THE LIFE OF CHUCK**

I don't get the Toronto film festival audience hype for the latest Stephen King adaptation, THE LIFE OF CHUCK. It barely feels like a film at all, but two short films that do not cohere.  I wasn't moved: I didn't get it.  To be fair, I really liked part one.  It's a dystopian future where the world has been overtaken by climate change.  In affluent America, a divorced but friendly husband and wife (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan) potter about their everyday lives, navigating the rising suicide rates and the intermittent loss of the internet.  The quiet, calm observation of how the end of the world might intrude upon our everyday lives is well observed and an interesting thought experiment. The only weird note is that they keep seeing billboards thanking an accountant called Chuck for his great life - "the last internet meme".  We never learn what was behind the billboards, but we do then flip into Chuck's backstory. He's an orphaned kid raised by his charismatic grandparents - Mark Hamill as the sardonic, weary but fun grandpa has his best role in years.  Chuck learns to dance with his grandma and has two dance set pieces - one with the young Chuck at a school dance and another with the adult Chuck and a busker.  Adult Chuck is played by Tom Hiddleston, who is himself an internet meme with his love of dance. So it doesn't feel like a character is dancing but Tom is on another instagram reel. The social media notoriety actually took me out of the story, insofar as I was ever in it, and the dance scene had none of the loose breaking free of Mads Mikkelsen in ANOTHER ROUND.  What's the message of this strange film? That we all contain multitudes because we contain memories of all the people that we have ever loved? I can get behind that. That we are so narcissistic we think the whole world existed so we could dance? Er...okay.  Strange film. Doesn't work. 

THE LIFE OF CHUCK is rated R and has a running time of 111 minutes. It was released in the USA in June and will be released in the UK on August 22nd.

CIVIL WAR*****

CIVIL WAR is a film that is politically, visually and aurally challenging. It is vital, important and politically astute.  I think a lot of criticism that's been thrown at it about being apoliticalis unfair and I'll get into why.  But most of all this is a film that sits with you - that moves you - that provokes you to thought and also features one of the most hilarious drop tracks of De La Soul's Say No Go! What more can you want from a film?

CIVIL WAR has been written and directed by Alex Garland who started off as a novelist with The Beach and then moved into writing for film and then directing. He created the amazing TV show Devs and actually a lot of the cast from that reappear in this film. He has come to represent one of the most thoughtful voices about the real structural challenges facing us as a species which I can't believe I'm saying because it sounds so pretentious! But films like EX MACHINA and 28 DAYS LATER challenge what it is to be human and a morally centred being. And now with CIVIL WAR he is tackling head on political divisiveness and everything about the current times in which we live that pit person against person, identity against identity, and tribe against tribe.

In its structure, this movie it is a road movie.  It's four journalists in a car going from New York to Washington DC. It stars Kirsten Dunst as Lee Miller, named after the real life journo who was first into Dachau. This is referenced in the film so Alex Garland is being very explicit about his references. I also think the character is based on the late Marie Colvin.  Lee is accompanied by Joel who's played by Wagner Moura of Narcos fame. He is charismatic and a really good counterbalance to Kirsten Dunst's Lee who is  held together tightly as if all her trauma might spill out if she cracks a smile. Lee and Joel have two interlopers in the car. First, we have have Sammy played by Steven McKinley Henderson. He'll be known to you if you watch Devs. He is an old school reporter and it's implied that he worked or still does work for the New York Times. He doesn't think they should be going to DC but he also wants that story. Lee and Joel are also accompanied by a very young aspiring photo journalist who kind of blags a ride. She is called Jesse and is played by Cailee Spaeny, who recently played Priscilla Presley in Sophia Coppola's biopic.  

In a sense the Journey of the film is twofold.  We're going from New York to DC to see what hell is happening in America but also I think that there's a message about generation Z having to confront the reality of what is happening and get blooded into war. There is a tragic mantel being handed from Lee to Jessie - a toughening up and a hardening and a locking down of emotion. I have seen some people criticize the character of Jessie and I would say the only flaw I find in this film is the final interaction between the two photo journalists. I'm not going to say more for fear of spoiling it but I think I would have maybe played that slightly differently or written it differently.

Our four journalists start off in a New York that is having power cuts and where there are violent protests and suicide bombers. As they journey down to DC they've got to skirt around Philadelphia to somehow get to DC which is the front line of the Civil War then as now.  They're seeing an America that's ravaged and where armed militia have taken the breakdown in institutional authority as an opening to wield their own authority.  

Nowhere is that more chillingly conveyed than in a short cameo by Jesse Plemons, who of course is the real life husband of Kirsten Dunst. He has a very small role to play but it's absolutely I think the the philosophical and political heart of this film. He asks a question of each of our journalists: "what kind of Americans are you?" I think that to me is the line of the film because it hints at the fact that it's no longer enough to say you're an American.  You have to say if you are a progressive or a Republican or a Mega supporter or a whatever it is - whatever label - whatever qualifier.  This is the problem that leads to the War, and I would bet you money this scene comes half way through the film.

