In Demolition Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a man rebuilding his life by tearing things down
Appetite for Destruction
By Tom Meek
Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) pays a demolition crew to let him join in on the destruction
Film-going audiences love a good story about a person whose life has gone askew, who has taken a beating, and who begins the painful yet cathartic process of clawing one’s way back to the top. The tried-and-true trope has appeared in wildly diverse cinematic incarnations over years. There are obligatory sports stories (Rocky, The Natural), but this standard plot is also clearly imbued in Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and the bum-beats-bond trader comedy Trading Places. Enter Jake Gyllenhaal’s latest, Demolition.
Like Life‘s George Bailey, Davis Mitchell (Gyllenhaal) has had his challenges. He’s been up and down so many times it’s hard to keep track of where he’s been and where he’s going. Demolitionbegins with Davis and his wife Julia (Heather Lind) in the middle of a heated conversation as they drive down the avenue. What can we tell? They’re an attractive pair, she’s fiery, and they’ve got a plush luxury ride. And then just like that, boom, out of nowhere another car rips through the passenger side and she’s gone.
In the fractured aftermath we learn that Davis came from the wrong side of the tracks, but married well in Julia; her father (a somber Chris Cooper) runs a successful investment firm and gives his son-in-law a nepotistic roost that he helms well. For all the money and success however, Davis is unanchored, unhappy, and numb. Inside he’s quickly reaching the boiling point. Clearly, he’s a man in need of a therapist. Continue reading
Zack Snyder, the hyperkinetic visual stylist who’s crafted such over-the-top spectacles as “300” and “Sucker Punch” but also demonstrated nuanced restraint with the highly underappreciated “Watchmen,” winds up in no man’s land with epic aspirations as he grandiloquently pits the two classic comic book giants against each other.
The title refers to one who returns from the dead or a long absence. Some definitions have it as a ghost or specter, and all are apt in Iñárritu’s ordeal of great suffering. Right from the start, blood gets spilled as a party of American fur trappers in the early 1800s is beset by Arikara warriors. Viewers, like the furriers, don’t see the Native American detachment coming until the visceral twang of a well-guided arrow sails across the screen and pierces the throat of an unwary skinner. Being at the mercy of a largely unseen assailant registers eerily like the band of mercenaries in “Predator” being picked off one by one by a near-invisible alien force.
“Joy” marks more of the same – not a bad thing, as it features the ever determined yet effervescent Jennifer Lawrence, back under Russell’s instruct for the third time. But even given Lawrence’s vast talents, is the invention of the Miracle Mop as worthy a fact-based feature as “The Fighter” and “American Hustle”? It’s all about scale. “The Fighter” was rooted in the hardscrabble world of boxing, opioid addiction and the tawdry cauldron of the struggling working class, while “Hustle” reveled in the cheesy polyester fashion and over-the-top personas of the late ’70s. Here, Lawrence is on her own to pull the yoke as the titular inventor of the now-famous mop, but oddly enough (copyright issues?) the name “Miracle Mop” never gets mentioned, though the real-life Joy Mangano does serve as an executive producer. One can only assume her endorsement.
Back in 2010, Charles Ferguson’s documentary “Inside Job” made a point of big money’s deep connections to the White House, regulatory agencies and academia. Who ran Capital Hill didn’t matter; red and blue allegiances were irrelevant as long as the talk on the table was about more green. McKay’s “Short” homes in on the gamblers who profited from that giant economic sucking sound, those who were alert to the rigging of the system and rampant neglect and, in the end, opted to hedge it. You could call them visionaries or vultures and both would be true; the film, however, paints them as more accidental heroes, opportunists and scientists who saw the sky falling and, when no one took them too seriously, put their money where their mouth was.
That’s not to say “Macbeth” is all a mess. It offers a rapturous staging of the battle of Ellon, righteous in its fury, and boasts two of the best and most interesting actors working in film today, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. But Fassbender, so alive with spit and rage in “12 Years a Slave,” feels muted here, lacking the enunciating articulation that Kenneth Branagh rebranded as the standard when as a young man he ingeniously resurrected “Henry V” in 1989. There’s a dull detachment that one could attribute to the amount of blood spilled at Ellon. The three scribes (a scribe for every witch) who adapt Shakespeare’s timeless tale of tragedy, avarice and madness (Todd Louiso, Jacob Koskoff and Michael Lesslie) imbue Macbeth with a son, who is gone before he even speaks during the opening carnage.
For What it's Worth 