"Pawn Sacrifice," "Sicario," and "The Green Inferno" Reviews

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Pawn Sacrifice

God, when was the last time we heard from Tobey Maguire? Pretty much after the end of Sam Raimi’s run with the Spider-Man films (minus his turn in the forgettable and awful Great Gatsby), he fell off the radar. And yet, the second I saw his face in the trailer for this film, I was overjoyed. Not only would he be back in the limelight, but the film he would use to do that looked like nothing short of a masterpiece. Well, I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up… that high, that is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Maguire’s Bobby Fischer is possibly a career best for him. There is a tremendous amount of nuances and subtleties to Fischer that have to be nailed in order to make this character work, and Tobey sweeps a ton of them with ease. It’s understandable why many people would consider this character unlikable, even insufferable. He’s incessantly demanding, childish, and paranoid, but this film has a lot of subtext beneath the surface that helps offer some reasons as to why Fischer was the way he was and why he should at the very least be sympathized with, even if the character makes it much hard to do so. Peter Sarsgaard is also great as Fischer’s mentor, William Lombardy. The minor rivalry that they share, including one amazing scene where Fischer recreates an old match of theirs, along with his concern for Fischer’s deteriorating mental health, is exquisite throughout. Liev Schreiber and Michael Stuhlbarg are also good as Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky and Fischer’s lawyer Paul Marshall, but I don’t think the script really did justice to their characters as they did for Fischer and Lombardy.

The story is quite interesting, and one of those that’s even more so because of its connection to real life events. That chess was such a pivotal and essential event during the 60’s and 70’s that people would turn into the championship match between Fischer and Spassky like they would for an NFL playoff game is very neat, but it makes sense considering the immense tension between the US and the Soviet Union during this period in history. The importance of this game and the symbolism it represented in the fight for supremacy between these two superpowers are two of the big reasons why Fischer’s complex is so engrossing despite his character. With these pressures squeezing him from every direction (along with his troubled childhood), it’s kind of hard not to see why his delusions are supported as firmly as they are. In fact, the biggest problem is that with all of these themes and historical relevancies being explored, it begins to push out what is ultimately the best part of the film: chess! There are long breaks without an actual game, and believe me, when it does actually come, especially near the end, it’s tense in ways most movies that came out this summer couldn’t be. I left the theater feeling a bit cheated, honestly.

Another aspect this film nails is its aesthetic, namely how it wraps itself around Fischer’s broken mind. We feel every quirk that he feels, from the little, bothersome noises that clouds his next steps to capturing his opponent’s king, to the hidden cameras that transition the audience throughout the key points in Fischer’s life and give the impression that he is indeed being spied on. Of course, this film doesn’t advocate that this was indeed the case, but we can feel and understand that this is exactly how Fischer feels, which is a compelling enough way for the film to function.

Pawn Sacrifice may not be the complete knockout that I hoped nor expected it would, but it offers a magnificent performance by Tobey Maguire who’s in service to an apt, smart story that takes the Cold War to a very familiar terrain while taking a breathtaking new path there. It’s also a great motivator to pick up a board and master your chess game, but don’t let that be the only thing you take away from this still lustrous gem.

Final Verdict:

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Sicario

While I have not seen Prisoners, the supposed opus of Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, the positive press that movie received convinced me to check his next film, Enemy. Immediately, I realized that this man was a force to be reckoned him, and so I eagerly anticipated the release of his latest film, Sicario. Unlike most other films I’ve waited for this year, this one holds the rare honor of meeting virtually every expectation.

Emily Blunt puts on her ass-kicking pants that she had hung up since last year’s Edge of Tomorrow, playing Kate Macer, the illustrious FBI agent that gets handpicked to join an elite task force lead by Matt and Alejandro, played by Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro, respectively. The laid back Matt is a perfect complement to the intense and stoic Alejandro, and the addition of straight-man Kate to this dynamic duo is where the drama resides. It’s clear from the get go, that there is something up with these two and their team, especially Alejandro, and yet their shadiness is only matched by their rich, offsetting personalities, which helps both deflect suspicion from their true motives and still establish relatable characters. At the same time, Kate’s noble and law-abiding nature constantly shines an incriminating light right back at them, and it’s this tight, dangerous mystery that helps drive this film.

