Resurrecting The Champ - Review

When is a boxing movie not a boxing movie? When it’s actually about coming to terms with the deep-seated abandonment and inferiority complex issues you have with your derelict father. But of course, that’s only when it’s not also about the pitfalls of maintaining journalistic integrity while trying to become as prominent a reporter as the aforementioned father figure. That’s not to say that all of the above would make for a bad movie, it just means don’t believe the poster if it makes it look like another Rocky Balboa.

Erik Kernan Jr. (Josh Hartnett) is a sports journalist who spends his days and nights covering the stuff that fills in pages five and six of the Denver Times sports section. He lives in the shadow of his father, a man who took off when Erik was young to become one the most renowned boxing reporters of his day. To further complicate matters his marriage is beginning to crumble and he lies to his son to make him think he’s a better man than he really is. He’s a guy in need of a either a miracle or a therapist.

Fortunately there are miracles to be found if you know what dark Denver alleys to walk down. Kernan’s particular brand of angel is a homeless man whom everyone calls “Champ” (Samuel L. Jackson). One night while walking home from covering a match, Kernan intervenes in a fight between Champ and few drunken partiers out to take advantage of the old man who claims to be near legendary boxer Battling Bob Satterfield. It’s a suspicious claim since Satterfield was proclaimed dead decades ago. Kernan cautiously develops a relationship with the man and, believing Champ’s story that he is indeed Satterfield, sets out to write the article that just might save his career, his marriage, his relationship with his son, and give him the boost he needs to live up to his famous last name.

As Champ unfolds his amazing life story to Kernan, the already heavily burdened plot takes on another load in the form of Satterfield’s own tragic existence. There are plenty of poetic parallels between the two men’s lives and Champ’s life lessons offer Kernan the opportunity to recognize and maybe even correct some of his own mistakes before they take the same tolls on him. When Kernan’s spectacular article turns him into a celebrity overnight, things just couldn’t be any better. But it’s a reality ready to shatter like a boxer’s glass jaw when doubts are raised over whether or not Champ is who he says he is and Kernan’s integrity is brought into question.

There is a lot going on in Resurrecting The Champ; maybe too much for its own good. And yet, for all the emotional baggage flying around the movie still carves out a story that works, if only because its cast does such a phenomenal job.

Hartnett carries the mantle of an emotionally battered man well enough in his own scenes, but he pales in the presence of Jackson’s Champ. Jackson’s transformation into an old man who “isn’t a bum, just homeless” and he somehow manages to make even the most trite and pedantic monologue feel like pearls of grandfatherly wisdom. Even though Hartnett’s character is at the heart of the story, he comes across as playing a supporting role to Jackson who does a far better job capturing his characters’ tragedies and triumphs.

Even if Hartnett comes across as second banana, he’s in good company. Alan Alda, Teri Hatcher, Peter Coyote, Rachel Nichols and Dakota Goyo (who charmingly plays Kernan’s six-year-old son) all add wonderful depth to the film despite the thin lines they're forced to deliver.

An hour and a half long movie trapped in a two hour running time, Resurrecting the Champ’s key problem is that it tries too hard to pack in too much. The film (which is loosely based on a true story) sometimes feels like the writers had a wheel-o’-plot-points which they spun at the beginning of each new scene to decide which of many struggles their protagonist was going to have to deal with next. And yet over-burdened as it may be, it’s still a good film, even if it isn't much of a boxing flick.

Rob Zombie's Halloween - Review

Rob Zombie is back for more horror, and by that I mean both the content of his film and the execution of it. Rather than continue on with his maladjusted House of 1000 Corpses / Devils Rejects characters, Zombie is tackling a remake of a more classic movie: John Carpenter’s Halloween. The remake is very much in the vein of another recent remake of a classic horror flick: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In fact, the two remakes are so similar, at times I felt like I was watching that movie over again.

