While the sequel to “Night Watch” is an imperfect film, it’s always
interesting, in the same way that Terry Gilliam’s films used to be in the 1980s
and 1990s, and Hayao Miyazaki’s animated pictures still are today. The plot
falls somewhere between “The Matrix” and “Underworld” films, but the art
direction is original, with an explosion of fashions, gimmicks and visual
effects that border at times on campy while somehow fitting within the action
film narrative.
“Night Watch” and “Day Watch” are reportedly two of the most expensive
films ever made in Russia, even though their budgets seem middle of the road
in American studio terms. The quality and quantity of special effects are
approximately equivalent to something like “Hellboy” or one of the later
“Blade” movies.
That’s probably a blessing, because it allows Bekmambetov to focus on the
characters, starting with Anton (Konstantin Khabensky), a Night Watch agent who
tries to keep the peace in a centuries-old underground cold war between an
assortment of good and evil vampires, witches, warlocks and other superpowered
humans.
Anton’s trainee and love interest Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina) is an
inexperienced but powerful force of good, while his son Yegor is sort of a
young Darth Vader for the bad guys. An inevitable clash between the two —
with Anton stuck in the middle — could send both sides into a bloody war.
There are 20 or 30 additional plot points, making “Day Watch” more of a
film for the “Highlander” science-fiction geek crowd. The movie is reasonably
easy to follow (especially if you’ve seen “Night Watch”) but it’s not going to
be a huge crowd-pleaser beyond art-house audiences. The dialogue is often
clunky, and there appears to be a lot of inside jokes that don’t make much
sense if you haven’t spent more than 10 years living in Russia.
But Bekmambetov and his crafty cinematographer Sergei Trofimov have so
many different tricks that you’ll be smiling at the scenes that make no sense.
Even the subtitles have a unique style, fading in and out, pulsating or
splattering against a wall like little red water balloons. You won’t be seeing
that in “Live Free or Die Hard” this summer.
– Advisory: This film contains adult language, violence and sexual
situations, including two characters who make love in a moving automobile —
which you should not try on your own, unless you’re Tommy and Pamela Anderson
Lee, who actually drive safer that way.
– Peter Hartlaub
‘Bamako’
Drama. Starring Aïssa Maïga and Tiécoura Traoré. Directed by Abderrahmane
Sissako. (In French and Bambara, with English subtitles. Not rated. 115
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Much of “Bamako” is set in the fly-ridden courtyard of a residential
building in Mali, where a mock trial is being conducted by lawyers and judges
in formal robes to decide the responsibility of the World Bank and other
Western institutions for Africa’s impoverishment. Trial movies can be painful,
but “Bamako” is a powerful polemic leavened with moments of beauty and humor.
Director Abderrahmane Sissako opens the proceedings by intercutting scenes
from the lives of those living in and around the building, particularly a young
singer (Aïssa Maïga) who is having trouble with her husband. There are shots of
an ailing man lying in bed, of female workers dying fabric and of a wedding
party that marches through the courtyard. Repeated sequences focus on a court
guard who takes his duties very seriously.
The lives of those affected by the issues formally examined by the court
go on right beneath the noses of the bewigged debaters.
In fact, the trial turns out to be pretty one-sided: the International
Monetary Fund and other creditor groups take a serious verbal beating. Some of
the best scenes involve fiery oratory on the part of attorneys and witnesses,
both black and white, denouncing those they hold accountable for poverty and
suffering on a wide scale. Particularly impressive are speeches by Aïssata Tall
Sall and William Bourdon as advocates for the plaintiffs, and a long harangue
that isn’t even subtitled — the intensity of the speaker’s delivery tells us
all we need to know.
Sissako provides humorous, surreal commentary on his theme by including a
short film-within-a-film, an African spaghetti Western called “Death in
Timbukto” that features Danny Glover (one of “Bamako’s” executive producers).
But the comic mood ends when we see that this bloody shoot-’em-up draws laughs
from its African viewers. It’s a chilling touch, as is the remark by a
character who is a cameraman and recounts that he prefers to shoot pictures of
corpses, because they are “more real” than the living.