The story is far more straightforward than Enemy was (clearly), but the characters and dialogues and interactions they share are constantly adding layers to what is essentially a standard manhunt crime thriller. There are scenes involving a suspicious Mexican policeman that seem pointless up until the final twenty minutes of the film, where we finally see the true colors of one of the characters and how well it drives the message of the film home. These final minutes of the film in particular are the first time in recent memory where I could feel my hands tremble involuntarily.

The film would not be nearly as tense as it is, though, without Villeneuve’s firm, seamless direction. While the story is indeed a touch convoluted, he really knows how to tell a story and wring genuine emotion with just a camera. You can read nearly every necessary detail based solely on the staging of his actors and the angle and focus of his shots, and it’s these choices that make certain actions and events hit you that much harder in the gut. Roger Deakins’ cinematography is both lush and bleak, and both he and his director masterfully jump between tones on a dime. Jóhann Jóhannson is grippingly atmospheric, and provides a constant sense of threat, including a drive through Juárez that had me looking at every conceivable point on the screen. Villeneuve seems to have every frame and decibel of sound underneath a microscope, and he fine-tunes each with almost inhuman precision and care.

Sicario’s density might prove too much for many viewers, but those willing to really pay attention will see the impeccable level of skill by its cast, crew, and director. I never once not felt this movie gripping at me, and all I could do was just wait until its hold would suddenly get that much tighter. Denis Villeneuve is quickly proving himself more and more each film that he is indeed a director not to be trifled with; one that could rise to the ranks of masters of dark drama/thrillers like David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh. If he keeps making films like Sicario, I think there’s no other direction to go but up.

Final Verdict:

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The Green Inferno

I try not to come off in my reviews as a stuck-up snob who will only allow the artsiest-fartsiest films pass through my filter of excellence; I’m just a guy who loves movies and loves watching them. I don’t feel like I can control what I like and what I don’t. In the case of this film, I mean, I wasn't expecting Aguirre, the Wrath of God, but I mean... what the actual fuck was that?

Where do I even begin with this? The characters are about as archetypical and prepped-for-slaughter as you can possibly imagine (Cabin in the Woods, anyone?), and they range from bland as oatmeal-flavored toast to one-dimensionally spiteful, and even then, these bozo actors can’t even pull that off. We have a nerd that speaks exclusively in pointless factual trivia, a stoner played by Juni from Spy Kids (not making that up, by the way), and a complete douche alpha-leader who will sell out anyone without any qualms to get his way or spare his life. Normally, when you make a film where we’re supposed to cringe at their gruesome, violent deaths, we should care at least a little for their survival.

And if you're here for good gore, steer the hell clear. The average Game of Thrones episode makes this look like an episode of Dora the Explorer in comparison. This is because the film is shot, composed, and edited so poorly that you don't get to see any of the juicy details that would have made this an otherwise entertaining picture. Otherwise, I’ve seen this kind of cinematic violence done much better and more convincingly in better movies, which is to say, the vast majority of movies that feature even the smallest amount of blood in it. The tribe itself makes not a lick of sense. It seems to be interchangeable with how it interacts socially with their prisoners and each other and even more so when they decide how to kill their next victims but hey, look blood! NOT FUNNEEH!

Except, this is far from entertaining, because this film has no god-damned clue what it's trying to be. It's a film mocking environmentalists, and then it's suddenly a eco-friendly movie, and then it's scary, and then it's funny (there’s a stinky, smelly diarrhea joke and oh my god they’re taking this shit seriously), then it’s scary, then it’s funny again (I lie, it was always funny, just not intentionally), and then it's a film mocking environmentalists, and then it's scary, and then it's funny, and then it's scary again, and then it's suddenly a eco-friendly movie. Eli Roth has neither the tact nor the talent to pull of tonal shifts like this, especially when it’s less a tonal shift and more like he’s trying to make a new movie mid-movie almost a dozen times.

Just thinking about The Green Inferno movie makes my head hurt, but the only saving grace about it is that it's forgettable enough that I probably won't remember a frame of it by tomorrow morning. Save yourself the short-term pain altogether and just avoid it like the plague that it is.

Final Verdict:

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Hotel Transylvania 2, The Intern, and Equestria Girls: Friendship Games reviews by tomorrow (fingers crossed).