Quickies in a small theater

It’s one of those categories in the office Oscar ballot that your friend wins, and it puts his total just above yours, and now you’re in not third but fourth place, for which there’s no prize money, and there goes your ante, and now you’re secretly upset because you know it was all luck because there’s no way that guy had seen all those short films because no one sees short films.

Ha, well, that was moi a few years ago. The irritatingly lucky friend, that is. I nailed the short film winners on my ballot going solely on title. It was glorious.

But this year, it’s different. This year, I’ve seen them. And now there’s pretty much no shot at getting it right.

IFC in the west village is now showing “Oscar Nominated Shorts” of both the live-action and animated variety. Unfortunately, I was too hungry to stick around for the animated shorts, but I did get to see the live-action numbers. Just as I suspected, they were a treat.

Outside of student films when I was in college, I haven’t seen very many shorts. It’s really too bad, because they’re so appropriate for my generation’s Twitterific attention span. I tend to see them once a year or so in sets of five or six, usually at theaters where you can sit in the back row and still spit on the screen.

What usually strikes me the most when I see them is the diversity of the selections. They’ve always been from different countries and in all kinds of languages with an enormous range of moods, themes, aesthetics, etc. I remember a collection called “The World According to Shorts” where I saw one movie about a group of nine old men who get stuck in quicksand juxtaposed with another—animated B & W—about abstract, tentacled cowboys and a giant vagina. (American. Go figure.)

This year’s Oscar nominated shorts are much the same in their differences. Let me see if I can do about a sentence for each. And I’ll rank them in order of how much I liked them, because I can.

1. The New Boy: Freckled English grade school delinquents antagonize a new boy in school who’s transferred from South Africa after his father—who was also his schoolteacher—was murdered. Almost unfathomably, it has a happy ending.

2. On the Line: A quietly powerful German meditation on love, jealousy, and regret featuring the puffy-faced security-camera stalker, Rolf, with whom you can’t help but sympathize even for all his undeniable creepiness.

3. Manon on the Asphalt: Wistful narrations of a dying woman who’s been struck by a car, wondering how her friends will react to the news of her death and what her lover will think when she doesn’t show up to meet him, which are striking in their absurdity despite their ostensible accuracy.

4. The Pig: An absurd ditty about a docile-turned-cantankerous old man in surgery who falls in love with a painting of a pig jumping into a lake, which causes a clash of cultures when he’s put in a room with an Islamic patient. Nice twist at the end.

5. Toyland: A semi-confusing piece about the Holocaust and two little boys, one of whom is nearly sent off to a camp, but (his?) mother rescues him at the last moment. Seemed very hackneyed after The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, but I possibly didn’t “get” it.

HELLBOY II: The Ferngully Fairies Weren’t This Violent.

Hellboy, for those unfamiliar with the first movie and the Marvel creation in general, is a large, red, horned creature who’s been rescued from the depths of the Underworld by some American soldiers and raised in a special facility in (where else?) New Jersey. He likes candy, cats, and cigars, and he grinds down his horns to “fit in.” He has a thankless career a monster-fighter for the government, along with his buddy Abraham Sapian, a fish-guy with vague telepathy powers, and his girlfriend Liz, who tends to combust with varying degrees of force when she gets emotional. (Hellboy, fortunately, is fire-proof. Because damn, he’s messy.)

In the first Hellboy film, as often happens, a sect of the Nazis were the bad guys. Hellboy II’s antagonists are your more conventional LOTR-standard mythical individuals—trolls, elves, et al. The subtitle of the movie, “The Golden Army,” comes from a tale Hellboy’s father told him when Hellboy was young and awkward. Story goes that, long ago, when the forest creatures were at war with the humans, the Elf King created an indestructible army of golden…how should I describe them…mechanical sword-brandishing lineman…controlled by a magical crown. But then, after seeing them mercilessly lay waste to the enemy, he felt guilty, so he broke the crown into three parts and gave one to the humans. The army has been dormant since. But now, with the forests disappearing, the young badass prince is belligerent, and will stop at nothing to wage war on the humans.

