Tag Archives: John Malkovich

Not So Smooth Criminals

Arkansas

by Brandon Thomas

Clark Duke has established himself as one of the more prominent “Hey! It’s that guy!” actors in Hollywood. You probably don’t know his name, but you’ve seen him pop up on shows and films such as The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine and Kick-Ass. While Duke might not be included among the comedy greats of our time, he shows far more promise as a feature writer/director with his debut, Arkansas.

Kyle (Liam Hemsworth) and Swin (Duke) are low-level drug dealers working for a mysterious king-pin named Frog (Vince Vaughn). The two pose as park rangers by day so that they can courier drugs at night for Bright (John Malkovich), one of Frog’s proxies. When one of these runs goes bad, Kyle and Swin find their lives in danger as Frog starts to believe that they are a threat to his drug empire.

Duke handles the movie’s tone from the first scene. Not quite interested in gut-busting comedy nor the other darkly comedic side of the coin, Duke, instead, is happy to present this tale with wry wit. Think of a happy marriage between the works of Joe R. Lansdale and Elmore Leonard than that of Tarantino.

Fully on board with this tone is the film’s cast. Duke himself plays Swin as a man with unmatched, and unearned, confidence. Malkovich is clearly having a ball, and that allows him to go big, but not Cyrus the Virus big. The odd man out is Hemsworth. Try as he might, Hemsworth tackles every line with a little too much seriousness and bravado. 

Vaughn continues his recent streak of popping up in interesting indie thrillers. While Arkansas isn’t nearly as intense as Brawl in Cell Block 99 or Dragged Across Concrete, Vaughn attacks the role of Frog with the same sense of danger. Like the film itself, Vaughn’s performance oozes charm, but with menace bubbling just below the surface. 

Arkansas probably won’t be taking a victory lap during awards season later in the year, but what it will be doing is showing that Clark Duke is a behind -the-camera talent to keep an eye on.


The Loud American

Mile 22

by Matt Weiner

Equal parts John le Carré and John Carpenter if both men were lobotomized and then let loose with typewriter and camera, Mile 22 spends most of its brief running time trying to figure out if it has something meaningful to say. All the while, it stacks a public body count up so high that it’s impossible to see how the clandestine force responsible is going to stay secret long enough to become a film franchise.

And while the movie has ambitions at creating new intellectual property around the paramilitary Overwatch program introduced in the film, it’s a bit of a head fake for this first outing. For all its spy vs. spy setup and technobabble, director Peter Berg uses espionage as window dressing for a simple action setup that’s all about brute force.

Mark Wahlberg heads up the CIA team as James Silva, a prickly leader whose instability is used as a stand-in for self-effacing humor. Silva’s team springs into action when a local source Li Noor (Iko Uwais) surrenders to a U.S. Embassy claiming to have information that can help stop a nuclear attack. Silva’s team of elite operatives are tasked with escorting Noor safely out of the country, which becomes a lethal mission when Noor’s own intelligence agency works to stop the extraction at any cost.

To call Silva’s team ragtag would do a disservice to stereotype—it actually would’ve been nice if anybody rose to some level of quirkiness, or any distinction apart from fungible cannon fodder. Ronda Rousey comes close to having a compelling hook, which is: look, it’s Ronda Rousey! But the main emotional labor falls to The Walking Dead star Lauren Kerr as Alice, whose defining character trait is that she has a daughter waiting for her back home.

Thankfully, the team—and the film—have a secret weapon in Uwais. The Indonesian martial artist and choreographer best known for The Raid series gets to show off his captivating fighting style that’s a ballet of bone dislocation. The downside is that he goes underused for so long that his breakout set pieces serve mainly as a reminder that you’d be better off watching The Raid.

There’s a ludicrous nihilism underpinning the film that is almost refreshing for a Berg/Wahlberg pairing. But the script (written by Lea Carpenter) is so humorless it’s genuinely difficult to make out how much of this is Berg and company trying to make a statement about the War on Terror and how much is just the inevitable byproduct of a tight 90-minute cut that only comes alive during the brutal one-on-one fight scenes. John Malkovich’s arch turn as an anonymous and ultimately meaningless government agent, for example, is far more vital—and still relevant—under the direction of the Coen brothers in Burn After Reading than it is here, even though the two roles share an uncanny echo.

Mile 22 doesn’t offer up much replay value as anything more than a fun but forgettable live-action video game level. Although as far as meta-commentary on espionage thrillers goes, this strange blend of individualism and irrelevance might be all we have to look forward to for a while.

 

 





File This One to Squee

Penguins of Madagascar

By Christie Robb

This movie may well provide the cure for seasonal affective disorder. What’s not to love? Adorable animated baby penguins? Check. John Malkovich playing a demented doctor octopus? Check. Nonstop action? Check. Ridiculous puns? Check. Werner Herzog and Benedict Cumberbatch? Check.

Penguins of Madagascar was an almost perfect hour and a half of zany fun.

(I say almost perfect only because Cumberbatch was drawn as a wolf and not, more appropriately, as an otter.)

The film follows the adventures of the four beloved penguins from the Madagascar franchise. Trapped inside a vending machine full of Cheezy Dibbles, they are kidnapped by Malkovich’s Dave the Octopus—a formerly adored aquatic attraction bumped from zoo to zoo in favor of the lovable antics of Antarctica’s flightless waddlers.

Rejection has taken its toll. Dave, now bent on revenge, has concocted a serum that will mutate the squee little penguins into monsters.

Joined by a secret interspecies task force, the North Wind (led by Cumberbatch’s Agent Classified); Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private take on Dave and his army of octopi henchmen and attempt to preserve cuteness as we know it.

If you are looking for a way to entertain the kiddos for 90 minutes this holiday weekend while avoiding a turkey-induced coma yourself, this is a fantastic option.

Verdict-4-0-Stars





Not Too Old for This Shit

 

by George Wolf

 

RED was not a great movie, but a clever script and an extremely likable cast made it a helluva fun ride and a mildly surprising hit.

So, for RED 2, then..more of the same?

You bet, and it works just as well.

This time around, ex-CIA badass Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is determined to stay Retired Extremely Dangerous, living the domestic life with his sweetie Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) in the suburbs. Sarah, though, kinda liked her introduction to the spy game, so when their old buddy Marvin (John Malkovich) shows up with an invitation, she pushes Frank to accept.

And with that, we’re off to the races. Sure, they’re ridiculous races, but that hardly matters with old friends (Helen Mirren) and new friends (Catherine Zeta Jones, Anthony Hopkins) as cool as these.

Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber return from part one, again providing plenty of snappy dialogue for their veteran actors, while director Dean Parisot (the underrated Galaxy Quest) has no trouble staging globe trotting action sequences or blowing things up.

Parisot is also smart enough to know that with a cast such as this, sometimes you just stay out of the way.

Malkovich and Parker are deliciously droll and often hilarious, and Mirren, well really, don’t we all want to grow up to be Helen Mirren?

Even Willis seems rejuvenated, after sleepwalking through the latest G.I. Joe and Die Hard installments. This is a tough guy character with a softer shade, and he seems to relish it.

It’s at least twenty minutes too long, and the novelty of aging asskickers may not survive future installments, but right here, right now, RED  2 pegs the fun meter early and often.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars