First of all I’d like to apologize for my infrequent posts,
but things are kind of busy in my life. Luckily, I return with a long overdue
review of what I consider to easily be the best film of last year.
Kathryn Bigelow has been on the fast track to Hollywood
success since her out of nowhere military masterpiece The Hurt Locker,
and since she knocked it out of the park with a film that showed audiences a
side of war that they had never even imagined, it’s hard to think that
lightning could strike twice with her desire to make a film about the most
legendary manhunt in human history. But lo and behold, Bigelow delivers once
again with an amazing story of a group of American heroes that we can never
truly know about, mostly because a group of more visible Americans couldn’t
wait to grab credit for that famous raid.
Now apparently there is a rumor in Hollywood that following
her success with The Hurt Locker Bigelow wanted to make a film about the
hunt for Bin Laden to showcase the amazing true story behind the operation. So
she began to make her movie, but when president Obama’s administration got wind
of this they began to pressure her and the studios to really elaborate how
involved Obama was in the manhunt , to add more scenes of the president looking
badass, and push the release date up to late October just in time for the
elections. Bigelow initially agreed, but in secret actually removed any
positive portrayal of the president or his administration and maintained the
December/January timeline because she didn’t enjoy the disrespectful pressure
being put on her.
Now again, this is just a Hollywood rumor, but when watching
this movie it’s hard not to believe that this story or something very similar
to it occurred during the filming. The presidential administration is mentioned
very little throughout the film, and when we do see them they are portrayed as
blithering idiots, useless bureaucrats, or just regarded with disdain by the
main characters. At one point in the film (which occurs when Bush was leaving
the White House and Obama was being sworn in) one of the main characters
remarks to another that “our new boss isn’t going to protect us like our last
one”, implying that the new president would be targeting defense personnel he
didn’t agree with. There are countless other inferences, but it’s quite
apparent that the talented Bigelow is not a fan of Washington politics, instead
focusing on the hard work done by those in the Department of Defense.
One thing I should bring up right away is the opening, in
which the director decided that in order to really take the audience back to a
time where we truly hated Bin Laden she had to take us back to the World Trade
Center attack. Now as soon as I saw the “September 11, 2001” flash across the
screen the first thought in my head was “Oh no… not this again”. I consider it
the oldest and most insulting tactic to bring up September 11th to
elicit emotions from the audience, especially in films where it’s not even
relevant to the plot.
Remember that Tom Hanks film Extremely Loud and
Incredibly Close? You know, that subpar film that revolved around a kid
trying to piece together his dead father’s last wishes? They could have had
dear old Papa Hanks bite the farm in any number of ways, mugging gone wrong,
car accident, disease, but nah… that wouldn’t manipulate the audience’s
emotions enough. So the writers decided to take the easiest and laziest
approach they could and put him smack dab in the middle of the World Trade
Center, a decision that wasn’t necessary to the plot in any possible way or
contribute to the story at all. It was a cheap trick to cash in on the most
horrific event to take place in the audience’s memory just to manipulate them
into feeling sadness from remembering that day, and then in turn think that the
film was what caused them to feel that sadness and mistake genuine mourning for
good direction.
Another horrendously offensive case is the lesser known
Robert Pattison film Remember Me, which is completely unremarkable in
pretty much every way. The producers seemed to know this, so they tacked on the
most disrespectful death scene imaginable by having the main character die in
the September 11th attacks… in a film that was made almost ten years
after the event… and takes place at that time for no reason other than to exploit that event to
manipulate the audiences feelings. It’s called Emotional Disassociation, and
it’s the oldest trick in the Hollywood manipulation machine. It’s the same
logic behind why people who share a near death experience think they are in
love, they mistake the rush of adrenaline and heightened heartbeat as arousal
to each other when it actually stems from the excitement of the moment.
But back to the point, when I saw those words flash on screen
I almost hated the film right off the bat. Luckily, this film doesn’t try to
exploit the event, it just does this to remind the audience of why we are in
this massive manhunt in the first place. No cheesy CG re-enactment of planes
crashing, no stock footage of the towers coming down, just darkness on the
screen as actual terrifying 911 calls are played for about 30-45 seconds. Believe
me, if there was even a whiff of disrespect in this scene I would have cried
foul faster than anyone, but it’s actually handled with respect and dignity,
and in no way exploits the events of that day.
The story follows the story of a woman only known as “Maya”,
a CIA operative who spends almost ten years of her life tracking down Osama Bin
Laden from the ground up. For obvious security reasons no one can be sure how
much of this story is legitimate and how much is “Hollywood-ized”, but what is
known (and professed by countless people in the Department of Defense) is that
this woman in real life was almost single-handedly responsible for tracking
down Osama Bin Laden and arranging the attack that many in Washington would
later claim credit for.
