Category: Steven Soderbergh

INSOMNIA

By Marc S. Sanders

Insomnia is an unusual kind of crazed killer pursuit because the hero is initially implied to be compromised, and before the first act of the picture ends, we see that he truly is not as noble as he is described.  This Christopher Nolan film, one of the few that neither he nor his brother Jonathan wrote, is headlined by three Oscar winners and they beautifully absorb this insightful script from writer Hillary Seitz.

Al Pacino is a celebrated Los Angeles Detective named Will Dormer.  When we see him arriving aboard a propeller plane into the foggy town of Night Mute, Alaska with his partner Hap Eckart (Martin Donovan), he looks weary and worn out.  Greeted with warm welcomes by a fan of his is Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) and his old friend Chief Nyback (Paul Dooley).  Will has been special requested to investigate the murder of a young girl found in a trash heap, strangled to death.  Happenings like this do not occur often in Night Mute.  So, it is best to use the assistance of an expert.

Right away, Will is ready to get to work by visiting the girl’s boyfriend at school.  What he doesn’t realize is that it is ten o’clock at night. At this time of year, a midnight sun lasts twenty-four hours over this little getaway.  After he’s had a chance to investigate the victim’s body and go over the autopsy notes, the discovery of her bookbag leads to the prime suspect, mystery writer Walter Finch (Robin Williams).  A raid on his home near the beach is initiated and it does not go as planned.  Will screws up while chasing down the guy who gets away. 

While it seems that with some cover up, Will can keep his terrible error in judgment to himself, Walter knows everything. Now, with taunting phone calls in the middle of broad sunlit evenings, Will’s insomnia is becoming a hinderance as he tries to do his job while suppressing his own personal guilt and egregious acts.

The duality of Pacino versus Williams is reminiscent of Eastwood against Malkovich in In The Line Of Fire.  It works very well especially because of the departure that Robin Williams takes from his usual fare.  Ironically, he portrayed another creepy guy in the year of this release with a movie called One Hour Photo.  Williams is just a different kind of cut from Al Pacino and that’s why their conflict works well.  Pacino’s gruff tone, which is all too familiar within the second half of his career, has a roughness against the smooth and calm demeanor that Robin Williams relies on with his dialogue.  Walter Finch appears relaxed, rested and neat.  Will Dormer is wrinkled, tired, and lonely with guilt.  This killer has an inescapable edge over the cop, and thus Insomnia stands apart from the other fare of its time from the likes of Fincher, Demme or the Scott brothers’ respective films.

Christopher Nolan captures a creepy and uncomfortable setting for an environment bright with daylight amid a corner of the world that still embraces the nature of Earth.  He is thorough explorer with his go-to director of photography, Wally Pfister.  Clouds and the blurs of fogs keep moments unclear.  The sun blaring through windows is disorienting.  You can also feel the chill of Alaska, even if you are like me and have never visited the state. 

Though the film was primarily shot in Canada, there are amazing bluish/white overhead shots of snow-capped mountains and expansive rocky lakes surrounded by green woods.  A foot chase midway through the picture uses this unusual environment as Dormer chases after Finch across an expanse of floating logs that trap him underwater.  As Pacino desperately looks for an opening to the surface, Nolan really makes you feel like you are drowning amid this unexpected trap.  (Try to watch Insomnia on with at least a 5.0 surround sound.)

Hilary Swank’s role appears like a forgettable partner early on, but her significance opens up later in the story as more is revealed.  I look at her character of Ellie and it occurs to me that a theme of mentorship builds the backdrop of Insomnia.  Ellie has studied Will’s most famous cases and he’s much like a celebrity in her presence.  Finch is a well-known author that built a connection with the murder victim who avidly read his novels.  This film is a good reference to the adage that perhaps it is best to never meet your heroes.

