Old-Hat Tinkering with Spies

 BLACK BAG (2025)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Lately it seems that Michael Fassbender has been content with playing automatons, not quite flesh and blood people. When he appeared in 2023's "The Killer," he assumed a robotic stance not unlike his android role in "Prometheus." In "Black Bag," it is near impossible to feel much of anything towards his character who is so detached that talking about espionage and deception is more thrilling than his own marriage. The same is true of Cate Blanchett in this movie, though she shows a little more sass and sparkle. Maybe working in British Intelligence requires one to appear robotic so that nobody can catch what you are really thinking or doing. Any giveaway could lead to misinterpretation, getting fired or possibly death. If "Black Bag" had followed that rather intriguing line of thinking, I might not have felt so sleepy-eyed while watching it.

A leak has occurred with a secret software, a cyber-worm program called Severus, at the National Cyber Security Centre. This leak and data breach may initiate a Russian nuclear meltdown. Fassbender is British Intelligence officer George Woodhouse who has one week to discover the leak's identity. This is dangerous work and the twist (somewhat revealed teasingly in the trailer) is that George's wife, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), also an Intelligence officer, may be involved. Or maybe it is high-strung satellite expert, Clarissa (Marisa Abela), who doesn't think twice about stabbing her beau in the hand. The beau is the sardonic Freddie (Tom Burke), another possible culprit, or it could be the psychologist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), all of whom are on site at British Intelligence. Also on hand is the young colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), who had dated the psychologist! How do we know? Well, they are invited to dinner at the Woodhouse home and end up confessing everything (thanks to a truth serum injected in their food) except about the Severus leak. It is easily the best scene in the film, not to mention a second sequence later on where they are all invited back to the Woodhouse home sans dinner. Those scenes are tightly wound and have some measured tension. The rest of "Black Bag" is just a chore to sit through. 

Director Steven Soderbergh helms this thriller without much interest. Scenes play out in the driest possible manner and they did not hold my attention. I was not expecting merciless fireworks by way of high-powered action scenes or explosions - spy thrillers from authors like Ludlum or John Le Carre are dependent on plot machinations and deeply resonant character portrayals. There are limited fireworks in "Black Bag" when it comes to the relationships between these agency members and the crucial marriage between George and Kathryn. Not helping matters is the deliberate washed-out look of the film that made me avert my eyes from the screen more often than not. I know Soderbergh, serving as his own cinematographer, has tried his hand at filtered visual looks in his past work but here, it merely clouds the screen. 

It is also a shame considering the high-powered cast that includes Fassbender and Blanchett. I never bought them as a married couple - it appears throughout the film that they are bored with each other. As aforementioned, Marisa Abela as Clarissa really lights up the screen with her invigorating presence. Same with reliable pro Pierce Brosnan as the agency's chief who suggests so much without saying anything that you are never sure what he might be up to. Writer David Koepp is also the wrong person to handle this type of thriller - he doesn't infuse much gravitas into any of this. This type of story has been done to death and, other than the theme of secrets between a married spy couple (the black bag as it were), I found nothing new or refreshing about any of it. If you like stories about moles in the spy business, stick with "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." 

WARNING: NOT SAFE

 MARATHON MAN (1976)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Watching Dustin Hoffman as the movie's main protagonist who runs and runs because he is getting fit for a marathon seems to belong to a different movie than this wannabe, seemingly overcomplicated thriller. We have Hoffman running, getting sweaty and huffing and puffing, and getting ready to write his dissertation on America's unclean near-tyrannical historic events of the 20th century. He's also interested in an allegedly Swiss woman (Marthe Keller) and that could easily pass as some romantic drama. Then we also get a steely-eyed, bald Nazi war criminal who was hiding out in Uruguay (yeah, a plus for my country of birth being mentioned) and is now in New York City trying to get hold of precious diamonds. These subplots do not coalesce and the film's schizophrenic tone lost me. 

