Film Pairings — The Laundry Business, From Colombia To Russia

Money from ill-gotten gains is no good unless you can spend it. So tonight is an examination of the money-laundering business. One of the two films is based on a true story about the days of Pablo Escobar in the 1980s. The other is a current classic British spy film soaked in Russian intrigue. These two films, released earlier this year, are not action oriented — though there is some of that. Even so they qualify as thrillers.

Our Kind of Traitor —If you like John le Carré, chances are you’ll like this understated film based on his novel starring a mature and impressive Ewan McGregor as well as scene-stealer Stellan Skarsgãrd.  The cinematography stars as well, with powerful imagery by Anthony Dod Mantle.  McGregor portrays an innocent professor who, believing he was merely doing a minor good deed, accidentally involves himself and his wife played by Naomie Harris in international intrigue, billions of dollars and the Russian mafia.  Directed by Susanna White, the film also features Damian Lewis, Alicia von Rittberg and Velibor Topic. This isn’t a naturally panoramic story, but it is played out in a big way, cinematically. It is also very much a story about the value of character.

The Infiltrator — Perhaps a bit less cinematic in scope, but with more grit. Bryan Cranston plays an aging (his last case?) special agent for the U.S. Custom Service. Based on agent Robert Mazur’s true-life novel, we visit Florida and the 1980s when there wasn’t enough room to store all of the drug war’s corpses until they could be disposed of.  Cranston, incredibly believable as Mazur, reveals the ugliness of the “good guys” as they attempt to contain evil while the plan to go against Escobar and his brutal Colombian cartel escalates in an increasingly deadly fashion. Among the film’s strengths are Cranston’s costars: John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt, Diane Kruger, Amy Ryan and Said Tghmaoui. Directed by Brad Furman, the film certainly has some tense and gruesome moments.

Well of course, what we sip during these two movies changes during intermission. No drinker would argue against vodka with the first. We have a chilly environment. Frilly drinks won’t work. However we make a drastic change when we arrive in Florida. Though there is nothing Cuban about the film,  we can cheat and try some of that new Cuban rum arriving on our shores.

Film Pairings — Two Thrillers From Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski

The director of, Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby is no stranger to horror in the cinematic world or the real one.  He was an all too young witness to the Nazi invasion of his native Poland. In the late ‘30s, his parents were taken to concentration camps. His father managed to survive.  His mother didn’t.  She perished in Auschwitz.  In 1969, Polanski’s wife, actress Sharon Tate, and some of her friends were violently slain by Charles Manson’s “family” and, for years now the director has been dogged by U.S. authorities and the international press for an alleged molestation of an underage model in 1977.  Today, at 81, Polanski rarely leaves France or Poland for fear of extradition to the U.S. where he would likely face incarceration.  While in exile, he continued to make movies.  One of them, The Pianist, brought Polanski another Academy Award, one he could not accept personally without risking arrest. The two movies below are not necessarily his greatest work perhaps, but great work nonetheless. They make for a night of intelligent crime films.

From Frantic

Frantic – A physician and his wife visit Paris for a medical conference. When they get to the hotel, they discover she has the wrong suitcase. While he showers, she steps out to replace some items in her lost luggage.  She doesn’t return. Harrison Ford, as the good doctor, gets a cold shoulder from the French police who believe she is not missing, but that there is trouble in the doctor’s marriage. Without knowing the language, or the city Ford strikes out on his own and finds himself in the middle of a smuggling ring with international security implications as well as in the crossfire between Arab and Israeli agents vying for the smuggled item.  Released in 1988, the thriller holds up as well as any Hitchcock film, perhaps better.  One of my favorites. Spending part of the evening in Paris is a bonus.

From Ghost Writer

Ghost Writer – Also a thriller, this 2010 Polanski film is more mental suspense than physical and alludes not so subtly to real life politicos (Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice, for example). Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Hutton, Kim Cattrall and Eli Wallach are part of the fine cast in this award winning film based on the novel The Ghost by Robert Harris. McGregor is a ghostwriter helping a former British prime minister complete his memoirs. But the writer digs in a little too deep. Torture, anyone? Other war crimes perhaps?  Conservative Brits were outraged by the film. But that wasn’t the only event connected to the film’s release. Polanski was arrested by the Swiss while he was en route to an award ceremony in Berlin. The arrest was requested by U.S. authorities allegedly because of the previous molestation charges.

For the evening’s libations, perhaps Pernod or Absinthe (it’s now legally sold in the U.S.)  For those not imbibing in spirits, there is nothing wrong with Pellegrino. I know that’s Italian, but it’s better than Perrier and this is a Eurozone evening.

Film Pairing — Revenge May Be Sweet, But It’s Not As Easy As It Looks

Two very different small crime films tackle revenge and betrayal.  And viewers would be advised to remember the sage advice of Yankee philosopher Yogi Berra:  It’s not over until it’s over.”

