Peppermint, Peppermint Revenge

Like most of you, I first discovered Jennifer Garner in her role as the “kicks ass and looks good while doing it” superspy Sydney Bristow in J.J. Abrams’ sci-fi/espionage TV series ‘Alias,’ which ran for five seasons from 2001-2006.  And perhaps like many of you, I was immediately captivated and “fell in love” with this gorgeous femme fatale who’s so good at doing what she does without sacrificing an ounce of sex appeal and feminine vulnerability.  While ‘Alias’ obviously owed its origins to ‘La Femme Nikita,’ it was so much better in so many ways.

 

After Garner married some guy named Affleck and ditched action for rom-coms and Capital One commercials, I did not expect her to ever go back.  So imagine my surprise when I saw that her latest offering is a little movie called ‘Peppermint,’ the latest garden-variety, female-driven revenge flick in the tried-and-true tradition of ‘Colombiana,’ ‘The Brave One’ and ‘Kill Bill’ Volumes 1 & 2.  The story of a loving wife and mother driven on a single-minded mission to make the bastards pay for what they did to her and her family (or something similar) is a timeless one that never gets old and satisfies our deepest urges for vigilante justice.

 

As its 11 percent Rotten Tomatoes score would attest, ‘Peppermint’ isn’t a great movie by any objective measure (or even a particularly good one for that matter), but that’s really beside the point.  Jennifer Garner always looked good kicking butt in ‘Alias,’ regardless of what she’s wearing or what color wig she puts on.   12 years later nothing has changed.  While Garner looks dirty and grungy for the most part living in a beat-up van down by the river, ahem, among the forgotten homeless in ‘Peppermint,’ she’ll forever be Sydney in my heart.

Grade: B

Desperately Seeking Margot

I always find it exciting to see new and promising young filmmakers at work.  Former Google creative talent and aspiring director Aneesh Chaganty’s debut feature, ‘Searching,’ puts a fresh spin on the familiar missing person tale with devastatingly effective results, giving the audience a tightly plotted, twist-filled and riveting nail-biter tailor made for water cooler conversation.

 

You may have seen the trailer.  Korean-American actor John Cho (Harold) ditched Kumar to take on the role of an anguished widower and father who desperately seeks his 16-year old daughter, whom he thought he knew, when she didn't make it home after an AP Biology (she’s Asian, big surprise) cram session at a friends' house in what could only be a parent’s worst nightmare come true.  At its most basic level, ‘Searching’ is just another typical run-of-the-mill missing persons thriller but it is so much more.  What’s refreshingly different is that the story is almost exclusively told through the POV of modern electronic devices like computers and smart phones, as the tech-savvy Cho follows the bread crumbs of his daughter’s digital trail through her social media networks using all the tools and resources he can muster via the World Wide Web. Oh, did I mention with the help of a detective played by Debra Messing from ‘Will & Grace’?

 

I can’t praise this movie enough.  'Searching' is a masterfully crafted thriller that won't let go once it grabs our attention with its real-life, breaking news feel.  While it's gimmicky like all those other gimmicky "social media" movies (e.g., ‘Unfriended,’ ‘Unfriended: Dark Web,’ ‘Friend Request,’ ‘Nerve’) it isn't one-dimensional like those films, and it had so many twists and red herrings that I didn't see the WTF! ending coming until it was too late, even though looking back there were hints that I missed or ignored.  Chaganty cited his fellow Indian M. Night Shyamalan as an influence and inspiration, and I can certainly see that here. 

Grade: A

Capturing Eichmann

Over the decades Israel’s infamous intelligence agency, the Mossad, has rightly earned a reputation of ruthless efficiency.  As much as the Israeli Defense Forces, the Mossad is Israel’s shield, a “necessary evil’ for a small Jewish island amidst a sea of hostile Muslim neighbors.  ‘Operation Finale,’ director/producer Chris Weitz’s first foray into serious historical drama, mined another well-known and daring Mossad exploit for fodder, the apprehension of one of the key architects of the Holocaust, SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, on foreign soil.

