The Films of Peter Berg
Very Bad Things (September 21/07)
Written and directed by Peter Berg, Very Bad Things follows a group of friends - including Christian Slater's Robert, Jeremy Piven's Michael, and Jon Favreau's Kyle - as they find themselves in a whole mess of trouble after a bachelor party goes horribly wrong. Berg has infused the proceedings with an exceedingly dark sensibility that's admittedly a lot of fun for a while, and there's certainly no denying the effectiveness of some of these plot twists (particularly as the filmmaker places these people in increasingly horrific situations). But there does come a point at which the various characters, riddled with guilt and paranoia, begin to ceaselessly argue with one another, ensuring that the film adopts a fairly unpleasant sort of vibe. That being said, Very Bad Things is ultimately redeemed by a finale that's just jaw-dropping in its cruelty towards the surviving characters - clinching the movie's status as one of the more effective black comedies to come around in quite some time.
out of
The Rundown
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Friday Night Lights
The Kingdom (November 12/07)
The Kingdom follows a ragtag group of FBI agents - including Jamie Foxx's Ronald Fleury, Chris Cooper's Grant Sykes, and Jason Bateman's Adam Leavitt - as they surreptitiously arrive in Saudi Arabia to solve a terrorist act against American soldiers, with the bulk of the movie essentially playing out like an overlong and overwrought episode of CSI. There's exceedingly little within The Kingdom that's been designed to capture (and hold) the viewer's interest, as director Peter Berg and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan consistently place the emphasis on the agents' increasingly banal investigation. And because the film's various characters are left undeveloped beyond their most superficial attributes - ie Foxx's Fleury is the gruff leader, Bateman's Leavitt is the wacky sidekick, etc - it's virtually impossible to care about their efforts at solving the crime (it's even more difficult to muster up any concern for their well-being once things start to get dangerous). Such problems are exacerbated by Berg's uniformly questionable directorial choices, with his relentless and thoroughly distracting use of shaky camerawork easily the film's most egregious failing (the needlessly overlapping dialogue comes in at a close second, however). The relatively thrilling third-act action sequence isn't quite strong enough to excuse the ineffectiveness of everything that's come before it, and there's little doubt that The Kingdom ultimately comes off as nothing less than a total misfire.
out of