The political setup of this film has caused a lot of controversy and I don't really understand why. There is a president of the United States and it is not ambiguous at all: this guy is a fascist! How do we know? He serving his third term and we know that's illegal under the Constitution right. We know he's abolished the FBI. We know he has ordered the Army to shoot on American citizens. So this guy's a Fascist and later on when they're talking about potentially getting an interview with him Sammy who's the older journalist says you know these these dictators always disappoint you when you meet them - Ceaucescu, Gaddafi et al - when you meet them in the flesh they are smaller men than you think they're going to be so he's clearly bracketing the President in that category.

What is I think troubling to some people is that the people fighting this fascist takeover or the two states of the Western Forces are Texas and California that's blowing people's minds right because you have what's perceived to be a very right-wing State and a very left-wing State joining forces in this film.  But you've got to free yourself from your contemporary politics and you've just got to see this is the way the film's going to position itself so as to speak to both sides of the aisle.  Moreover, the film is making a point about how people abuse military power. We see the official United States Army massacring civilians but we also see individual militia committing extra-judicial murder and lynchings and even the liberating WF army is shooting unarmed civilians. So  I think there is a message there about how invading forces act and maybe it's a commentary on what Imperial forces have done throughout history but I think the message that Alex Garland is going is giving in this film is they're but for the grace of God. I think he's making a point that however this fascism begins and whichever of the states comes together to fight against it it's going to unleash the worst of us.

I cannot speak highly enough of this film. I think it's beautifully shot and beautifully acted.  I would love to see Kirsten dun and Jesse Plemons up for awards.  I think it packs an emotional punch.  I think there are images that are just haunting and I really hope it serves to tell its audience on both sides of the political aisle "look where this leads if we don't find some kind of common ground and some kind of ability to talk through our differences in a civil manner (pun intended) as opposed to splitting into identitarian tribes where one side's good one side's evil and and conversations impossible and we are only left with the most extreme options this is film making at its finest and I hope it gets the audience it deserves."

Civil War is rated R it has running time of 109 minutes it it is currently on release in the UK and the USA. It is no coincidence that it's been released on April 12th - 13th - the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861 and the start of the US Civil War.

DUMB MONEY*

There is a really good movie to be made about the Gamestop sage, but DUMB MONEY is not it. Directed by Craig Gillespie (I, TONYA) and written by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, the movie aspires to be THE BIG SHORT but has none of its wit, its deep understanding of financial markets, or its sheer dynamism. I didn't laugh once. I didn't learn anything. And more than that I got increasingly angry at the film's inability to tackle the real issues at stake, or to actually get the point. In fact, I think DUMB MONEY may be the most wrong-headed, dumb film I have watched in a long while.

Now, full disclosure, this blog used to be called Movie Reviews For Greedy Capitalist Bastards. And maybe I know more than the average movie goer about how financial markets work. But that isn't the point. Films like MARGIN CALL and THE BIG SHORT did great work in taking complex financial issues and interrogating them clearly and even-handedly.  But instead of having the balls to be nuanced, what Gillespie gives us is a fake David vs Goliath story, with pantomime villains and a very bizarre take on what a hero is. I think the result is morally questionable, and certainly not entertaining.

So let's go back to the beginning.  Keith Gill (Paul Dano) starts off as a little known retail investor in the US stock market.  He decides that Gamestop is undervalued, and explains why in a little-watched youtube channel. At the start I think he was in earnest. He believed he had found Deep Fucking Value in a retailer that was oversold on fears of e-commerce. I have no issue with him at this point. Then he started gaining traction on a Reddit channel called Wall Street Bets and I think it went to his head.  He realised that not only was he pumping up the value of his recommended stock, but that he could actually get it up to a level where he could punish the big hedge funds that were betting against the stock - the kind of folks that had refused to hire him all those years.

What the film should have asked is at what point our supposed hero of the little man realised the stock price had gone beyond Deep Fucking Value to Fair Value (on his reckoning) and then to Over Valued.  Even allowing for some kids still liking to buy actual hard copy games, did he really believe a value of >$100 was fair? And if he did not, then continuing to pump up the stock was just as nefarious as the institutional investors he and his dumb money disciples said they were fighting against. If we had seen any of this moral questioning, Paul Dano might have actually had something to do worthy of his talent. 

But this film isn't actually interested in asking the hard questions about Gill.  And it sure isn't interested in asking the hard questions about the toxic online culture he was part of.  There are a couple of throwaway lines that dismiss the misogyny, racism and generally 4Chan nastiness as a "few bad apples". Riiiiight. That toxicity and populist fact-opposed bullshit is exactly why a bunch of normal ordinary people lost their savings in this meme-stock insanity. Shouldn't the film have asked if Gill had any remorse?