Hoffman plays "Babe" as a smart student right out of "The Graduate" with no new wrinkles other than his ability to hold a gun and fire it. There is a crucial level of interest here with regards to past events surrounding Babe's late father, an alleged Communist during the McCarthy years who committed suicide, and Babe's dissertation is his attempt to make peace with it. There is also Babe's brother (Roy Scheider), a federal agent masquerading as an oil businessman, and their scenes together has some warmth and a deep emotional connection. It does not last. 

Violence permeates "Marathon Man" and none of it is pretty yet, by the end of the film, it all felt inconsequential. The tone wavers uneasily and then becomes a standard thriller where our hero, Babe, is on the run from the Nazi criminal Szell (a magnificent and almost unrecognizable Laurence Olivier) and from a couple of minions dressed in business suits. The minions try to pry open a bathroom door while Babe is taking a bath. Another earlier scene shows them robbing him and his alleged girlfriend in Central Park. There is a grueling and effective scene where Szell drills into Babe's mouth to extract information from him, to no avail. Then we get more running, more chases, and Babe jumping off a bridge onto a ramp. It is all somewhat thrilling yet also uninvolving. I never felt much for Babe and could care less about the evil Szell and those diamonds that belonged to the Jews in the concentration camp. Director John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy") does a serviceable job of keeping the pace jumpy yet nothing here feels personal and the stakes are not always clear. 

There are two scenes, other than the brothers' reunion, that work wonders. Szell walks around the city and is spotted by two concentration camp survivors, leading to one being killed by Szell and another almost run over. I also enjoyed the wit behind Babe convincing some neighbors to go to his apartment and retrieve his clothes since he's being watched by those minions. I should also note that the charismatic Roy Scheider as Babe's brother stays with you. "Marathon Man" itself is somewhat watchable though it is quite often a humorless slog of a movie.  

I don't have any secrets

 THE CONVERSATION (1974)

An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

"The Conversation" is one of the saddest portraits of loneliness I can ever recall seeing, especially from director Francis Ford Coppola. The only other film from the 1970's that fits that bill to a tee is Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." The difference may be that Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" is looking to explode with violence and lives a lonely existence in New York City as a cabbie. Harry Caul in "The Conversation" is a freelance wiretapper/surveillance expert who thinks violence is about to explode and lives a lonely existence in San Francisco riding those streetcars from one destination to the other. Travis seems more animated by comparison - Harry Caul is simply an emotionless man who slowly develops a conscience, much to his own amazement.

Gene Hackman plays Harry as an anonymous man with an anonymous job. The last thing you want to do in his line of work is to call attention to yourself (something one of his cohorts does during an elaborate job). Hackman usually plays boisterous men who do not hide their emotions - they bring them right to the surface. As Harry, he is playing a man who is far too reserved, too insular, and maybe he thinks he needs to be that way. When Harry dances with a flirtatious woman at a party, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to make small talk (though he shares with great enthusiasm how he pulled his last job at Union Square to the competition, that is Allen Garfield as another clever, braggadocios phone surveillance expert). Harry also has a mistress (a very giddy Teri Garr) who knows even less about him than we do. 

The crux of "The Conversation" is the recording tapes made of a mysterious couple (Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest) in the middle of Union Square where getting a decent recording becomes difficult with too large a crowd in the area (not to mention some local musicians). Harry listens to the tapes to get the most lucid recording he can, tapes he's supposed to give to some Director at some government agency. When he starts listening to the tapes, he becomes hooked and can't help but look for the details in a fuzzy electronic recording of one unclear exchange between the couple. When Harry discovers what is being said, he fears the woman's life might be in jeopardy. Harry's has had problems with secretive recordings in the past, one that led to the deaths of three people. His conscience and his Catholic upbringing (he finds it deplorable to take the Lord's name in vain) come into prominence - he just can't let this one job slide. The film slowly builds in disquieting suspenseful strokes particularly in Harry's refusal to give the tapes to anyone other than the Director. It is Hackman at his most nuanced, and credit the excellent screenplay by Coppola himself - certainly one of the best this gifted director has ever written.

