Tag Archives: David Fincher

I Care a Lot

27 Feb

‘I Care a Lot’: Trying to scam the wrong senior? You realize, of course, that this means war

By Tom MeekFriday, February 26, 2021

“Playing fair is a joke invented by rich people to keep the rest of us poor” – a quote that might ring true if it was about racial inequality, leveling the playing field or creating opportunity for those normally denied. But in “I Care a Lot” it’s from the lips of a corporate Karen who dupes the elderly on the cusp of dementia out of their amassed wealth for her own gain. Yeah, that’s right: Taking advantage of memory challenged seniors so as to fleece your own pockets. The badass “lioness” here, Marla Grayson, is played by Rosamund Pike, who makes the unpalatable role of shameless predator semi-digestible as the caregiver with a swank office of minions who slides into any court hearing about a rich elderly person who may become a ward of the state and sweeps their care under her wing. Then she gets them locked up and drugged up she can liquidate their assets.

Happy days for the elderly and those boxed out who may care for them this is not, but writer/director J Blakeson, channeling David Fincher (who did “Gone Girl” with Pike) musically and in agile editing style, keeps the unlikeable audacity clicking and infectious. It’s something of a cinematic bag of Doritos: The universe says it’s bad for you, you know it’s bad for you and yet you’re all in. How many times has the POV of a serial killer ever worked? (“Dexter,” “Hannibal”?) 

Grayson catches a snag when she targets Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest) whose son (Peter Dinklage) is Russian mob connected. You’d think that would be a big cup of no-thank-you-tea, but Grayson doubles down and, as the film wants you to have it, becomes the victim. It’s a ruse that never sticks, considering the countless seniors duped, bilked and bled, left on the shores of nowhere and certain oblivion. We never see that, and Pike’s edgy, engaging performance obscures this into a slick, twisting thriller – and it is slick – but at the heart is a victimization that goes beyond unconscionable. Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell in “Basic Instinct” (1992) feels like a blueprint for Pike’s Grayson, but Tramell was a lioness hunting bull rhinoceroses in their prime; Grayson is an opportunistic hyena sourcing wounded old birds. 

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The Little Things

31 Jan

‘The Little Things’: Tracking a killer before GPS, with detectives who also wander the moral map

By Tom MeekFriday, January 29, 2021

In this throwback neo-noir baked in the David Fincher oven of dark serial-killer thrillers (“Seven,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Zodiac”) director John Lee Hancock (“The Blind Side,” “The Rookie”) scores something of a casting coup, landing a trio of Academy Award-winners for his leads. Hancock has been wanting to make “The Little Things” since the early ’90s, when he penned it and (around the same time) “A Perfect World,” the Clint Eastwood-helmed crime drama starring Kevin Costner. At one point Steven Spielberg’s name was attached to the project (too dark), but now things have come full circle with the writer-turned-director taking charge of his scene-by-scene, murder mystery blueprint.

The drama takes place in L.A. around the time Hancock wrote it, well before cellphones, social media and reliable and readily available DNA testing. A gray-dusted Denzel Washington takes center as Joe “Deke” Deacon, a deputy from a dusty town north of L.A. who must reluctantly head back to the city of his former employ to pick up evidence. While there he drops in on a burgeoning investigation led by Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek), a tightly coiled homicide dick newly onto the trail of what looks to be a serial killer. Deke tags along to one crime scene, and the Frick-and-Frack tandem click. Deke decides to stick around and help QB from the backseat. Like “LA Confidential” (1997), the “The Little Things” is less about the who-did-it than the people pursuing the criminal acts, though suspect numero uno Albert Sparma (Jared Leto, sporting bad chompers, a prosthetic schnoz, low-riding paunch and a bow-legged gait) is something of a scene stealer, two parts Charlie Manson (sans flock), one part the maniacal god complex that Leto dredged up for “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) and a dash of Hannibal Lecter thrown in for good fun. Granted, he’s not as lethal as any of those lads, but he does drive a bitchin’ ’70s Chevy Nova SS and really knows how to get under everybody’s skin. When Sparma (sounds like a hot Italian sub with oozing mozzarella, right?) isn’t ripping it up with philosophical psychobabble that feels written for the lips of Jim Morrison, we get the dark why of Deke’s being run out of L.A. and start to see that Baxter’s overreaching confidence might be more chest puffing than can-do.

