Collateral (2004)
Vincent (Tom Cruise) offers Los Angeles cab driver Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) $600 to drive him around for the entire night, but soon, Max realizes Vincent is an assassin and is using him to shuttle between his five targets for the evening.
For the rest of the movie, Vincent attempts to complete his assignment while Max attempts to thwart him. When he throws out the list of targets, Max is forced to meet with drug lord Felix Reyes-Torrena (Javier Bardem, in a wasted cameo) to obtain a second copy.
Mark Ruffalo is also wasted as Ray Fanning, a cop who comes close to saving Max, before he’s killed in random crossfire.
Michael Mann has a penchant for lonely outcasts. Hawkeye is a white man living among Native Americans, Jeffery Wiggand is ostracized for exposing corruption at a big tobacco firm, and Muhammad Ali’s popularity fades because of his stand against the Vietnam War.
I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of Tom Cruise as a bleach blonde killer, but this was almost a great movie.
Cruise proves he’s more than a generic action star, and Foxx gives one of the best performances of his career. However, the final third of the film is uninspired. Vincent’s last target is Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith), the district attorney assigned to Reyes’ case. Max recognizes her photo in Vincent’s dossier, and, haven fallen in love with her during a brief car ride earlier, inexplicably decides to take on Vincent himself. Despite his inexperience, cab driver Max outduels professional assassin Vincent.
I wish the movie ended differently, but it’s worth watching for the first hour.
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)
With his career in jeopardy after his radio station is bought by a conglomerate, Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) convinces his superiors to fire his coworker Pat (Colm Meaney) instead. When Pat returns to the station with a gun, Alan is sent to negotiate the release of the hostages, but his massive ego and social awkwardness continually hamper his efforts.
A parody of British television presenters and radio announcers, Alan Partridge was created in the early 1990s by Steve Coogan, Armando Iannuci, and Patrick Marber for the British radio show On the Hour. He’s a conservative, talentless hack, a shameless self-promoter whose career is perpetually advancing despite an inexhaustible propensity for major screw ups.
Coogan rose to prominence in a series of silly comedies, including Hamlet 2 (2008), and Tropic Thunder (2008), but he’s recently shown himself to be a nuanced and thoughtful dramatic performer in the excellent What Masie Knew (2012) and Philomena (2012).
Armando Iannuci’s television programs The Thick of It and Veep are two of the best political satires in recent memory, and his sensibilities clearly influenced the political aspect of Partridge.
Patrick Marber’s influence is more puzzling. He began his career as a comedian, but his biggest successes, Closer (2004) (based on his own play) and Notes on a Scandal (2006), are focused squarely on sexual politics, which doesn’t appear to be a focal point of the Partridge character.
Colm Meaney is a sort of nerd shibboleth. He played Miles O’Brien for over a decade and it’s a little jarring to see him in a non Star Trek capacity, but he’s very funny in a thankless role.
Coogan clearly enjoys playing Partridge and his enthusiasm permeates the film, but the movie is not as fun or witty as it thinks it is. It’s like a sophisticated, British version of Airheads (1994): a moderately amusing comedy, with only a few genuine laughs.
Like Father, Like Son (2013)
When Ryota Nonomiya discovers his biological son was switched at birth, he’s not interested in the feelings of his wife or the boy who’s lived with them for six years, he wants to immediately exchange the child for his “son.”
Ryota is so consumed by the idea of a perfect life, he can’t process the messy reality of raising someone else’s child, or, even worse, having someone else raise his.
Hirokazu Koreeda is a talented director who turns what could have been a Lifetime Movie into something more substantial: an exploration of the nature of family. It’s not a great movie, but it does have a compassionate, intelligent center and asks important questions about what makes a family, and if a father is a biological fact or something more profound?