directed by Patrick Hughes
written by Tom O'Connor
Some time ago, somebody came up with the bright idea to cast Samuel L. Jackson as a foul-mouthed hitman in a buddy movie which featured a conversation about Amsterdam called Pulp Fiction, which turned out to be a brilliant movie. Twenty-odd years later, Jackson has been cast in yet another buddy movie as a foul-mouthed hitman, this time actually in Amsterdam, alongside Ryan Reynolds, star of the wildly successful Deadpool and therefore no stranger to hyper-violent, foul-mouthed action movies himself. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, plenty.
Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative who, at the beginning of the film, runs his own very successful personal protection service until one of his prized clients, a Japanese arms dealer, is killed just as his plane is about to take off. Years later, Michael is accepting whatever work he can find to eke out a living, albeit still a very dangerous one. His ex-girlfriend Amelia (Elodie Yung), who works at Interpol, has just been assigned to escort infamous hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) a key witness in the trial of the despotic Belarusian President Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), from his prison in England to the Hague in the Netherlands, where he is set to testify in exchange for the freedom of his wife Sonia (Salma Hayek). When her convoy is ambushed and her entire detail wiped out, she can only think of one man up to the task of bringing Kincaid to the trial alive.
The problem of this film is essentially one of tone. I read it was conceived originally as a drama and then re-purposed into a comedy (which, let's face it, with a title like that, was the only way to go), and it shows. The film features gut-wrenching violence but, unlike Reynolds' Deadpool, which had its tongue firmly in its cheek the whole time, alternates between comedy and utter seriousness and fails to juggle the two. The problem is that the "serious" stuff feels like it was done in extremely bad taste; the bad guy's use of a truck bomb at a time when vehicles have been repeatedly used as tools of terrorist attacks feels utterly insensitive, and even the violence that was supposed to be vaguely funny like Ryan Reynolds' Bryce being tortured by jumper cables attached to a wet towel around his head, just wasn't. Also, if the drastically shifting tone was meant to be some kind of storytelling innovation, it fell short of the mark, especially considering the number of action movie cliches director Patrick Hughes and screenwriter Tom O'Connor leaned on throughout the film. Jackson's and Reynolds' onscreen chemistry is the only bright spot in this film, but even that feels weighed down by a horrible script. Clearly these guys were just hired to trot out Jules-lite and Deadpool-lite, and they delivered on that front, even though their performances felt like poor facsimiles of their best work. Jackson quite literally recycled on one of his lines from Pulp Fiction, quite possibly at the urging of the director.
It was really quite disappointing, especially since I walked into this movie with minimal expectations and largely on the strength of the marketing, which made hilarious parodies of the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston smash hit from 1992, The Bodyguard, ranging from the extensive use of Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You" in the trailers to a movie poster which replicated the one from the older movie, except with Reynolds carrying Jackson. The thing is, every now and again there are flashes of the movie I was hoping to see when I walked in; sometimes the humor works, and some of the action sequences are pretty interesting, particularly an extended chase scene involving a speed boat, SUVs and a motorcycle. But it's all weighed down by the "serious" plot which is premised on the notion that prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is a complete moron who would pin all his hopes for convicting Dukhovich on a single witness, as well as the numerous eye-roll inducing cliches peppered throughout the story.
Clearly, though, Reynolds and Jackson were in it for the paycheck; here's hoping that they get back to making good movies soon.
5/10
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Why "Kita Kita" COULD Be Interpreted as a Glamorization of Stalking...But SHOULDN'T Be (MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)
Again...SPOILER ALERT for Kita Kita. This is your last chance to turn back if you haven't seen the film and refuse to have any detail spoiled.
Okay, you've been warned.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the flawed but engaging film "Kita Kita" I was a little surprised to learn of opinions being expressed that the film condoned stalking, with one writer even saying something like it was a mystery that intelligent people failed to realize that the film basically glorified it.
Having given the matter some thought, I can see where the criticism is coming from.
As an ode to the healing power of human kindness, the film really just sang to me, but as a love story, as much as I enjoyed most of it, I am ready to admit there are some moments that didn't always sit well with me.