Giving the film its interesting edge is the fact that the prince is almost justified, morally. His lands are being threatened and nothing is being done about it. The lesson here is fairly simple to grasp: you mess up nature, and there will be a price to pay. Del Toro doesn’t pound us over the head with it, but it’s indubitably there. Our hero hesitates before slaying a giant, building-smashing forest demon—a which erupts into a beautiful city-blanketing oasis upon its demise—only to be publicly maligned. The whole thing’s kind of like a Bizarro Ferngully.

But aside from the “green” undertones, this movie is pure fun. Del Toro’s imagination is nearly off the charts, comparable in my mind only to perhaps Hayao Miyazaki, who did “Spirited Away.” Monsters are lurching and gurgling all over the screen. I have to give credit to the special effects team; they look phenomenally real. Meanwhile, Hellboy is punching things and saving kittens and getting his ass kicked and quarrelling with his flammable paramour. In one of my favorite moments, he sings a lovelorn drunken duet with Abe (the fish guy), who’s fallen for the elf princess, which complicates thing later.

It’s all just endless fun and world-saving. They even threw in a few great one-liners, which I won’t write here. I will write this, though: don’t take your kids. Del Toro redefines “tooth fairy” in a very off-putting way, which would have caused me, as a child, to attempt to rubber cement my fallen baby teeth back into my head. And possibly hyperventilate.

The Saddest Happy Movie of All Time

Having just obliterated one of the gnarliest rum & cokes in recent personal history at an awkward social event, I was already feeling a little emotional. So it’s possible that “The Visitor” had a heightened effect on me. The bar was literally next door to the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in SoHo, so, having bought my ticket, I was able to move from a leaning position against the lounge jukebox to a leaning position against the cinemaplex urinal in a matter of seconds. Then, even before the ice cube in my mouth fully melted, I was seated and ready for the evening’s good long cry.

My eyes water sometimes, admittedly, when I watch movies. What sets me apart, though, from your normal crier, is that I only tear up at happy moments: a reunion (“Antoine Fisher”), a slow-clap (“Cool Runnings”), a carry-off (“Rudy”), etc. Almost never do my eyes water at sad moments. Just keep that in mind.

“The Visitor” opens with a series of “highlights” of Professor Walter Vale’s life, the point of which is, it’s boring. Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins, “Six Feet Under”) is bored. He reuses his syllabus each semester. He’s frigid and uncompromising with his students. He takes piano lessons because he feels like he should.. The message is that he’s resigned. His wife is dead and so is his passion for academia, if there had ever been any. We saw a similar jaded professor character earlier this year in “Smart People,” sharply played by Dennis Quaid, who, reinvigorated by a romance with a former student, finds his way again in his field and as a father. One can only guess that something will free Walter’s boots from the muck as well.

This time, it’s not romance, but an African drum, that’s able to inject a little life into a somnambulant academic. Reluctantly returning to New York for a guest lecture at NYU, Vale goes to stay in his apartment that he hasn’t used in many months, only to find it inhabited by an immigrant couple who have been scammed into thinking it was vacant. After a painful exchange, husband and wife Tarek and Zainab arrange to gather their things and leave peacefully. As they wait with their worldly possessions on a corner, desperately seeking shelter for the night, Walter, his heart seemingly uncorked by Tarek’s undeniable charm, decides to let them stay with him until they can find a place.

Tarek plays the djembe, a west-African drum, in a local band. Vale, intrigued, picks it up one day a gives it a few curious slaps. Tarek, delighted in his interest, begins to give him lessons, and, before long, the cantankerous Walter Vale is playing djembe with Tarek in a drum line in Washington Square. He’s not especially talented, but he’s welcomed, and his friendship with Tarek blossoms (much to the dismay, at first, of his wife).

