LAW ABIDING CITIZEN - Perfectly Serviceable Thriller

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is the tale of an ordinary man who was wronged taking his vengeance on the system that wronged him. Written by Kurt Wimmer and directed by F. Gary Gray, it stars Gerard Butler (a pretty nice guy and a great actor) and Jamie Foxx.

LAW ABIDING SPOILERS BELOW

Butler plays Clyde, a man who suffers a break-in at his home, getting stabbed, and being forced to watch his wife murdered in front of him and his daughter hauled off into the next room to be killed. When he awakes, she is indeed dead. Jamie Foxx is the ambitious prosecutor who, not willing to risk his high conviction rate, accepts a plea bargain that will execute the wrong man (the accomplice) and let the murderer serve a short term. Ten years later, Clyde sabotages the accomplice's execution equipment, killing him in excruciating fashion. He then goes on to abduct and brutally dismember the killer, before leading police to his house to arrest him.

From then on, he plays a cat and mouse game with Foxx and the police, blaming them for not bringing his killers to justice. He also starts killing off the sleazy defense attorney, the judge handling the case, and the prosecutors. Foxx eventually learns that Butler is a former CIA wetwork specialist, who figures out imaginative ways to kill people. And that everything he's doing is part of an elaborate scheme to bring down the justice system from the inside.

Here's what the film does right. It sets up Butler's character well, and spaces out the revelations of who he really is and what he's capable of. It has some imaginative and tense killing scenes, and some good heads-up dialogue driven scenes between Foxx and Butler. Much of the action is suspenseful as well. The reveal that Butler has been acting alone, having tunneled into the prison before being sent there is a genius touch.

Weaknesses include the fact that Foxx's character is a bit of a dick. Setting him up as someone who blows off justice for his conversion rate makes him not very likeable. And he never really comes around to realizing the error of his ways. The closest the film gets is when he confronts Butler and tells him he'd do it differently next time; but this is a bit muddled in the heated context of the scene.

The next weakness is that the legal aspects of the film seem a little far-fetched. Butler witnesses the killer stab his wife to death; even if he didn't see his daughter die, his testimony would be enough to convict the killer. This could've been avoided by a little better scene-turning and direction, such as Butler passing out before his wife actually died. The film also could've shown how Jamie Foxx's decision was more about not letting a murderer go free by including a short scene between Foxx and the scummy defense lawyer where the defense lawyer picks apart the prosecution's case and shows how his client probably will go free.

Butler's revenge plan seems a little off as well. First, the accomplice (who really seemed shocked with the murders) gets brutally killed, and this seems a bit excessive. He was going to die anyway, so why torture the guy for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Then, Foxx goes after some people who had nothing to do with the case at all. Like the judge. She didn't let the killer get away with murder -- she just presided over the case. And having Butler get pissed at her for almost granting him bail due to legal precedent is ridiculous -- that's her job. He's a smart guy and should realize that a first-time offender with no priors who isn't a flight risk SHOULD be granted bail. It also felt weird that Butler's ultimate goal is to destroy pretty much all of City Hall, since the mayor and other officials have literally nothing to do with his wife and daughter's case.

Similarly, Foxx doesn't have much of an arc, unless it's learning not to make deals with murderers. That's not a particularly large or important thing for a prosecutor to learn, so it can't really anchor the movie in terms of character growth. There's a smaller bit about Foxx learning to spend more time with his family, but again, that's not really a major thing and seems inevitable.

The ending, in which Foxx tricks Butler by bringing his napalm bomb into his cell and locking him in there, leaving Butler to call the bomb and blow himself up -- is patently ridiculous. While it makes for a snappy movie ending, in reality, a prosecutor just firebombed a prison and killed someone. Which would make him the most irresponsible prosecutor of all time.

Finally, since the film is largely about a man trying to get revenge for his wife and daughter, and since it spends a fair amount of time setting up Foxx's wife and daughter, it feels like a major oversight that Butler's plan didn't involve putting them in danger or at least making it seem like they were in danger. If he's trying to teach Foxx a lesson about protecting your family or the lengths you'll go to in order to do so, this is a major omission.

WHITEOUT - An Apt Name for a Mistake of a Film

WHITEOUT is a thriller based on the Greg Rucka graphic novel. It tells the tale of a Federal marshal investigating the first murder in Antarctica. Good stuff. Aside from perhaps the vaguest and most misconceived ad campaign in the history of film (honestly, you have no idea what the movie is about, what genre it's in, or the fact that it's based on a graphic novel, just that it stars Kate Beckinsale and snow), WHITEOUT also has a pretty mediocre story and script.