I wasn't all that crazy about Tonyo, the character played by Empoy Marquez, being touchy-feely with the blind Lea played by Alessandra de Rossi. At no point in the film do the characters kiss, nor does Tonyo ever do anything grossly inappropriate, but in my opinion he pushed past acceptable personal boundaries more than once during their dates, before Lea warmed up to him. I get that there was this aspect of him testing the waters to see what he could get away with, hence the colloquial term "chancing" we use in the Philippines to describe someone trying to cop a feel from the object of their affection, but yes, I can see how that would be interpreted negatively, in the same way that, while I get why he thought it was okay to stare at Lea during their train ride (a scene that paid off in a joke about how she knew he was doing it, even though she was blind), I also get why this would be off-putting to many. Finally, considering that Lea basically didn't know him from Adam, it didn't really sit well with me that Tonyo felt he had to completely lie about his being new to Japan, when in fact it was revealed that he had been working there for an appreciable length of time.
In short, there is some evidence to justify this conclusion, and in truth, the film may have been better served without those little character quirks.
I respectfully object, however, to the notion that the film glorifies stalking, and I can cite four specific scenes in the film that were very deliberately written, precisely to make this point that Tonyo isn't just some sicko:
1. After Tonyo's death and when Lea discovers the contents of his small apartment, she learns that he has folded one thousand paper cranes, a reference to a line Lea dropped very early in the film in which she, a tour guide, told tourists that folding one thousand paper cranes supposedly grants people one wish. This scene, for at least one writer, is the moment when the "creepiness" supposedly starts, but I honestly didn't see it that way. In fact, when Lea reads the late Tonyo's letter informing her that he has just folded his thousandth crane and has wished for her to recover her sight, this is easily one of his more selfless moments, and not because he could have wished for something for himself.
Up until the time she saw him, Lea had no idea who Tonyo really was, and this worked to his advantage, an advantage that would have been in his interest to maintain for as long as he could considering that, although she had actually seen him several times before she went blind, they had never actually spoken. He would not have benefited at all from her being able to see him; he had already won, to some degree, her affection at that point and had she recognized him as someone she had seen many times before she might not have taken so kindly to him. In short, Tonyo had nothing to gain from Lea being able to see again and even potentially everything to lose, and yet he wished for it more than anything else.
2. When Tonyo, who has cleaned up and now wants to introduce himself properly to Lea, contemplates walking up to her in the park, he rehearses a proposed greeting: "Hi, I'm Tonyo," and then balks, concerned that he'll sound like a pervert ("parang manyak"). This could arguably go either way, given that he could just be concerned with appearances and nothing more, but in line with the other things he does in the film I think it's a sign of both his sincerity and the writer's awareness of how his character might be received. Basically, the writer indulges in a slightly "meta" moment to reassure the audience that, no, her male lead is not some kind of sexual deviant.
3. There is an utterly gratuitous scene in which Lea, still half-asleep, stumbles to the door in her t-shirt and underwear in response to Tonyo knocking. This is a perfect opportunity for Tonyo to ogle her long, shapely legs, considering she is blind and would be none the wiser, but he immediately turns around and then points out to her that she has no pants. In hindsight, I think this scene served literally no other purpose than to emphasize that Tonyo is NOT a degenerate.
4. Arguably the strongest argument against Tonyo being a creep is the scene in which he and Lea are inebriated, and in which Lea actually initiates romantic contact with Tonyo. If Tonyo were the full-on monster that the detractors of this film seem to claim he is, this exact moment should basically have been the jackpot for him. This should have been payoff time; the girl of his dreams is in his apartment, drunk, and now pawing at him. While she teases him about having evil intentions, it is she who ultimately starts kissing him. Were Tonyo's intentions truly despicable he would have basically gone for the proverbial gold, or at the very least stolen a kiss. I can think of quite a few movies, local and foreign, in which a moment like this would have been a moment for the leads to kiss, but it doesn't happen here. Does Tonyo deserve a medal for his restraint? Maybe not, but I'd argue he at least deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Whatever else Tonyo's quirks, I honestly think those four moments put firm emphasis on the true nature of his character, and while he is certainly flawed and certainly not above appreciating Lea's striking beauty (i.e. the staring scene), ultimately, his motives are pure.
