In A Better World

 MIKAEL PERBRANT (left) and Trina Dyrholm in "A Better World."

Subject lives in two worlds in ‘A Better World’

Mikael Persbrandt plays Anton, a man who lives in two different worlds with two very different sets of challenges in the film “In A Better World.”

Anton is drifting apart from his wife while straining to work as a doctor in a dangerous and crude African refugee camp while trying to keep his life going in a Denmark town.

He and wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm) are looking at a separation. Meanwhile, his son, Elias, 10, is being bullied in school. Every day, his bicycle tires are flattened and the stems are taken out so he can’t simply inflate them.

Then there’s the new boy in town, Christian, played by William Nielsen, who moved from London with his recently widowed father, Claus, played by Ulrich Thomsen.

Christian has his share of problems, most manifested by the death of his mother and his hatred for his father, whom Christian perceives as to be relieved by her death.

When a bully turns his anger from Elias to Christian, Christian retaliates by clubbing the bully and threatening him with a knife.

In this movie at least, bullying seems to be tolerated in Denmark. When Elias’ parents are initially called in to discuss the bullying, a school administrator seems to indicate his parents’ marital problems are a part of the problem.

Even after Christian violently beats the bully, the ramifications don’t appear serious.

Anton, meanwhile, is juggling a lot of issues. One day he must stand up to a tribal leader who demands treatment and laughs when a woman dies.

He must operate under crude conditions, under dusty tents with marauding gangs in Jeeps shooting off guns.

He comes home to a cold wife and a confused son.

At one point, Anton separates his son and another boy who are fighting. He finds himself the target of a bully himself. We know Anton isn’t a coward. He stood up to a fierce tribal leader.

But in the case of the local bully, he takes his lumps and leaves. But Elias is horrified.

Christian, with so many anger issues, decides he’s going to get revenge by building a pipebomb and placing it under the bully’s vehicle. If it’s exploded early in the morning, it won’t hurt anyone, Christian decides.

But the horrific blast does have its consequences.

This film seemingly dumps us into a group of interesting people and their compelling lives. We hang for awhile and the movie ends. There are no certain conclusions. There’s no happy endings.

Their lives go on and so do ours.

The characters are interesting and compelling. There are many side stories to keep us interested.

The actors, even the younger ones, know their stuff.

“In A Better World” is indeed a better movie.

Read more viper reviews at videoviper.blogspot.com.

IN A BETTER WORLD

• Directed by Susanne Bier

• Written by Anders Thomas Jensen and Bier

• Rated R for violence and disturbing content, some involving preteens

• In Danish, Swedish and some English

• Runtime: 119 minutes

• 4 stars out of 5

Abduction

‘Abduction’ starts with a blast, but ends with fizzle

Lionsgate

DENZEL WHITAKER (right) and Taylor Lautner in "Abduction."

 

Nathan seems to be a typical teenager in the film “Abduction.”

When the film opens, he is waking up on a lawn where he apparently spent the night after a drunken party.

Played by Taylor Lautner, best known from the “Twilight” series, the hungover lad goes home where he meets the wrath of his daddy, played by Jason Isaacs.

Dad decides being hungover is a good time for a bit of boxing. So father and son fight and it’s brutal and no-holds barred.

Bloodied, it takes awhile for the Lautner character to fight back.

And you wonder, this is child abuse, right?

Not really, because nothing is as it seems. Queue eerie music.

Later, the boy must do a paper with the cute girl next door, played by Lily Collins. The topic? Missing children.

In their research, they soon come upon a young boy who looks strongly like Lautner’s character. A feature on the web site shows what the boy would look like today. And of course, it looks just like him.

And down in the basement, the teen actually finds the shirt the missing boy in the photo was wearing, right down to the stain.

It’s come-to-Jesus time. He asks his mother, played by Maria Bello, if she is indeed his mother. Tearfully she says no.

Let me tell you, this is riveting stuff. If you don’t have your fingers squeezing the couch cushion yet, you will be soon.

Because before Mom can explain, she meets some bad guys at the door and it is fight time. While she can fight better than most mothers, her demise is soon a reality. As is dad. To make matters worse, there’s a bomb in the microwave with a timer.

It is ka-boom city and soon the house is a pile of debris. Actually several piles of debris. And son and his female friend are dodging house remnants in the family pool.

More action. More fighting, Suspense. This is a good movie — so far.

