Deepwater Horizon

By George M. Thomas

Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams in
 "Deepwater Horizon."

DEEPWATER HORIZON could have easily taken an exploitative route and become the typical disaster flick.

Think POSEIDON ADVENTURE.  However entertaining such a film might be, in this case it would have been a disservice to those who perished in the most significant oil rigging accident in history, which caused a spill that still has lingering effects on the Gulf Coast some six years after the fact.

Instead, the filmmakers behind this story, which obviously takes some dramatic license, choose to concentrate on trying to tell a tale fraught with plenty of drama.  Every scene in director Peter Berg’s film rings with some element of truth.

Each situation within the film is allowed to stand on its own with respect to evoking an emotional response and while the film’s strength are those emotional elements, there’s little doubt that Berg (STATE OF PLAY, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) captures the epic nature of this accident and all of its tragic beauty with his camera’s eye.

The Happening (May 2nd at the Cedar Lee Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terrible)

[THE HAPPENING screens Saturday May 2nd at the Cedar Lee Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terrible.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

M. Night Syamalan’s THE HAPPENING is sort of a modern version of those seventies “nature gone amok” movies like KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS and DAY OF THE ANIMALS. The difference is those movies knew they were cheese, so they didn’t take themselves too seriously. They hired scenery chewing hams like William Shatner and Leslie Nielsen to star, kept the budgets low and, while still getting their ecological messages across, had fun. Unfortunately M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t realize how painfully silly his screenplay about killer trees is, so he treats this material with the same air of funereal seriousness as all his other films.

2 Guns

Review by Joseph Anthony

2 GUNS, directed by Baltasar Kormakur (CONTRABAND), comes to us as the summer season is winding down. A summer that has shown little mercy on its faithful patrons. Regardless, 2 GUNS comes star studded, guns blazing and as clichéd as possible.

2 GUNS revolves around Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington), a DEA agent and Michael Stigman (Mark Wahlberg), a naval intelligence officer. Both have been given the same assignment of infiltrating a drug cartel by their respective organization, and while both keep their real identity a secret to the other, both are using each other to get closer to the cartel.

Pain and Gain

Review by Bob Ignizio

PAIN & GAIN tells the more or less true story of how a group of bodybuilders in Miami, Florida who decided to embark on a kidnapping and extortion spree in the mid 1990s. Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is arguably the brains of the group, a guy who feels he's owed a bigger slice of the American Dream and isn't above breaking the law to get it.

Inspired to become a “doer” by “Johnny Wu” (an obvious stand-in for infomercial king Tom Vu), Daniel comes up with a get rich quick scheme: He'll kidnap Jewish/Colubian deli magnate Victor Kershaw (Tony Shaloub), one of his clients at the Sun Gym, and get him to sign over everything he's got. To aid in his plot, Daniel drafts fellow bodybuilders Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), who works part time at a taco stand and has “performance” issues due to his steroid use, and Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), an ex-con, ex-cocaine addict turned born-again-Christian who somehow manages to rationalize his crimes as being okay with the Lord.

Broken City

Review by Matt Finley

I won’t bury the lede: the only thing less inspired than BROKEN CITY’s dime-store paperback title is its used-up flophouse mattress of a plot. Directed by Alan Hughes (THE BOOK OF ELI) from the first produced screenplay by writer Brian Tucker, the film is bland, overlong, and borderline nonsensical, offering the most facile of underdog fantasies: a single working-class schlub who, with the aid of a little elbow grease and whole lotta moral outrage, single-handedly challenges the cartoonishly corrupt mayor of New York City.

If only it were lousy enough to be remarkable – a concerted train wreck or an unintended cult classic. Alas, lazy dialogue, mediocre performances, hum-drum action sequences, and a conspiracy plot that substitutes convolution for intelligence ensure that it’s the most mediocre form of crap.

Ted

Review by Matt Finley

TED was Seth MacFarlane’s last chance to win me over. I won’t say I don’t respect the man – he’s a hard worker who has managed to build himself a cozy primetime empire out of nothing but some college animations and a handful of low-hanging pop culture references – but I’ve never been partial to his work. Still, whether or not I enjoy Family Guy or its even less palatable sister programs, I was hoping MacFarlane  would avail himself of the silver screen’s expansive diameter and muster something of broader topical scope – perhaps even richer artistic depth – than the Griffins’ interminable, chaotic  rabble of celebrity pot shots, insipid film homages and quotidian obscenities.

It was his last chance, and he failed. With soaring, stratosphere-breaching colors.

The trailer pretty much says it all: John Bennett, an awkward 8-year-old loner magically wishes his plush bear, Teddy, to life. 25 years later, the two inseparable friends remain locked in a state of adolescent immaturity, spending their days drinking, smoking weed and watching the films of their shared childhood, as John’s (Mark Wahlberg) increasingly impatient girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) begs him to ditch Ted (voiced by Macfarlane) and move on with his life.

Contraband

Review by Bob Ignizio

The Icelandic film REYKJAVIK-ROTTERDAM was a big hit in its native country and won a number of awards in the Icelandic equivalent of the Oscars to boot. In an interesting twist, the star of the original version (Baltasar Kormakur) is the director of this American remake. That's pretty much the only interesting thing about CONTRABAND.

The plot centers on Chris Faraday (Mark Wahlberg), an ex-smuggler renowned for his clever methods who went straight after marrying Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and having a couple of kids. When his wife's brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) botches a smuggling job of his own, Chris has no choice but to do one last job to help Andy make good with his less than understanding employer. Ben Foster plays Chris' shady friend and former partner Sebastian, J.K. Simmons is a gruff ship's captain, and Giovanni Ribisi plays a thug with a ridiculous accent.