Things change suddenly when Tarek, having trouble fitting his drum through a subway entrance, hops the turnstile and is immediately confronted by two stern officers of the law. He and Walter plead that he has paid (he had) and was simply jumping it because of the bulk of the drum, but this is to no avail, and we begin to see the ugly face of the post-9-11 consciousness emerge from the film’s otherwise feel-good atmosphere. Tarek is immediately hauled off to a detention center in Queens, where he is held for immigration-law violation.

To see a character like Tarek, so full of life and positivity, in a jumpsuit and trapped behind a pane of glass, with a desperate wife and mother on the outside (both of whom cannot visit, themselves being illegal), is excruciating. Walter visits regularly and hires a lawyer to work on getting Tarek out, and we see Tarek’s desperation mount to a point of anger, and we can’t help but share in it.

The beauty of the unlikely friendship and the ugliness of Tarek’s legal injustice superimpose to create a madly vivid and tightly wound crescendo that will loosen just about anyone’s plumbing. “The Visitor” is full of love and full of pain full of music, engendering hopes as often as it dashes them. The rare harmony of happy and sad: This is why I spent almost the entire movie blinking, not just at the happy parts.

It’s not the years, Honey. It’s the mileage.

I was just very opposed to this whole thing. Not like hunger-strike opposed, but a little more than just annoyed. The new “Rocky” installment last year annoyed me. “The Land Before Time 17” annoyed me. “Basic Instinct 2”—well, that was just comedy gold. But this? Did they really have to? Indiana Jones?

The third one was called “The Last Crusade.”

“LAST.”

I took that to mean that there weren’t to be any more Indiana Jones adventures.

And I was fine with that. The existing three were beautiful and timeless things.

But I get it now—that “crusade” was used in the narrower, historical sense of the word. Middle ages. Grail. Nazis are bad. I get it. The fourth is here. I blame semantics.

I had to blame something. It has been nineteen years since “The Last Crusade.” In movieland, it’s the 50’s. Dr. Marcus Brody is dead. Professor Henry Jones the First is dead. (Wait: didn’t he sip from the Holy Grail? Whatever.) The atomic bomb has been invented. Suburbia has risen. Preppies hate Greasers. Communism looms. And the Soviets want an ancient crystal skull—Mayan—which happens to be curiously elongated and severely magnetic. Allegedly, its possessor wields unknown powers! So the stiff-chinned Soviets abduct none other than Dr. ‘Indiana’ Jones to help them find it.

You can probably guess at what happens from here. Indy escapes. He discovers that his old friend—who has been raving incoherently about Akator (also known as El Dorado) and some mysterious skull—is being held captive in South America. He sets out to free him (and to, of course, find the damn artifact). He’s followed. He’s captured. He’s followed again. Then he’s captured again just after a major discovery. Et cetera. People with guns and accents. It’s the Raiders formula—not that we’re complaining. It’s very predictable, is all. And it used to be very endearing.

Somehow, though, the charm is lost with this new installment. I found it more difficult to suspend my disbelief. Especially when young Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf, “Transformers”) starts swinging on vines through the jungle and manages to head off a pair of speeding vehicles. Or when Indiana gets caught in a nuclear test-blast but survives by locking himself in a lead-lined refrigerator.

But the other films had scenes like this too. Why didn’t it work as well this time?

It may just be the prevailing aesthetic of the “right now.” Recently, Hollywood’s revamped James Bond by making it more realistic. Before that, they revamped Batman by making it more realistic. But, at the same time, we’ve seen a rise in popularity of the outrageously unreal—300, Beowulf, Kingdom of Heaven, Wanted. Just like in politics, there’s a move toward polarity, extremes. A plotting of the “realism” points might look like cellular mitosis. Maybe there’s no room in the middle anymore for a dusty, ophidiophobic hero whose lips bleed right alongside magical crystal skulls and twenty-something Tarzans.

