Denzel Washington in "The Book of Eli"
courtesy of Warner Home Entertainment
“Washington Is A Winner”

Denzel Washington won a Tony Award this year for his performance in August Wilson’s play “Fences.” He also had much success with the film “The Book of Eli” which is now on DVD. In the film Washington plays Eli, a man adrift across the country after a horrendous event has occurred which has turned the world into a vast wasteland. He is headed west where he thinks there may be a better life waiting. As he walks solitarily on the road he must be ever vigilant. There are gangs that want to rob and kill people.

He comes across a town on his travels which is ruled by a power hungry man named Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie is obsessed with finding a book that he thinks will give him total power over the world. Eli has that book and so a war of sorts breaks out between them.

A young woman named Solara (Mila Kunis) attaches herself to Eli and demands that he take her with him on his way to the west. By doing this she puts herself in harm’s way as Carnegie will only use her to get to Eli.

The film is violent as Eli has a handy way with a machete and he uses it whenever necessary. He is a man on a mission and he will do whatever it takes to reach his goal. What that goal is provides one of the twists in the film’s plot.

In this movie Washington plays Eli convincingly. He handles the physical aspects of the role with ease and also is also believable in creating a man who is both violent and spiritual. His scenes with Oldman create a classic tale of good versus evil.

The weak link in the film is Kunis. She is a very pretty young woman and is not a bad actress, but she seems totally out of place in this film. If she has suffered any hardships under the control of Carnegie they do not show in her face or her demeanor. There is no way to understand why Solara, as played by Kunis, would attach herself to Eli and place herself in danger.

“The Book of Eli” is a bleak film that never draws the viewer in to it completely. Plus the outcome requires a total suspension of reality and there has been nothing compelling enough to cause the audience to depart from a rational view.

The film succeeds purely on Washington’s magnetism, but even his staunchest supporters won’t find this to be his best role or his best performance. Maybe he saved that for “Fences.”.

“When In Rome” is one of those cutesy, sweet, nauseating movies that you expect to get better but it never does. It takes minimally talented actors like Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Dax Shepard and Will Arnett and shows them at their worst. And we won’t even mention at this point the abominable performance by Jon Heder. Believe me this is not a movie to watch when in Rome, Paducah or anywhere else. Just say no.

The story starts with Beth (Bell) being humiliated by her ex-boyfriend (Lee Pace). Luckily she has to leave town immediately to be in her sister’s wedding in Rome. While at the wedding she meets Nick (Duhamel) and is attracted to him but that relationship also stalls. 

Feeling a little pathetic Beth drinks too much and ends up wading in a fountain. For some unexplained reason she decides to pick up four coins and a poker chip and take them with her. For another unexplainable reason this causes the five guys who have tossed the coins and chip into the fountain to fall immediately in love with her.

When she returns to New York five men arrive to pursue her. They include a male model (Shepard), a painter (Arnett), a street magician (Heder), a sausage king (Danny DeVito) and our old friend Nick. The fun, and I use the term loosely, is in watching Beth deal with these five suitors.

Danny DeVito is fun to watch because he makes everything he does seem funny. He is underused in this film as is Anjelica Huston who plays Beth’s boss. Peggy Lipton and Don Johnson plat Beth’s parents and it seems more could have been done with them.

Arnett acts embarrassed to be in the film while Heder and Shepard overact to compensate for the lack of anything funny in the script. Bell is blonde, beautiful and boring while Duhamel is just inept as the romantic lead.

To add insult to injury there is a dance number tacked on at the end of the movie while the credits roll. Most of the cast members participate in this event much to their embarrassment and ours. There must have been a gun pointed their way from off camera.

“When In Rome” is now out on DVD where it might find more of an audience. Still the only redeeming features are the good looks of the two leads and the fact the movie is clean. You could watch it with your grandmother.

Don’t watch “Youth In Revolt” with your grandmother. It isn’t intended for her. Who it is intended for is the question. Was it supposed to be enjoyed by teens? - well that pesky R rating hampers that slot. Well maybe older teens and young adults? - no they have a little more taste than to be suckered in by the banality of all that is offered on screen. Perhaps devoted Michael Cera fans? – there are no die hard Michael Cera fans.

In the film Michael Cera plays Nick Twisp, a sixteen year old high school student who lives with his sex-loving mother (Jean Smart) and her various array of boyfriends (Zack Galifianakis and Ray Liotta). On a summer holiday to check out some property with his mother and her boy toy, Nick meets Sheenie Saunders (Portia Doubleday) and instantly falls in love.

When he returns home he devises a plan to get kicked out of his mother’s house so he will have to go live with his father (Steve Buscemi) in the town where Sheenie lives. He creates a psychological alter ego named Francois Dillinger who comes up with the crimes for Nick to commit.

The movie may be all about Nick and his plans to revolt but it ends up being about Nick and his revolting actions. Everything about the movie is revolting from the way Nick’s character breezily commits crimes, to his casual attitude about sex (no worry about STD’s, pregnancies, or anything else).

Then there is the depiction of the adults in the film. Sheenie’s parents (Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh) are religious fanatics so you know they are losers. Nick’s mother lives off the child support she gets from Nick’s father but that is the extent of her motherly concerns. Nick’s father begrudges his son the support he has to pay so there is no security there. Plus Sheenie’s older brother (Justin Long) just wants to get by and get high.

At the top of this heap is Cera. He has been playing the teen age virgin boy for so many movies now that you can’t imagine him in any other role. The problem is he started out annoying in this part and it has gotten more annoying as the years and the films have gone by. If he has an ounce of talent in him he ought to try something different and do it quickly before the parade passes him by.

“Youth In Revolt” will probably find a moderate audience now that it is out on DVD. There the kids who couldn’t get into the R rated movie theaters will sneak a peek at home. Hopefully that will not be enough to justify another creation of this type of film.

For more entertainment look to “Everwood: The Complete Third Season.” This popular show has a lot of love in the air for these episodes. There are twenty-two of them in all and the five disc set has some unaired scenes to boot. You also get some bloopers which I always enjoy.

The series stars Gregory Smith, Debra Mooney, Emily Van Camp and Treat Williams. The central theme is the relationship between a father and his son but there are a lot of other complex relationships on screen. Watching them sort out is the fun and the basis of the entertainment of the show.

You also get complex relationships on “HawthoRNe.” This popular TNT series, which is beck for a second season this month, stars Jada Pinkett Smith Christina Hawthorne, a Chief Nursing Officer. She is a widow and the mother of one daughter. Getting herself and her daughter through their grief was the crux of the first season.

Michael Vartan is the Chief of Surgery and Hawthorne’s friend and possible love interest. That isn’t resolved in the first season, but a lot of other things are. Joanna Cassidy is outstanding in her role as Christina’s mother in law and Hannah Hodson makes her mark as Christina’s daughter Camille.

There is a lot of good acting and a lot of good storylines in “HawthoRNe: The Complete First Season.”
 

 

 

 

 

©2010 Jackie K. Cooper

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