Punishment and (then) Crime

Good guy Henry (Keanu Reeves) finds himself framed by “friends” – a fall guy for a bank robbery he did not commit, in Henry's Crime. Losing his wife, and three years of his life in jail, Henry returns to attempt the robbery he did not commit. His accomplices – fellow convict Max (James Caan), buddy Joe (Eddie Hoch), security guard Frank (Bill Duke), and the charming Julie (Vera Farmiga) who becomes the object of Henry’s affection. The plot is straightforward, with the attempt at drawing analogies to Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard’s themes of loss and moving on being applied to situations that are not entirely contextual. Reasonable fare with moments of genuine humor, and of thespian brilliance from the mercurial Julie

12/20

Time Stands Still

The smartly up-and-coming Jake Gyllenhaal, as Colter Stevens, has his work cut out shuttling back and forth between an indeterminate living state, and “projection” into the last eight minutes of the existence of a Chicago-bound train. Over successive rounds of moral suation, exhaustion, and growing attachment to one fellow passenger Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), Colter Stevens is tracking down his quarry – the erstwhile bomber on the train, who currently has larger targets on his mind. However, if Colter Stevens succeeds at this novel form of time-travel detective work, does it mean eventual commercialization of the technology behind Source Code, or an ending that would be closer to the audience’s heart? The movie adds nothing extraordinary or illuminating to the sci-fi genre, but is well-executed and quite a watch. In the meantime, Jake Gyllenhaal awaits his train to the next level in Hollywood to fully exploit his rather obvious thespian talent

14.5/20

The Times they are a Changing

Somehow Dylan’s timeless lines come to mind. America is changing, the Age of Superheroes is giving way to the Age of Introspection and turbulence. And the movies are following suit. Motivational guru and executor of retrenchment mandates, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) criss-crosses America in a life wherein emotional detachment is part and parcel of what he needs to be, But how detached is he? Up in The Air is about Ryan making the connection with what he believes to be a kindred perpetually airborne soul, and then losing it. It is about a man, bereft of family and emotion, his only definable goal in life being the accumulation of 10 million frequent flyer miles, landing in bland landscapes, spreading the chill wind even as he ostensibly helps people find meaning in their new state of catastrophe. Most of all, it is about the relationship between Ryan and Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a newly recruited hotshot, who breaks in with new paradigms of operational efficiency in the art of firing people, but eventually finds her soul. This is a difficult movie to watch in parts, and I really wonder what kind of people labeled this in the comedy genre. This is a different Clooney, detached, reserved and vulnerable, as he changes with the ebb and flow of those whose lives he is tasked to change for the worse

16/20