Anmaru

THE ASSIGNMENT, 1997

Director: Christian Duguay

Writers: Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai

Actors: Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kingsley

The Assignment sounded very promising. Donald Sutherland, a fine Canadian actor, playing a CIA agent: good. Ben Kingsley: good. Aidan Quinn: OK, fine. A plot involving getting rid of Carlos the Jackal, an actual terrorist who in real life is now serving a life sentence in a Paris prison. Couldn’t be bad.

Sadly, it was. This film had a lot of potential, but it uses a plot device that asks us to suspend way too much disbelief.

It all hinges on a plan dreamed up by CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland). He trains US naval officer, Annibal Ramirez (Quinn), who is the double of Carlos, to impersonate Carlos. The plan is to discredit Carlos, so that the KGB, one of his patrons, will assassinate him. The training involves hardships and mind games, so that Ramirez starts to lose his nice-ordinary-guy persona and take on some of the dark-side aspects of Carlos. So far, so good: some possibilities here. But the training verges on silliness, the dialogue is portentous, and everything is treated as deadly serious. The whole thing needs more variation — more light and shade.

It all gets way out of control when Ramirez is trained to impersonate Carlos sexually by a former lover of his. Oh, come on! is the discerning viewer’s likely response at that point.

The action moves to Libya and gets into full rooftop leaping, car chasing, innocent passerby scattering, mode. No cliché of the genre is left unexplored: cars are driven down stone steps, bodies crash through windows into people’s homes or teeter on the edge and then tumble off high buildings, cars crash and explode.

Claudia Ferri, as Ramirez’ wife, is convincing as their family life disintegrates owing to his personality change. The rest of the lesser characters are one-dimensional. Aidan Quinn, playing both Ramirez and Carlos, was fine, although his accent varied at times when it wasn’t intended to. Donald Sutherland does his usual, chilling rendition of a morally bankrupt character: over the top, of course, but it’s that kind of a movie. Ben Kingsley has a nice role in the early scenes as a Mossad agent who thinks Ramirez is Carlos. But any nuances in his performance become lost as things turn farcical. This is the fate of the film as a whole.

PAINTED LADY, 1998

Director: Julian Jarrold

Writer: Allan Cubitt

Actors: Helen Mirren, Iain Glen, Franco Nero, Iain Cuthbertson

This was a two-part made-for-TV movie, but it’s not in any way inferior to a film made for the theatre. It’s a murder mystery, with lots of fine art references to appeal to art history lovers.  “Judith Beheading Holofernes” by Artemisia Gentileschi almost has a role of its own.

Helen Mirren has a great part as Maggie Sheridan, an aging musician who does her own makeover to pose as an art buyer. She plays both the if-Janis-Joplin-had-lived character and the if-I-had-been-born-a-Polish-Countess character perfectly. Not surprisingly, the part was written specifically for her.

When the film opens, Maggie is living in a guest cottage on the Irish estate of Sir Charles Stafford, where she has been enjoying an extended recovery from decades of fast living. She is drawn into the world of art dealing, both legitimate and not, as a result of the murder of Sir Charles.

Lesley Manville and Michael Maloney, as her respectable and successful art historian sister and art dealer brother-in-law, provide a great contrast to Mirren’s character. Iain Glen as her childhood friend Sebastian Stafford and Franco Nero as dealer Robert Tassi are appealing characters. But it’s definitely Mirren’s movie and very entertaining.

Art lovers will enjoy the not-so-subtle references. Mirren surprised in her bath by her brother-in-law is a great scene and we can all imagine what is going to happen to Sebastian.

I rarely get to see new movies. My viewing is usually done at home with DVDs from the video store or, more usually, the library, since our local library has a great collection and it’s FREE.

Three recently watched:

LOGAN’S RUN, 1976

Director: Michael Anderson

Writers: Based on the book by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

Actors: Michael York, Richard Nolan, Jenny Agutter, Peter Ustinov and Farrah Fawcett (when she was still Fawcett-Majors)

This was surely made to be a cult film. The story is set in the 23rd century after an unspecified disaster, when humanity lives in a sealed, domed city.  At the age of 30, people are supposedly “renewed” at a ceremonial event (in fact, they are vaporized).  Michael York and Richard Nolan play Logan 5 and Francis 7, “sandmen,” who track down and kill the smarter ones who flee the renewal (“runners”).