Then again, maybe the whole “alien” thing threw me off. Among the things Harrison Ford is not, there’s Will Smith.

All this is not to say that the movie was completely without merit. A few well placed one-liners were enough to show that Indiana hasn’t lost his wit. And Spielberg, in general, knows how to direct. The movie runs almost seamlessly, bounding along to the timeless John Williams score, and is packed with the razzle-dazzle action sequences we’ve come to expect.

Comparisons are inevitable. The guy in front of me was really upset. The girl next to me was pleasantly surprised. In the end, neither was reacting to “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.” They were reacting to “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull” vs. its predecessors. The fairness in this is questionable, but they must have known what they were facing. It’s a tall order to dust off something so colossal as Indiana Jones and present it anew. Antiques don’t always function so well. But if we’ve learned anything, they’ve got some monetary value.

Beauties and the Schlep

I’ve only been to a screening once before, for “Match Point” in 2006. They really do make you feel pretty important, screenings. For this one, they even had a girl in a hula skirt present me with a lei after they patted me down for recording equipment. Nice of them.

I remember we didn’t run a review of “Match Point” until after the film’s release, so I don’t even know if I’m allowed to write this, but, whatever, I’m going to anyway. The hell with protocol…right? Now watch some Hollywood kneecrackers tackle me tomorrow evening as I sit here in my computer chair in gym shorts and a sombrero watching Jabbawockeez videos. I don’t think I’d even fight back.

My friend declared the other day that she doesn’t approve of movies where “the schleppy guy gets the hot girl.” I guess I can see that. In this one, “Schleppy guy #1” is Jason Segal of “Freaks and Geeks.” Doughy, pasty, and sweatpants-clad-if-clad-at-all, he plays a good one. Does he not deserve the girl? Well, at least in my book, if the schleppy guy writes the movie, the schleppy guy does what he wants.

Peter Bretter (Segal) is a musical composer for a hit cop show starring his long-time bombshell girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell, “Veronica Mars”), who, as we find out almost immediately, has “found someone else” and cannot be with Peter anymore. It’s very hard news for Peter, who loves her very much, and it’s very hard news for us that we must watch him—all of him—as he takes it, in the nude. This is not heteronormative glossing. His five or six full frontals are a lot of lumpy paleness to bear—for anyone. I have to admit, though, I was kind of amused. (And I felt a little better about my body.)

The awkwardness continues when, after a few rounds of inadvisable sex, Peter decides to get away to Hawaii where, sure enough, Sarah Marshall herself is also vacationing with her new boyfriend, British rockstar Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, the actor, not the athletic equipment). The situation itself is unfortunate enough, but the real genius in the writing is the incredibly stupid and masochistic way Peter deals with it. Anybody who’s been in a similar situation knows the hideous truth of it—the sneaking around, just aching for a glimpse of exactly what we don’t want to see. No one knows why. We just know it hurts, and we laugh because it’s not us.

As luck would have it, though, the front desk chick is really hot, and she feels some sympathy for Peter and his predicament. Who knew Mila Kunis could act? The ditzy chick from “That 70’s Show” turns in a believable star performance as Rachel, college dropout turned Hawaiian resort clerk, and manages to maintain an buoyant chemistry with Peter—despite a serious deviation on the pulchritude scale.

Surrounding them is one of the funniest assortments supporting characters in recent cinema: a strung-out surfer (Paul Rudd, “Knocked Up”); an obsessive super-fan waiter (Jonah Hill, “Superbad”); a nervous, poorly-endowed honeymooner and his sex-hungry bride (Jack McBrayer, “30 Rock” and Maria Thayer, “Strangers with Candy”); a giant, shiny-headed Hawaiian sage (Taylor Wily), a hotel staffer obsessed with sea turtle copulation (Davon McDonald), and Peter’s “happily” married step-brother (Bill Hader, “Superbad”). McBrayer is especially funny as the recently de-flowered and baffled newlywed, mumbling airily about the “mythical clitoris” and eventually taking sex lessons from the knowledgeable Aldous.