I was very surprised by the directions that Insomnia takes, and quite early on.  There are unexpected moments that occur very quickly after the exposition is covered.  Nolan’s film is not a carbon copy of the tough cop working to nab the intelligent killer that’s on the loose.  Bodies do not just turn up before the final showdown, and the office Captain does not unleash on the detective threatening to pull him from this case.  What you observe in Insomnia is not what you have seen a thousand times before. 

Will Dormer is in an unsolvable conundrum of doing the right thing, but can he afford to surrender to his own misgivings after a decorated thirty-year career?  I could not predict how he would get himself out of this situation where Walter Finch, his antagonist, has got the clear advantage. 

Insomnia is a well thought out script superbly brought to vision by Christopher Nolan.  A thinker’s thriller.

NOTE: It’s a nice touch to call Pacino’s character “Dormer” which in French and Latin means “to sleep.”

OUT OF SIGHT

By Marc S. Sanders

In 1998, Elmore Leonard’s best-selling novel, Out Of Sight, was adapted by director Steven Soderbergh, where Federal Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) falls in lust with Bank Robber Jack Foley (George Clooney), which leads to ridiculous, albeit logical set ups as a high stakes diamond heist is planned along the way.

I know years after Steven Soderbergh’s film was released an ABC tv series based on the Sisco character was produced. That was a misfire. Simply because the beautiful, sexy and most importantly under appreciated and intuitive portrayal that Lopez mastered was a role that could have led to another great film franchise of sequels to come. Carla Gugino played author Leonard’s heroine in the tv show. If you are saying “Carla who?” then ‘Nuff said. Sisco belongs to Jennifer Lopez.

Lopez and Clooney have great chemistry amid gorgeous cinematography on location in sun filled Miami and snow blanketed Detroit. Soderbergh shoots a great scene midway through where the two characters, on opposite sides of the law, throw caution out the door as they seduce each other in front of a hotel window view boasting beautiful midnight blue sprinkled with falling snow. It is one cool and very hot scene.

Sisco is always a step ahead of Foley. Her problem arises when after being held hostage by him in the trunk of her car following his escape from prison…well, she just can’t resist him.

My apologies. Out Of Sight is a far better film than I could describe here thanks also to a boastful cast featuring Dennis Farina, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle (how many films has he done with Clooney?), Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks (simply great as a hairpiece wearing white collar criminal), Michael Keaton (two Batmans in a film for the price of one) and finally a master of cameos reserved for a smirk inducing final scene. Make an educated guess of who I could be talking about.

Lopez and Clooney should have done more films together over the years. They are as classic a couple as Tracey & Hepburn, Beatty & Dunaway, Hanks & Ryan or Gere & Roberts.

This was a gem of a movie I mistakenly found boring when I saw it in theatres. What was I thinking? On a second viewing, 20 years later, I laughed, smiled and just couldn’t take my eyes off it. It’s just great fun.

Without Out Of Sight, Soderbergh, Clooney and Company would probably never have made an Ocean’s 11. Check out what became before their more successful collaborations to come.

SIDE EFFECTS (2013)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta Jones, Channing Tatum
My Rating: 10/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 83% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A young woman’s world unravels when an anti-depressant prescribed by her psychiatrist has unexpected side effects.


Side Effects is a rare creature indeed: a movie released during the first two months of the calendar year that is not only good, it’s stunningly good.  It’s too bad almost no one even remembers this movie exists.

Steven Soderbergh’s film tells the story of a young woman, Emily (Rooney Mara), who suffers from depression after her husband returns home from serving a prison term for insider trading.  After a series of events where she apparently tries to harm herself, she sees a psychiatrist, Dr. Banks (Jude Law) who prescribes a brand new anti-depressant called Ablixa.  While it is effective, it also comes with some side effects, including sleepwalking.

One day, Dr. Banks gets a call: Emily has stabbed someone to death, and she did it while sleepwalking, which was caused by the Ablixa.  Banks interviews her; she remembers nothing of the incident.  But now the doctor’s professional and personal life is in turmoil as well.

