The Films of Brad Anderson
The Darien Gap
Next Stop Wonderland
Happy Accidents
Session 9
The Machinist
Click here for review.
Transsiberian
Vanishing on 7th Street
Click here for review.
The Call (May 28/13)
Armed with a hoary yet effective setup, The Call is a perfectly watchable programmer that unfortunately descends into absolute tedium as it progresses - with the ludicrous twists in Richard D'Ovidio's screenplay playing a significant role in the movie's colossal downfall. The storyline, which follows Halle Berry's 911 operator as she attempts to rescue a teenager (Abigail Breslin's Casey) from a deranged madman (Michael Eklund's Michael), has been suffused with elements of a decidedly familiar nature (eg the almost eye-rollingly conventional trajectory of Berry's character), yet filmmaker Brad Anderson, despite a recurring reliance on needlessly shaky camerawork, infuses the proceedings with a palpably tense vibe that's heightened by several gripping sequences (eg Casey's ongoing efforts at escaping from Michael's trunk). The Call's passable atmosphere persists right up until around the halfway mark, after which point the narrative takes a sharp left turn that is, to put it mildly, somewhat off-putting - as D'Ovidio slowly-but-surely jettisons the movie's thriller attributes in favor of a slasher-like feel that becomes more and more oppressive as time progresses (ie too much of this stretch features Berry's character stumbling and skulking through dark corridors). It's an unpleasant and terminally stupid final stretch that confirms The Call's place as a misguided endeavor, and one can't help but wonder just what drew Anderson, the filmmaker behind such superior genre entries as Session 9 and The Machinist, to this half-baked, amateurish material.
out of
Stonehearst Asylum
Beirut (May 1/18)
A progressively ineffective thriller, Beirut follows former U.S. diplomat Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm) as he reluctantly agrees to return to the Middle East after an old friend (Mark Pellegrino's Cal) is abducted and held for ransom - with the confusing narrative detailing Mason's continuing efforts at successfully negotiating the safe return of said friend. Filmmaker Brad Anderson kicks Beirut off with a fair degree of promise, as the movie, written by Tony Gilroy, boasts a strong opening that effectively establishes the volatile environment in which the story transpires - with Hamm's typically commanding turn as the central character heightening the film's decidedly auspicious vibe. It's only as the picture segues into its less and less compelling midsection that one's interest begins to flag, as scripter Gilroy delivers a slow-moving second act overflowing with tedious and mostly nonsensical political conversations - with the movie's arms-length feel compounded by an almost total lack of fully-developed, three-dimensional figures (ie most of these people feel like mouthpieces for Gilroy's perpetually impenetrable sensibilities). And although Anderson occasionally alleviates the mostly uninvolving atmosphere with compelling sequences, Beirut is, for the most part, a palpable misfire that often seems to be daring the viewer to comfortably follow the convoluted plot. (And what's the deal with Anderson's reliance on excessively ugly visuals?)