In the film Shallow Grave, we are introduced to three Edinburgh flatmates played by Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston and Ewan McGregor.  After a rigorous if not insane interview process they decide on a fourth mate to help them pay the rent. The man dies, leaving behind a suitcase full of money.  The three, not quite self-less, creatures decide to bury the body and, of course, split the treasure. The problem is the money belongs to someone else.  And if the three mates are less than honorable members of society, they are angels compared to the folks coming after the money the dead man had taken from them.  Fear and greed make strange flat fellows and the trio’s attempt to escape danger and keep the money makes for a twisting and turning plot.  The film, released in 1994, was among the first for McGregor.  His work here reminded me a bit of an only slightly restrained Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange.

The Dying Gaul (2005) is downright mean.  One might not think so watching this little drama begin to unfold.  A little love triangle melodrama perhaps? A successful producer, played by Campbell Scott, who in fact produced the film, wants to buy a screenplay from a young and seemingly principled playwright, portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard.  The catch is that the producer wants the play, about two gay men in a long-term relationship, to be rewritten so that the main characters are in a heterosexual marriage. All the playwright needs to do is sell out.  Would a million dollars do it?   Enter the catalyst, the producer’s wife, played by the incredibly talented Patricia Clarkson.  All three characters hit it off.  Perhaps a bit too much.  The producer, we discover, goes both ways. He seduces the emotionally vulnerable playwright, while the producer’s wife, feeling immense compassion for the tragic life of the young man, attempts in a kind, but deceitful way, to help him through his heart-ache.  Both good deeds and bad deeds are punished.  Compassion turns to revenge and this tiny slice of life drama turns into a slice of hell.

These are not big films.  Geographically, you will go nowhere exciting.  There is very little action.  There aren’t great, overarching glimpses into human nature that haven’t been seen before.  However, they are fine, character-driven short stories and certainly a fascinating, eyebrow raising double feature for a quiet rainy evening.

This is a night for wine, a full-bodied red.  Be prepared for some dark humor as well seemingly light story that goes very dark.

Film Pairing — A Bad Day To Go Fishing & Young Adam

These are stories about how one unintentional event can change lives forever. While they are crime movies, A Bad Day To Go Fishing and Young Adam are not thrillers. They are not action films. They are not really suspenseful. And in both cases we, as viewers, are entering worlds that are very real but likely very unfamiliar.

A Bad Day To Go Fishing takes place in a small town somewhere in South America.  Since it is a Spanish and Uruguayan film, I suspect Santa Maria is in Uruguay, which is unusual enough.  When was the last time you saw a movie set in Uruguay?  When was the last time you used Uruguay in a sentence?  Critics call the film “quirky,” which means it is odd and not meant for everyone.  That, I suspect, is true.  But I’ve always liked “quirky,” and I really liked this film.

A con man, no doubt self-dubbed Prince Orsini, arrives in a small town with one fine suit and his prize possession, a former grand champion professional wrestler.  They rent a hall where the wrestler lifts things like tractor tires, bathtubs and other random heavy items as an act in a show of jugglers and fire-eaters.  But the real payoff is the final show of their stay, when the former champion of the world takes on a challenger from the village.  If the challenger can stay in the ring for three minutes, he gets a thousand dollars.  The fact is the elegantly decadent Prince doesn’t even have the thousand dollars. He flashes a few big bills wrapped around worthless paper.  If the challenger succeeds, it would be an embarrassment and most likely punishable by jail time. Though the wrestler is a bit past his prime and drinks heavily, he is what he is purported to be — a former champ.  And the Prince has never had to pay off.  No doubt you are ahead of me here.  Basically the con’s bluff is called.  A quality challenger is found.  Behind and beneath the plot is a story about love and loyalty, greed and desperation.  A fine, fine story, well acted and well worth your time if you can stand a little quirk here and there.

Young Adam is a Scot.  The film takes place entirely in Scotland, but not the Scotland that will get you on the next plane to Edinburgh or salivating at being on golf courses where the game was invented. Most of the time, you are in a barge.  What you need to know is that there is a barge and that there is plenty of sex.  For a non-porn film, there’s an immense amount of sex.  We see more of Young Adam (Ewan McGregor) and his women (among them Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer) than we are entitled to, considerably more nakedness than I saw in Nudist Colony on the Moon, when I was a teenager.  In the case of A Bad Day To Go Fishing, there is a misjudgment that is at the core of the drama.  In Young Adam, the drama hinges on a totally innocent, but tragic accident. What unfolds is a matter of character or lack of it.

Though the characters don’t live in a world where the subject of sex-addiction is likely to come up, Young Adam is a sex addict.  He’s not only a boy who just can’t say “no,” he is a boy who can always get the girl to say, “yes.”  The idea that he might settle down with the “right” woman is not part of his nature.  He travels light and can pack his bags in seconds.  But there some things you can’t escape, aren’t there?  Even if you find no value in the story — and I say that because the film is morally desolate — Swinton especially reveals a frightening ability to inhabit an empty being.  She is, as usual, incredible here.

Drink Scotch.