While “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is funny—very funny—it also has, in the tradition of “Superbad” and “Knocked Up” before it, a degree of sanguinity and tenderness that penetrates in a way that other screwball comedies cannot. Even the evil Sarah Marshall shows her human side once or twice, and we can sympathize. I hate to use the phrase, “it had a lot of heart” to describe a movie. I think what people really mean when they say that—and I’m guilty—is that it affected more than their diaphragms and their cheeks. I don’t think I could say that about “Happy Gilmore,” but I can say it here. Despite its highly improbable concept, this movie has something real-life about it, and it deals with a phenomenon—coping with a lost love—that almost everyone has gone through or will go through (fortunately? unfortunately?). “Sarah Marshall” is a rarity. It’s comically outlandish and dangerously real. It’s life. It’s the best kind of funny.

Loser, Loser, Movie Chooser.

The folks behind “21” were dealt a great hand. The idea of six MIT students burning Vegas for millions is compelling enough—some “Good Will Hunting” meets “Ocean’s Eleven” sort of appeal. And then add to that that it’s based on a true story, and you’ve got yourself a movie pitch—and a lot of promising fodder.

Unfortunately, they’ve screwed it up. All they had to do was retell, with a little style, an already-fascinating true story. But, no. They farted out some kind of gaudy miasma of bright lights and MTV transitions. You know those girls who take their cell phones and glue little plastic jewels to their entire surfaces? I believe the technical verb for that is “Bedazzle®.” Well, this is a Bedazzled® “Rounders.” I loved “Rounders.” There was no need to cover it with tiny plastic jewels.

(It just occurred to me that every movie I’ve referenced so far has Matt Damon in it. I’m going to see if I can keep that up.)

As far as the story goes, though: Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, “Across the Universe”) is wicked smart. But all he ever does is study, and, to get his scholarship to Harvard Med, he needs something to make himself stand out among all the other near-perfect candidates. A “life experience,” they call it. He’d like to find one. But, strangely enough, one finds him when he’s confronted by Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) and his posse of gifted MIT students who spend their weekends at the Vegas blackjack tables, counting cards and making un-college amounts of money. After Ben’s finally convinced to fall in league with them, he quickly becomes the prodigy of the outfit, usurping the former “big player,” Fisher (Jacob Pitts, “Eurotrip”) and setting off the initial drama. And so begins your typical tragicomic sine wave. Rise-fall-rise, El fin.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with the story’s arc. It’s real, after all. But when the director throws in 600 jump cuts and hires a Foley artist with Ecstasy problems, no one can pay attention to the story. I can understand that maybe the effects were utilized in order to communicate a certain surrealism associated with Vegas and Money, but they are used to such an extent that they become distracting and even irritating. Consequently, the audience, in self-defense, recedes into the safety of blank stares and daydreams. Personally, I found myself wishing Jacob Pitts would begin spouting his sex-crazed lines from “Eurotrip” (featuring Matt Damon!) and wondering where in God’s name I’d seen Miles (Josh Gad) before.

Had the writing been better, the movie may have been salvageable. Unfortunately, though, the jokes fall flat and the romantic chemistry between the two “involved” stars fizzles itself into mere vapors. One can’t blame the acting. Even Mr. Spacey, could make nothing from the material. I had been wondering why they’d decided to put the “stop calling me ‘dude’” line in the preview, but I understand now that it’s, sadly, one of the funniest lines in the movie.

Maybe, in ten years, Hollywood can recycle this story and make a quality flick out of it. Maybe they can hire some sharper writers and a mature director to make it. Maybe they can nix the jump cuts and the clumsy voiceover and the mind-numbing repetition of the profound “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.” But, until then, the table’s cold.