From its intricate, multilayered and overlapping sound design and its banal settings (especially a surveillance convention), Coppola's "The Conversation" is tightly wound and increasingly unnerving. Harry is possibly Hackman's most inaccessible character because we initially don't feel much for him until he starts to unravel. When Harry discovers there may be a planted bug in his banal, sparse apartment, he tears it up violently and finds nothing. All he can do is play his sax and realize he has been beat at his own game. Harry has secrets and discovers that penetrating other people's secrets is not practical. Sad, despairing, riveting.      

Wildly demonic version of Upstairs, Downstairs

 PARASITE (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

“The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.”

―  Arundhati Roy

This quote perhaps doesn't apply to a film but I think it has relevance here. Bong Joon Ho's masterpiece of a black comedy/drama with more intense moments than any conventional thriller, "Parasite," could definitely be ascribed to this oft-used Internet meme of a quote. More importantly, "Parasite" is a roller coaster ride of unimaginable horrors and also serves as a deft examination of the class system between the poor and the fabulously wealthy. Color me doubly pleased.

A poor South Korean family lives in a basement with smells that permeate their household. The smells are emanating from the streets where a young man vomits or urinates every night and since this tight-knit family keeps their windows open, it is unmistakably unpleasant. This is the Kim family, starting with the exhausted patriarch Ki-taek (Song Kang Ho) and the matriarch Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) and their two smart and alert children, the clever brother Ki-woo (Choi Woo Shik) and the intelligent, brassy and cleverer sister Ki-cheung (Park So Dam). The Kim family are at the poverty level, always seeking a Wi-Fi signal from a coffeehouse and needing work and, basically, folding pizza boxes for a pizzeria is not sufficient income. Ki-woo learns from a college friend of his of a wealthy family seeking a tutor for their daughter. Meanwhile, the Kim family starts getting jobs, one by one, at this wealthy home belonging to the Park family whether it is the father becoming a valet or the mother becoming a housekeeper or their daughter using a pseudo-psychological background to help nurture the family's wild young son who loves to pitch a tent in the yard during thunderstorms. 

The rich Park family consists of the parents, a naive, nervous mother (Cho Yeo-jeong) who believes anything she's told and the cool detachment of the father (Lee Sun-kyun), a savvy tech business type. Not unlike the Kim family, they also have two children, the young daughter who needs tutoring and is smitten with Ki-woo and of course the troubled young brother, prone to seizures, who loves to pretend he's a Native American firing arrows. The Kim family deceitfully enter their lives and find imaginative ways to get the Parks' dutiful employees fired so they can have their jobs. I'll give the Kim family points for their successful attempts, such as using peaches that the normal housekeeper is allergic to as an excuse for something worse that she doesn't have - tuberculosis.    

To reveal more of the surprises and unforeseen twists in "Parasite" would be to cheat first-time watchers, especially during the unbearably suspenseful last hour. I came into "Parasite" just recently without knowing anything about it, including its implicit take on class struggles - the fact that it is set in South Korea doesn't change the universal message that the wealthy and the underprivileged exists everywhere. A notable example is watching Ki-taek who is happy to be the Park family's valet yet, slowly and transgressively, he is aware that the wealthy view their world superficially. Everything to them is on a surface level and can be bought, especially the embarrassment of Ki-take having to dress as a Native American at a yard party (Mr. Park sternly and cooly tells him: "I am paying you"). Do valets have to participate in such nonsensical nonsense for the rich? I don't know. Mr. Park also asks for an initial test drive from Ki-taek who has to command the road and drive it without ever having Mr. Park spill his coffee. 

"Parasite" also has a strange and horrifying turn of events with a former housekeeper, who could spill the beans about the Kim family of con artists who ultimately just want more money. They may use deceit and manipulation through very unethical means but they deserve more of a chance at life than their below par living arrangement. That coupled with writer-director Bong Joon Ho's visuals of showing the disparity between the wealthy Park family's far too spacious modernist home with a large yard (and a secret bunker) and the Kim family's basement dwelling that includes a toilet in a far too cramped space to sit in. Both are families you could root for and root against - the gray scale is wide yet they are still people whose lives are determined by their wallet size. "Parasite" is a wicked, demonic and thoroughly engaging thrill ride version of "Upstairs, Downstairs" and Robert Altman's excellent "Gosford Park." A true original that you can't unsee.

