movie for mass audiences.  It has a pace that is slow and deliberate.  The film takes itself more seriously than it deserves but that can be overlooked.  Gosling’s character, who is only listed in the credits as “Driver,” is mysterious and a man of few words.  He says very little and Refn allows moments of the film to go on in complete silence for agonizing amounts of time.  However, after a full viewing, I’m sure those pregnant pauses are far more important and justified on a second enjoyment.

There are few movies that, after I see them, I look forward to seeing again as soon as possible; Drive is one of them though.  It’s not a classic story of a criminal with a heart of gold.  It’s a story of a criminal who tries to do the right thing after falling in love, but displays acts of violence that suggests an almost psychotic and homicidal maniac past.  Gosling does a stellar job showing that without ever saying a word.  But again, don’t go into Drive with any pretense.  It’s not Fast and the Furious filled with amazing car chase scenes!  It’s not The Notebook filled with passionate love scenes.  It’s brutal, weird and inspired!  It’s one of those movies that makes you think you just saw something important…even if you’re not 100% sure what you just saw.
Drive  (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A

This movie opens on a black screen.  You hear audio, people talking, casino noises, but you don’t see anything.  Then you hear someone start to cough.  The second that happens, you’re already put on edge for the movie about a disease that threatens to wipe out the planet.  It’s a brilliant way to open the movie.  I smirked when I heard that and got scared at the same time.  Sadly, that just might be the best part of Contagion.

Movies about diseases that end the world scare the s**t out of me!  It’s ten times scarier than a giant tidal wave or earthquakes or zombies or aliens.  Diseases are real and they really do harness the power to kill everyone alive.  Full disclosure, I was looking forward to this film and wanted it to be amazingly scary.  I was so disappointed.

Director Stephen Soderbergh has his ups and downs but never would I call him a hack.  He’s always looking for ways to push the envelope of cinema or have fun with it.  He’s impressed critics and audiences with Traffic, Erin Brockovich and the Oceans movies.  He’s won over only the critics with movies like The Informant! and The Girlfriend Experience. And he’s disappointed both audiences and critics with movies like Solaris and Che Part 1 & 2.  Where will Contagion fall?  That seems to be debatable.  I’m gonna play it safe though and say it’s something that only critics will enjoy but not the rest.

Contagion is an example of how too many characters on too many story lines can ruin a film.  It’s not short of A-list firepower at all.  It has Matt Damon, Lawrence Fishburn, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law to name just a few.  All are fine actors that have given us great performances over the years.  However, none of these actors play characters that are involved in any cohesive story together.  They all are like supporting characters for a movie that has no lead.

Not only does it not have a lead, it has no pulse.  It’s as if the movie itself got infected and just staggers around in a cold sweat hacking.  All the things that make a movie about the end of the world entertaining are shown to us in Contagion with zero zest!  Mass panic, a race for a cure, tracking down the disease’s origin; these are all in the film but shown to you in a way that makes you not care and certainly not chomp down on popcorn.

My friend Dave went with me to see it.  He loved it.  He actually liked the fact that it was downplayed so much because he said it made it feel real.  I suppose it does; but with a film of this nature, I don’t want it to feel so real that I am bored by it.  That’s what happened with Contagion.

Pulling off a movie with a huge cast of characters is not easy.  There are only a few movies that have done it…but Soderbergh is a director that has done that successfully a lot!  So what went wrong here?  I can only imagine my diagnosis was correct…Contagion is sick.
Contagion  (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: C

Why is it that Hollywood can’t seem to get their crap in a pile and make a decent horror movie about devil possession?   The more attempts they make that fall on their faces, the more it makes The Exorcist look even more impressive that it was pulled off so well.  This attempt is The Rite and it stars Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins opposite an unknown hunk Colin O’Donoghue (The Tudors) in a film from Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom (1408).  They even took the approach of tagging the beginning of this with a “Inspired by true events…” and hoped it would punch up the spookiness.  It did but only in the respect that The Vatican really does have classes on exorcisms.  That’s about as spooky as this movie gets.  The story is decent though; it follows a young man who’s wrestling with his faith right before becoming a Priest.  He’s sent to Italy to watch real exorcisms in hopes that it would renew his belief in God.  Pretty cool plot, right?  It’s just heartbreaking that nothing scary happens in the film.  There are fleeing moments of creepiness but they’re few and far from the stuff nightmares are made of.  So disappointing!  In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting a lot from this in the first place.  So in that respect, I kind of got more than I thought in a stellar performance from Hopkins.  This might be him at his best since Silence of the Lambs.  He pulls off stuff in this movie that is damn impressive for a senior citizen, and none of it appears to CGI or other special FX.  Hopkins has a way of playing almost himself in every role but he recites the dialogue so fluently that it seems like improv instead of well rehearsed lines.  It’s a technique that kind of reminds me of the way Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, The Fly) used to perform…back when Jeff Goldblum used to perform.  Of course with that much awesomeness laying around the set, you’d think his co-star would rise to the occasion.  But shockingly, O’Donoghue loafs through the movie showing the same emotion that you’d imagine he would waiting at the DMV.  If I were to pick one problem that The Rite has it would be its total lack of energy.  This was a movie with a great actor performing better than ever in a film that has a decent core plot and it ended up being boring.  Something I’d be willing to overlook if it got my blood pumping with some jumps and frights, but the only faith it restored in me was my faith that Hollywood hasn’t and can’t make a better possession movie than The Exorcist.  Long may rein!
The Rite  (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: C