Overall, it's not a perfect film. As I said, as a straight-up love story, the film has its fair share of problems, but as a fable about the beauty and power of human kindness, it really is an exceptional yarn.
Okay, you've been warned.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the flawed but engaging film "Kita Kita" I was a little surprised to learn of opinions being expressed that the film condoned stalking, with one writer even saying something like it was a mystery that intelligent people failed to realize that the film basically glorified it.
Having given the matter some thought, I can see where the criticism is coming from.
As an ode to the healing power of human kindness, the film really just sang to me, but as a love story, as much as I enjoyed most of it, I am ready to admit there are some moments that didn't always sit well with me.
I wasn't all that crazy about Tonyo, the character played by Empoy Marquez, being touchy-feely with the blind Lea played by Alessandra de Rossi. At no point in the film do the characters kiss, nor does Tonyo ever do anything grossly inappropriate, but in my opinion he pushed past acceptable personal boundaries more than once during their dates, before Lea warmed up to him. I get that there was this aspect of him testing the waters to see what he could get away with, hence the colloquial term "chancing" we use in the Philippines to describe someone trying to cop a feel from the object of their affection, but yes, I can see how that would be interpreted negatively, in the same way that, while I get why he thought it was okay to stare at Lea during their train ride (a scene that paid off in a joke about how she knew he was doing it, even though she was blind), I also get why this would be off-putting to many. Finally, considering that Lea basically didn't know him from Adam, it didn't really sit well with me that Tonyo felt he had to completely lie about his being new to Japan, when in fact it was revealed that he had been working there for an appreciable length of time.
In short, there is some evidence to justify this conclusion, and in truth, the film may have been better served without those little character quirks.
I respectfully object, however, to the notion that the film glorifies stalking, and I can cite four specific scenes in the film that were very deliberately written, precisely to make this point that Tonyo isn't just some sicko:
1. After Tonyo's death and when Lea discovers the contents of his small apartment, she learns that he has folded one thousand paper cranes, a reference to a line Lea dropped very early in the film in which she, a tour guide, told tourists that folding one thousand paper cranes supposedly grants people one wish. This scene, for at least one writer, is the moment when the "creepiness" supposedly starts, but I honestly didn't see it that way. In fact, when Lea reads the late Tonyo's letter informing her that he has just folded his thousandth crane and has wished for her to recover her sight, this is easily one of his more selfless moments, and not because he could have wished for something for himself.
Up until the time she saw him, Lea had no idea who Tonyo really was, and this worked to his advantage, an advantage that would have been in his interest to maintain for as long as he could considering that, although she had actually seen him several times before she went blind, they had never actually spoken. He would not have benefited at all from her being able to see him; he had already won, to some degree, her affection at that point and had she recognized him as someone she had seen many times before she might not have taken so kindly to him. In short, Tonyo had nothing to gain from Lea being able to see again and even potentially everything to lose, and yet he wished for it more than anything else.
2. When Tonyo, who has cleaned up and now wants to introduce himself properly to Lea, contemplates walking up to her in the park, he rehearses a proposed greeting: "Hi, I'm Tonyo," and then balks, concerned that he'll sound like a pervert ("parang manyak"). This could arguably go either way, given that he could just be concerned with appearances and nothing more, but in line with the other things he does in the film I think it's a sign of both his sincerity and the writer's awareness of how his character might be received. Basically, the writer indulges in a slightly "meta" moment to reassure the audience that, no, her male lead is not some kind of sexual deviant.
3. There is an utterly gratuitous scene in which Lea, still half-asleep, stumbles to the door in her t-shirt and underwear in response to Tonyo knocking. This is a perfect opportunity for Tonyo to ogle her long, shapely legs, considering she is blind and would be none the wiser, but he immediately turns around and then points out to her that she has no pants. In hindsight, I think this scene served literally no other purpose than to emphasize that Tonyo is NOT a degenerate.