The Peanut Gallery

There’s a time and a place for clowns. Not clowns in the balloon-animal sense, but the obtuse, vociferous type that used to fart into Bunsen burner flames during high-school chem. Sure, it’s uproariously funny from across the room, but not so much when you’re right there and the flame ball singes your hoodie embroideries.

That’s part of why I feel lucky to live here, in New York, with more movie theaters than I care to count. If I want to see a serious “film”—tent my hands, scratch my chin, affect intellectual curiosity—with the rest of the pious and the effectively shushed, I can go to BAM. Or I can go to Lincoln Center, or the 42^nd street E-Walk, or the Village 7. Whatever.

And if I want to see something else, I can go to Court Street.

Average American movie theater : Court Street Cinemas of Brooklyn :: Catholic mass : Mets game. You’ll find that on the 2009 SAT.

If you go to Court Street for the right movies, you’ll easily double the value of your ticket. There’s no way “300” last year would have been as enjoyable without the outbursts from the audience. (e.g. “Yo, that’s that Persian money!”) Since the “stay quiet” imperatives just before the previews start receive about as much respect as jaywalking laws in Greenwich Village, the off-screen entertainment consistently rivals the on-screen. It’s the only movie theater I’ve ever been to—aside from one midnight showing of “Donnie Darko” when the first 20 minutes were played upside-down and in reverse—where I felt that the viewing was truly a community event.

Strangely enough, New York Times head film critic A.O Scott also recently wrote a paragraph on Court Street. I guess I’m not the only one who’s noticed it’s different. I highly recommend it. As Mr. Scott says, the energy is contagious. But arrive a little early, because even partially nude Spartans would have trouble with the lines.

Good “Point” (but not great)

I get the sinking feeling that there’s a fundamental problem with my movie-reviewing idea. It used to be that I’d mosey into the cineplex for free with my press pass and see whatever Paul Walker garbage I’d been assigned to eviscerate that week. But now it’s different. Just the thought of saying, “one for College Road Trip?” makes my glutes tighten. That’s $11.50. A.k.a. two weeks’ worth of full-service laundry or 5,441.53 cubic centimeters of Mountain Dew. I just can’t do it.

So, what’s happening here is that I’m seeing movies that I actually want to see, which, most of the time, I end up liking. And a movie that one likes is much harder and much less fun to write about than a movie one despises. No one wants to read a positive review. I guess I’ll need to either get rich, sleep with a cineplex manager, or wax iniquitous and start sneaking into movies I don’t even want to see. Oh, the irony.

Meanwhile, though, meditations on “Vantage Point”.

The preview for this movie, aside from the useless flashing antonyms between the action sequences, is extremely well done, effectively touting “Vantage Point” as a complicated, sleek, high-action thriller. That’s pretty much what it is. There are explosions and suspense and surprises and revelations aplenty. But there’s also a subtle higher purpose and a good bit of structural cleverness.

The film, hinging on its name, shows us a small-scale but high-prominence terrorist attack in a public square in Spain. First, we’re shown as we, the public, would see it— through the perspective of a news team covering a political event. The attack unfolds in about 23 minutes (movie time), at which point we are taken back to the beginning and shown the same attack from the perspective of secret-service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid, “In Good Company”). Then, we’re taken back again and shown the attack from the perspective of an American tourist, Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker, “Last King of Scotland”). Then we’re taken back again and shown the President’s perspective, and so on and so on, each time through revealing a little more of what exactly unfolded and how and why.

The “why” is where this movie falters. I haven’t read anything yet, but I assume that major critics pummeled this movie for its political vagueness. I’m sure someone noted that it’s never made quite clear who the terrorists are or what they hope to accomplish; that the purpose of the “summit” in Spain has something to do with the commencement of “peace,” but the details are never ironed out; and that the psychological damage apparent in Barnes is never fully explained other than “he took a bullet for the president not long ago.” It’s all true.