Michael Myers is the striking figure of the Halloween movies, not to be confused with the SNL actor of the same name. Over time and seven sequels Michael has been through a lot, although none of that really matters since this is a remake instead of another sequel. Zombie’s addition to the franchise is more time spent on the disturbed youth of Myers, which completely explains his sadistic behavior by surrounding the character with characters who curse every other word and fit as many sexual references into their speech as possible. The cursing is probably supposed to show the characters have no love, but it just comes across as sloppy writing that is desperately trying to show how horrible Michael’s childhood was. The result is yet another attempt to demystify an icon by showing their youth, a la Hannibal Rising and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

As a youth Myers slays his family and those who oppose him in several different gruesome methods, from beating them to death with an aluminum bat to slashing his sister seventeen times. Yes, in a Zombie flick the gore does flow, but it’s all irrelevant. Camera shots are so tight that the audience has no frame of reference for what it’s seeing a lot of the time, so that bloody mess on screen could be a broken face or a smashed cat, or possibly even just a nasty plate of spaghetti. Mixed with yet another movie that tries to make things “more real” by refusing use of a steadycam, the cinematography is one of the movie’s worst enemies. It’s called a “motion picture” but that doesn’t mean the picture should literally always be moving. Sadly, here, it frequently is, and with shots so tight the result is you have no idea what you’re watching or where characters are in relation to each other.

This becomes especially frustrating later in the film, as an adult Michael Myers breaks out of the sanitarium and returns to his family home for reasons unknown, pursued by his psychologist, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). Unlike the original, this time it’s fairly clear the pursued girl, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is related to Michael – after all, there’s an entire franchise that has established this and Zombie isn’t straying that far from familiar territory. What’s unknown is why Michael feels the need to return there of all places. Somehow, Dr. Loomis knows that’s where he’s going and follows, desperate to stop the killer.

Zombie damages his own attempt at a remake by exposing so much of Michael’s childhood. Frankly, once we’ve seen Michael commit such atrocities as a youth, there’s really nothing surprising or shocking about the acts he commits as an adult. It’s just a matter of time.

Unfortunately, time, or the pacing of the movie, is another serious problem. Part of Michael Myer’s threat is that he’s always been this slow, lumbering yet unstoppable force. Here he feels less like a lumbering character and more like a plodding one. Part of the reason is because the movie doesn’t really build towards any sort of climax. It’s just one quick encounter with Michael followed by an eternity of boredom. Instead of a curious terror we know nothing about, he’s far too familiar to us by the time the slaughter really begins, and the pauses in between that would normally heighten anticipation just kill everything.

On top of everything else, I really hate what Zombie attempts to do with the movie’s sound editing. Some scenes feature music with no sound effects, others feature sound effects and no dialogue. Michael’s typical threatening breathing is inconsistent, which, again, removes some of the menace from the character. It felt like Zombie just went into editing on a daily basis with a “this seems like fun today” approach. The result is just flat-out annoying.

I really didn’t mind Zombie when he was making cinematic disasters with his own characters. After all, he created them. Let him mess them up however he sees fit. There is no excuse for messing with this classic character, however, especially when so many sequels have already messed things up. If Zombie had decided to throw another sequel in, I probably wouldn’t have minded, but this needless remake is barely watchable, annoying on the ears, and a snoozer of a story that deconstructs another character that was better left as an enigma.

Mr. Bean's Holiday - Review

Most Americans haven’t really had the chance to appreciate the quirky humor of Mr. Bean, especially if their only experience with Rowan Atkinson’s bumbling character was the painfully dull Bean which bored theater audiences to tears in the late 90s. Those of us on the States side of the pond who were lucky enough to have a television station that aired old BBC shows know Atkinson has much more to offer. Mr. Bean doesn’t need a stupid Americanized family-comedy script to be funny, and in fact he does better without much of a script at all. Someone had that realization when they pulled together Bean’s latest cinematic adventure and the result is classic Mr. Bean comedy goodness.

There’s still a big problem though: Mr. Bean is at his best in small doses. Those ten to fifteen minute sketches from the show were absolutely perfect. In movie form Bean is still good for a laugh and as always Atkinson’s comedic talents are spot on from start to finish, but a solid hour and half is just too darn long.

Thankfully, even though you could pack a big complicated comedic plot into those ninety minutes, the movie keeps things simple and sweet. Mr. Bean wins a local contest and the prize is a trip to the beach on the French Riviera. It’s a straightforward starting point, the perfect sort of situation for Bean to get into trouble.

Setting off with video camera in hand, he can’t even get on the train without creating chaos. An innocent mistake causes Bean to accidentally separate a young Russian boy from his father. The train pulls away with Bean and the boy on board and the left-behind father, a famous juror for the Cannes film festival, thinking that Bean has kidnapped his son launches a nationwide search for his missing son. Not that I blame him. If I had a kid I’d be worried too if he was last seen in the presence of someone as creepy as Mr. Bean.