 

Based on the memoirs of the late Mossad operative Peter Malkin (played by Oscar Isaac), ‘Operation Finale’ is a blandly procedural, by-the-book account of how a hastily assembled team of Israeli operatives put together an ad hoc plan to nab this key figure behind Hitler’s “final solution,” who managed to flee Germany during the last days of the Reich and disappear into South America, specifically Argentina.  As Eichmann, Ben Kingsley delivered yet another one of his theatrically dramatic performances, proving that he’s equally at home whether he's portraying an angel (Gandhi) or a monster (Eichmann).

 

As compelling as the true story of Eichmann’s capture in 1960 may be, ‘Operation Finale’ is hampered by a snail-like pace and an overall lack of tension and suspense that had nothing to do with the fact that we already know how the ultimate outcome is going to play out.  Even when things invariably go wrong as plans often do and the team had to think on their feet and improvise, there was little sense of peril or urgency that would keep us on the edge of our seats.  I nearly nodded off at various points throughout the movie so my only conclusion is that, as much as I hate to admit it, ‘Operation Finale’ simply became ‘Operation Boredom.’

Grade: C

22 Miles Too Far

‘Mile 22’ is the latest joint effort from director Peter Berg and actor Mark Wahlberg, who previously collaborated on such movies as ‘Lone Survivor,’ ‘Deepshit (I mean Deepwater) Horizon’ and ‘Patriots Day.’  Given how those films were well received critically and commercially for the most part, they probably thought joining forces again in this latest release wouldn’t be a bad idea.  Well, they couldn't be more wrong.

 

‘Mile 22’ is a big dumb action movie with a thin and convoluted plot that makes even the most forgiving of viewers shake their heads in disbelief.  The story is stupidly simple.  Smart-mouthed operations team leader James Silva (Mark Wahlberg) and his hand-picked crew of black-ops badasses are presumably (but unofficially) troubleshooters for the CIA so as to provide Uncle Sam with “plausible deniability” in sticky and politically sensitive situations.  The film’s clever tagline even suggests that when diplomacy (Option 1) and military force (Option 2) are unsuitable or unavailable, Silva and his team including tough girls Ronda Rousey and Lauren Cohan give us the logical third option.  They do the necessary and dirty secretive "wet work" that others simply can’t be bothered with. In the case of ‘Mile 22,’ their "mission impossible" is to simply escort an Indonesian cop and Russian spy (Iko Uwais of ‘The Raid’ and ‘The Raid 2’) who asked to defect over 22 miles of Indonesian city streets to an airstrip where a C-130 awaits in exchange for intel regarding some nuclear material or other.  Doesn't matter in the final analysis really.

 

We've all seen these "running the gauntlet" type chase movies before, even if you don't remember any of them in particular because they're so damn forgettable.  The last one I've seen was 'The Assassin's Bodyguard' starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, which for all its faults had its enjoyable moments.  'Mile 22' in name and in style most resembles the 2006 Bruce Willis-Mos Def flick '16 Blocks.'  Don't remember that one you say?  I don't blame ya.

Grade: C-

 

Klan of the Black Man

According to that unimpeachable source of information known as Wikipedia, Spike Lee’s latest film (I don’t care what he calls it; it’s not a “joint” cus’ you can’t smoke and get high on it), ‘BlackKklansman,’ is a biographical dramedy based on the hard-to-believe but real life story of Ron Stallworth, a funky-groovy-cool cat of a detective in the Colorado Springs police department who somehow successfully infiltrated the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 70’s.

 

So how did an Afro-haired dark-skinned brotha’ manage to ingratiate himself with a vile and despicable white supremacist brotherhood like the KKK (by which I don't mean Kim, Khloe and Kourtney)?  Not knowing quite what to expect, I admit I was half expecting some silly Wayans brothers shenanigans as seen in the movie ‘White Chicks,’ but thankfully that wasn’t the case at all. Stallworth (well played by John David Washington, whose father happens to be “The Equalizer” himself) merely misrepresented himself as an appropriately racist angry white male over the phone who’s interested in furthering the KKK's not-so-noble causes, and sold it so convincingly that he even fooled none other than David Duke (Topher Grace from ‘That ‘70’s Show’).  Any face-to-face was handled by his partner-in-deception, a fellow detective named Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), whose being Jewish only made screwing with the KKK that much more fun.