Dazed and Confused in a Fog

 RUMBLE FISH (1983)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Think of Francis Ford Coppola's immensely watchable "Rumble Fish" as a science-fiction version of "Rebel Without a Cause" adopting the gritty look and feel of German Expressionism mixed with film noir. "Rumble Fish" is more than an oddity from a positively (and rightfully) eccentric director, it is a tad empty in terms of story yet its stylistic flourishes are so sharply focused that they become the subject of the movie.

When you watch "Rumble Fish," you are taken in by its atmospheric black-and-white shots, so much that you are soaking in them. The immensely foggy streets, the huge amount of smoke trailing from a bus, the silhouettes of cats and policemen with nightsticks, etc. No single shot seems to possess normal skies either - the daytime clouds race by in time-lapse fashion (this is meant to evoke that time is passing by faster than these wasted youth can fathom). The fish in a pet store are in color. You begin to wonder what Coppola is doing with a simple S.E. Hinton teen-angst drama - he is making "The Outsiders" except as an "art film for kids." Say what? Does he think kids will dig a stark-looking black-and-white film with deep, receding shadows as anything reminiscent of S.E. Hinton?   

Matt Dillon is the smart (but not "word smart") teenager who hates school, hates authority and likes to hang with his tough buddies (Chris Penn, Nicolas "Coppola," and Vincent Spano) and fool around with girls, party, drink and get into knife fights. Mickey Rourke is the Camus-like philosopher, ex-gang leader and older brother of Rusty, known as the Motorcycle Boy, who seems disinterested in life completely and is incapable of relating to anyone. He is practically an alien who comes back into town and we are not sure if he is crazy or just aloof. Diane Lane is Rusty's Catholic School girlfriend who worries Rusty might get killed. Dennis Hopper is the consistently drunk father of Rusty and Motorcycle Boy who knows their mother who ran off is not crazy. No, she might not have been crazy but everyone in this movie is in some sort of daze and state of confusion, especially Matt Dillon in a performance that calls way too much attention to itself. Dillon never seems focused as Rusty and is always moving or jerking his head like an eagle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know he drinks a lot, he's young and energetic but compare this to his later performance in the masterpiece, "Drugstore Cowboy," and you will see a world of difference.

I have to say that "Rumble Fish" is one hell of an experimental film by Coppola and I appreciate that he chose to shoot this film in such Byzantine fashion. It is one of his few 1980's films that indicates Coppola's interest in just going for broke and shooting for the stars - think of it as a mood piece that you love to listen to and watch (I do on occasion). I just haven't the foggiest idea what it all means. 

Weep for Cardellini

 THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA (2019)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The ghostly manifestations of La Llorona herself, a woman dressed in what looks like a white wedding dress, are not exactly original. You could substitute the demonic nun from "The Nun" and it would not make much of a difference other than their backgrounds and style of dress. "The Curse of La Llorona" is not anything new, exciting or fresh in the horror movie world presented here, which suspiciously looks like it is drawn from "The Conjuring" universe. The filmmakers say otherwise but when you see an Annabelle cameo, you might think differently.

Linda Cardellini is a single mother, Anna Tate-Garcia, raising two young children, Chris (Roman Christou) and Sam (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) in the early 1970's. She is a family case worker who is concerned about a case involving a distraught, scared mother who keeps the candles burning in her apartment while her two children are padlocked in a closet, all of them frightened beyond belief. La Llorona, the weeping woman, is a demonic force who wants to kidnap her kids and, it seems, drown them. You see the original incarnation of this demon is a Mexican woman (Marisol Ramirez) who, back in the 1670's, had drowned her two children because her husband was cheating on her. When she realized what she had done (while wearing her white dress and veil), she committed suicide. Now she is an angry ghost who preys on Mexican children, in this case, Anna's kids, and well there you have it.