From there the movie is one wacky scenario after another. Atkinson carries the film with his amazing and flawless physical comedy and as always does it with a bare minimum of dialogue. As the story progresses the different scenes feel more like disconnected skits than parts of a plot and Mr. Bean’s constant shtick with the video camera begins to get tiresome. But just when it seems things can’t possibly be going anywhere worthwhile, they twist in on themselves to form a clever little ending that ties everything together while adding a very unexpected (but perhaps well deserved) slap in the face to the artsy-fartsy pretentious side of the film industry.

Atkinson’s gifts for contorting his face and body into the most hilarious forms are a definite treat, and he somehow keeps things fresh through the entire film, but even the freshest dessert makes you ill to your stomach if you have too much. Still, it’s nice to see a Mr. Bean movie that doesn’t make me want to put a plastic bag over my head to end the monotony.

Balls of Fury - Review

There are a few surprises in Balls of Fury. For instance it’s not the direct rip-off of Dodgeball that you might expect it to be, and the sport of ping-pong is more exciting to watch than you’d think. But the jokes are stale and the movie’s best moments come courtesy of Christopher Walken who, let’s be honest, gets bonus points just for being Christopher Walken.

The film stars a relatively unknown comedic actor named Dan Fogler. Calling him a comedic actor may however, be somewhat generous. Dan’s comedic repertoire consists mostly of being fat and sweaty, and that stops being funny after about five seconds. Fogler plays disgraced former child ping-pong champ Randy Daytona, and the once great kid ping-pong player he was has grown up into a hairy mess. For rather stupid reasons he’s recruited by the FBI and asked to infiltrate the ping-pong tournament of a notorious criminal named Feng. He agrees, since Feng is the man who killed his father or something.

Doesn’t matter. The result is that Randy is teamed up with a loser Mexican FBI agent (George Lopez), a blind master ping-pong instructor named Wong (James Hong), and the master’s super-hot niece Maggie (Maggie Q). Together they travel into Feng’s lair and then we’re treated to 90 minutes of gags designed to poke fun of Wong’s blindness. Yep, most of the movie’s jokes have nothing to do with ping-pong. Instead the film is scene after scene after scene of Wong walking into things, falling over, and pointing in the wrong direction. This is a one-joke movie, and it’s a joke that’s been done dozens of times before in movies a lot funnier than this one. Personally, my favorite incarnation of the hapless blind sidekick bit was in Robin Hood: Men In Tights, in which Robin’s trusty blind sidekick Blinkin ends up dueling a stone column to the death.

Chris Walken plays the movie’s villain and while funny, would been funnier if I hadn’t seen him playing this same character in The Rundown. Walken’s performance, as usual, boils down to him parodying himself. He’s not playing a guy named Feng, he’s playing a Christopher Walken playing a guy named Feng, and that’s funny because, well, he’s Walken. It’s entertaining even if it is recycled.

The weird thing is that I found myself wishing they’d drop all pretense of doing comedy and simply shown us more ping-ponging. Like all Americans, I find table tennis incredibly boring, but director Ben Garant shoots it in a way that actually makes hitting a tiny white ball across a kitchen table strangely exciting. If only he’d been able to work that same kind of magic on Balls of Fury’s lifeless, derivative script.

3:10 to Yuma - Review

Hop aboard this old western remake where director James Mangold walks the line between dark and light in a wonderfully filmed tale of redemption. Yes, groan, another remake of a classic Hollywood film, but Mangold adds thirty minutes and a whole new dimension to the original, which, let’s face it, only crazy Elmore Leonard fans have actually seen.

After losing his leg and his self-respect to the Civil War, rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) struggles to provide for his family during a three-year draught. When the old-west equivalent of a loan shark sets Dan’s barn ablaze, Dan’s passive reaction only helps whittle away the little faith that his wife (Gretchen Mol) and eldest son Will (Logan Loerman) have left in him. Meanwhile, the notorious robber Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) ruthlessly holds up a Pinkerton payroll coach intended for the Southern Pacific railroad. Though the gang is halfway to Mexico with their payload, Wade’s weakness for women leads to his capture. Rather than hang him on the spot, railroad representative Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) decides to make an example of Wade and recruits a team to escort him to Contention for the 3:10 train to the federal prison at Yuma. Dan volunteers to join the motley crew for a two hundred dollar payoff, alongside jaded bounty hunter Byron (Peter Fonda), a bumbling veterinarian (Alan Tudyk), and three other lawmen who don’t make it past the first act thanks to Wade’s wily ways.

