LEAN ON PETE

Charlie Plummer     Travis Fimmel     Steve Buscemi     Chloe Sevigny     Steve Zahn     Alison Elliott

     At first in this story, Charley (Plummer) appears to be a hapless teenager whose mother has disappeared and whose father Ray (Fimmel) womanizes (“The best women have all been waitresses at some point.”), makes enemies, and hasn’t much of an idea about how to parent, although it is clear that he loves Charley.  Quietly appealing, Charley clearly has some sense of responsibility as he realizes money is tight in the family and looks for a job.  He happens upon the Portland horserace track and Del (Buscemi), a grumbling horse trainer and quarter horse owner who puts the few horses he has left onto the track, and who takes a chance on Charley.  He hires him for a day to see how well he can do, then takes him on for a little longer when he sees that Charley is different from “most teenagers nowadays” in that he’s an able and willing worker.

     Del is a colorful, cantankerous type who forbids people around him to talk very much—especially if they get into personal topics.  Yet, he manages to find out that Charley has not been taught much in the way of manners, doesn’t have a mother, and lives with his father.  That’s about all he wants to know, but it does make him at least slightly sympathetic toward the boy.

     Despite the jockey Bonnie’s (Sevigny) warning Charley not to think of the horses as pets, he does get attached to the horse “Lean on Pete”, a not very good racer who might eventually be sold to someone in Mexico for its meat.  Charley does his best to see that doesn’t happen in all the ways he can think of, but it looks like the inevitable is very near.  

    Charley has had major losses in his life, and when he experiences another one, he decides he can fulfill two purposes in saving Pete and in finding the woman Margie (Elliott) who was a mother-figure to him long before.  The last he heard, she lives in Wyoming, so he has a some distance to go to find her.  He sees no other way out for him and Pete.

     Most of the story is about that journey and the tremendous degree of determination and fortitude Charley brings to bear on his situation.  A fine balance is maintained between Charley’s appealing personality (a number of people along his way reach out to help him) and pure and simple bad luck, mean people, and the limitations of anyone this age. 

     The drama is well told by British Director Andrew Haigh (45 Years) with fully formed characters and keeping up the suspense with only a slight slow-down in the middle.      Plummer does an extraordinarily fine job of giving a realistic view of this unusual teen as he did as wealthy J. Paul Getty’s grandson in All the Money in the World. Critical roles played by Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Zahn, and Alison Elliott round out the cast to make this an independent film well worth going out of your way to see.

A boy growing up in life without a niche is determined to find one, one way or another.

Grade:  B+                                                By Donna R. Copeland

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

Andy Serkis   Woody Harrelson   Steve Zahn   Karin Konoval  

Terry Notary   Amiah Miller   Ty Olsson   Aleks Paunovic   Devyn Dalton

     In the 2014 rendition of the Planet of the Apes series, Caesar as the beloved leader of the ape colony, tries to protect it from the encroachment of humans on their territory.  Because he and some reasonable humans are able to negotiate terms, the humans are allowed to work on a dam that will provide for desperately needed electrical power.  The truce is disrupted by distrustful parties on both sides—Dreyfus, one of the leaders of the military, and Kobo, the ape who retains resentment toward humans for the years he was held as a research subject.  Terrible betrayals and battles ensue, with the result that even though peace was attained, Caesar has been warned that the military is planning another attack on the ape community.

     This rendition is a battle of wills between the Colonel (Harrelson) and Caesar (Serkis).  The army led by the Colonel has attacked the ape colony, leaving devastation in its wake.  Caesar tries repeatedly to negotiate and reason with the Colonel, but the Colonel has gone slightly off his rocker, with a God complex and the firm belief that if he doesn’t wipe out the apes, they will wipe out the human race.  Caesar even tries to communicate with him simply by staring at him (hoping to shame him), but to no avail.  The Colonel is impervious.

     Caesar wants to go after the Colonel on his own, advising the colony to stay put, and leaving his young son Cornelius with Lake, but Maurice and a couple others insist they go with him.  Along the way, they come upon a girl and a dying solder who are mute and they have to figure that out, but Maurice is adamant about not leaving the girl behind by herself, so she becomes part of their small band.   This character seems extraneous to me, and I wonder about the purpose of its inclusion.

     What they eventually discover is that most of the ape colony has been captured and enslaved by the Colonel, who has one of the traitorous apes around to manage the enslaved, Rex (Olsson), a Kobo follower.  They hope to get inside and rescue everyone, and once again, Caesar insists on going in alone while the others wait a distance behind.  Unfortunately, Caesar gets captured, and it looks like all hope is lost.  But with a little luck and the reconnaissance of Maurice et al., dramatic things are about to happen.

     Director Matt Reeves and his writing partner Mark Bomback are a winning team in bringing fresh ideas to the franchise to keep it exciting and filled with tension.  They highlight the ethical dilemmas and flaws of leaders who may or may not understand the implications of their actions.  They underscore the importance of strategy in a conflict and the elements that go into eliciting the loyalty of one’s team.  They also seem to be keenly aware of the combination of luck and skill that go into military victories.

     Technological wonders in the series continue with the action capture of Serkis’ Caesar and the visual effects by Weta Digital most striking.  The extended battle scenes do become tedious in places, and I suspect they are primarily to show off the technology. 

     Humor is lavishly inserted in this version by the character “Bad Ape” (Steve Zahn), who is a different species from the apes and one who escaped an American zoo, avoiding Simian flu.  Softness is provided by the lovely mute girl with the luminous eyes and expressive face played by Amiah Miller.  She shows much needed tenderness toward the apes and lends meaningful aid, although I do not think this important enough to have included the character..