All the advertisements for this movie boasted some of the most vague campaigning I’ve ever seen for a film.  All we gather after watching a two and a half minute long trailer for this movie is that it stars Russel Crowe and Liam Neeson and it’s about a woman in jail.  The ironic part is that one of those three tidbits isn’t even true.  Liam Neeson is a one-scene cameo and almost his entire performance is shown in the trailer.  The Next Three Days is the thriller from Hollywood Sweetheart and Clint Eastwood’s BFF, Paul Haggis.  Haggis started off as a writer in Hollywood and has moved on to directing.  He’s given us Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters of Iwo Jima, and the two last James Bond movies.  With the exception of Crash, all are fine films.  (And yes, I mean that!  Crash was terrible and I’ll fight ya over it!)  The Next Three Days will be put on Haggis’ lame pile.  The film is about a regular guy who has his wife go to prison for murder.  He believes she’s innocent so he plans to break her out.  I’ll give Haggis credit that it’s more original than it seems.  I couldn’t remember a movie in the last decade or so that was about breaking someone out of prison; most are about someone trying to break themselves out and it’s a very different story if you’re outside the walls.  From the very beginning though this film is off the tracks.  Everything in it is glazed over like you’re watching the Cliff’s Notes version of a good movie.  Crowe’s wife is played by the gorgeous Elizabeth Banks (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, W.) is trying to prove that she’s not just a pretty face that does comedy really well and deserves to be considered for more dramatic work.  Besides those two main roles there are a slue of useless, underutilized characters that are played by pretty good actors; such as Olivia Wilde (Year One, Tron: Legacy), Brian Dennehy (Tommy Boy, Romeo + Juliet), RZA (Wu-Tang Clan), and Daniel Stern (City Slickers) just to name a few.  They are shells of actual characters that have no backstory, no personality, no purpose and no fuel to keep the story going.  That’s not because they lack the screen time to make it work either because the same goes for Crowe and Banks.  Everyone in this movie is replaceable with any character from any other thriller and it wouldn’t change the story at all.  And this is only half the problem; the other half is an excruciating first two acts.  It’s so slow and boring and doesn’t seem to mind.  There’s no sense of an artful director at the helm that saw this iceberg coming and wanted to speed the ship up to get to the good part.  And that really is the sad part; the last third of the movie is really good.  The ending is exciting and suspenseful and deserves an audience, but I’m not sure who could stick around for it.  The Next Three Days came across a lot like Crash to me; it’s a movie that thought so highly of itself that it didn’t want anyone to tell it how it could be improved.  It was so sure it was a masterful movie that it didn’t need a test screening or Hollywood dust-up.  Shame too because it wouldn’t have been a total wash because I’d tell them to keep the ending the way it is and reshoot everything else.
The Next Three Days (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: C -