Even in handcuffs with several shotguns trained on him, Wade holds the power over his captors, manipulating their weaknesses to incite mistakes. The journey is fraught with tension for Dan in particular, who sees the truth in Wade’s taunts that he can’t protect his family, especially when Will has to come to his rescue. Meanwhile, as the group traverses dangerous terrain, they fear ambush by Wade’s gang and the psychotic Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), or from posses eager to take Wade out themselves. But when the three-day journey brings dangers uniting captors and captive, Dan and Wade learn that nothing is black and white when it comes to heroes and villains.

3:10 to Yuma had me at hello when it pitted Christian Bale against Russell Crowe, two of the most intense actors in Hollywood. I anticipated a showdown as nerve-wracking as the finale of Tombstone at the OK Corral, and for the most part, I was satisfied. The plot is as exciting as it is complex, bringing a new level to the typical western by clouding the moral centers of the protagonists. But the writers went a little far in their attempt to give greater depth to the story, and the final act pushes the limits of plausibility as characters act without proper motive.

Even with a slightly disappointing finale, the film drives itself forward with outstanding performances throughout. Christian Bale positively smolders as the pent-up Dan, only his character sadly remains as lame as his leg the entire film. Fortunately, Russell Crowe puts enough “bad ass” in the film for the both of them. Not since Virtuosity have we seen Crowe play the villain and like Crowe’s Sid 617, there’s something deliciously enjoyable about Ben Wade despite his violent tendencies. While we’d expect nothing but the best from Crowe and Bale, what’s most impressive here are the supporting roles. From Foster’s absolutely chilling villain, to Fonda’s gruff cowboy, all the way down to a bit part played by an out-of-character Luke Wilson, each side character gives the film a gritty, authentic feel that pays tribute to classic Westerns while still reinventing the genre.

3:10 to Yuma is likely to do to this era what Tombstone did for the 90’s, and Young Guns did for the 80’s, resurrecting interest in Westerns through memorable characters like Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday and now, Ben Wade. Not quite as quotable as its predecessors, with less comic relief and forward momentum, 3:10 to Yuma is a darker, more emotional Western that gives the genre more heart but loses a bit of its soul in the process.

Knocked Up - Review

Judd Apatow gets guys. For years men in movies have been cookie cutter presentations of ferocious might or sensitive driveling. In his movies, Apatow brings a different breed of man: one who falls between the stereotypes of the sensitive man and the ubermensch and paints a complete picture of just how complex men can be.

Nowhere is this more true than in Apatow’s latest flick, Knocked Up. The 40-Year Old Virgin director tackles the worst nightmare for the single man – having a one night stand with a girl and then finding out that you’ve knocked her up. It’s a simple enough concept for a story, but thanks to Apatow’s delightfully complex characters and hilariously irreverent approach to the subject matter, Knocked Up runs the chance of being one of the most brilliant comedies of the decade.

Seth Rogen, who was one of The 40-Year Old Virgin’s highlights, takes center stage for Knocked Up, playing the epitome of irresponsibility and young male foolishness. Ben Stone (Rogen) lives in an apartment with four of his friends, smoking pot and insulting each other. His only prospective income is from a website he and his friends are putting together that lists when celebrities get naked in movies. For someone like Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl), a successful up and coming reporter for E! Television, Ben would be the last choice for a boyfriend, let alone someone to have a kid with. Yet after the two hook up after a drunken meeting in a nightclub, that’s exactly the position they find themselves in.

The idea of suddenly and surprisingly being pregnant has been done before in movies like Nine Months so it’s not the most original concept. In fact, the situation is practically cliché fodder for sitcoms. In Apatow’s capable hands, however, the plot becomes a way to shed some light on the male psyche and show that we aren’t all dick and fart jokes… although that certainly makes up part of who we are. Rogen’s character is joined by a smorgasbord of previous Apatow actors, including Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, and Martin Starr, as they make stupid wagers and carry on pointless conversations stoned out of their minds. Before the stoner humor can wear too thin, Ben starts buddying around with Alison’s brother in law, Pete (Paul Rudd), who Apatow uses to reveal some of man’s biggest fears and problems with being married with children.