However, I doubt that the writers of “Vantage Point,” like the writers of last year’s “The Kingdom,” set out to make an “intelligent commentary” on the War on Terror. They would have handled it differently. Terrorism here, as audacious as it sounds, is nothing but a backdrop. Aside from one news anchor’s banter and one line about how “this war will never end,” the film effectively steers clear of politics focuses on entertainment.

The real crux and point of differentiation for the movie is its unique structural device. Not everyone has the patience to be told the same story five times. I know from the groans emitted by my fellow audience members. But at the same time, this is one of the best methods I’ve seen used to portray the impossible complexity of a crisis situation. It reminds its audience that there is much more going on—in any situation, really—than what we can see as individuals. If the film were to have told its story from an individual’s perspective, it would’ve been unable to make that point and would’ve been limited to a smaller cast of characters and a simpler plot. In reality, it’s rarely one bodyguard versus one bad guy. Hollywood just does it because it’s simple (or they want to glorify Sinbad), but they veered away from simplicity here, and made complexity the point.

Mr. Ocean Never Used a Jackhammer

Having been born into the Italian Job/Ocean’s Integers generation, I was confused at first as to how this small, coarse-whiskered troop of amateur Anglo-bandits expected to pull this job off without an electromagnetic pulse generator, or a fleet of Mini Coopers, or even one guy who could break dance through lasers.

Tunneling? Really? So impractical. Well, I guess it worked in Shawshank. (And Caddyshack.)

Jason Statham (“The Transporter”) plays Terry Leather, local chop-shop chief with debt and young children—a combination of forces that might drive a man on to bigger things, for better or for worse—who takes an proposal from his ridiculously tall and elegant old flame Martine (Saffron Burrows: yeah, that’s Hector’s wife from “Troy”) to rob a local bank’s safety deposit vault. But as he assembles his lumpy, tuft-headed cohorts who will assist him in tunneling under the bank, he has no awareness of Martine’s ulterior motives. In one of the deposit boxes are some compromising pictures of some very prominent citizenry, which she has vowed to help retrieve on behalf of the semi-corrupt government. So, as one would assume, Mr. Leather ends up with (cliché time!) “more than he bargained for.”

“The Bank Job” would be very easy to discount as “unrealistic” if it hadn’t been based in truth. The inspiration behind this movie is the real-life Baker Street bank robbery which took place in 1971 in London, a robbery about which not much is known due to a gag that was set upon the British media to protect, presumably, members of the Royal Family. The writers have done a thorough job filling in the blanks with their plotting, having even gone as far as to use dialogue from the actual ham-radio conversation that took place in 1971. They’ve added levels upon levels of corruption, some illicit romance, some civil-rights history, fatherly concerns, a torture scene, a morally complicated hero, whips ‘n’ chains, and, of course, lots of T&A. (Have no doubt: this is a product of a testosterone-soggy brain.)

The problem the movie faces is a bit of identity crisis. It seems lost somewhere between the fun & games of the Ocean movies and the grime & sweat of old-school heist films. Daniel Mays (“Atonement”) and newcomer Stephen Campbell Moore play Dave and Kev, a couple of Terry Leather’s charming gang of human potatoes, while the waifish lookout (Michael Jibson, “Flyboys”) bumbles about with the walkie-talkie outside. The obtuseness and somewhat ridiculous physical appearance of these characters causes them to wax comical, which doesn’t fit with much of the rest of the film’s gritty texture.

I’d personally like to hear Statham’s take, this being his second heist film with “Job” in the title, on how he feels the two movies differed. With him at the helm, portraying the occasionally fractious but utterly likeable hero instead of one-dimensional Handsome Rob, the ride was much more authentic. Or maybe authenticity is just something I associate with large amounts of dirt.

Blog explanation

So I used to review movies for my college newspaper, and I can’t seem to purge it from my system. So I’m going to restart now, reviewing some semi-current movies until I either get bored or can’t afford it anymore.