“The Little Things” moves in mysterious, murky tics embossed by John Schwartzman’s shadowy but sharp cinematography and Thomas Newman’s moody score. Ir all feels so visceral, deep and compelling, but when the reveals come back around, many of the threads register all for naught, a goose chase without the fowl. Washington (“Training Day,” “Glory”) and Malek (an electric Freddy Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”) often feel like they’re occupying sketches of complex men, their renowned talent square pegs shoved in round holes. Malek, boyish and slick, feels too fresh and wide-eyed for a part that demands a more world-weary soul. Leto (“Dallas Buyer’s Club”), on the other hand, is a merry pixie of perversion, dancing his way around Hancock’s noirish landscape pulling strings and pushing buttons, consequences be damned – much like the film itself.

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Mank

7 Dec

‘Mank’: Drunken Hollywood hired gun careens into shooting a classic, and Fincher follows him

By Tom Meek
Friday, December 4, 2020

There’s a scene in Thomas Vinterberg’s recently released “Another Round” in which Mads Mikkelsen’s teacher asks his students what kind of person they’d want to hang out with: a vodka-swilling, late-night carouser, a closet beer-nipping infirm or a hyper-serious teetotaler. The class for the most goes for door No. 1 – Winston Churchill. FDR is the second, who receives some love. The one who receives no votes, and a raucous cheer of relief when his identity is revealed, is no other than Adolf Hitler. The infamous icon of tyranny and extreme racism curiously also makes an indelible mark in “Mank,” the latest from visual stylist David Fincher, in a conversation between Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman, the Mank in question), studio head Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard, playing that final M in MGM) and newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance, who worked with Fincher on his first film, “Alien3”). Talking about renowned socialist and writer Upton Sinclair running for governor of California in 1934, Hearst dismisses the “Oil!” author (the basis for the Paul Thomas Anderson film “There Will Be Blood”)  as a person not to be taken seriously – like Hitler. Sinclair loses a close race, and we all know the evils Hitler went on to enact.

The scene is important because it casts a strong contrast between the washed-up writer Mank, a journo turned Hollywood hired gun, and the powerful Hearst, who would become the alleged subject of Mank’s pen for Orson Welles’ iconic American classic, “Citizen Kane.” In 1942, the revered film would win an Oscar only for best screenplay (John Ford’s “How Green Was My Valley” beat it for best pic). Mankiewicz and Welles shared the co-credit, and over time there have been debates over just how much either man contributed to the then 24-year-old Welles’ directorial debut. Fincher’s take, coming from a script by his late father Jay (he passed in 2003, and this is his only credit), makes no quibbles that it’s nearly all Mank. But the film’s less about the penning of the instant classic and more about the sands of power in Hollywood – a quagmire that ensnares, more than Mank, kid brother Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Tom Pelphrey), who would go on to direct “All About Eve” (1950) and “Sleuth” (1972). Mank’s got one foot in and one foot out, and a broken leg from a car crash and a penchant for the sauce throughout as he navigates the studio lot that Mayer runs like an episode of Trump’s “Apprentice.” There’s so much wrapped up in Welles’ promising debut that the affable John Houseman (Sam Troughton) is brought in to keep him sober and focused. Then there’s also the women who play muse to Mank, including Hollywood it girl of the time Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), the nurse who helps mend him back to health (Monika Gossmann) and overly patient wife (Tuppence Middleton).