Considering the nature of Ben’s personality, crude humor is prevalent through the picture, but somehow it’s an endearing trait for the character. Between pranks, like farting on each other’s pillows, there are some poignant moments about how these characters view life; moments audience members will be able to connect with. Rudd’s Pete compares life to an endless episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” without the humor. Ben goes off on a tirade about how women have been giving birth to babies for centuries without the damn “how to” books out there he’s being harassed for not reading. Apatow shows an absolute mastery for balancing humor and drama, never letting the weight of the story become pervasive, but always keeping the idea in mind that the subject matter is serious. These are people bringing another life into the world after all.

The only thing keeping Knocked Up from becoming an instant classic is how dated the movie already is, even in its release. There are pop culture references every couple of minutes and, as culture changes, those references will become obsolete and some parts of the movie may lose meaning. Apatow did his best to keep those references as up to date as possible, including the characters gong to see Spider-Man 3, which has only been in theaters for a month, but the movie will inevitably be dated. Still, Knocked Up is the strongest movie from Apatow so far and definitely the best comedy this year.

Hatchet - Review

In the post-Scream era, it's been almost as tough for horror filmmakers to create effective slasher movies as it was for Hollywood to produce convincing Westerns after Blazing Saddles. Yet just as that genre rose from the (artistic if not commercial) ashes with masterpieces from the likes of Clint Eastwood, Walter Hill, and Lawrence Kasdan, the far less reputable slasher flick has been reinvigorated in the last couple of years by a group of talented fans-turned-filmmakers. Eli Roth injected satire on contemporary American foreign policy into the mix with the HostelRob Zombie fused horror conventions with those of the Western for the masterful The Devil's Rejects, and Scott Glosserman deconstructed slasher clichés with wit and irony in the self-conscious Behind the Mask. Now we have Adam Green's Hatchet, a horror movie in the tradition of Friday the 13th and all its imitators that pretends the last ten years never happened. It plays its conventions straight, an approach that keeps it from working on as many levels as Zombie and Glosserman's films, but which ultimately yields its own rewards. It won't win any converts to the genre, but for people who are already fans Hatchet delivers the goods and then some, and Green's honest passion for the form in which he's working is admirable.

Hatchet's plot is a stripped-down premise with just enough story to motivate the carnage: a group of strangers gather on a boat tour of Louisiana's haunted swamps, only to become stranded in an area allegedly occupied by the region's most notorious monster. The killer, Victor Crowley, may or may not be a ghost. The legend is that he was killed by his own father in a horrible accident, but now, alive or not, he's on a rampage in the swamps. Green supplies a cross-section of victims, from a middle-aged couple to a token black guy to a pair of beautiful soft-core porno actresses (thus justifying the film's obligatory gratuitous nudity), none of whom are particularly engaging. They're mostly a shrill lot that range from the ineffectual to the aggressively stupid, and although Green aims for humor in their scatological banter, the vulgarity is nowhere near as colorful or clever as that found in the similarly profane Superbad. For the first 45 minutes or so the irritating characters seem like a flaw—who wants to spend time with these people? It doesn't help that Green is a lot less proficient as a screenwriter than he is as a director; his ways of showing the stupidity of one of the porn stars are pretty stale, like when she asks if 911 is the number for the police (that joke was old somewhere around Jack Benny's era).

But once Victor Crowley enters the action and starts killing people off one by one in classic slasher style, Green's intentions become clear. This isn't a horror film like Halloween or Psycho that operates on suspense; it's a body count movie like the Friday the 13th sequels, in which anticipation is the key. We don't fear for these characters' lives, we wait for them to die—and we want to see them die as disgustingly as possible, both because most of them are so annoying and because it gives Hatchet a chance to exhibit its true strength, some extremely inventive and graphic special effects. The gore is by none other than John Carl Buechler, an FX veteran (and, appropriately enough, the director of one of the better Friday the 13th films) who knows his stuff. The murders here are genuinely clever and shocking, no small feat in an era when the Hostel and Saw franchises have desensitized horror fans to the point of numbness. Yet the killings are also fun; in spite of the gruesomeness, Hatchet is so abstracted from reality (as opposed to the aforementioned Hostel and Saw films) that there's nothing remotely disturbing about it. And there shouldn't be—it's a rollercoaster ride, pure and simple, and once it gets going it's a great time. Green lifts from a bunch of early '80s slasher flicks, from The Burning to Tobe Hooper's underrated The Funhouse, and his obvious affection for the genre is infectious. His enthusiasm seeps into the celluloid, so that even when the plotting is routine and the dialogue obvious, the movie has a kind of giddy energy that carries the viewer through the static spots between the set pieces. Hatchet isn't all that original, but it gets the job done as a gory campfire tale—like its villain, its brute strength makes up for its relative lack of brains.

