Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Curious about both of these, so here’s two early peeks for the price of one:
It's been a couple of weeks but I can finally get around to writing about two test screenings I attended in Edgewater, NJ. The first is much hyped The Interepreter and the second the Kevin Bacon/Colin Firth starrer Where The Truth Lies.
THE INTERPRETER
I have really been waiting for Sydney Pollack to get back to form. I mean the guy who gave us Three Days of the Condor has recently put out such detritus as Sabrina and Random Hearts. I thought it was funny that he would go back to dealing with Africa for his comeback attempt ( For all you youngsters out there I am referring to Out of Africa for which he won an Academy Award) While not great, this movie knocks the previous two out of the park, but then again so could Anderson or Boll, and in his defense ole Sydney is in his seventies.
It begins with a pretty intense sequence in a made up African country before the action moves to and remains in New York. There we meet the UN interpreter Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn as a clichéd hard drinking law enforcement agent who has just lost his wife, a Secret Service Agent in this case. To summarize Kidman hears a conversation about a planned assassination and when she reports it Penn is assigned. Initially he doesn't believe her, then events force him to. He then finds out that she blames the African leader who is to be assassinated for her parents death. All this sets up an ending that you can see coming early on.
What is good. If looked at as an action movie there are some fairly good sequences, the aforementioned beginning and a bus explosion that is put together nicely. But what truly makes this movie interesting is the feeling of authenticity you get by actually being in the UN. I believe I heard that this was the first film production ever allowed inside.
What is not so good in my humble opinion is the characters. As I alluded to before Penn's character is extremely clichéd, so no matter how well he acts it just seems like something we have seen a hundred times before. Kidman's fine acting is not enough to make up for the fact that a white woman being cast in a role that clearly should have gone to a black actress. In order to clarify this a bit let me just say that they set this African country up to be Rwanda-like where millions of natives have died and we are asked to sympathize with the daughter of white plantation owning parents who died as the result of an accident.
Perfect no, but if you go in expecting a solid action/suspense piece you won't regard it as a total waste of your money.
WHERE THE TRUTH LIES
For me this one came in under the radar. I had heard of the book but never read it and had been unaware of it's production.
Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth are a type of Martin and Lewis team who were wildly famous and suddenly break up after the discovery of a dead woman in their hotel suite.
Years have gone by and a publisher has paid Firth's character a million dollars for an autobiography. So they send in a writer, Alison Lohman ( Cage's fake daughter from Matchstick Men ). Her back story is that she is a recovered Polio patient who the two had on their last telethon before they had the falling out.
Basically the movie is about her uncovering the truth behind the dead girl. You feel a little let down by the ending but everything leading up to it keeps you entertained enough.
What is especially good is the acting of Bacon and Firth. They have true chemistry which is really fun to watch. While Lohman is definitely miscast all you perverts out there should rejoice that from her we get complete nudity and a fairly graphic lesbian scene. Also the period set pieces really plunge you into this world.
What is not so good is the cop out ending and as I mentioned before Lohman's acting.
I definitely recommend this one. In an era of Meet the Fockers and Are We There Yet it is refreshing to see that they are still making movies like this.
TheGong
Thanks so much. Good stuff.
"Moriarty" out.
