I love whodunits. A whodunit based on a six-part, award-winning British TV series involving newspapers is even better. The disheveled and seemingly disorganized loner reporter, the guy with piles of papers and files in his cubicle, driving a beat-up old car, with a nose for news, sniffs out corruption and rights a wrong.
I'm hooked.
Instead of London, the story State of Play morphs into the hallowed halls of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the misdeeds of a congressman. He's leading an investigation into a shady quasi-military security organization and is involved in a sordid affair. She gets murdered and the plot thickens.
Still hooked, but this is treading on been-there-done-that territory. The good news is the producers picked box office draw Russell Crowe, added the sometimes pretty good Ben Affleck, and the always interesting Robin Wright Penn and Helen Mirren. Rachel McAdams is along as eye candy. It's a can't miss hit, right?
Wrong. A disappointing wrong.
Lead writer Matthew Michael Caranahan (Lions for Lambs) does a great job of developing the puzzle. His problem: you know the bad guys and you know the why. Without some much-needed plot punch and places where you really worry about the characters, the concept fizzles. Tony Gilroy who did the thrilling Bourne movies and Michael Clayton and Billy Ray (Breaches) are added to the writing team later. They help but not enough -- especially when you get to the way-too-Hollywood anti-climactic ending.
This material deserves better.
Sunshine Cleaning
Sunshine Cleaning is about people like you and me. It's a character study with flawed and human characters whose struggles mimic our own. Hope hangs on every great line of dialogue as the under-whelmed attempt to overcome the overwhelming.
Rose Lorkowski is not happy. She cleans houses and occasionally sleeps with her high school sweetheart, a cop who loves her but married her mortal enemy. He's not going to leave his wife.
Her son is a challenge and needs to be in an expensive private school. That costs big bucks. Her dad is retired. Unsuccessful wheeling and dealing is his thing.
The boyfriend encourages her to get into the crime scene cleaning business. It's big money. Partnering with her equally unhappy sister, Sunshine Cleaning is born and success the old-fashioned American way begins.
There are several reasons to see this movie. Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin and excellent character actors Steve Zahn and Clifton Collins Jr. (see Mr. Movie's interview with Collins on the Atomictown blog) give multi-dimensions to first-time writer Megan Holley's characters.
Number two: life -- like their cleaning business -- is not neat and tidy. Holley and director Christine Jeffs (Sylvia) take you on a couple of very interesting side trips and weave and leave lots of loose ends into the plot and then leave it alone.
That -- in this case -- is a good thing.
Che: Part 2
The first half of Steven Soderbergh's ode to revolutionary Che Guevara covered the Cuban Revolution, touched on his relationship with Fidel Castro and Castro's brother Raul.
Part two plants Che in Bolivia in 1966. This revolution suffers from poor planning, lack of flexibility by the Marxist and is a disaster that leads to his execution.
It's what Soderbergh skips that makes the entire project so controversial. He pushes the noble, heroic warrior seeking truth and justice for the poor and oppressed. We see Che as a hero who bravely faces death and who left an important legacy.
Soderberg scoots over Che's fascinating political period from 1960 to 1966 in a short series of tantalizing black and white flashbacks. We are privy to Che the critic of the West, but miss Che the administrator, Che the inflexible, Che the executioner.
Though his detailed exploration of the Bolivian disaster is accurate, a Che: Part 2 as a deeper exploration of the real man makes a much better movie.
Milagro Beanfield War
The Milagro Beanfield War is Robert Redford's second stint as a director. Done in 1988 it came eight years after his most acclaimed film, the award-winning Ordinary People. Here's why -- even though you can go to any video store and rent it -- you want to catch it at the Battelle Auditorium: Redford's skills as a director and a storyteller. The scenery alone will blow your mind. It deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
And then there's the story. Packed with exceptional characters and character actors, few films done between then and now are as much fun as this one.
◗ To comment on these movies or more, go to Mr. Movie's blog at tricityherald.com/arts/mrmovie.