4. Arguably the strongest argument against Tonyo being a creep is the scene in which he and Lea are inebriated, and in which Lea actually initiates romantic contact with Tonyo. If Tonyo were the full-on monster that the detractors of this film seem to claim he is, this exact moment should basically have been the jackpot for him. This should have been payoff time; the girl of his dreams is in his apartment, drunk, and now pawing at him. While she teases him about having evil intentions, it is she who ultimately starts kissing him. Were Tonyo's intentions truly despicable he would have basically gone for the proverbial gold, or at the very least stolen a kiss. I can think of quite a few movies, local and foreign, in which a moment like this would have been a moment for the leads to kiss, but it doesn't happen here. Does Tonyo deserve a medal for his restraint? Maybe not, but I'd argue he at least deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Whatever else Tonyo's quirks, I honestly think those four moments put firm emphasis on the true nature of his character, and while he is certainly flawed and certainly not above appreciating Lea's striking beauty (i.e. the staring scene), ultimately, his motives are pure.
Overall, it's not a perfect film. As I said, as a straight-up love story, the film has its fair share of problems, but as a fable about the beauty and power of human kindness, it really is an exceptional yarn.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Sharing Sinigang in Sapporo: A Review of Kita Kita
written and directed by Sigrid Andrea Bernardo
I haven't done the math, but I'm reasonably certain that in the 100-plus years or so that movies have existed as a medium of storytelling, a healthy percentage of the stories told have been love stories of one kind or another, which means that anyone looking to tell such a story will almost certainly never be able to tell a story that hasn't been told before. That's why I applaud even just an effort to tell a different love story, which is certainly what Sigrid Andrea Bernardo and her dedicated cast and crew have done with the charming romantic comedy Kita Kita.
Lea (Alessandra de Rossi) a young Filipina living and working as a tour guide in Sapporo, Japan, has trouble getting her longtime fiance Nobu to actually commit to a wedding date. He has made a habit out of forgetting their anniversary and frequently standing her up. She learns, to her shock, that this is because he's cheating on her with another woman, and the discovery proves too much for her to bear; she literally goes blind from the stress. Not too long thereafter, Lea is sitting quietly on the terrace outside her house when she is visited by her neighbor, fellow Filipino Tonyo (Empoy Marquez) who, after being repeatedly rebuffed by her, manages to befriend Lea. His multiple attempts to get her to eat his FIlipino cooking finally succeed when she agrees to eat his sour broth, or sinigang, as we call it in the vernacular. As Lea takes Tonyo, who is new to Sapporo, to the many places to go, their friendship helps bring back some light into the darkness that has shrouded Lea's life, and she finds that she may yet love again.
If the plot description reads like a bunch of romantic story tropes strung together to form yet another tired old romantic comedy, then good; the best way to watch this movie is to go in thinking you know exactly what's going to happen, only to find out that you don't.
The first thing that really struck me about this movie was how utterly authentic it felt, and this was down to Bernardo's writing and some winning lead actors in De Rossi and Marquez. De Rossi, dubbed by some writers as the "Indie Film Queen" really shines in movies like this, and despite her towering stature and striking good looks, she projects her characters as being very down to earth. Marquez, who up until this point has basically made a career out of being somebody else's sidekick or comic relief, finally comes into his own as Tonyo, the broken-English speaking Filipino overseas worker who has more in common with de Rossi's Lea than she realizes at first. Their time together onscreen is most of the movie's running time, and they make good use of it thanks to some wonderful dialogue by Bernardo (though one wonders if Marquez did a bit of improv considering his comedy background), and some palpable chemistry. The foreign setting definitely helps, as it helps highlight the sense of loneliness both characters feel so far away from home, and although Bernardo certainly isn't the first writer to adopt this particular backdrop, she uses it very effectively.
More than just tell yet another love story, though, Bernardo weaves a touching tale about the healing power of kindness. It's not quite groundbreaking and in fact it's the second movie I've seen in a fortnight or so using non-linear storytelling, but as someone I know observed Bernardo makes very good use of her storytelling technique. She's very efficient; almost every little detail early in the story pays off in the end, and it all ties up remarkably well. There are seams in the production, though, and one pivotal scene I can think of wasn't presented very artfully. Furthermore, while I get that the director probably chose the song because she liked it, I found her use of Air Supply's "Two Less Lonely People" at key points of the movie to be distinctly cloying and manipulative, a pet peeve of mine, especially in movies meant to evoke a strong emotional response. The narrative, I honestly think, could have held up on its own without it, and a proper score should have been employed instead, or better yet, perhaps an original Filipino composition.
