Movie review: Deadfall

Between Deadfall and (the much better) Hanna, I bet Eric Bana is tired of movies set in snowy places.

I don't recall how I heard about this movie. As far as I can tell it did not play in theaters. I wanted to see it because it stars Eric Bana, an actor I admire. Then I learned it was directed by the same person that directed "The Counterfeiters," a great drama set in a concentration camp.

Although overall I thought it was middling, it did have some strong moments. I liked the fight scene between Bana and the old Native he finds on the road. I liked the other main character, the boxer, and his earnestness. I liked the attempt at giving each character an arch, even though I don't feel like it came together as a satisfying whole.

The least of the storylines is the female cop looked down on by her boss/father and the others in the department. Undoubtedly sexism exists in police work (as it does in any other work, but especially of those male-dominated), but every character is just a whole hog sexists. She can do no wrong, they can do no right. It just felt clumsy and easy to make her such a victim.

The next least is the other female character, Bana's sister, who is a crook with a heart of gold. Bad parenting, you see. I like that she develops feelings for the boxer character, and wishes to spare him the fury of her brother, but the scenes where she exorcises her demons just ring false. She unpacks her hearts with words and they don't feel sincere. We are less invested in her than other characters, by mere virtue of the way movies work. So to hear her backstory is inherently less interesting than that of our lead(s). Also, we get two sex scenes with her set to two pop songs. One would have sufficed.

The four main characters are given enough screen time that I would not say this is any one person's story. But if it's anyone's, it's the boxer's. One because we are rooting for him to move beyond the mistakes of the past. We fear this girl is going to lead him down another path. But he really isn't given much to do besides try to get home for Thanksgiving. So if he is our protagonist, we don't spend enough time with him, or have much shared hope with him, beyond a generic hope he doesn't go back to jail. And his whole fleeing what he thinks is a murder is a plot hole -- he didn't check the pulse of the guy he knocked out?

Bana isn't the hero -- we learn that early on when he shoots a cop. We are not rooting for his success. And the unseemly attraction for his sister feels a little bit like pop psychology. I don't buy it.  And although the script tries to humanize him, in the way he murders a spouse abuser, and how he promises not to hurt the boxer's family, it comes at an expense of credibility. Rather than the friendly chat he has with the boxer's mom, down the barrel of a gun, I think it's more believable he ties her to a chair and hides her away while he finishes his trek across the border.

Moar guns

It's not violent video games or violent movies. It's not novels, magazines, music or the evening news, for that matter. Or competitive sports.

It's men with bad ideas with access to weapons. We should limit their access to weapons. A hammer can be a weapon, yes, but it's also a handy tool, so it's dumb to compare a gun to a hammer. And no one can commit a mass murder with a hammer. Except the guy from "Oldboy."

Culture is not the problem. Men are the problem. We can't get rid of men. We can limit the means they have to kill innocent people.

Cars and Guns

What sane, educated person wants to own one of these?

I've seen people making the argument that cars kill more people than guns, and we don't ban cars.

It should be self-evident this is a poor argument, but in case it's not:

Cars have enabled us to improve our lives. Most of us use one every day, to run errands, get to work, and travel. We have expanded our cities, rather than being crammed into a small area (although this expansion has problems of its own). Our world is not longer limited to a few square miles.

There are more cars in use every day than guns. So of course the number of car-related fatalities will be higher.

When a car accident results in a person's death, it's an accident. Something has gone wrong, usually user error. A car is a poor weapon.

We accept the risks of driving knowing that the benefit of cars outweighs the unlikely chase we will be killed in an accident. We also have safety measures like seat belts and airbags.

Guns have not made our lives better in the same ways cars have. The only reason I can see wanting to own a gun is for recreation and hunting (and self-defense, but I am happy to leave that to a trained police force).

Those pastimes do not require magazines that can hold 15-30 rounds.

When a gun kills someone, it has served its intended function. Guns are made to kill and that is all they do. Cars are made to facilitate travel. To try to compare them is a poor argument.

Piracy

Piracy is stealing. Stealing is a crime. I can't think of any exeptions to that syllogism.

As a reader of video game news sites, I find a disturbing number of people happy to defend pirating copyrighted material. This is just a bit of what I would say to them if I could remember my log in and password to those sites:

To the people arguing piracy is nothing more than "trying before you buy," show me any statistic that piracy leads to a purchase.

The cost of not knowing what a game is like is not knowing what a game is like, not pirating it.

You wouldn't walk into a Best Buy, tuck a game under your shirt, and walk out. How is that any different than downloading a copy of a game or movie you did not purchase? Would you say to the arresting officer "I didn't want to blind-buy?"

And I've heard the excuse "They didn't lose my money because I wouldn't have played/watched it anyway." The price of not seeing something is not seeing something, not finding a way to see it and not pay for it.

