January 16, 2003
Heist
Heist is the latest caper movie from the very capable director /
writer David Mamet, who previously brought us another very
clever crime movie, House of Games, among many other movies. It
stars Gene Hackman, Danny
DeVito, and his wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, who stars in many of his
movies. It is a movie of cons pulling a daring heist and the twists,
turns, back stabbing and lies that happen before, during and after, in
a typically Mamet fashion.
The movie opens with a very intricate heist of a jewelry store, where Joe Moore, played by Hackman, is photographed by the security cameras. So he knows his time is limited and he plans on getting out of the game and heading to foreign lands after this job. But his backer, Bergman, played by DeVito, has other ideas and wants him to go through with a job that was planned before this last heist went awry. By withholding payment for the prior job, Bergman "convinces" Moore to pull off this last job.
This job is an even more intricate heist, involving airport security, airplanes, gold bars, disguises and other twists and turns. An added distraction is that Bergman also forces Moore and his team, which include his wife Fran (Pidgeon) and Bobby Blane, played by Delroy Lindo, to use his nephew, Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell), in order for him to learn from the master. There's more twists and turns than a roller coaster, as people aren't who they seem to be, backstab left and right, and otherwise don't tell the truth. No honor among thieves, as it were!
In many ways, this is a typical Mamet film. It has some snappy dialog, some interesting plot twists, and it is all played by some experienced actors. I used to be a big Mamet fan, really enjoying House of Games and the TV special The Water Engine Man, but I haven't been too wild about the last two I've seen, State and Main and this one. Heist is a perfectly servicable little, well, heist movie, but I think it had too many twists and turns that were just put in there to be twisty. And I could never figure out whether the Danny DeVito character and his nephew were in there for laughs or not. In the end, it seems like they weren't but they were written and played with very broad strokes.
It's a worthwhile rental, as Hackman does a great job with his part, and the two jobs are fun to watch play out. The picture of the DVD was pretty good, without any noticable problems. On the other hand, it is entirely devoid of extras. So watch it for the robberies and Hackman's excellent performance and you won't be disappointed.
Buy Heist at DVDPlanet.com
Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon
A jewel thief's nephew is sent along on a heist to ensure a longtime partner in crime stays honest about the division of the loot.
Woman in the Dunes
Woman in
the Dunes is a classic Japanese film from 1964 that explores
themes of society, alienation and human nature from a very offbeat
point of view. It has become a film who's images and meanings are hard
to shake even today, a couple of weeks after watching it. A man from
one of the most populous cities in the world is kidnapped and placed in
a deep hole in the sand, big enough to hold a house and a woman
looking for a new husband. He spends the rest of the movie trying to
escape, and yet does he really want to go back? What is he going back
for or to? Is the world of the big city just as confining as this pit in the
beach? These are just a couple of the easier questions that are asked
in this engrossing movie. Quite a different movie than I had
expected. For some reason, I thought I was getting a murder mystery,
with the woman in the dunes being a body that was discovered!
Niki Jumpei is a government worker who tracks down bugs on the beach as a hobby. He gets stranded after he misses the last train back one day and gets offered a place to stay for the night. He accepts and is led through the growing darkness to a very deep, wide, pit in the beach, where there is a small two room shack at the bottom. He thinks it all very quaint, although the climb down the 20' walls is a bit challenging in the dark. He finds a widow living there, who feeds him and then heads out for a night's worth of work, shoveling sand of all things.
A couple of mysterious comments from the woman confuse him, but it becomes a little clearer in the morning when he tries to leave and finds the rope ladder has been pulled up and he can't get out. The woman explains the town in the sand needs shovelers to keep the sand from collapsing the walls of all the other houses in the sand. And obviously, good men are hard to find here! He tries to rebel, refusing to work, but they cut off food and water and he finally cracks and begins to contribute.
He doesn't stop trying to escape, though, and finally manages to rig a rope with a hook. He has a big night with the woman, ensuring her sound sleep. Using the rope, he clambers out and makes a run for it. Soon he is being chased and eventually gets caught and tossed back in. It's at this point he begins to see the effect his leaving had on the woman and he really begins to think about his life and what goes on around him.
Just writing up the synopsis above makes me want to see the movie again. The cinematography was brilliant, with all kinds of great shots, from the expected far away shots of a man climbing the dunes, to ultra-closeups of, of course, sand. And water, an important adjuct to sand in the plot. It isn't nearly as artsy fartsy as the description may sound and you really are tied up in the man, his growing relationship with the woman, and with his increasing uneasiness with society, which reflect her feelings as well. When she first asks him why he is in such a hurry to get back to the city, he thinks her insane to accept life in a hole in the ground. But you can see his growing understanding of her point of view as the movie goes on.
The print is well done, although there are no extras really on this DVD. Hiroshi Teshigahara, the director, has a real short list of credits, although I guess he was pretty influential in Japanese cinema. I really enjoyed this movie and look forward to watching it again.
Buy Woman in the Dunes from Barnes & Noble
Akira
One of the first Japanese Anime films to break out huge here in the United States, Akira is the story of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, its biker gangs, psychic control, and huge explosions. An incredible feast for the eyes, this animated feature must be seen to be believed, even though it has been somewhat eclipsed visually by newer anime movies like Final Fantasy : The Spirit Within and Princess Monoke. In many ways, it is the archetypical anime movie, and a good place to start your viewing of these types of movies.
Amidst the ruins of Neo-Tokyo, a motorcycle gang roams the streets, looking for other gangs to push around. The implication is that they are not "bad" kids, just good kids doing bad things in a world gone all to hell. One of them, Tetsuo, gets involved in an accident with an army experiment and gets pulled in by the government, where it is discovered he has amazing latent powers. The government/army (ie, the authority figures), are trying to unlock the secrets of Akira, which is the massive ill-define power that nearly destroyed the original Tokyo 30 years ago. And Tetsuo seems just the ticket to help them control this myserious "force". The rest of the gang try to rescue him, and get involved with an underground anarchist movement who are determined to undermine the government and its efforts to control Akira. After many clashes, a huge drawn out denouement, countless explosions, and wild displays of color, all is answered. Well, maybe it isn't answered, but the movie ends!
This is my third anime movie (after the aforementioned Final Fantasy and Princess Monoke), and I have to admit I just don't get the attraction. Each of them has erupted into huge, chaotic bursts of explosions, energy, and psychic mumbo-jumbo, and have in general bored me. I will review Princess Monoke sometime soon, perhaps after I see it again, but it was my favorite, but that's damning with faint praise. While the animation is really incredible, and all 3 are a feast for the eyes, the storylines are vague and filled with all kinds of zen-like claptrap to explain the endings. And this was watching the "Special Edition", which supposedly has a much clearer English story line!
The DVD, on the other hand, is simply amazing, especially this Special Edition. All kinds of extras, along with a direct from the originals print, make for a DVD smorgasbord. But it wasn't enough to keep me awake during some of the more ambiguous, shall we say, explosions! But you should try it out, at least to see if perhaps it clicks with you.
Buy Akira (Movie-Only Edition / DD / DTS) from DVDPlanet
In Neo-Tokyo, bike gang leader Kaneda becomes involved in a top-secret government conspiracy when his close friend Tetsuo begins to exhibit strange psionic powers.