The last time director Martin Scorsese teamed up with Leonardo DiCaprio, it was for The Departed and they shot their way to an Oscar win for Best Picture.  During the filming of Shutter Island they must’ve thought that was a chance to do it again and planned on releasing it in the fall so it would be eligible for Oscars.  Then someone must’ve realized that that was never going to happen and had it come out in mid-February instead; the quagmire of awfulness in the movie season.  I’m a HUGE fan of Scorsese, DiCaprio and especially when they work together.  Leo has quickly become the new DeNiro, as far as how many movies they’ve done together.  Shutter Island is a psychological thriller that’s wound so tight it makes the 138 minute runtime seem like three days.  I could begin to tell you what it’s about but reading it would take you as long as it would to watch it.  The good news is that it has an impressive cast like Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac), Ben Kingsley (Ghandi), Jackie Earl Haley (Watchmen) and Max Von Sydow (The Exorcist), who hasn’t aged in 40 years.  Everyone in the movie is great.  In fact this might be one of the best performances that DiCaprio has given in his already boastful career.  It’s dark, complex, revealing and both brutal and sensitive at the same time.  It was a loaded character for him to take on.  Scorsese does an incredible job directing…of course, and reminds me of his work on Cape Fear.  The production design, sets and location are so inspired that it could almost tell the story without saying a word.  In fact one of the best parts of the movie is the musical score, which was composed by Robbie Robertson.  The music is brooding and menacing and sets the tone for the film.  It’s just as scary as the island itself when you first see it.  It truly is amazing.  Sadly, the movie isn’t.  Shutter Island is too complex for its own good.  The story has secrets, twists and turns; that should come as no surprise.  I don’t mind following a film down rabbit trails in plot twists, but Shutter Island has too many.  By the time the ending comes with its big revelation, you’re so confused by the last 45 minutes that you have no idea how to process the ending.  As the film was building to its climax, I was so optimistic that the ending was gonna blow me away, a la The Usual Suspects or The Game.  It doesn’t though.  The movie starts off like a powerful locomotive, chugging it’s way down the track, building speed and looking damn good doing it; but somewhere along the way it runs out of steam, slows down and gets clunky.  I wouldn’t have minded that so much if the ending was epic, but it wasn’t, so I did.  I would imagine that Shutter Island watches much better a second time around.  It was made like a classic Hitchcock thriller and was not meant to be enjoyed all at once on the first viewing.  The problem is that I need to block off an entire day to find the time to watch the 2 and a half hour long movie to see and it just wasn’t good enough to make me think it’s worth it.
Shutter Island (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: B

Jamie Foxx won an Oscar not that long ago so his star should be shining bright enough so that movies like this one are way, way below him.  I’m not sure why he did this, but he looked like he regretted that decision before filming started.  He wanders the streets of Philadelphia looking for a way out of the movie.  Gerald Butler (“300″) has really been working on his Scottish accent and has traded it in for a mumble through slanted lips.  I know it sounds like I’m ragging on this thriller from director F. Gary Gray, but I actually kind of liked it.  Remember the last scene from “Seven” and how it created an uneasy sense of dread since the bad guy was handcuffed and unarmed but you were still scared of him.  ”Law Abiding Citizen” is like watching that last scene over and over again.  The story is about a father who sees his wife and daughter killed (LITERALLY in the first 30 seconds of the movie) and seeks to topple the corrupt system that failed to deliver him justice.  It’s a tired story but I’m always a sucker for it.  Revenge tales mixed with vigilante justice appeals to all of us, but it has to be done right.  Sadly for this movie, it wasn’t.  Like I said, Butler’s family gets murdered immediately which doesn’t give you a chance to feel for his character at all.  We don’t know anything about him prior to becoming the murderer he is for the rest of the film.  On the contrary, we know a lot about Foxx’s character and we don’t really care.  His family is dull, their love is phoned in and I didn’t really find myself caring what happened to them.  That was the running theme in this movie.  Apathy doesn’t drive a plot.  I can’t route the bad guy on without really understanding why he’s so hurt.  And as the movie goes on, Butler’s character doesn’t even understand what he’s doing anymore anyway.  What starts off as a gruesome, “Saw” type torture scene that really gets you excited for revenge turns into some sort of silly, unintelligible statement he’s trying to make about the judicial system.  He starts killing people off that didn’t have anything to do with his revenge so it makes us want to route for him less and less.  But it was still entertaining.  It does drag a little since it’s about 10-15 minutes too long.  But like I said, I’m a sucker for revenge tales and vigilante justice.  I enjoyed the well-thought-out murders and how far ahead he planned.  I didn’t understand why Foxx’s character, who’s a lawyer, was doing the job of the cops the entire movie; but I still enjoyed the race for him to get one step ahead of the villain.  I even enjoyed the intense violence in certain scenes which played with your notions of who Butler’s character was.  I don’t like the saying “It served its purpose” but that’s exactly what this movie did.  If you go into it wanting to see explosions and blood and don’t expect social commentary or complicated characters seeking vengeance, then you’ll be adequately pleased.
Law Abiding Citizen (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: C+

