Dallas Buyers Club and American Hustle
1/3/14:
Dallas Buyers Club
Oliver Stone is possibly my least favorite director. He
takes powerful stories about people and makes them politically charged and
heavy-handed. For this reason, I am immensely glad he had no interaction with
Dallas Buyers Club.
It is a story about the plights of people, but it’s also a
story of political statements. It’s a story about the dangers of controlling
and unrepentant government. It’s about the dangers of capitalism, but also
about all the good that capitalism can do if used correctly. The film could
have been heavy-handed. Instead, it is quite the opposite.
The vast majority of the credit for this fine-line-walking
goes to Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack for their funny, entertaining, touching,
emotionally truthful adaptation of Bill Minutaglio’s 1992 article in The
Dallas Morning News. It’s gritty and raw and all the more powerful and
compelling because of it.
The film’s events are centered in Dallas, Texas, the city in
which I have grown up, and on homophobic electrician and rodeo bum Ron
Woodroof, who contracts HIV, which later turns into AIDS, from unprotected sex.
His story is one of change and do-it-yourself Texas spirit, of hope and devastating illness, of sex and drugs and alcohol.
But it’s not without fault. Jean-Marc Vallée’s direction falters
every once in a while, especially in the film’s final 30 minutes or so, and his
editing, done with Martin Penza, has some real head-scratchers, many during
that same 30-minute stretch.
Luckily for Vallée,
McConaughey, who has decided, over the past two years or so, to make good
movies for a change, is simply astonishing. For the 2nd time in the last 3 days,
Chiwetel Ejiofor has been leap-frogged in my best male lead performance
standings, and Isaac may be overtaken depending on how both he and McConaughey
sit with me. McConaughey, as Woodroof, gives an electrifying, tour-de-force
performance. Every line is perfectly delivered, every facial expression deftly
handled (his eyes do most of the handiwork), every personal transformation
pitch-perfect. He is immensely deserving of any and all accolades he has and
will receive.
Jared Leto, as the homosexual, pre-op transsexual Rayon, is
fabulous. He is incredibly convincing. His mannerisms are minimal, and those he
does utilize seem like natural extensions of his body and his personality. He
is helped in his transformation by his makeup, but I would have been convinced
by his performance without his mascara, fake eyelashes, and lipstick. It is his
performance of a lifetime, and, just like McConaughey, any accolades he has and
will receive are much deserved.
Jennifer Garner is a pleasant surprise. As the film’s best
argument for a moral center, she is touching and effortlessly likable. I only
wish she and the script had given her character, Dr. Eve Saks, slightly more
depth near the beginning of her screentime.
This is a film I loved. Contrary to what I’ve heard as a
negative about Dallas Buyers, it is not disrespectful to gays nor does it take
advantage of them. I was thoroughly engrossed throughout, and it’s ending, a
classic example of personal failure followed by friendly adulation, is
heartwarming and potentially tear-inducing instead of being schmaltzy and
unbearably sentimental.
94/100
American Hustle:
Going into the theater for American Hustle, I had heard it described as brilliant or unremarkable. It is neither, but, on the whole, more of the latter.
Directed and co-written (with Eric Warren Singer) by David
O. Russell, the film does a fantastic job recreating the late 1970s. The
characters, too, are brilliantly written. They are wonderfully conceived, each
one different than any other, yet with personality traits and personal
situations recognizable to any viewer.
This praise aside, I was bored during pretty much the entire
first 45 minutes of the film. The voiceovers provided by Christian Bale, Amy
Adams, and Bradley Cooper are uninspired. And for a heist movie, nothing of
note happens, or even if it did, the editing by Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers,
and Alan Baumgarten is, at best, uninspired, and David O. Russell’s directing
is pretty
The film’s opening act is also hurt by its lack of music. There
just isn’t be any dramatic or comedic tension anywhere to be found in this
opening act, and the lack of music, be it Danny Elfman’s nonexistent score or
the film’s soundtrack, which kicks in later on and ends up being terrific, does
nothing to help.
Luckily for the film, things pick up after this stretch of supreme
boredom, and the film turns out a wonderfully entertaining film, much of which
is due to Russell and Singer’s screenplay later on. It also picks up because
the soundtrack is so great for the rest of the film. The acting also improves
greatly, though it is still anything but perfect.
Amy Adams’ performance is the best in the film. After her
voiceover debacle, she handles the script, which gives all 3 leads disparate character
pieces to put together, extremely well. Everything she emotes is at once truthful
and questionable. She is probably my favorite lead female performance of 2013,
though I have almost all of the contenders left to see.
The film’s next best performance is given by Jennifer
Lawrence, as many have said before me. She is absolutely hysterical. “The Power
of Intention,” a scene she shares with Christian Bale, is my favorite of the
film. Her outbursts seem entirely natural, and she deserves the Oscar
nomination she will assuredly receive, though a win seems a little unnecessary,
and not even because she won Best Actress last year.
Unfortunately, Christian Bale’s performance is mostly
boring, especially early on, though he does have a couple of good scenes, but
he mostly does nothing. His nonchalance makes him seem uninterested as opposed
to being charming like he intends.
Bradley Cooper, instead of being boring, is all over the
place. His underacts during the first act. Once the film’s pace improves, he
alternating overacts and acts terrifically. It’s a scatter-shot performance for
an all-over-the-place character, which it needn’t have been. It’s a surprising
disappointment for an actor I thought did so well with a similarly
all-over-the-place character in Silver Linings Playbook just a year ago.
So was there a male performance I actually thought was above
average the entire time? Yes: Jeremy Renner. He’s great, especially during his
speech at the hotel and in his final scene, but he isn’t given anything to do,
which is a shame, really.
The ending, too, is pretty weak, and Bale’s terribly boring
voiceover is much to blame.
That I’m giving the film this high of a score is a testament
to the immense strength of it middle hour-and-fifteen-minutes. It is, at times,
a great film, but too much of it amounts to nothing more than a series of potentially interesting and entertaining, but ultimately problematic, misfires.
56/100