In a complicated and unnecessary plot twist, Logan 5 is told by the central computer to infiltrate Sanctuary, the place runners are aiming for. He and Jessica (Jenny Agutter) go together, with Jessica being the classic tag-along “girl” of seventies’ movies. (She has a thankless part, consisting of looking attractive and frightened. Farrah Fawcett has a brief and even more thankless part.)

At some point after they get outside the sealed city, they encounter the first old man they have ever seen (Peter Ustinov, for some reason reciting verses from T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”). Logan 5 finally figures out that something is wrong with the story he was brought up to believe. He goes back to tell the truth. After many fights and encounters, he and Jenny free the population and they all stumble outside, blinking at the sun.

You may have gathered that this is not a good movie. It is, however, entertaining in a bad way. It will remind you of early Star Trek, both visually — the men in jumpsuits and the women in neo-Grecian mini-draperies, the polystyrene sets — and acting-wise.

Because I told my friend JR that I had seen it, she lent me The Island for comparison.

THE ISLAND, 2005

Director: Michael Bay

Writers: Screenplay by Caspian Tredwell-Owen and Alex Kutzman

Actors: Ewan McGregor, Scarlet Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi

Ewan McGregor and Scarlet Johansson are Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta. They are told that the outside world is contaminated and they live in a closed facility where their basic needs are cared for. They wear white jumpsuits (of course). They look forward to winning the Lottery, which will send them to the Island (which they are told is the only safe place in the outside world).

Lincoln is not quite as contentedly zombie-like as his peers. He asks questions. He hangs out with McCord (Steve Buscemi), a technician who works in a behind-the-scenes workshop at the facility. When Lincoln gets into a forbidden area and sees the most recent lottery recipient having body parts removed, he figures out a lot of what’s going on. The residents are clones, being kept in perfect physical condition because they are “products” at Merrick Biotech. When their outside sponsor needs a replacement part, the clone “wins the lottery.”

Lincoln and Jordan escape with the reluctant help of McCord. They plan to confront their sponsors and ask for their help to expose Merrick and don’t believe McCord when he tells them that the sponsors won’t necessarily be glad to see them. “Just cause people wanna eat the burger doesn’t mean they wanna meet the cow.”

McCord is the comic relief and has all the best lines:

McCord: Jeez, why do I always have to be the one to tell the kids there is no Santa Claus?

…

McCord: I know you’re new to this whole human thing, but … backpacks for boys, purses for girls. Ya understand?
Jordan Two-Delta: We’re not idiots.
McCord: Well, excuse me, Miss “I’m-so-smart-I-can’t-wait-to-go-to-the-Island!”

…

Lincoln: What’s God?
McCord: Well, you know, when you want something really bad and you close your eyes and you wish for it? God’s the guy that ignores you.

The Island is a way better film than Logan’s Run, even allowing for the twenty-five years’ gap between them. It has a good story line and better actors. It’s silly at the end, when Merrick loses it, but overall it is entertaining and worth watching without the alternative substances you would need to get the most out of Logan’s Run.

WIT, 2001

Director: Mike Nichols

Writers: Screenplay written by Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson; original play by Margaret Edson

Actors: Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Jonathan M. Woodward, Eileen Atkins, Audra McDonald

Well, there was nothing light or funny about this film. The story consists of what happens in the period between Vivian Bearing’s diagnosis of ovarian cancer and her death. There are flashbacks to her earlier life as an English professor but essentially the film looks at how cancer treatment and hospitalization come very close to robbing a woman of her dignity and her humanity.

The surprising thing is how watchable this movie is. Emma Thompson owns the whole thing: she dominates every scene. Her performance is chillingly real. As a currently healthy person, I identified with her very much in the beginning as she refuses to play the role expected of her by the medical staff. But all those little humiliations and indignities mount up and add to the toll apparently taken on her by illness. She changes; her acerbic personality, assertiveness and wit gradually fade away and are replaced by a different person as her end comes near. It’s the performance of a lifetime.

Those who have seen someone die of cancer may well find that it brings back painful memories.

The doctors are two-dimensional by comparison. They treat Vivian as a case rather than a person. The young doctor, Jason Posner (Jonathan M. Woodward) is a former student of Vivian’s and there is a nice moment just before an examination when she turns to the camera and says “I wish I’d given him an A.” There are a few moments like this, when Vivian interacts with the camera, though I think it could have been handled differently.

The Wit Film Project provides supporting materials for medical schools in the US and Canada who wish to use the film as a teaching aid.