– Walter Addiego
‘Angel-A’
Fantasy romance. Starring Jamel Debbouze and Rie Rasmussen. Directed by Luc
Besson. (R. 90 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
The challenge of describing “Angel-A” is to make it not sound like a
cliche. A lot of its individual elements are pretty time-honored, yet the
overall experience of the movie is of something fresh. And while it inhabits a
pretty rough world, of Parisian gangsters and loan sharks, the film has a warm
spirit.
This latest from Luc Besson (”The Fifth Element,” “The Professional”)
tells a small-scale story about a Moroccan American hustler in Paris, Andre
(Jamel Debbouze), who is trying to stay ahead of the mob while pursuing a
number of business interests. He is a loser, a scruffy-looking fast-talker in
rumpled clothes who, at the start of the movie, seems destined to end up on the
inside of a chalk outline. Soon: Two mobsters want their money, by midnight, to
the tune of tens of thousands of euros, and he has neither cab fare nor friend
who can hide him.
Weighing his options, he decides to throw himself into a river, but just
as he’s about to take the plunge, he sees a woman standing on the same bridge.
She does jump, and he jumps in to rescue her. Angela is a tall, thin, bleached
blonde in a miniskirt who could easily be a prostitute. In appreciation for his
rescuing her, she attaches herself to him and makes it her business to help
solve his problems.
Despite the film’s stylishness and the many changes in location, much of
“Angel-A” consists of two-person conversations between Andre and Angela, and
because Andre is a frustrated, combustible and loquacious character, much of it
is simply bickering. In fact, there’s too much bickering, though this problem
clears up about midway. The kick of “Angel-A” is in seeing the various ways
Angela goes about extricating Andre from his difficulties. Everything he tries
is wrong — he’s a transparent but compulsive liar — but everything she
suggests is uncannily right.
Their interaction and the performances deepen. Angela’s mission is to
reveal Andre to himself, to allow him to overcome the self-hatred that has
trapped him in this marginal existence. There’s a terrific moment in which they
stand in front of a mirror and Angela forces him to look at and accept himself.
To describe it, it seems like nothing. But the actors bring such conviction and
sincerity to the moment that it becomes the locus of meaning for a film that’s
all about second chances.
– Advisory: This film contains strong language, sexual situations and
violence.
– Mick LaSalle
‘Steel City’
Drama. Starring John Heard, Thomas Guiry and America Ferrera. Directed by
Brian Jun. (R. 95 Minutes. Landmark’s Opera Plaza Cinema, San Francisco.)
“Steel City” makes a valiant attempt to add some new tweaks to the genre
best described as life-sucks-growing-up-in-a-mill-town. At the start of these
odes to our blue-collared young men (”All the Right Moves” and “October Sky”
come to mind), our protagonist is usually faced with an unwanted choice: Stay
in town and end up like the ol’ man, or take a chance and run.
In writer and director Brian Jun’s film, the story isn’t set up so neatly,
and, at first, the ambiguity builds tension. PJ Lee (Thomas Guiry) is trying to
hold his family together while Dad (a hellish-looking John Heard, long past his
“Home Alone” days) is in jail on a murder charge, Mom is one step closer to the
looney bin, and older brother Ben is still making the rounds like a punk in
high school. When the water and electricity get turned off at home, we know
it’s on PJ to come through.
Jun, who returned to his hometown of Alton, Ill., to shoot the film, shows
a knack for dredging the hopelessness of small-town Middle America, and it’s
easy to see why the film was well received by the artsy crowds at Sundance. The
cinematography is, at times, edited to a book of photographs: wide scenery
shots on the range, cut to a close-up of PJ’s bruised face, cut to Ben working
in the mill, cut to Dad worrying about his boys. But the pacing — some might
call it subtle — slows to a halt by the one hour mark, and, by then, it’s a
lot to ask a viewer to keep rooting for PJ, even if we are well trained to do
so.
Guiry does his best to help us along. The young actor, memorable for his
intensity in “Mystic River” as a Southie trying to flee Boston with his
girlfriend, gets saddled with a script that bogs him down in exposition.
His performance isn’t enough to make us feel the rush that comes when we
realize the dude has made his choice — the right one.
– Advisory: This film contains adult language and minimal nudity.
– Justin Berton
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