BLIZZARD FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW

One of the film's biggest weaknesses is its arc and theme, which are both about trust. Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale) winds up in the dead post of Antarctica after a mishap, when she killed her partner who betrayed her. Now she doesn't trust anyone and has retreated from the world. So you'd think the film -- and the action sequences -- would be about her learning how to trust again. And that the lesson she learns will be integral in helping her solve the case. Not so much. In fact, the person she trusts most turns out to be part of the whole scheme behind the murder (surprise, surprise). And she never really learns much of anything about trust at all. This is a tremendous opportunity wasted.

One way to have fixed this is to have Carrie turn on her new partner from the UN, Price. She thinks he's part of the scheme or otherwise untrustworthy. And at a critical moment, she wounds him (could be shooting him, could be with a knife or ice-axe), resulting in an injury that plagues him the rest of the film. She learns that he is to be trusted, only now, he can't really help her out because the injury she inflicted on him slows him down. This would help in some of the critical scenes like the chase during the whiteout. And this would be a direct consequence of her trust issues -- they literally endanger her life.

Another weakness is the general stupidity of the bad guys' plot. They throw one of their wounded members out of an airplane. So his mangled corpse is found in the middle of nowhere, prompting a murder investigation from both the US Marshal Service and the UN. And since there are relatively few people in Antarctica, it's pretty easy to trace the victim back to the group of geologists he was working with. Common sense would dictate that the best thing to do would be for the bad guys to either drop the body down an ice crevasse somewhere or leave it inside the plane under the ice. Either way, they could just report the guy missing and nobody would ever find him.

The script also fails to maximize some inherent dramatic situations. There are some potentially cool chases outside the various ice stations. These are unique because the participants are battling the elements as well as each other. And they have to stay clipped into guide ropes to avoid getting lost in the snow. The first one, where Stetko is chased by the unknown bad guy, is great. But the film later repeats the chase. Which in itself is old hat, but is also undone a bit by the fact that one bad guy (with an ice axe) is chasing two armed law enforcement agents. Obviously, this reduces the threat substantially.

Likewise, Carrie loses two fingers on her right hand to frostbite. This is played for emotion, and we see she has a hard time buttoning her sweater. But it's never played for conflict or as an obstacle. An obvious place for this would be in showing how the wound affects Stetko's coordination in her gun hand. When she gets in the field and faces a bad guy, she literally can't shoot straight and her life is in danger for it.

Finally, it's far too obvious who the bad guys are. In the beginning, the film shows us Stetko has a contentious relationship with one of the pilots. By the time the story rolls around to talking about how the murder victim must have been tossed out of a plane, it's obvious who the pilot will be. Side note -- it's also completely unnecessary that the pilot turns out to be Australian and faking an American accent the whole time. Why? Presumably when he signed on for a lengthy Antarctica mission berth, he didn't know that he'd stumble upon a five-decades long lost Russian cargo plane carrying diamonds. This is a bit of unnecessary silliness.

And the film's big "reveal," that Stetko's beloved Doc is part of the evil cabal, can be seen coming a mile away. The main reason this reveal is telegraphed is that every single person on the base evacuates except for Carrie, her pilot Delphi, who has been stabbed and left for dead by the Australian pilot (and thus is not a suspect), Price, whom we've seen get attacked by the Australian pilot (and thus is not a suspect), and Doc. So since the movie's not over and Carrie still can't find the cargo, odds are 100% it's gonna be Doc behind it.

The script doesn't even bother to have a confrontation between Carrie and Doc. Doc just apologizes sort of and then wanders out in the snow to die watching the Southern Lights. Which is rather anticlimactic. And then for some reason, Stetko emails her boss withdrawing her resignation and requesting transfer to a warmer clime. Why? She still doesn't trust people. She didn't figure out who the bad guys were. And her best friend turned out to betray her (like the incident that scarred her in the first place).

The whole movie left me cold. Pun intended.

EAGLE EYE - Half-Blind

I'm working on a techno-thriller, and I never saw EAGLE EYE. Wanting to make sure I didn't repeat anything they did (it was a pretty big movie) and wanting to see it to boot, I finally rented it.

SPOILERS FOLLOW YOU BELOW





















EE has a truly great premise -- a 20-something loser suddenly finds $750,000 in his bank account, a room full of guns, military schematics, and bomb-making material, and gets a call from a mysterious woman telling him the FBI is about to arrest him. The loser, Jerry, doesn't listen and gets arrested. But the mysterious woman -- seemingly all-seeing and all-powerful -- contrives to break him out of custody with a crane and directs him on a series of errands, all the while the FBI and Air Force agents are hot on his tail. Meanwhile, a single mother finds herself in the same boat as the mysterious woman threatens her with the death of her son (who's on a field trip).