When the Lautner character calls the cops, MORE seemingly bad guys arrive. Is there anyone he can trust?

He takes the injured Collins character to the hospital where a TV news broadcast states nobody was killed in the blaze at his so-called parents’ home. As the bad guys descend on the hospital, they boy’s shrink, played by Sigourney Weaver, comes to the rescue.

This is fly-by-your-seat, exhilarating fun as the pair are chased around. The climax comes at Pittsburgh Pirates Stadium. That was of particular interest to me, since I’ve been to the stadium and recognized the bridge leading in. (I was there for a Rolling Stones concert, not the Pirates.)

Yes, the film does run out of steam and starts to sputter. There are also parts that are hard to swallow, like Pirates stadium full of people.

But hey, the first part alone is worth your time. And it is available for streaming for free to Amazon Prime and Netflix customers. You can watch it right now if you want.

If you are at work, take your tablet into a restroom stall to watch. For heaven sakes, keep the volume down. Those explosions are loud.

ABDUCTION

• Directed by John Singleton

• Written by Shawn Christensen

• Rated PG for sequences of intense violence and action, brief language, some sexual content and teen partying

• Runtime: 106 minutes

• 3 1/2 stars out of 5

TAPS

Revisiting 1981’s ‘Taps’ best to watch George C. Scott

 

20th Century Fox Film Corp.

TIMOTHY HUTTON in "Taps."

When you haven’t watched a movie for 30 years, you tend to forget a lot of the plot.

I revisited “Taps” the other day. Not really on purpose. The good folks at Netflix sent me the DVD. Maybe they made a mistake, maybe I put it in my queue and forgot about it. Netflix does offer the movie streaming, meaning the disc wasn’t really wasn’t necessary.

The streaming turned out to be a good thing, because 20 minutes into the disc, there was a crackle and the sound went out. So I pulled it up on streaming and continued watching without missing a beat.

This isn’t compelling cinema. It’s more of a curiosity because of who is in it. George C. Scott reprises his “Patton” demeanor as General Harlan Bache, the commander of this junior high West Point called Bunker Hill.

It’s 114 years old and at the film’s beginning, the students and staff are calling out the names of alumni who gave their lives to their country.

It’s the end of the term and the new cadet major is Brian Moreland, played by a youthful Timothy Hutton. Two other cadets are played by Sean Penn and Mr. Divorce himself, Tom Cruise, then a mere 19.

Now the Hutton character reveres the Scott character. They eat dinner. They retire to brandy and cigars. The Hutton character hates cigars, but who cares? It’s cigars with George C. Scott!

Now from the beginning, it appears the Scott character is, well, a bit off. Drinking brandy and talking the glories of war with a bunch kids? A civilian, he says, is someone who hits a little white ball around. The military has honor.

Hutton is in awe. He tells the other guys, some who are maybe 10 or 12, that it’s gonna be a great year.

Mmmmm, maybe not. Because Scott announces to the school later that the academy is being torn down at the end of the school year.

Worse yet, at what appears to be a prom, some of the townies start a fight with the military guys and when Patton tries to stop it, a kid tries to grab his gun, which is loaded. There is a scuffle and one of the townies is killed.

Can it get any worse? Oh yeah, because the Scott character has a heart attack and is in critical condition. The academy, even though it is for teens and preteens, is filled with guns, ammunition, even handgrenades. So the kids take over the academy, put up barricades and present a list of demands.

They hunker down for a fight. They hunker down for honor.

The movie is more than two hours long. Guns are fired. Kids die. People go berserk.

 Ronny Cox, best known as the fatality in “Deliverance,” does a wonderful job as Col. Kerby, a secondary character who tries to diffuse the situation before anyone gets hurt.

It is difficult to think of a way this can have a satisfactory yet somewhat realistic ending.

There are plenty of weak spots in a movie which tries to determine if it is making an anti-war statement or is just providing two hours of entertainment.

If you want to revisit this 1981 movie, it might be better to look at it as a way to determine how Cruise and Hutton and Penn have evolved over the years.

Unless you want to see little kids getting shot up for no discernible reason.

TAPS

• Directed by Harold Becker

• Written by Devery Freeman and Robert Mark Kamen

• 126 minutes

• Rated PG

• 2 stars out of 4

50/50

SETH ROGEN (left) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in "50/50."