 

Timely, provocative and packed with wry humor, ‘BlackKklansman’ is as surely a byproduct of our troubled times as its protagonist was in his, a time when racial tensions are on the rise due to a spate of police shootings nation-wide which made Rodney King look like he got off easy and gave rise to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.  As such, ‘BlackKklansman’ may be Spike Lee’s most resonant and politically relevant movie since 1992's ‘Malcolm X,’ which interestingly and coincidentally enough featured John David Washington's famous dad in the title role.

Grade: A

The Spy Who Broke Up with Me

First of all, let me confess that even though I found her character in ‘That ‘70’s Show’ to be whiny and annoying, I’ve come to appreciate the body, ahem, the body of work of Mila Kunis with perhaps the sole exception of her turn in ‘American Psycho 2.’  Unlike her co-stars from ‘That ‘70’s Show,’ the versatile Ukrainian doe-eyed beauty moved on to a successful movie career with such films as ‘The Book of Eli,’ ‘Black Swan,’ ‘Jupiter Ascending,’ ‘Friends with Benefits’ and ‘Bad Moms,’ all of which I’ve seen somehow.  So when I heard about her new buddy spy action-comedy ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ with SNL’s Kate McKinnon, I thought I'd keep the streak alive.

 

Spy comedies are a genre unto itself.  There are kid-friendly fare like ‘Spy Kids’ and ‘Agent Cody Banks,’ then there are more adult-oriented releases such as ‘Kingsman,’ ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ and Melissa McCarthy’s hilariously subversive ‘Spy.’  The R-rated TSWDM falls comfortably under the latter category.  The story of how a bored and lonely girl-next-door (Kunis) and her wild and crazy “bipolar” best friend (McKinnon) got swept into international intrigue and danger after the former's CIA spy boyfriend dumped her merely formed the backdrop for the near non-stop series of cartoonish gags and misadventures in TSWDM.  It’s best not to overthink it too much.

 

While the humor in TSWDM is uneven and misfired as much as they hit our funny bones, there is an endearing quality to the film that I can’t deny which can’t simply be explained away by Mila’s unassuming charisma and charm.  They aren’t exactly Laurel and Hardy, but Kunis and McKinnon are an odd couple (akin to Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in 'The Heat') who made for a decent comedic duo.  It’s really not their fault that the script by Susanna Fogel (who also directed) and David Iserson didn’t quite live up to their talents.

Grade: B

Making the impossible possible, again

The history of the ‘Mission Impossible’ film franchise bears an uncanny resemblance to that of ‘Fast & Furious.’  Like F&F, it started out decently enough (for MI it was 22 years ago) but by all accounts lost steam by the third movie.  Then, just when people left the series for dead it’s suddenly not only revived but reinvigorated, getting a new lease on life and becoming even more popular with each successive release.  So it was that after MI3 reached a low point in the series, MI got a much needed makeover á la James Bond and Tom Clancy video game-esque subtitles like ‘Ghost Protocol,’ ‘Rogue Nation’ and ‘Fallout.’ 

Thanks to the franchise’s surprising longevity, 56-year old Tom Cruise (though admittedly he doesn’t look a day over 40) reprises his role in this sixth entry as Ethan Hunt, de facto leader of the super-secret black-ops outfit known as Impossible Mission Force (because they go on “impossible” missions should they choose to undertake them, duh!).  Taking place two years after MI5 aka ‘Rogue Nation,’ ‘Fallout’ sees the IMF attempting to recover stolen nukes and save the world again, globe-trotting across Europe and crossing paths with the ex-British spymaster-turned-terrorist from the previous installment, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).

My expectations for ‘Fallout’ were impossibly high.  While I didn’t consider it worthy of its stellar 97 percent “fresh” rating on the aggregate review website Rotten Tomatoes, ‘Fallout’ is nonetheless another solid if somewhat safe and familiar entry in the action-espionage thriller subgenre.  The action in 'Fallout' comes typically “fast and furious” as we might expect, but its many perfectly timed and preternaturally coincidental set-piece action sequences (another characteristic it shares with ‘Fast & Furious’) have become a bit tired and overcooked.

Grade: B+