Taking of Pelham 123 (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: C+
I went and saw this at a free sneak preview and with about 5 minutes left to the movie about 20-50 people got up and left the theater.  They walked out of a FREE SHOW EARLY!  The movie is FAR from being bad enough to deserve that, but it’s still not very good.  It was directed by Tony Scott, who I’ve never really been a fan of.  If you’ve seen any of his other movies, such as “Man on Fire,” “Top Gun,” “Deja Vu” or “True Romance;” you know that he’s a big fan of making his films feel like a music video.  They have random edits, bright colors and camera effects that don’t seem to make any sense (in this case he uses a lot of blurred lenses and freeze frame shots).  But I will give him one thing, he does action very well.  The problem is that this movie doesn’t have any.  John Travolta is the charismatic bad guy and Denzel Washington is the reluctant good guy.  These two character types show up in almost all of Tony Scott’s movies and he directs them well.  I can’t give him too much credit on this though since this is a remake of a 1974 film which is based on a popular book by the same name.  The fact that the movie is a talkie disguised as an action flick doesn’t bother me at all.  It’s the fact that the story (which has been obviously updated a lot) doesn’t let me know how to feel about the characters.  Hostages are dying, time is running out, the f-word is being screamed a lot, but there’s still time to crack jokes.  The humor is all through this movie and it breaks up the tension, but it breaks up the tension too much and never gets a chance to build.  And in a movie that only has tension to keep you interested, you got nothing left but good acting from great actors.  Speaking of great actors, James Gandolfini plays the Mayor of New York City and steals the show in what would’ve been the most meaningless role for the film if John Turturro wasn’t in it as a hostage negotiator who serves even less of a purpose.  However I do have to say that my favorite character was New York City itself.  It made me miss it a lot.  It’s the living, breathing force in the film that helps define all the characters in it.  It sets the stage for the plot, the motive, the means, and the action…no matter how small the dosage is and how long you have to wait to get it.

Angels and Demons (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: C+
I don’t get it.  When you take an incredible book, add Hollywood’s crowning jewel, mix it with one of the best working directors out there, the end result should be amazing.  Why isn’t it?  Where do these movies based on Dan Brown’s Best Selling series go wrong?  To be fair, everyone crapped all over “The DaVinci Code” and I didn’t think it was as bad as they were making it out to be.  And just like history repeating itself, the same thing is happening now with this one.  To say that these are bad movies does a horrible injustice to them.  They’re far from bad movies.  But they don’t capture the excitement and pulse-pounding pace of the books.  The complaints everyone had with “The DaVinci Code” was that it moved too slow and was too talkie.  So what does director Ron Howard do about it?  He made “Angels and Demons” move too fast and too talkie.  The good news is that “Angels and Demons” is better than its predecessor.  The effects were better, the sets were amazingly accurate and, in my opinion, the story is better.  But in its fast pace, I wonder if the story will be totally lost on someone who didn’t read the book.  They worked so hard on pushing the action forward that they don’t let major moments sit and sink in with the audience in time.  Of course the pace is moving fast until Ewan McGregor shows up on the screen.  I don’t know if he was given a tranquilizer before shooting, but he’s phoning it in and talking like he just learned the language.  Last time it was Tom Hanks who acted like that, so at least this time around we get a leading man with some blood pumping in his veins.  I wonder if I would enjoy these movies so much more if I didn’t read the books.  I certainly enjoyed the Harry Potter movies that I didn’t read more than the ones I did.  Maybe the lesson learned here is don’t read books.  Nah!  I think the lesson should be that reading the books (especially in “Angels and Demons” case) is almost ALWAYS so much more thrilling and satisfying!  And besides, it’s summer…aren’t you looking for a good book to read anyway?

Valkyrie (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B
Bryan Singer was the director behind one of my favorite movies, “The Usual Suspects.”  But he hasn’t gone back to those roots in a long time.  I enjoyed the first two “X-Men” movies, but I longed for the spy/thriller feel again.  I was hoping this would’ve been it, but it only kind of was.  I feel like this was a movie that thought it was a lot more important than it really was.  This isn’t a spoiler alert to anyone with half-a-brain, but the plot to kill Hitler (which is the basis of the movie) didn’t work.  So in that respect, this true story really isn’t as interesting as you’d hope.  You can’t get attached to the characters too much since you know they’re not gonna pull it off.  But what is neat about this movie is to watch it and find out where their plan went sour.  Another thing that’s cool is to play the “How Many Actors from the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies are in this.”  I got up to 3, although you may not recognize Bill Nighy (he was Davey Jones)!  I guess they were having a sale on slightly recognizable British actors.  Which brings us to Tom Cruise.  Why he’s in this is beyond me.  It’s not that he was bad, but he wasn’t great either.  That’s the story of his life.  He’s the guy you call when you just want to get the job done.  He sticks out like a sore thumb in this as the ONLY non-British person in it.  But overall, he’s still fine at what he does and that’s kind of par for the movie too.  It’s fine for what it does.