Film Pairings —Pierce Brosnan: One Comedy, One Not So Funny

Salma Hayek With Brosnan

I’m a Pierce Brosnan fan. Not obsessive, but I have the sense that if he is in a film, while it may not be a classic, it will be entertaining.  Ghost Writer, and Matador were examples of Brosnan at his best. For me – and I know how debated this is – he made a fine Bond, splitting the difference between Sean Connery’s earthy and Roger Moore’s tongue-in-cheek portrayals.  The two Brosnan movies tonight do not tap any deeper level of acting skill than a Bond film requires, and the movies will not give you any greater understanding of the universe, but if you are looking for an escape from the daily grind you could do far worse:

After The Sunset — Lots of fun.  We have a charming diamond thief, a beautiful and smart woman, a rogue FBI Agent, an exotic local island, a quirky local gangster and an extremely desirable diamond.  In addition to Brosnan, we have Salma Hayek, Woody Harrelson and Don Cheadle, all of whom perform admirably in roles that fit well, but are not especially demanding. Released in 2004, this heist comedy was directed by Brett Ratner.

Brosnan As The November Man

November Man — The film opens in a sunny seaside town. In moments, the fun is over. This is a gritty violent, spy film. Reviews when it was first released in 2014 were not entirely favorable. That may be explainable.  It is not as splashy as a Bond film and not as subtle and wily as movies based on John le Carré novels. November Man, based on a series of spy novels by Bill Granger, falls somewhere in between and works just fine on a smaller screen. The story raises questions about the use of killing as part of the exercise of some larger justice. Pierce Brosnan is the central figure, an ex-spy lured back into the game to protect a loved one.  It wouldn’t be a spy plot if there weren’t enough twists and betrayals to fill a couple of hours and keep us guessing. Turns out we can’t trust the Russians or the Americans. Who knew?  Directed by Roger Donaldson, the cast includes fine performances by Luke Bracey as an ambitious young CIA agent who sees Brosnan’s character variously as a hero and a devastating disappointment, and Olga Kurylenko as the hunted, the only one who is able to put all the pieces together.

If you want an accompaniment to the evening’s entertainment, something light and tropical (don’t forget the umbrellas) is suitable for After The Sunset. However you may wish to switch to something darker and more sinister for the November Man as the setting eventually moves from a lush tropical isle to a bleak Eastern Europe.  If your spirits need to be unspirited, switch from coconut water to a good, strong Coca Cola.

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.

Opinion — Casting One’s Characters More Fun than Casting Stones

A talk-radio blowhard accidentally opened up an interesting topic.  During all of Sony-Kim Jong Un silliness a secret was revealed. British actor Idris Elba was (is) under consideration to be the next actor to play James Bond in the incredibly popular franchise.  Not quite yet a household name, Elba has a growing list of successful small (“The Wire” and “Luther”) and big-screen (American Gangster and Thor) roles. He is at least as popular as Daniel Craig was when he was tapped for the sacred spot.

Anytime the role has been up for grabs, there has been debate. It’s all part of the 007 spectacle.  And years after one actor or another has landed the role, the debate raged anyway.  There are the Sean Connery purists.  He was good.  He was also the first and the one who established expectations. The fans who accepted Connery, eventually accepted Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and now Craig.  Each performed as Bond multiple times and has earned Bond producers a serious fortune.  But what about Bond’s creator?  Which one was the truest to 007 creator Ian Fleming’s vision?  And because Craig is bowing out after one more epic adventure, who should be anointed?

Idris Elba As Bond?

Any choice would have been challenged.  We have our favorite Bonds.  And if you are basing it on the books, who knows how you have imagined the icon — a hero of your own imagination.  In this case one of the objections is that Elba is Black.

One person argued that if Fleming had intended Bond to be Black he would have said so, alluded to it in one of his early 007 novels. I agree with that. Given that Bond was loosely and flatteringly based on the author himself, I suspect the Bond in Fleming’s eye was white.  In fact, if Fleming had his way, David Niven would have been James Bond. I would have liked that as well. I loved watching David Niven. He might not have been as gymnastic as the others, but he would have projected the most sophistication. As it is we’ve adjusted to the tough, serious Bond of Connery as well as the tongue-in-cheek Moore and the dour Craig.  So far, after a few moments of adjustment, I’ve liked them all, including Brosnan who seemed a blend of Connery and Moore.

More to the point, though, since when did we abide by the original creator’s suggestion in any movie based on a book or series?

Lucy Liu Is Watson

If any fictional, crime-fighting literary character could out-icon Bond, it would be Sherlock Holmes. What say ye about Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern take on the world’s most famous detective? From a pipe-smoking, bookish private eye, we have a wonderfully outlandish and flamboyant narcissus in current day London.  Or, we might look at his incarnation in the American TV version, where a less stylish but more annoying narcissus solves murders in New York with help of his best friend Watson who has become for this 21st Century series a lovely Chinese woman. Jack Reacher, the newest best-selling superhero in books, is described as being 6’5”, size being a factor of no little importance to his character’s tough-guy profile. Reacher is being played on screen by the diminutive Tom Cruise.  Reacher’s creator, Lee Child, has said publicly that he likes Cruise in the role. So?