War - Review

War is a tremendous disappointment and here’s why: Nothing happens. The film is billed as a battle royal between big name action stars Jet Li and Jason Statham. That could have been awesome. But instead of actually having the two go at it, War opts to bombard its audience with buildup that never pays off. Statham and Li are on opposing sides of the law, but Lee Smith and Gregory Bradley’s script is too busy examining the inner workings of the Yakuza and director Philip Atwell seems more interested in shooting exotic automobile b-roll than actually having the movie’s marquee stars punch each other in the head.

The plot involves a cop named Crawford (Statham) whose partner is gunned down by a mysterious assassin named Rogue (Li). Crawford dedicates his life to avenging his partner by hunting his killer down and three years later he gets his chance when Rogue pops back up on the local radar. Rogue meanwhile seems unconcerned. Instead of worrying about Crawford he’s occupied with playing a dangerous (and rather boring) game of cat and mouse with opposing Japanese crime families. Whose side he’s on is a mystery, and ultimately pretty unimportant.

War’s script is so drab that most of the movie’s excruciating running time is spent on filler, with Atwell opting to replay flashes of things we’ve already seen over and over again or cutting to unnecessary, random club footage. I’m not saying there aren’t a couple of cool moments, every now and then the movie wakes up and does something interesting. Unfortunately, almost none of it fits together into anything you’ll care about; it’s a random collection of scenes separated by long, extraneous establishing shot after establishing shot. Atwell loves showing people walking into buildings or whirling his camera around dimly lit locales, for no apparent reason.

The best thing I can say for War is that at least it’s rated R. There’s this annoying tendency now to tone down action movies in favor of getting teenagers in to see them. I liked Live Free Or Die Hard, but the film could have done with a few more uses of the F word. Good action movies are supposed to be hard edged, violence isn’t supposed to be soft and fun. That’s why it’s violence. War, while it’s not exactly a bloodbath, doesn’t shy away from being an old fashion action movie with occasional gratuitous female nudity and a hard edge. It embraces being a guy movie, it's just not a very good one.

Of course what good is having an edge if you don’t use it. The worst thing is that when in its final moments War does get around to having Li and Statham’s characters confront each other, the fight is over before it gets started. You’ve sat through an increasingly convoluted plot to get to it, you’d hope they’d give you some sort of payoff, but there isn’t one. Statham and Li never really fight, except for thirty seconds or so of half-hearted punches. Then it’s over. There’s nothing here but a wasted opportunity.

Death at a Funeral - Review

The latest from director and beloved Mupeteer Frank Oz, Death at a Funeral is a painfully typical farce, full of wild coincidences and cliché plot devices; Luckily, it’s put together with such energy and aplomb that even though you may have seen some of it before it’s still surprisingly funny.

It stars a mostly British ensemble cast of unfamiliar names with familiar faces. If you’re not a hardcore Serenity fan then you probably won’t know who Alan Tudyk is, but when you see him standing bare-bottomed on a rooftop tripping on acid you’ll instantly think, “oh hey it’s that guy!”

As the title suggests, the film takes place mostly at a funeral, beginning with the arrival of family and friends and ending when the whole horrid, doomed to be botched affair is finished. Things go pretty badly from the start, with each family member dragging his or her own baggage to the thing, some spoiling for a fight. It goes from bad to worse when the sons of the deceased, Daniel (Matthew MacFadyen) and Robert (Rupert Graves), discover that their dead father has a dark secret which may or may not involve a midget (Peter Dinklage). Things fall completely to pieces when said small-statured sleazeball shows up at the funeral to blackmail them into keeping his mouth shut.

Around this central problem Dean Craig’s script introduces us to a motley assortment of characters who’ve shown up to pay their respects. If you have a family, then you may find some of your more annoying relatives represented quite accurately in them. In other instances, the movie relies rather heavily on wacky co-incidences like repeatedly mistaken hallucinogenic substances to amp up the comedy. Tricky to pull off without reeking of artifice, but Death at a Funeral is less concerned with being realistic than it is with getting that extra laugh. Like I said at the outset, this is a farce. Unbelievable and extreme coincidences are par for the course. Look it up.