Okay. Great start. And we've got a character who hates authority and can't follow through on anything, so he's the worst guy to finish this task.

The film pretty much falls apart once it reveals what's going on, however. Turns out that:

• There's a Department of Defense computer Artificial Intelligence tasked with analyzing data and making decisions


• It's tied into pretty much every computer system (surveillance cameras, power grid, traffic lights, cell phones, etc.) imaginable


• It went rogue and wants to wipe out the entire US government minus the Secretary of Defense


• Jerry's twin brother worked on the project and put a voice lock keyed to his DNA on the computer so it can't go apeshit and kill everyone -- the computer needs Jerry to undo it


• It's plotting to decaptiate the US government by using a crystalline explosive cut into a necklace gem


• AND a frequency detonator stuck in the son's trumpet reed and keyed to vibrate when he hits the high "F" in "The Star Spangled Banner"

Um, okay. Here's the various problems with that.

One -- doesn't make any sense. Assuming we had the technological capability for the AI to exist and be tied into the systems it's tied into, the AI is making really stupid decisions. In the film, the computer recommends not killing a terrorist because it's not sure it really is the terrorist and there could be significant collateral damage. Turns out the computer was right, we blow up the wrong guy and terrorists around the world blow up Americans in response. But the computer decides the way to end this is by killing everyone in the US leadership except the SecDef. Nevermind that: A) This is extremely faulty logic in general B) Terrorists aren't apt to stop blowing folks up because a computer killed the leadership C) Why would the computer spare the SecDef (who tried to do what the computer recommended) but kill literally dozens of other cabinet officers below the President who presumably had no part in the decision? I doubt the Secretary of Transportation or Education had much of an opinion either way on whether we should try to take out an Afghani warlord.

I suppose the film could've explained this in some way if it wanted to -- like the computer blew a chip that regulated logic, or it was programmed by a crazy arch-conservative wackjob to do this kind of thing in the first place. As is though, it's nonsensical.

Two - The computer's plan is needlessly complicated (and stupid when you think about it). The computer really needs to do two things. One, get Jerry to it so he can log in and take off the voice block preventing it from activating its mission to kill the US leadership. Two -- kill the US leadership. The film makes a big point of having the computer point out Jerry's antisocial tendencies and problems with authority; it tells him the only way to motivate him is through coercion. But why make Jerry go all over the country, fake that he's a terrorist, put him in the custody of the FBI (who eventually help stop the computer solely because they're investigating Jerry), and have him do dozens of things including stealing experimental drugs? Why not threaten Jerry by killing a couple of close people, then get him right to the Pentagon where he can remove the voice block? The computer's basically omnipotent and can get anyone it wants to comply by threatening them with death or the death of loved ones. It doesn't need all this other b.s. The b.s. helps make the movie exciting. But it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. And the computer could easily have called in an airline ticket for Jerry and a visitor's pass and had someone escort him down to its mainframe.

On the same note -- why does the computer go through this elaborate process to get hex crystal/detonator/Star Spangled Banner going to kill everyone? We've seen it kill through traffic accidents and power lines. And it can track thousands of people simultaneously. So just find where the leadership is in separate locations and have separate "accidents." Or, much like it can take over subway cars, cranes, and jets -- do that to something with missiles and just blow everyone up.

A PERFECT GETAWAY, NOT SO PERFECT

I'm a huge fan of thrillers. A thriller's what go me my agent. So it doesn't matter if it's a techno-thriller, a paranoid '70s thriller, or a personal, action-oriented thriller like RED EYE (the spec version of which is far superior to the produced film), I tend to be partial to the genre and its films.

PERFECT GETAWAY is a more personal, action-oriented version of the genre. I'd read the spec a few years ago and didn't fully enjoy it for the same reasons the film doesn't entirely work. It tells the story of a honeymooning couple taking a hike in Hawaii. Out on a remote trail with two other couples, they discover that there's a killer couple who made the jump from Honolulu with them. Alone and with no one to rely on, they try to figure out who the killers are and stay alive.

SPOILERS ARE GETTING AWAY WITH ME BELOW





















The biggest problem with the film is that it cheats. There's a pretty big twist -- that the two leads turn out to be the killers and that you've been following and empathizing with the bad guys the entire time. Writer/director Twohy plays fair most of the time, setting up actions and dialogue that work both to drive the story forward and mislead you. But there's one big, dopey patch of dialogue that's completely plays false with the audience. After Tim Olyphant's ex-special forces character returns from bow-hunting bearing a dead goat, and his girlfriend, Gina, skins it, we're treated to a big dialogue scene between Tim Zahn and Milla Jovovich in which they talk about how crazy Tim/Gina are, how the two of them should make an excuse and sneak away, but how they probably can't and just need to make it down the hiking trail to the beach where they'll be safe. This is completely moronic because Tim and Milla are the murderers. They're in no danger from Tim and Gina, no matter how crazy they are. They have no reason to make it to the beach, nor are they "home free" once they get there (the beach is filled with other hikers and far more dangerous to them). In fact, since Zahn and Milla are iced-out serial killers, they're in perfectly fine shape out on a secluded chunk of the trail at night with Tim and Gina -- that offers a far easier, safer place to kill them than the beach (and in fact, when Tim and Milla get to the beach and finally try to kill them, they fuck it up).