No, the bad guys here are the evil hedge funds and the tech guys who invented Robinhood, a commission-free trading platform. Never mind that the Hedgie (Seth Rogen) made a conviction bet just like Gill, but did not pump the stock artificially - he just sat back for years waiting for e-commerce and bad management to do its work. I do indeed blame the Robinhood folk for switching off trades when they couldn't post margin.  But the film actually let's them off rather lightly, over-excited about getting Sebastian Stan to do a Sean Parker in THE SOCIAL NETWORK-lite cameo.  The film also seems to imply in its end credits that somehow Nick Griffin at Citadel (Nick Offerman - excellently understated) got away with nefarious influence over Robinhood. Maybe if charges weren't posted it's because there wasn't a case? 

I just can't take a film seriously that doesn't have its basic thesis straight. These meme stock traders were not heroes who started a revolution, as the end credits argue.  They were literally dumb money that didn't invest but gambled, refused to close out their positions out of greed, and lost their shirts.  To argue that they are somehow the righteous Davids, inherently morally better than the evil Goliaths, is nonsense. 

DUMB MONEY is rated R and has a running time of 105 minutes. It played Toronto 2023 and is now on global release.

22 JUMP STREET

I loved the Channing Tatum-Jonah Hill brom-edy 21 JUMP STREET.  The reboot was fun, clever, and I was genuinely rooting for the two buddies as they took down a nasty drug dealer by posing as kids in a local school.  Sure, the whole concept was hokey but the actors and directors seemed perfectly at ease with that hokiness.  I was trying to figure out what had gone wrong with the only patchily funny sequel, 22 JUMP STREET and I think it comes down two things. First off, there isn't enough warm-hearted bromance before we get to the debbie-downer homo-social break-up.  As a result the bickering to fun-stuff ratio is just off.  Second, we get it: you're smart and post-modern and meta-clever!  All those jokes about how sequels suck, and movie audiences just want the same dang thing over and over, and how the budget all goes on cheesy action shots just made me feel like the movie was poking fun at me for liking what I got in the original and wanting it again.  All that winking at the camera just undermined by ability to sympathise with the characters and that's fatal - because whatever else this movie has, it should have heart.

WE'RE THE MILLERS

WE'RE THE MILLERS is a lukewarm, predictable comedy about a group of misfits who learn to love each other on a roadtrip to Mexico in which they're trafficking mary-jane.  (As a side-note I find it amazing that getting baked is now seen as so acceptable by the mainstream media that you can have a mainstream box office hit featuring you're friendly neighbourhood dope peddlar.)

The classic odd-couple comedy sees Jason Sudeikis of SNL fame cast as Dave, the arrested development pusher who is blackmailed into going to Mexico by his college room-mate turned megalomaniacal drug-kingpin (Ed Helms.) He figures he'll be better able to smuggle the drugs if he recruits a Brady Bunch style family, and turns to his neighbour, who happens to be a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold, Rose (Jennifer Aniston), his goofy neighbour who is a virgin, Kenny, (yes - that's his tag!) (Will Poulter) and some homeless chick (Emma Roberts.)  Naturally, the misfits scrub up well, and bond over singing TLC's Waterfalls, and Rose gets to strip so that Brad Pitt can see how Jennifer Aniston still is, in perhaps the most unsexy stripping scene in movie history.  Finally, there's one of those Han Solo moments in which Dave realises that what he really wants is a family, and hey presto, it all ends happily.

There are one or two genuinely good laughs in this flick - the first aimed at satirising wannabe gangsta teen boys - and the second aimed at - what I can't even remember.  The rest of the film is disappointingly weak on humour, suggesting that the two screenwriters who wrote the piss-poor HOT TUB TIME MACHINE had more to do with this than the two screenwriters who wrote the brilliant WEDDING CRASHERS.  The direction, from Rawson Marshall Thurber (DODGEBALL) is fairly pedestrian, which is pretty much the description I'd give to this whole film. It's very Tab A into Slot B.  You know exactly where it's going as soon as you see the opening credits.   Acting-wise, Jason Sudeikis is always charming, as is Aniston, and Emma Roberts has little to do as the pissed off hobo.  It's good to see Will Poulter getting his first major US role, and he's good in a straight comedy role. But basically, this movie is one for DVD and dinner night at best.

You can hear a podcast review of this movie here, or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

WE'RE THE MILLERS has been rated R in the USA and 18 in the UK. It has a running time of 110 minutes.

WE'RE THE MILLERS is on release in the USA, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, Austria, Denmark, Israel, Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, the UK and Ireland. It opens next weekend in Belgium, Argentina, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Taiwan. It opens on September 6th in Russia, Singapore, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Mexico and Romania, and on September 12th in Chile and Italy. It opens on September 20th in France, Hong Kong, Norway and Sweden and on September 27th in Brazil.