Really, Oz lucked out on this one. His recent work as a director has been somewhat shaky. He put himself on the map as more than just a Muppet director by rattling off Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and What About Bob? in the late 80s and early 90s, but since hasn’t ever really found his way back to that kind of greatness. He brushes back up against it here in large part because his cast is just that flat out good. They’re a brilliant bunch of character actors completely let loose on the material, rattling off quips and grimacing for the camera in all the right places. The result is at times, gut-busting.

Death at a Funeral is a modest little film with modest ambitions. Oz and his cast showed up on set with one thought in mind: Get a laugh. That they do, to gasping effect.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - Review

In recent years documentaries have garnered acclaim while pointing out the shortcomings of governments, targeting questionable practices of corporations, or educating people about the migration habits of European swallows… or is that an African swallow? It doesn’t matter; the point is that all of these are documentaries taking place on a grand scale. But not every conflict has to involve large-scale enemies like this. The simplest conflicts are battles fought between two people, man against man. With this in mind, The King of Kong shows how the most epic of battles can take place between two people, over something as simple as a video game high score.

We’ve all played a game in an arcade and a few of us have even had the fortune to have one of our scores show up on that almighty scoreboard. I’ve probably had the honor of putting my initials on an arcade machine a dozen times, but I never considered how competitive people could be over those scores. I guess it makes sense. My ninth place score in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knocks whoever was in tenth place off the list, so a little competitive spirit to keep a name on the list is only natural. Now take that one machine and increase the scale to a world-wide list, and the pressure to keep a name on top, and you have a sense of what The King of Kong is about.

The most competitive of these games are the most simplistic: Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, you know, the classics. These games have been around the longest may be less complex, but become a test over basic video game skills: pattern recognition, timing, hand-eye coordination, and just a little bit of luck. Basic as it may be, somehow the national record score for Donkey Kong had been unchanged and unchallenged since the ‘80s. When Steve Wiebe found himself unemployed in 2003, he turned to Donkey Kong for comfort and set out to beat the store held by Billy Mitchell, a legend in competitive gaming organizations. What he didn’t count on was more than just a video game score, but also having to face personal vendettas, deal with favoritism, tolerate egos, and even have his personal credibility called on the line, forcing his submitted score to be negated. But if you can beat a score once, you can beat it a second time, right? That’s the battle The King of Kong captures on film, as Wiebe sets out not once, not twice, but three times to gain the high score on Donkey Kong and become a record holder.

The beauty of this man versus man competition comes from the two different types of people competing. Billy Mitchell is a “winner” personality. He’s very proud of his accomplishments, including his hot-sauce business and his Donkey Kong score. After listing his accomplishments he flat out tells the camera that with all of his blessings he’d hate to see the guy on the other side of the karmic coin. Wiebe certainly seems to be that person. Unemployed at the beginning of his Donkey Kong journey, Steve’s family talks about previous endeavors that were less successful for Wiebe, including a key state-level baseball game he couldn’t play in due to an injury, and an unsuccessful attempt at a musical career. The competitor breaks into tears more than once during his quest. The depiction of each person feels very honest, with both strengths and weaknesses being exposed and a conflict coming merely from their personalities, rather than an editor’s hand.

Despite an at-times-unflattering portrayal of these players (who sometimes appear to be the types who are far too old to still live in their mother’s basements), it’s hard not to get caught up in the competitive spirit, even over something as simple as Donkey Kong. By the end you can’t help rooting for Wiebe to get that top score. Not because he deserves it more than Mitchell (although Mitchell refuses to actually play throughout the documentary), but because he’s worked so hard for it and because the documentary makes it clear how much he wants it. Wiebe is the kind of hero we expect from fictional stories – a virtual Rocky who has been beaten down but keeps coming back for more – but alive and in the flesh.

The King of Kong is an incredibly compelling documentary that doesn’t rely on controversial subject material or fancy editing and storytelling to win over an audience. It’s a nice reminder that you don’t need flash and dazzle to win an audience and a video game score can be just as captivating as any other conflict out there. Take an evening off from governmental debate, explosive car chases, and high drama and enjoy The King of Kong, a thoroughly enjoyable documentary.