Still, this movie, which had initially been slated for release in a film festival, was a surprisingly sweet confection, and it deserves the success it is garnering right now. May there be many movies made with the same sensibility and production value on display here.
8.5/10
I haven't done the math, but I'm reasonably certain that in the 100-plus years or so that movies have existed as a medium of storytelling, a healthy percentage of the stories told have been love stories of one kind or another, which means that anyone looking to tell such a story will almost certainly never be able to tell a story that hasn't been told before. That's why I applaud even just an effort to tell a different love story, which is certainly what Sigrid Andrea Bernardo and her dedicated cast and crew have done with the charming romantic comedy Kita Kita.
Lea (Alessandra de Rossi) a young Filipina living and working as a tour guide in Sapporo, Japan, has trouble getting her longtime fiance Nobu to actually commit to a wedding date. He has made a habit out of forgetting their anniversary and frequently standing her up. She learns, to her shock, that this is because he's cheating on her with another woman, and the discovery proves too much for her to bear; she literally goes blind from the stress. Not too long thereafter, Lea is sitting quietly on the terrace outside her house when she is visited by her neighbor, fellow Filipino Tonyo (Empoy Marquez) who, after being repeatedly rebuffed by her, manages to befriend Lea. His multiple attempts to get her to eat his FIlipino cooking finally succeed when she agrees to eat his sour broth, or sinigang, as we call it in the vernacular. As Lea takes Tonyo, who is new to Sapporo, to the many places to go, their friendship helps bring back some light into the darkness that has shrouded Lea's life, and she finds that she may yet love again.
If the plot description reads like a bunch of romantic story tropes strung together to form yet another tired old romantic comedy, then good; the best way to watch this movie is to go in thinking you know exactly what's going to happen, only to find out that you don't.
The first thing that really struck me about this movie was how utterly authentic it felt, and this was down to Bernardo's writing and some winning lead actors in De Rossi and Marquez. De Rossi, dubbed by some writers as the "Indie Film Queen" really shines in movies like this, and despite her towering stature and striking good looks, she projects her characters as being very down to earth. Marquez, who up until this point has basically made a career out of being somebody else's sidekick or comic relief, finally comes into his own as Tonyo, the broken-English speaking Filipino overseas worker who has more in common with de Rossi's Lea than she realizes at first. Their time together onscreen is most of the movie's running time, and they make good use of it thanks to some wonderful dialogue by Bernardo (though one wonders if Marquez did a bit of improv considering his comedy background), and some palpable chemistry. The foreign setting definitely helps, as it helps highlight the sense of loneliness both characters feel so far away from home, and although Bernardo certainly isn't the first writer to adopt this particular backdrop, she uses it very effectively.
More than just tell yet another love story, though, Bernardo weaves a touching tale about the healing power of kindness. It's not quite groundbreaking and in fact it's the second movie I've seen in a fortnight or so using non-linear storytelling, but as someone I know observed Bernardo makes very good use of her storytelling technique. She's very efficient; almost every little detail early in the story pays off in the end, and it all ties up remarkably well. There are seams in the production, though, and one pivotal scene I can think of wasn't presented very artfully. Furthermore, while I get that the director probably chose the song because she liked it, I found her use of Air Supply's "Two Less Lonely People" at key points of the movie to be distinctly cloying and manipulative, a pet peeve of mine, especially in movies meant to evoke a strong emotional response. The narrative, I honestly think, could have held up on its own without it, and a proper score should have been employed instead, or better yet, perhaps an original Filipino composition.
Still, this movie, which had initially been slated for release in a film festival, was a surprisingly sweet confection, and it deserves the success it is garnering right now. May there be many movies made with the same sensibility and production value on display here.
8.5/10
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