Tag Archives: Perry Mattfeld

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I Believe I Can Fly

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Mending the Line

by George Wolf

Mending the Line certainly has its heart in the right place. It gives us wounded warriors and grieving souls, all finding some peace for battered psyches through the Zen of fly fishing.

There are some beautiful and serene Montana landscapes, and a message of caring respect that’s easy to get behind.

It’s also smart to get behind it, because anything in front of that message is in the path of some dramatic box-checking with little thought of subtlety.

Marine Sgt. John Colter (Sinqua Walls from the recent White Men Can’t Jump remake and next week’s The Blackening) is making good progress on recovering physically from a deadly firefight in Afghanistan. “Colt”‘s mental state is more fragile, as he’s plagued by memories of losing good men on their final tour before coming home.

Their final tour. And Colt’s best friend in the Corps was about to be married. And Colt was to be the Best Man.

Colt wants to get back to the front lines asap, but his V.A. Dr. (Patricia Heaton) isn’t sure his head is right, so she sends him to see old Ike Fletcher for fly fishing lessons.

Ike (Bryan Cox) is a battle-scarred Vet himself, and begrudgingly puts Colt through some Mr. Miyagi-approved training while Colt gets to know the locals. There’s Lucy (Perry Mattfeld), who’ still mourning the loss of her fiancé, while Harrison (Wes Studi) is the requisite best friend who needles Ike about what an old coot he is before imparting a nugget of wisdom and walking off.

The cast is fine, and director Joshua Caldwell follows up the in-your-face cliche fest of his Infamous with a appropriately gentler hand, but Stephen Camelio’s debut screenplay offers more good intention than authentic emotion.

Pivotal changes of heart land suddenly without being earned, while the heavy-handed plot turns walk hand in hand with Bill Brown’s paint-by-melodramatic-numbers score.

Veterans care, survivor’s guilt and life after trauma are worthy issues, and Mending the Line wants badly to respect those involved and provide enlightenment for the conversation.

The respect is never in doubt, but the conversation ends up treading water.

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24 Hour Party People

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Who Invited Them

by Hope Madden

Perhaps the most terrifying horror born of neighborly manners is Michael Haneke’s unnerving Funny Games (either his 1997 German-language original or his 2007 English-language remake). Writer/director Duncan Birmingham doesn’t go that far. What he does is walk a tightrope that’s a little goofier, a little less horrifying, but effective nonetheless.

Margo (Melissa Tang) and Adam (Ryan Hansen) throw a housewarming party. Well, Adam throws it. Margo endures it. She doesn’t honestly know what was wrong with their old neighborhood. It doesn’t help that their 5-year-old has had nightmares every night since they arrived.

Adam invites all his colleagues and bosses, hoping to impress without coming off as douchey. He’s upwardly mobile, although the house —which he got at a steal because of that nasty double homicide—might make them look a little higher up than they really are.

Not that Margo and Adam are the only partiers who aren’t what they seem. That really good-looking couple—the two who look like they just came from a really hip funeral—does anyone know who they are?

Maybe Sasha (Perry Mattfeld) and Tom (Timothy Granaderos) are the neighbors, as they say.

But probably not.

What we can say for sure is that they do not want to leave.

What transpires after all the other guests have gone would be a comedy of manners except that it feels pretty clear that something awful lurks underneath the handsome couple’s evasion and gaslighting.

Birmingham’s film is a mystery of sorts, although you’ll have most of that intrigue figured out pretty early. There is also a subplot about Margo’s friends who are babysitting. This goes essentially nowhere. Worse still, Birmingham rushes Act 3 and leaves you feeling short-changed.

However, that 30 minutes or so that Margo and Adam and Sasha and Tom have on their own gets pretty uncomfortable.

Hansen unveils surprising warmth within the needy, insecure Adam. He and Tang take the married couple in surprising and welcome directions. Mattfeld and Granaderos are drolly perfect as the home invaders masquerading as partygoers who just can’t tell it’s time to go.

A tight script wastes little time and manages to surprise even if you figure out the main mysteries early. Who Invited Them isn’t flawless, but it is an anxious bit of fun.