Serious illness good for grossout film ‘50/50’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen play typical 20-somethings in the film “50/50.”

Rogen, of course, is once again the best friend. He plays Kyle and his work and bar buddy is Adam, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Now Adam is a bit more low-key, less flamboyant. Rogen’s character is obsessed with going to bars and picking up chicks.

It looks like another grossout movie and to some extent, it is.

But very quickly it takes a different turn. The Gordon-Levitt character has a routine doctor’s appointment where he learns from a mumbling, stumbling doctor that he has cancer.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays his girlfriend, who takes him to chemo but chooses to wait four hours in the car because she doesn’t like the whole hospital experience.

You can quickly tell the relationship is in trouble and comes to an abrupt end.  Meanwhile, Adam finds true friendship in some older men having chemo at the same time, played by the gruff but great Phillip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer.

These 60s-somethings get along well with Adam, even coaxing him into enjoying some of their pot-laced cookies. A priceless scene in the film is Adam leaving the hospital in an out-of-focus fog, high as a kite, smiling and happy as he views the misery that cancer can cause.

Anjelica Huston plays his “it’s all about me” mother and Serge Houde plays his dementia-driven dad. It’s a thankless role but Houde gives it as much dimension as it can be given.

The Rogen character truly cares for his friend, but also won’t miss a chance of scoring with a chick by taking him to a bar, getting some girls to feel sorry for him and then taking one of the girls home.

Rogen is also jealous of Adam’s doomed love affair and takes great joy in getting a picture with his camera phone of the girl kissing a Jesus-like artist at an art gallery.

A backdrop through all of this is Adam’s relationship to his soon-to-be-a-doctor therapist, played by the perky Anna Kendrick. When Adam makes a joke about “Doogie Houser,” the old TV show about a teenage doctor, she doesn’t understand. She’s too young.

But that is the relationship to watch.

The film does a nice job of doing some grossout comedy while giving us a somewhat realistic view of dealing with cancer.

The title comes from Adam looking up his particular cancer on the Internet and learning most patients have a 50-50 chance of survival.

There are many nice moments. Adam is about to have an operation that could cure or kill him. His clueless father tells him about his new sports jacket. But to Adam, he is saying his father does have an idea of what is going on and loves him.

It might be the most mature grossout film ever. Yeah, Rogen’s character goes overboard and after awhile you just want him to shut up.

And yes, Huston becomes too motherly. But you know, people can be annoying in real life.

“50 /50” works on many levels. It is worth your time.

Read more movie reviews at videoviper.blogspot.com.

 50/50

• Directed by Jonathan Levine

• Written by Will Reiser

• Rated R for language and sexual situations

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• 3 stars out of 4

 

Bridesmaids

Universal Studios
JILL CLAYBURGH (left) and Kristen Wiig in "Bridesmaids."

Too much of ‘Bridesmaids’ goes nowhere, can be cut

“Bridesmaids” was billed as the female equivalent of “The Hangover” and  “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

Sometimes the movie evokes a belly laugh, often scenes go on too long without much funny going on.

Directed by Paul  Feig,  star Kristen Wiig also happens to be one of the writers.

Wiig plays a woman whose life is a mess. She opened a bakery that bombed and  works in a jewelry store. She got the job because the owner’s Alcoholic Anonymous’ sponsor happens to be her mother, played by Jill Clayburgh.

Clayburgh is one of many zany characters in this film. She’s a long-time member of AA. The only difference between her and the other members is she’s never drank.

Wiig’s character, Annie Walker, lives in an apartment she shares with a brother and sister, a very weird brother and sister. Like, they bathe together.

She regularly  sleeps with  her sort-of boyfriend, played by Jon Hamm. The film opens with a hilarious scene of the two trying different sexual  positions.

In her twisted mind, he’s a nice guy because he levels with her. There’s no future. He wants sex and when he’s done, he wants her out of there. And she accepts this situation.

We learn her childhood friend, played by Maya Rudolph, is getting married and Annie is made of honor. Except one of the bridesmaids, played by sorority type Rosey Byrne, is stiff competition to garner the limelight.

At the party announcing the upcoming nuptials, the Wiig and Byrne characters try to one-up each other on how important the bride is to each other. One is forever grabbing the microphone from the other to get the last word in. The whole sequence isn’t funny, runs too long and adds nothing to the story.

