Hey folks Harry here with Prankster... who is in Toronto along with the AICN army to give us the lowdown on the fest... He saw two more mainstream films... HEARTS OF ATLANTIS and TRAINING DAY... Which is probably more significant for the average filmgoer cuz they're coming soon to a theater near you! And it sounds like they both worked out pretty dang fine... Read on...
Hi there, Prankster here. Attending the Toronto FilmFest for the second
year, here are a couple of slightly delayed reviews.
Hearts in Atlantis
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Anton Yelchin, Hope Davis.
Here's a complaint you won't hear very often. "This movie spent too much time on the characters and their relationships, and not enough on cool stuff."
If only that happened more often, right?
Well, the thing is, Hearts in Atlantis is, to my mind, Stephen King's best book. I know few will agree with me, but I think it's a real achievement that sheds light on the turbulent 60s in a way that few other books have been able to and it does it by moving the action mostly offstage. Each story in the book follows a new character though their stories are entertwined in ways they're not even aware of who catches a glimpse of something monumentally important and confusing, but were never quite able to make sense of it. And that, says King, was America in the 60s a mythical place cut off from us by chaos just as surely as Atlantis sunk beneath the waves.
What's happened with this movie version is that three-quarters of it is cut, except for a few brief glimpses. This is just an adaptation of the first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats", which sets the tone of childhood innocence to be lost in the later stories. In other words, we're in "Stand By Me" territory which of course isn't a bad thing. But "Low Men", by itself, can't compare with "The Body" it's just PART of a larger story.
In brief, the movie tells the story of Bobby Garfield, who we meet as a grown man played by David Morse. He's called back to town for the funeral of his old friend Sully-John, and once there we flash back to his childhood reminisces of his two friends and his strict mother (Davis). One day, a lodger named Ted Brautigan arrives, played of course by Anthony Hopkins, and he and the young Bobby immediately form a bond. Quickly it becomes apparent that there's something odd about Ted, who has strange seizures where he stares blankly and mutters disturbing things, and who hires Bobby to keep an eye out for "Low Men" who he believes are hunting him. Is Ted nuts, or is something creepy going on?
Now I realize a lot of changes had to be made to fit this into a movie format, but that doesn't mean I'm not sorry to see them go. Besides all the other stories, we also lose the references to King's "Dark Tower" books which hints at the origin of the Low Men (who, by the way, don't wear yellow coats -- instead they're just faceless boogeymen a la Dark City). In its place we are given a vague explanation that, I'm sorry, just doesn't work. The Low Men are too creepy and King-ian for a 'realistic' origin.
We also, mystifyingly, lose much of the Low Men's 'coding system that Bobby is told to watch for the lost pet posters are here, but not the chalk drawings next to hopscotch patterns or kite tails hanging from telephone wires. I say mystifying, because there's no real reason to cut them, and because they would have provided a terrific visual component.
Does this seem like I'm nitpicking? It is still a fine movie, superbly shot, featuring excellent performances all round (including Anton Yelchin as young Bobby, who's quite good) and of course the invaluable Sir Hopkins. The relationships are well-developed, and still lead up to that infuriatingly satisfying misunderstanding that provides that climax with it's emotional power and drives Bobby apart from his mom.
It's just that we already have "Stand By Me" as a superb Stephen King
adaptation about lost childhood. This movie needed to focus more on the
'magic realist' elements that gave the book its creepy power. All in all
this is a good movie for what it is, but it could have aspired to a lot
more --
Training Day
Starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke.
This is not a movie, honestly, that I would have seen in 'real life'. It's a cop movie, it's a gritty look at life in the Hood, and it's directed by Anton Fuqua (The Replacement Killers, Bait). There's no reason the first two can't make for good movies, they're just not the kind of thing that I go see normally. And needless to say, Fuqua's past films hadn't impressed me much. Also, for some reason there was a huge holdup in the rush line, so I missed the first few minutes. I wasn't expecting much, to be sure.
Guess what? This is a pretty good little movie, with a fantastic performance by Denzel Washington. Ethan was good too. First of all, despite Fuqua's origins on MTV, he does NOT edit like a chimp on speed. His storytelling is solid and he's not afraid to let us see the actors acting, even in the 'action' scenes (of which there aren't all that many, actually.) And the cinematography is very nice. And on the whole there isn't much posturing or Hollywood garbage in particular, the people do look like convincing South L.A. inhabitants. (Of course, several of them are played by singers, including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Macy Gray who bravely allows herself to look awful and gives a very convincing performance at no point did I think 'gratuitous celebrity cameo!')
The story involves a young cop, Jake Hoyt (Hawke) on his first day as an undercover narc. His superior is Lonzo (Washington), a trash-talking smooth customer who seems to have gone a little too convincingly undercover. Within moments he's got Hawke enmeshed in moral compromises and corrupt behaviour. But thanks to some good writing and Washington's performance, you can never quite get a grasp on Lonzo until late in the movie. As he points out, acting like a criminal is necessary for a narc who doesn't want to get killed. The movie never resorts to pat explanations or simplistic characterizations (Hawke's Jake isn't a total wide-eyed rube, either) and that makes it a lot easier to buy.
Really, as the movie starts to strain credibility in the final act (All this is happening in one day?) it rests entirely on the performances of the stars, and especially Denzel. He's fantastic as a silver-tongued rogue who makes you love him even as he's robbing you blind (or terrifies you as he's trying to get info out of you). Lonzo is the movie. I wouldn't be surprised if this got Washington yet another failed Oscar bid -- heck, even if he won I wouldn't say boo.
On the other hand, people who don't like cop movies or 'Hood movies' probably won't be magically converted by this flick. But for anyone who likes good acting and well-observed characters, it's worth a look.
Prankster