So, Elba is a fine British actor, great looking, and he has proven his screen presence.  How can he not be a prime candidate?

But there is an interesting question here.  How faithful should (can) films be to the books on which they were based?  I imagine a number of writers have thought about who they would cast to play the characters in their novels.  Of those whose books (and heroes and heroine) went to Hollywood, how many authors were satisfied with the choice of actors and actresses?  Robert B. Parker was said to have been extremely unhappy with Robert Ulrich’s TV series portrayal of popular Boston private eye Spenser. I’ve done some fantasy casting for my Shanahan series.  For years I imagined Paul Newman in the role of the elderly semi-retired private eye. He did make a great film about an older P.I. (Twilight). Just not mine.  Clint Eastwood has also come to mind. Shanahan in the forthcoming Killing Frost is a somewhat disabled 72.  (Eastwood is 86). I’ve also imagined Ed Harris, who is only 64. That’s not a huge stretch for a talented actor and gifted make-up artist.  Throw Morgan Freeman into the mix and I would be hard pressed to choose which one I’d pick for the Shanahan role

P.S. Rumors are afoot suggesting Cumberbatch is in the Bond sweepstakes as well.

Film Pairing — The Lighter Side of Espionage

Espionage. What a rich source of mystery and intrigue. I remember reading and then watching The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré. There was the riveting Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith. And of course, Ian Fleming’s James Bond. I read every book by Fleming and have seen nearly every film. The movies seemed to take on the character of the actors who played Bond. Sean Connery played Bond seriously, with the driest of humor. Roger Moore came at it a little more tongue in cheek — he was in on the joke — maybe adding a bit of wonderful British silliness. And Pierce Brosnan walked a line somewhere in between as the screenplays became more about special effects and were more preposterous. The new guy, Daniel Craig is great, perhaps bringing Bond more gravitas than Connery.

On the other hand, “preposterous” isn’t always a bad thing. In 1958, former real-life secret agent Graham Greene wrote Our Man in Havana, which poked fun at the inefficiencies of his country’s intelligence operation. In 1959, he wrote the screenplay, which was set not long before the fall of Fulgenico Batista’s Cuba and Fidel Castro’s successful takeover. The movie, in black and white, captures corrupt, pre-revolutionary Cuba and has an all-star cast — Alec Guinness, Noél Coward, Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara, Ralph Richardson, and Ernie Kovacs.

Guinness plays an unassuming character who sells vacuum cleaners for a living. He is in need of money to support his daughter, over whom he dotes, and is convinced to act as a spy for the British so she can have a first-class education. His spy mentor is an ineffectual, but stubborn dandy played by Coward. In order to meet his new employer’s expectations, the vacuum cleaner salesman finds it helpful to make up stories about threats to Britain to prove his worth, which in turn inflates his income. Seems harmless enough. But, of course, it isn’t.

The Tailor of Panama (2001) is based on a novel by John le Carré. The parallels between the novelists, the books — and the subsequent movies are strikingly similar, yet expected. John le Carré, who wrote the Tailor of Panama, made no secret that his novel was inspired (probably a little more than “inspired”) by Greene’s. Like Greene, he also co-wrote the screenplay for the film based on his own book. Also, like Greene, he spent part of his life as a secret agent (MI5). The movie, which changes the scenery slightly — though still in a hot, tropical climate — also changes the times. We move to the post Panama Canal turnover for this film, but the politics in the era of Manuel Noriega are still iffy. Obviously Western powers are interested in knowing what’s going on and are willing to pay dearly for information, however made-up it might be.

In this case a tailor is recruited to provide the local spying. Geoffrey Rush plays the Guinness role. Brosnan, who might have taken smugness to an entirely unparalleled level, gave a far more heavy-handed interpretation than Coward’s light and subtle (by comparison anyway) portrayal of corruption. Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Gleeson also star.

What these two comedies have in common, besides the Graham Greene novel as inspiration, is that its silly believability stems not so much from “it could happen,” to “how many times this sort of thing has happened.” The British and Americans have fumbled foreign affairs for centuries. The West has installed and removed dictators, supported and withdrawn support for insurgents and undertaken regime changes, invasions and denials. We have, in a way that mirrors the Greene tale, believed a local agent’s contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction with a photo of an ice cream truck as proof. How many times have our (and our British cousins) interference made a mess of things? Chile anyone? Then there was that nice fellow, the Shah of Iran!

In the spirit of the two movies: Daiquiris all around! And I’ll begin the first draft of Our Good Humor Man in Bagdad.