Archive for year: 2014

Another entry on my list of “Based on a true story” makes a bad movie. Characters and events were so extreme that no reasonable screenwriter could have sold them, but the fact that something like this actually happened helped remove the no-one-will-believe-this filter. Steve Carrell’s John DuPont was such a one-dimensional obvious nutcase from the beginning that it wasn’t even interesting to watch him. That USA Wrestling would give him their program, regardless of the money he offered, was just as absurd as the military’s giving him a machine-gun-mounted tank. Presumably, both of these occurred, but that didn’t make them dramatically convincing, or even relevant. Mark Ruffalo stood out by playing a relatively sane person, but again casting him as Channing Tatum’s brother required an imaginative stretch I wasn’t prepared to make.

Once one accepted that this was a stage play, not a docudrama, the philosophical back-and-forth between German General Chotlitz and Swedish Consul Nordling could be appreciated as an intellectual exploration of human motives, rather than a somewhat incredible portrayal of how Paris was saved from Nazi destruction. There was no reason Chotlitz would have allowed Nordling’s presence for a movie-long dialogue, but the set-up allowed us to analyze and weigh the thought processes of a Nazi commander and the wall between soldier and human. Personally, I didn’t find Chotlitz’s change of heart credible: the reasons for his change were present from the beginning, although they were a surprise when revealed to us near the end. We were equally unprepared for the sudden resistance of the collaborating French architect that effectively saved the city. (Since all these figures lived many years after the war, perhaps there is a more factual basis to the dramatization than I allow.)

Considering this film took place at night, in stressful situations, featuring many working stiffs, in a very noir setting, it was remarkable that no one smoked. Maybe, then, it was no coincidence that at the very end of the credits, where they usually disclaim hurting any animals during filming, there was a line that no money was received for placing tobacco in the film. Is this a new cause? Or are they saying that no one smoked because no one offered them any money?
Jake Gyllenhaal’s bug eyes and intense characterization were wonderful, although you wondered why someone with his ambition and instincts was only clipping chain-link fences when the story began. The cheap swipe at TV news was fun, even if there was only a kernel of truth in it; what drove the movie was Gyllenhaal’s depiction of Louis Bloom’s flowering, petal by petal, picking up something from every contact, morality be damned, and getting away with it.