What we have here is a classic Hitchcockian story…actually, two stories for the price of one.  You’ve got Emily, the wrong woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She didn’t ask for any of this.  She just wanted to feel better, be a better wife, be a better person.  And the drugs were working: she was feeling better, doing better at work, doing better with her husband…but now, thanks to this drug and its unintended side effects, people think she’s crazy.

And you’ve got Dr. Banks, the wrong man also in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He was doing his job, prescribing medication that he felt would help…and it WAS helping.  But thanks to this unforeseeable tragedy, his practice dries up.  Who wants to see a psychiatrist whose patient killed someone due to medicine he prescribed?  This creates problems in his personal life: he just bought a new apartment, but now his income is severely diminished.  He and his wife fight more than they used to.  And so on.

…and that’s where I’ll leave it because, like all the best films, it’s better if you watch Side Effects cold, not knowing what to expect.  No doubt there are people out there who saw the various twists and turns coming, but I am not one of them.  I was utterly hoodwinked, and I loved it.

We are a culture of pills and quick fixes, the quicker the better.  Side Effects is remarkably even-handed in presenting us with both sides of the worst-case scenario involving this culture.  (Or I guess one of the worst-case scenarios, but I don’t want to get sidetracked.)  Not only is this strategy effective in providing mental fodder while watching, but it’s also a great storytelling device.  Whose side should we be on?  Historically, “Big Pharma” has been one of the handiest movie villains since the Nazis.  The public perception of mega-corporations with billions of dollars at their disposal, dollars that are used to cover up embarrassing media stories and pay off corporate whistle-blowers, is just too perfect not to use in movies.  But Side Effects gives us the other side of that coin, the dedicated physicians and psychiatrists who are committed to helping people using the best available methods.  If a pill can help people, who would blame a doctor for wanting to prescribe it?  …unless the side effects turned out to be a little extreme?

That conundrum is at the heart of the movie.  But on the surface, it’s just a fantastic mystery/thriller.  Soderbergh directs with restraint, using very few camera moves.  Everything we see is presented with a minimum of flash and maximum impact, so when you’re watching the third act of the movie, you can remember everything you saw in the first two acts with great clarity.

It’s a little bit like a Gene Kelly dance routine.  You know he must have worked for hours to get those moves down, but when you see him in action, he barely looks like he’s working at all.  That’s what Side Effects feels like.  The film is telling a complicated story, but it doesn’t feel like it’s working hard.  It’s just gliding along, showing you this scene, showing you that scene, ho-hum, pay attention now, all leading to the fantastic payoff at the end.

I don’t know if Side Effects is available to stream or not, but I heartily recommend it regardless.

THE LAUNDROMAT

By Marc S. Sanders

Steven Soderbergh gets a little too inventive in his delivery of revealing “The Panama Papers,” in his new film The Laundromat now showing on Netflix.

His film is too convoluted deliberately to drive home the point of shell company, laundered fraud within the world. As such, it makes it very challenging to comprehend every point crammed into his short 90 minute film.

The two Panamanian attorneys behind the scheme, Mossack & Fonseca (played with great duet chemistry from Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas) narrate the film by introducing different ways in which a shell company valued at everything on paper but tangibly nothing from an actual monetary standpoint.

Primarily, it focuses on Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep) a driven senior citizen who learns the truth of the plot when insurance does not compensate following the tragic accidental drowning of her husband on a boat tour.

Streep is brilliant as always. Such a natural with her monologues and her seemingly useless efforts to gain restitution for her loss.

The whole cast is excellent but the intentional confusion behind the story falls short of satisfying entertainment or enlightenment. I needed some moments where Soderbergh would give it to me straight. A diagram or a graph might have helped.

With The Laundromat Steven Soderbergh fails at becoming the next Jay Roach (The Big Short and Vice). Imagine if Roach actually got his hands on this script. Then there’d be a lot more buzz about this film. Oh well.