Remember, this flick is 125 minutes long. Aren’t raunchy films supposed to be over in 85 minutes, because fans get bored easily?

One of the attendants, played by Melissa McCarty, is a lot of fun. She’s hefty, masculine but sees herself as thin and desirable. Her skewed ideas about life add some much-needed bizarre humor to the film.

The bridesmaids take a flight to Las Vegas to party. A conversation between McCarty and her seatmate, whom she thinks is a sky marshal, is hilarious.

The Wiig character goes spastic during the trip and ends up taking tranquilizers and booze, resulting in a drugged performance that sort-of reminds you of something Lucille Ball would have done. Except Lucy would have been funnier and less profane.

The plane ride was sort of funny and I anticipated the crazy antics the girls would get in while in Sin City.

Except there’s no sequence. It’s cut out and soon they are back home.

The Wiig character gets involved with a police officer that doesn’t offer a lot of laughs.

For the most part, she messes up her life left and right to the point you lose interest in her as a person. Can you really root for someone for — what is it? — oh yeah, 125 minutes, makes all the wrong choices?

I have to admit a sequence in a swank bridal salon where the bridesmaids suddenly get bouts of food poisoning is probably the best part of the film.

Get rid of some of the sequences that go nowhere and you would have a better movie.

 BRIDESMAIDS

• Directed by Paul Feig

• Written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo

• Runtime:125 minutes

• Rated R for sex, language, bathroom exploits

• 2 stars out of 5

 

Black Book

Exciting story makes 'Black Book' worth seeing

Carice van Houten is Rachel in "The Black Book."

There are oh, so many movies about World War II and Nazi Germany.

“Black Book,” a 2006 film from the Netherlands, was expected to be nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars but was unfortunately edged out.

A film of almost epic proportions — and not just because of its 145-minute  length — it offers a huge historical backdrop, lots of violence, a bit of romance, plenty of sex, deceit, betrayal, baby, it has everything.

The film begins in Israel in 1956, where Rachel, a Jew, meets an old friend at the kibbutz where she is working as a teacher. It brings back memories of life in the Netherlands during the war.

Rachel, played by Carice van Houten, is living in a safe house and must parrot the prayers of the Christian inhabitants.

A former singer, she uses her windup phonograph to play music while sitting beside an adjoining pond. A looker herself, she engages in conversation with a man on a sailboat when a plane flies by and starts dropping bombs.

It drops a bomb on the house she was living in and thus begins a new life working with the underground to battle Nazis.

That all happens after an old friend in the resistance gives her money and arranges for safe passage out of the Netherlands. Imagine her delight when she sees her brother and parents getting on the boat as well. She is overcome with joy. What an uplifting film, right?

Mmmm, not so much. Because soon a Nazi boat pulls up and they pull out machine-guns and start blasting everyone aboard.

Rachel watches her whole family be mowed down as she jumps overboard. The Nazis shoot into the water but fail to hit her. They can’t, otherwise the film is only 20 minutes long. Remember, I said it was 145 minutes?

What’s worse, she watches from the water as the Nazis pull the corpses off the boat, strip clothing and take all of the valuables.

She is rescued by a resistance group, headed by Gerben Kuipers (Derek de Lint). They are getting a shipment of weapons in a vegetable truck. Except the truck crashes while trying to avoid a bunch of starving children. The resistance members in the truck are caught, including Kuipers’ son.

Rachel has met a Nazi leader who actually tries to save lives and is more interested in stamps than world conquest. He is Ludwig Muntze, played by Sebastian Koch.

Kuipers wants her to become friendlier with Muntze as part of an effort to save his son and the others.

She agrees and takes a bunch of stamps to Muntze.

He likes her, they sleep together and she gets to decorate for Hitler’s birthday party. What could be better?

And there tickling the ivories and singing is a jovial Nazi who just happened to the sadistic bastard who ordered the murder of her family on the boat.

You never know who the characters really are. There are many surprises in this engrossing narrative.

Who are the good guys and who are bad is never really clear.

Besides the bloody shooting scenes, you will find ample visions of dead bodies, decaying bodies being dug up and plenty of nudity.

It is really a film worth checking out. You care about the people in the backdrop of the gore, sex and history.

BLACK BOX

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Written by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman

Rated R for sexual situations and violence

Runtime: 145 minutes

In French with subtitles

4 stars out of 5