Films that rely on twists really only work if two conditions happen. One, the twist has to be something that makes logical sense (Tyler Durden is one aspect of Ed Norton's character's personality; Dr. Malcolm Crowe is dead the entire time in SIXTH SENSE; Darth Vader is Luke's father) and not something that is either painfully obvious (THE VILLAGE is really part of modern times) or moronic (the apes in the new PLANET OF THE APES made it out of the wormhole and back to earth where somehow history played out exactly the same but with an Ape Abe Lincoln). And the twist has to be played fairly -- you can't have it work solely because you play out bullshit versions of a scene (unless you clue the audience in that your narrator is unreliable) -- this is why USUAL SUSPECTS is such a brilliant movie, because you get some clues that Verbal is full of crap, but you don't think that means he's making the whole thing up and is really Keyser Soze. Conversely, this is one of many reasons why TAKING LIVES (caveat -- I worked on the film but didn't write it) doesn't; there's a major scene where Ethan Hawke's character is relating how he killed Kiefer Sutherland's character (whom he frames as the serial killer), which is just Hawke lying; since he's never set up as a liar and not really as the possible serial killer, this is just a cheat. If you play fairly with the audience, then the script usually comes off as intricately crafted and hugely dramatically satisfying. Any of the above examples of films that work prove this, as does MEMENTO. But when you get a film/script with a twist that doesn't, you can feel why (i.e. HAUTE TENSION, a film that works brilliantly for 3/4 of the movie, and then you learn everything you saw is complete and utter bullshit and the killer is one of the girls). Cheats are almost like mini-versions of the hacky old standby "it was all a dream," basically negating what you saw since it couldn't possibly have happened that way (or at least makes no sense that it's shown that way).

A more minor flaw in the film is the cheesy, self-reflexive movie/screenwriting talk. Since Zahn's character poses as a screenwriter and Olyphant's character wants a movie made about his life, the two talk about movies, which comments directly on the action of the film. This would probably work if it was subtle, but instead, we're given really on the nose dialogue about red herrings and one glaringly noticeable bit of throwaway dialogue after the red herring couple is arrested in which a passerby on the trail remarks that "There's plenty of twists and turns ahead." Ugh. This doesn't add anything to the movie. In fact, it takes away from it by being so lame.

There's a beat at the end of the film in which Gina tries to call for help from a remote mountaintop. She can't get a cell signal and is in real trouble. And then a guy from AT&T calls to change her cell service, and she convinces him to call for help. Which arrives in the form of a police helicopter, complete with sharpshooters. Yes, that's right. Our heroine overcomes an obstacle to her survival through blind, convenient luck. That's never a good thing. And something stupid happens with the helicopter. Milla makes it there first, riding along with the cops and telling them to shoot Tim Olyphant. For some reason they believe her, even though she could possibly be the killer. And then she abruptly changes her mind after Gina saves Tim by blocking the shot, and decides to sell out her boyfriend. Which might work if he'd done something in the film (like hitting on Gina) to upset her. But he doesn't. All Twohy gives us is that Zahn can't tell Milla he loves her. Which, considering the fact that they're both meth-addicted spree killers, seems like a minor quibble on her part.

Finally, the script paints itself into a bit of a corner by revealing about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through that our protagonist(s) are really bad guys. It realizes we don't really have anyone to root for. So there's an awkward bit of structural gymnastics interrupting the film's momentum and tension where we go back and see that Olyphant was all set to propose to his girlfriend after all. While this is sweet, it comes in the wrong place. Olyphant's such a good actor that you like him despite the misleads that he's creepy. Twohy should've just made him a little more empathetic despite his possible villainy (e.g. Denzel in TRAINING DAY) and setup the proposal-to-come in advance instead of interrupting the flow of the entire movie. If we didn't like Olyphant (and Gina) by that point, throwing in backstory and setup that should've come earlier won't make us like him now.

So what are we left with? A mostly serviceable thriller that succumbs to its own cleverness and cheats when it doesn't have to. Which makes it slightly better than mediocre instead of solid all the way around.