Despite this being the third in the reboot series, the filmmakers keep the story of the apes interesting and fresh.

Grade:  B                        By Donna R. Copeland

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

Viggo Mortensen   George McKay   Samantha Isler   Annalise Basso   Nicholas Hamilton   Shree Crooks   Charlie Shotwell  

Kathryn Hahn   Steve Zahn   Frank Langella   Ann Dowd

            Get on board the bus.  This will probably be one of the more unusual rides you’ll make this year in the movies—along with Hunt for the Wilderpeople.  It’s basically about a father who wants to make everything right (perfect, perhaps) for his wife and children, so he takes them to live in the wilds of Washington State and carefully instructs them in survival skills such as:  Securing, growing, and preserving food; administering first aid; maintaining physical fitness; self-defense; education (and boy! do they learn philosophy, government, and politics!); and music.  I’m sure I left something out, but you get the point.  These are kids who would put the regular American student to shame.

            Everything is going well (although we don’t know the back-story until later), and then a tragedy occurs, which makes their world topsy-turvy.  In order to talk about the rest of the movie, I have to spoil what it is—the mother dies.  But she doesn’t die at home—that wouldn’t present any practical problems beyond heart-wrenching grief—she dies at a hospital near the home of her parents who are decidedly Christian and have no sympathy for the lifestyle she (who has become a Buddhist) and her husband have chosen.

            What follows is a resounding clash of cultures, which is used to comment about society today, at least in the U.S. and maybe in much of the western world.  The immediate dilemma for Ben is that the children desperately want to go to the funeral, which Leslie’s father has forbidden.  It’s also a dilemma because he has Leslie’s will which specifically states what is to happen after her death.

            For all Ben’s (Mortensen) sage planning and execution of the “ideal world”, he underestimates how much different the world he has created is from the real world.  We see the incredible training and education he and his wife have provided for their children, but perhaps it’s because of the absence of the feminine influence when his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) goes to the hospital for an extended stay, Ben begins taking more risks than he should, e.g., climbing steep mountains during a thunderstorm, and over-applying his socialist philosophy by teaching the kids how to rob a store.

            All of this comes to bear in the last part of the film, which entails a complex and near-disastrous resolution, but an excellent one, nevertheless.

            Having been a fan of TV’s “Silicon Valley”, I was shocked to see that one of the actors in that show wrote and directed this film, Matt Ross.  It’s especially humorous because the character he plays on TV is shallow, without many social/moral values.  Clearly, Ross does have social/moral values, and wants to caution us about our current society.  Do our children know what the Bill of Rights is?  Could our children survive in the wild?  Do we really have an appreciation and respect for nature?  This is basically what Captain Fantastic is about.

            I understand that when signing on to this project, Mortensen wanted to assure that the tone and message of the film was quality based, and there would be no "bad guys."  After his discussions with Ross, they made sure, for instance, that the child actors could actually slaughter a sheep for food and play musical instruments.  Mortensen himself maintains a garden at home.

            Important to acknowledge is the contribution of Alex Somers to the music of the film, which elevates and perfectly captures every scene. 

There are so many reasons to see Captain Fantastic.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

Matthew McConaughey     Jennifer Garner     Jared Leto     Steve Zahn

      I had two reactions to Dallas Buyers Club.  One is admiration for the real Ron Woodruff on whom the story is based.  He started out as a self-centered, angry, playboy who didn’t mind scamming his friends, but then shored up after he became ill with HIV, and began to help others (albeit to his own advantage).  Since he was equipped to recognize scams coming from others, he took on the establishment by outing the FDA for unprofessional practices.  Ever the hustler, he forms a club requiring $400/month, and in return the member receives all the drugs available at the club for free.  (How he acquires these medications is part of the story.)  Matthew McConaughey gives a stellar performance as this figure, looking and playing the part of an emaciated loser-turned advocate for medical patients.

     My other reaction is to what I regard as the “Hollywood treatment” of serious issues, namely medical research and the FDA.  Granted, I do not know the true story of Woodruff, but I did work in a cancer center for over 20 years, so have a great deal of respect for medical practice and research.  Although the film does not explicitly advocate running to Mexico for treatments, it provides a model for those who are apprehensive about standard treatment in the U.S.  In fact, many, many people have done that to their regret, including some film stars.  Although I would not defend the FDA entirely, for the most part it has protected Americans from horrific drugs such as thalidomide.  Still, I think it timely that Dallas Buyers Club highlights an example of how pharmaceutical companies and medicine allowed their partnership to undermine their objectivity in testing the effects of AZT on HIV.  Another bother for me about the film is the example of Ron making a few trips to the library, which equips him to provide drugs to seriously ill patients and chart their progress as a means of testing the treatment’s effectiveness.  There is a reason why placebo controlled, double blind, randomized trials have become the standard in medical research.

     On the other hand, as a drama, Dallas Buyers Club is entertaining, suspenseful, and interesting.  Along with McConaughey, Jared Leto as Woodruff’s transsexual business partner is fascinating.  He becomes so by sheer force of his charm and astute bargaining with the homophobic Woodruff.  Eventually, they create a workable association, and it is nice to see Woodruff relent and develop caring feelings toward him. 

Matthew McConaughey gives a stellar performance as a playboy who changes to become an advocate for medical patients.

Grade:  B                                    By Donna R. Copeland