What makes this story interesting is that it manages to
“Forrest Gump” Maya’s tenuous journey on her massive manhunt by placing her in
several real life terrorist events that occurred in real life. While I can’t be
sure what events Maya was actually involved in and which are thrown in for
drama are unclear, but including them in the film is a great idea because it
will show the audience tragic events that the general audience will have no
idea even happened. I mean, who had time to care about the Islamabad Marriott
bombing when Mad Men was busy winning all the Emmys that night? And really… who
should give a crap about the tragic Camp Chapman suicide bomb that claimed so
many American lives when Lady Gaga was so busy making headlines with her meat
dress or whatever.
Another thing I loved about this film was how it portrayed
the jobs of these front line patriots, defense workers, soldiers, and other
unsung heroes who risk their lives doing what must be done, and then facing the
wrath of politicians when things don’t go their way. Countless times we see
good people being crucified by their bosses or their own citizens for actions
that saved countless lives, and I’m not even talking about torture here. One of
the most dynamic things about Maya in the film was that she refused to relent
on her pursuit of Bin Laden even when her supervisors told her that the heads
in DC weren’t interested in her anymore. He even goes out of his way to mention
how further pursuit of him would result in her career being hacked off at the
knees. Politics is a dangerous and disgusting game, and this film does an
amazing job of showing how it’s played.
The reason I keep bringing politics into this review is the
fact that this is one of the few films out there to really show how screwed up
the system (particularly this current administration) really is. Most Hollywood
rush jobs would do a swell job delivering emotionally manipulative dialogue to
a loud booming score to get the audiences blood pumping, but never once even
breach the topic of politics in the military even when the film is about politics in the military.
Hollywood prefers safe, kosher, easy to digest happy films that never really
make the audience actually think for themselves. I’m all for an enjoyable
popcorn chomping film, but they shouldn’t be the highest grossing films in the
market. Don’t agree with me? Then why are Titanic and Avatar the
highest grossing films of all time? It’s because they are very vanilla and are
exceptionally mediocre, the epitome of 70% all around.
Now back to my personal favorite part of the movie, the
actual raid. At first I thought that this scene was going to dive into the Hollywood
schlock machine with overly long action scenes of Star Spangled ‘splosions, but
the film actually plays the scene incredibly straight. There aren’t any scenes
of unrealistic superhero moves or gun-fu, just straight up professional
military movements supplemented with quick, crisp shots and fantastic
cinematography.
I can sing praise for this film al day, but I’ll limit
myself to two more things about the film that really blew me away. The film is
chock full of fantastic performances, particularly from Mark Strong and
relative newcomer Jessica Chastain, but fully stealing the show was the amazing
turn in from the normally comedic Chris Pratt.
Pratt is best known to audiences as the lovable Andy from Parks and
Recreation, but after beefing up and working on his badass chops he comes
across as a totally believable and convincing SEAL team leader. Watching him
deliver a performance like this after being established as a talented comedic
treasure reminds me of when people began to realize Woody Harrelson was a
fantastic actor after seeing him on Cheers for so many years. To see the man
transition from this…
To this...
So seamlessly is
remarkable, reminding me of other versatile actors such as Gary Oldman and Paul
Giamatti. It’s always great to see talent emerging in Hollywood, and I expect
great things from the talented Mr. Pratt.
The second thing that I loved about this film (and already
brought up in my last article) was the raid itself. While most action films go
out of their way to show America as the good guys, Bigelow shows the more
realistic approach without ever delving into making the SEALs look ruthless or
cruel. I don’t want to ruin the sequence for those of you who haven’t seen it,
but several instances in the scene show how these elite operatives will do
everything they can to avoid unnecessary collateral damage while not hesitating
to pull the trigger on anyone they deem a threat. It’s a brutally real
shootout, and it manages to demonstrate the necessity of these actions without
ever being disrespectful to operatives themselves.
This film is one of the best examples of how to create art
out of real life in a film. It’s not afraid to take risks with the material or
hurt people’s feelings in the process, and it’s such a breath of fresh air to
see something like this come out in Hollywood once in a while. I can guarantee
this film isn’t going to win many Oscars this year, not because it doesn’t
deserve them, but because it didn’t bring up any hot issues at the moment (I
guarantee the mediocre Silver Linings Playbook will walk away with all
the awards this year because it is about mental illness) and the director
probably burned a lot of bridges with people in Hollywood. Don’t go into this
film expecting a “Rah Rah! Go America!” type of film, but instead expect a
movie that will make you look at the necessity of heroes like Maya, her
tactics, and the clandestine services in general.