It’s hard to believe that Fincher, who used to make a living shooting Loverboy and Madonna videos, has made only 11 films to date, with “Fight Club” (1999) and “The Social Network” (2010) as well as the underappreciated TV series “Mindhunter” as some of the shinier jewels. It’s been six years since his last, “Gone Girl”; this is an obvious labor of love, an ode to his father and the (for better or worse) heyday of big studio Hollywood. It’s shot in opulent black and white by Erik Messerschmidt, which feels like an apt choice and is accompanied by a period appropriate score with a bit of a haunting modern edge by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who have teamed with Fincher on numerous occasions and won for “The Social Network.” The real key to the success of “Mank,” however, is Oldman, who won an Oscar for his performance as British boozer Winton Churchill in “The Darkest Hour” (2017). He’s an actor who can slide seamlessly into any genre and any role and make it his own, as well as disappear into the character – he does it again here and should almost certainly be in the conversations about the finest thespian turns of 2020. Howard as Mayer is a force in his own right and a perfect grinding board for the boozy Mank. Fincher, Oldman and Howard, et al., embrace and relish the golden era, but not without shining lights into the dark corners of filmmaking power and the politics of the time.

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The Girl in the Spider’s Web

8 Nov

‘The Girl in the Spider’s Web’: Spy Salander brings work home in ‘Dragon Tattoo’ film

By Tom Meek 
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Image result for the girl in the spider's web movie

As in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (either version), female revenge fantasies reign in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” as hacker/punker/private investigator-cum-vigilante Lisbeth Salander (Clair Foy, “The Crown” and “First Man”) takes down rich abusive husbands (emptying out their bank accounts, giving the spoils to the abused and sending that video of the miscreant shagging the boss’ wife to said employer), deals with even deeper daddy and family issues than previous cinematic installments and, well, pretty much saves the world James Bond-style. Yeah, it’s a hive (nay, a web) of activity and a lot is asked of Foy, who’s not given much of a skin to fill — though she’s every bit as fierce and feral as Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara were in earlier incarnations.

The story, adapted from the first posthumous adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy by novelist David Lagercrantz, centers around a rogue black market mob called the Spiders (sans Ziggy) in possession of a encryption program called Firefall that gives them the keys to every nuke around the globe. They’ve hijacked the master switch from Lisbeth after she, at the behest of its creator, a conflicted NSA agent (Stephen Merchant), hacks it away from the NSA to destroy it. To get the keys to the doomsday device, there are big chases, cloistered struggles and improbable getaways – Swedish cops make the Keystones look adroit – and the baddies are all fetching statuesque blondes, namely Sylvia Hoeks, so cold and steely as the relentless replicant in “Blade Runner 2049” and more of the same here.

Lisbeth has to handle a package – the savant son of said NSA genius (Christopher Convery), who is the key to Firefall going live. In all the crash-bang Bond-esque thrills, the nuance and dark gothic brooding that made the Swedish series and the American remake by David Fincher so compelling never gets switched on here. Foy looks the part, but her Lisbeth is nearly as cold and aloof as Hoeks’ sadistic stalker in red. (The smackdown-in-stilettos thing, which worked for Charlize Theron in “Atomic Blonde,” does not work here.) Plus, Lisbeth’s skills are so top-notch and she’s so well known, how is it Google or Amazon haven’t hired her away? I mean this “girl” is sharp and resourceful in a way that would make McGyver look inept. She’s able to hack an airport security system with a cache of dildos, and while driving a car she uses her iPhone to take control of the vehicle she’s pursuing – while careening across a bridge at a breakneck speed in a snowstorm.

Even when it winds back to the big family estate in the cold icy hinterlands, made so iconic and visually alluring by Fincher in 2009, the film’s still all about high-tech oneupmanship and soft-core, bind-torture shenanigans. Lakeith Stanfield, so good in “Sorry to Bother You,” drops in as the U.S. agent out to recover Firefall. His Needham allegedly is one of the greatest hackers of all time, yet we never see him at a keyboard, just behind the trigger of a very big gun. The script by Steven Knight (“Locke”), Jay Basu and director Fede Alvarez tries to strap too much in. It’s sleek but overloaded. As built, this web’s a fun, passing fancy too emotionally inert to snag anything worth caring about.

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