And to the people who say it doesn't hurt the industry -- of course it does. A certain segment of the population is stealing instead of paying. That is lost revenue by any measure.

The Sweet Tears of Mitt Romney

"I'll say what you want me to say, dear electorate. Over mountains and waves and seas."

Mitt Romney, who hurls every epithet he can at Obama, including the ridiculous socialist label, has called Obama's statement that Mitt shipped jobs overseas as a "personal attack."

No, Mitt. A personal attack would be something like you belong to a fringe Christian sect that believes the way into heaven is passwords and handshakes, in addition to good, clean living.

A legitimate criticism is to say that when you claim you are king in the private sector, calling forth jobs like a divine creator, the facts do not appear to match that, you boot-strappin', out-sourcer.

Hey, I don't care what you do. Really. Cut costs, pay people pennies, and rake it in for yourself. That's fine. But don't be surprised when you are running for public office that somebody calls you on your greed and your feeble attempts to explain it away. "I was saving the Olympics," you say. So you had no idea what was going on at Bain Capital? When, if ever, did you become aware of outsourcing? Did you think it was OK when you did become aware? Or are you so bad at that job you leave the ship to other people and don't care what they do so long as you get your checks? Did you like the extra bucks it puts in your accounts? 

The Last Boy Scout

On my honor I will do my best. That much I can agree with.

If I ever need to know where to send my son to learn irrelevant "skills" like knot tying and basket weaving and learn to discriminate based on sexuality, I'm pleased to know the Boy Scouts is still carrying the torch.

I'm an Eagle Scout, although if I had my choice I would have dropped out after I was 12. It's an outdated, conservative organization that still believes you can measure a man's worth by his love of God, country and the out of doors. I love none of those things.

I did not choose to be heterosexual. I doubt anyone chooses to be homosexual. Even if they did, what is that to me? How will it affect me in the slightest? It's a silly belief to have, judging a person on their sexuality. It makes as much sense as judging them on race.

Shame

I'm wealthy and accomplished and get plenty of sex. Yet this movie thinks something's wrong with me.

"Shame" is about a successful guy, played by the ubiquitous Michael Fassbender, with a high libido. Internet porn, call girls, and even regular gals -- all within the same week. The status quo is interrupted when his lovable goofball sister needs a place to crash. She mucks up his lifestyle. She makes him feel guilt, shame I guess is the word I should use, since that's where the filmmaker wants me to go, about his sexuality.
He tries to have a "normal" relationship with a co-worker. He can't perform. He needs it fast and kinky. Involve the heart and he's not interested.
He's not a family man. He cares for his sister, sure, kind of, but would rather not talk to her if possible.
By the end of the movie, we're led to believe this is all awful stuff, his predilection for sex and his preference of solitude. His sister tries to kill herself. We're led to believe he's mostly to blame. If he were a better brother with a wife, she's be OK.
Nonsense. This is an NC-17 movie with PG themes. Who cares if all he wants to do in life is get his rocks off and be alone? That's perfectly fine! I envy him in a lot of ways, with my family and monogamy and modest life. Naturally, I prefer mine to his, I would definitely grow lonely, but if he doesn't -- why pass judgment?
And I hate how it's shot. It's pretty, all right, but who cares. Visuals should serve the story. In this movie, the visuals serve themselves.




Wo be unto they that play with their joysticks.

In the same vein, there's a new pop science book out called "The Decline of Guys." It's about how porn and video games are making men isolated, ineffectual, and unable to thrive in relationships.
The Walkman and iPod didn't kill us off, but by gum the PlayStation and YouPorn sure will.
This is nonsense. This wouldn't be worth addressing if not for the fact that most people believe it.
This premise is flawed from the outset. Culture does not works this way. Human beings are not blank slates on which behavior is written. Anecdotal stories about how men are perceived and conventional wisdom is not scientific fact. A world without porn would not make gentler, more thoughtful and romantic men.
So before Internet porn and video games, men were more romantic, better conversationalists, and all around superior to us 21st century lug heads? Of course not.
In cultures where these media are non-existent or suppressed, do men thrive and women swoon?
Why only these media? Why not books and TV and movies? Why not politics and live theater and music? Why not iPads and Twitter? Why not art galleries? Why don't they have the same alleged deleterious effect?
Porn and gaming are easy targets because so many men use them with considerable frequency. But some version of porn and gaming is as old as civilization and somehow humanity has forged ahead. The worst criticism one can level at games is that they are a waste of time. But so is so much else we find enjoyable. To suggest that they somehow are ruining men is to misunderstand how the mind works, how behavior is formed, and to ignore the reality that if porn and games were as pernicious as believed, this world would have gone to pot a few months after Pac-Man and Marilyn Chambers arrived on the scene.