The Debt is a pretty good movie about 3 Israeli agents who have the task of going to capture a war criminal from East Berlin. The movie begins with them coming back to Isreal to a heroes welcome, then flashes 30 years later to them celebrating a book being released about their heroic capture and killing of the Surgeon of Berkinau. Rachel's (Helen Mirren/Jessica Chastain) daughter writes the book, and Rachel reads and excerpt from the book to open the story of how they captured him. Then, after months of captivity, he escapes, but after fighting with him, Rachel crawls over and shoots him from the balcony and he dies. There begins to be some sense of doubt cast from some people in the Ukraine about what, actually, happened. The movie then flashes back and walks through the whole event to show whether the events are exactly as told in the book. The only part that was confusing was who was who in the flashbacks and flash forwards, but you can figure it out. The ending is slightly anti-climatic. It is not a great movie, but I would reccommend it. 3 M&Ms.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Take Shelter
I really enjoyed Take Shelter. I can't decide if I'm giving a little more credit because of the writer/director being from Arkansas, or if that it is just that good of a movie. Jeff Nichols is the writer/director and you should go ahead and expect big things coming from him. His next movie Mud was filmed in Dumas, and has A List actors (McConaughey, Witherspoon). It will make him a lot more known.
Back to Take Shelter. Take Shelter is about a man and his family in Ohio. They are just a blue collar family living their normal lives. Michael Shannon plays Curtis. He begins to have these nightmares of an apocolypse coming. Nichols does a great job of making these nightmares seem real. Curtis begins to think that he may be like his mother and be schizophrenic. Because of the dreams he begins to take out loans to expand the family storm shelter to prepare for what his nightmares are telling him. His wife and friends begin to get very concerned. There are many great scenes in the movie, but it would give away some things to tell them here. I know Michael Shannon will, most likely, get snubbed for nominations, but he deserves one for his job in this movie. At the end of the day, he is the one that makes Take Shelter along with the great direction of Jeff Nichols. Jessica Chastain is pretty amazing, too. She has come out of no where this year with roles in: The Debt, Take Shelter, The Help, and The Tree of Life. She does so great making you feel the pain for the man she loves so dearly, but not quite knowing if he's crazy or not.
If you don't like these kinds of slow moving non-big box office type movies, then don't waste your time. If you do enjoy movies that tell a story and let the audience decide some things for themselves, then you'll love it. If you stick around for the credits you get to hear a Ben Nichols song (lead singer of Lucero), too! His brother is Jeff Nichols for those that don't know. 4 M&Ms
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)