Questions spring to mind quickly. The opening prologue showing these kids and the Mexican woman are too abrupt to make enough of an impression but it begs the question, why drown the children and then kill yourself? Why not just kill yourself or kill the cheating husband? Why is she murderous from the start? And what is her plan with Anna's kids really? If she drowns them, then what? She drowns the other mother's kids but what does that do for La Llorona? Does she become more powerful? 

This movie just seems short on inspiration, short on exposition, and short on family dynamics that go beyond Anna and her kids running and hiding from this evil presence. One child, Sam, decides it is a good idea to retrieve her doll outside the door where La Llorona waits. Why other than to draw a child in danger, and to show that they can be as stupid as the adults. Linda Cardellini is a fantastic actress who deserves better material to match her talents (watch her in "Return" for proof). You care about her as a mother protective of her kids and we get the obligatory priests, including one who lost his faith with the church, yada yada yada. "The Curse of La Llorona" has a few shocks but it is too thinly veiled. I weep for Cardellini. 

Roundabout Scenes of a Marriage

WE LIVE IN TIME (2024)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I always admire an adult approach to a mature, honest-to-the-bone adult relationship. Nowadays, we do not see enough romantic dramas that offer a realistic account of the trials and tribulations of a relationship matriculating into marriage and dovetailing into life's hardships. Not every romance is idealized, and not every marriage is perfect. Suffice to say that watching director John Crowley's "We Live in Time" is to be reminded of how precious a film like this is. It is not a great film nor will it be a classic (though time will tell) but it has two highly effective, potent, humanistic performances by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield that should warrant repeat viewings.

I must say that I was initially a little put off at first by the rambling and random non-linear narrative (it can work infrequently, and sometimes it is brilliant as in "Pulp Fiction"). There are flashbacks and flashforwards that can disrupt this developing relationship between the no-nonsense, tough and intelligent Almut (Pugh) and the awkward, loving, somewhat shy Tobias (Garfield). Almut is a talented chef who owns a restaurant. Tobias is a rep for Weetabix cereal (this is set in the U.K) so it would seem that these two are not likely to meet under any circumstances. Sometimes, fate takes a chance and Tobias is accidentally run over by Almut's car. That is their initial meeting but it takes a little while before we get there when we see life unfolding between these lovebirds from their points-of-view. One scene has Tobias getting ready for work and living in a single bedroom - he also has his hair cut by his boisterous father. Another moment has Almut vomiting, though we recognize it could be that she's either pregnant (notice the hair length) or she's fighting stage 3 cancer. They already have their child in the opening scenes of the film, though later the two have a tiff over having a child since Tobias is serious about being married to Almut.

As I said, non-linear narrative can sometimes work on film, and other times it can be cumbersome. The truth is that director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Payne let this film unfold like a series of footnotes in a decade-long relationship. I don't mind it but some scenes do not flow as smoothly or as evenly in terms of transition as others, if only because this potency doesn't remain fluid. When Almut is diagnosed with cancer and has to undergo chemo, we then see her wanting to get pregnant and failing until she finally gets her wish and Tobias's, who wanted a child even more than she did. I was more invested in her chemo, where she has her hair shaved by her husband while she's also trying out for a cooking competition. The moment she gives birth in a bathroom at a petrol station is quite moving, though I felt it came too late in the film. This is the kind of romantic drama that might have benefitted from more consistency in the depiction of a marriage where not everything is rosy. 

Pugh and Garfield, however, play such a sweet couple who take nothing for granted and do their best to keep their marriage secure that you hope everything can work out. You hope Pugh's Almut will beat the cancer and have her tumor shrunk so the doctors can operate. You hope Garfield's Tobias can maintain their family unit no matter what hits them. Sometimes, though, fate plays it hand and challenges of the mental and physical kind can affect a couple's future. That is the strength of "We Live in Time" - it stays firmly rooted in reality.