November 2005
Action Packed
High-energy films for November nights
FOUR BROTHERS ***
As a white rapper in an otherwise black world, Marky Mark lived off his tough-guy reputation. But once he became an actor, using his real name of Mark Wahlberg, he resisted the temptation of being typecast in macho roles. Wahlberg has since proven himself a versatile actor. In
Four Brothers, he takes on a role closer to his own personality, playing the hot-headed Bobby Mercer, the eldest of four foster brothers who reunite after many years apart for their foster mother’s funeral. The other Mercer brothers include ladies’-man Angel (Tyrese Gibson), family man and businessman Jeremiah (André Benjamin) and the youngest brother, Jack (Garrett Hedlund). When the brothers discover that their adoptive mother was murdered in a grocery-store hold-up, they decide to track down the killer and take matters into their own hands. Loosely based on the 1965 John Wayne film
The Sons of Katie Elder, the script offers deep characterization, humor and enough twists and turns to keep you glued to your seat. The casting is impeccable, as each actor seems to have been born to play his or her role, and together they form a cohesive and believable brotherhood that goes beyond the ties of blood. Even the most recent musician-turned-actor in the cast, Benjamin (
Be Cool), seems to have developed considerably as an actor. The ever-brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor (
Dirty Pretty Things) also adds to the drama in a supporting role as Victor Sweet, the slightly demented gangster who rules Detroit’s underworld and acts as the brothers’ villainous antagonist. Directed by John Singleton (
Boyz N the Hood), this character-driven action-drama lags at times with a bit of forced sentimentality, but overall it packs plenty of punch, both physically and emotionally.
German Release Date (subject to change) November 10, US rated R
www.fourbrothersmovie.com
IMAGINARY HEROES ***
Imaginary Heroes was a rare gem at the Munich Film Festival last summer and, if you happened to miss it, you’re lucky enough to have another chance to see it this month. The tagline for the film is “People are never who they seem to be” and, with the growing number of dysfunctional families in the world, this line is truer than we’d like to admit. It seems it is not uncommon, after being part of a seemingly stable family for many years, for someone to wake up and find they’re a completely different person from who they thought they were. The Travis family is no different and, when one morning the successful and popular elder son, Matt (Kip Pardue), is found dead with a self-inflicted gun wound, the family takes a spin downward. Oscar-nominee Sigourney Weaver (
Alien) leads the stellar cast as Sandy Travis, the pot-smoking mother trying to stay sane under the excruciating weight of all the skeletons in her family’s closet. Her husband, Ben (Jeff Daniels), doesn’t handle the sudden loss of his favorite son terribly well and spends most of the film in a near-catatonic state of grief. This leaves the youngest son, Tim (Emile Hirsch), to fend for himself in his last year of high school, as he tries to come to terms with all the hardships that youth has to offer. Twenty-five-year-old, first-time director Dan Harris finds a nice balance between family drama and the coming-of-age story of its young protagonist. The script, also written by Harris, provides enough comic relief in the right places to prevent the film from getting too heavy for too long. The drama is propelled forward with some wonderful acting from all its leads, and we finally understand the old adage that in the midst of difficulty lies opportunity.
German Release Date (subject to change) November 10, US rated R
www.sonyclassics.com/imaginary
New release on DVD
WAR OF THE WORLDS **
There was much controversy among German film critics over this film because the distribution company was trying to control when the press was allowed to print the reviews. Add to that all the hype manufactured by the marketing executives, and it was almost inevitable that this film was destined to crack from the word go. Not that the production values and special effects aren’t top notch, or that the frantic acting from its leads isn’t, well, frantic, but because we’ve seen it all before, from
Independence Day to about a thousand other films. Tom Cruise (
Mission: Impossible) plays Ray Ferrier, a working-class stiff and poor excuse for a weekend dad who must come to terms with his weaknesses when aliens try to take over the world. The film does have some tense,
Jaws-like moments, with the requisite music building up the tension, but overall the script is rather cartoonish. It’s a difficult task to combine spectacle and sentimentality in a film, and even Steven Spielberg (
The Terminal), one of the most popular directors of our generation, doesn’t quite pull it off with this one.
German Release Date (subject to change) November 15, US rated PG-13
www.waroftheworlds.com
