Review: STORYTELLING

THE ANTI-HOLLYWOOD KING OF CRINGE IS BACK

(reviewed on video)

   He put his foot in the door with a movie about a High School loser who gets made fun of constantly at school, whose sister gets kidnapped, and whose boyfriend/bully keeps telling her that he’s going to rape her.
    He followed that up with a 139 minute film about a pedophile, a murderer, a sexually frustrated stalker, and a kid who wants to cum. 
    Todd Solondz is the shock master of current cinema. His first feature film, , won rave reviews for its hilarious yet depressingly realistic look at High School. His sophomore effort, Happiness, won critical raves, but floundered at the box office and never found an audience. His newest film, Storytelling, featured somewhat good reviews (Ebert & Roeper gave it two thumbs up), but was censored to receive an R, came and went in theaters as quick as you can say Minority Report sucks, and has found little shelf life on video.
    It seems that while Solondz was supposed to be the “next big independent filmmaker,” there was no real audience for him besides the usual film fan or critic who was sick of the usual Hollywood popcorn fare that moviegoers eat up.
    Storytelling is a film that will seemingly disappear. No one has ever heard of it, and no one ever will. Todd Solondz, who was king at Sundance, has not gone Hollywood. He has not followed Linklater and done a big budget Western. He has not followed Rodriguez and done a Kevin Williamson script. He has stayed exactly the same and not sold out, and sadly, he is paying for it, all the while he is currently one of the top ten directors working today.
    Storytelling received mediocre attention from critics when it opened with an R rating instead of being unrated, as his last film, Happiness, was. Instead of cutting a sex scene, he has covered the scene with a gigantic pink rectangle. In essence, Solondz has told the MPAA to go fuck themselves. Fuck censorship. He wanted to make the movie he wanted. The studio didn’t want it unrated. The MPAA wouldn’t give him the R. So he did what no other filmmaker has ever done. He covered a sex scene up. You can still here what’s going on, and even Roger Ebert mentioned that by covering it up, the scene plays out even more extreme. It’s as if Jack Valenti is telling us all that we can’t see what is going on. We’re not allowed. Bad boys and girls. Look away.
    Storytelling is not, however, as shocking as Happiness, a film that was more shock value than entertainment. It does feature classic Solondz, though. There are many scenes where you cringe in your seat and want to look away. And while it’s not as good as Welcome to the Dollhouse, it is a very good movie, and like his other films, his reputation stays the same; you’ve never seen nothing like this, and probably never will again.
    The film is made up basically of two short films. With the subtitle of Fiction, Selma Blair plays a graduate student who is in a writing class taught by a Pulitzer Prize winning African American author who is very intense, and very cruel, yet always tells the truth.
    The second film subtitled Nonfiction features a loser played by Paul Giamati who sets out to make a documentary film about High School. He ends up entangled with a dysfunctional family whose stoner Senior wants nothing to do with college, even though his venomous dad played by John Goodman has other intentions.
    Both short films work. They shock, and entertain, but unlike usual Hollywood fare or movies that are only meant to shock or get a rise, Solondz understands these characters enough to make the film realistic and filled with real emotion. The stories work.
    Solondz, as seen on TV, is a loser. He obviously went through High School as the King of the Nerds. He never got the girl. He probably got his head flushed down the toilet. He was emotionally scarred for life. Yet instead of using his father’s gun collection to mow down his enemies, he went into film making. He has a warped, depressing, sadistic view of the world. This isn’t a happy, fairy tale place. This is a part of real life. The horror of High School, the failure of love and the pain of sexual frustration. At least Solondz is doing something with his life; making good movies. He’s one of the best in the biz. He hasn’t sold out. He’s stayed true to what’s in his head. And while some may say he’s sick and fucked up and needs to go to prison, I say go and make another film. Personally, I can’t wait. ***

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Review: MINORITY REPORT

OLD SCHOOL SPIELBERG DELIVERS AN AWFUL MINORITY REPORT

(reviewed at KOP with Jack on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2002)

    They were known as the Film School Gang. Nowadays, going to film school is about as Republican as wearing a suit and tie to High School. It’s for the nerds, the losers. Why waste your money and time when you can hit one out of the park for $7,000 bucks like Robert Rodriguez did? Or max out your credit cards to make a movie and become a star with a hot wife like Kevin Smith? Why waste your time at film school? It’s so…late 60’s.
    Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg went to film school and came out of Hollywood in the 1970’s as Kings. They rode on silver horses and walked on rose petals. They made classic epics like The Godfather and Star Wars and Jaws. They had everything. Sadly, twenty plus years later, in the year 2002, people are scratching their heads and wondering, “What went wrong?”
    Francis Ford Coppola’s last good movie was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and before that it was Apocalypse Now, which came out in 1979. George Lucas’ last good movie he directed came out in 1977. Steven Spielberg made two great movies in 1993, Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List, and followed those up with his awesome WWII picture, Saving Private Ryan. But after A.I. and The Phantom Menace (and Coppola’s last picture, Jack), we move into the year 2002 wondering if they still got it. Can they still surprise us? Can they still awe us? Can they still get the job done? Have they gone soft? Is it over?
    Sadly, it seems so.
    Attack of the Clones reinforced the depressing idea that The Phantom (Disappointment) Menace delivered. George Lucas was once a good filmmaker, but not anymore. Clones was all special f/x and no heart. The movie was silly, laughably dull, and preposterous. It was more a soulless roller coaster ride than a thrilling popcorn adventure. And with Steven Spielberg’s monstrously awful Minority Report, it seems that the Film School Gang has lost touch with the art that they had once mastered. The year 2002 has become the Year That the Good Directors Went Bad.
    Minority Report is a sci-fi picture loosely based on a story by Philip K. Dick, who brought us the ideas behind Blade Runner and Total Recall. The premise is a solid and interesting one, the script on the other hand, is just below riotously bad.
    The story goes like this: in the year 2054 (yeah, right…in fifty years cars will drive up walls and cereal boxes will be printed in moving animation?), pre-crime has become the hottest thing in Washington, D.C. The cops can predict the future. That said, murderers will be caught and arrested and sent to prison before they ever do the deed. Tom Cruise runs the project, and he’s the one who’ll arrest you right before you plunge that sharp knife into your adulterous wife. He’ll say, “You are arrested for the future murder of so and so.” But I didn’t do anything! you’ll scream. Tough luck. But it is right? What if it’s wrong? What if you grew a conscience? These are the “big” answers of the film, but most of these questions are bogged down in silly sci-fi chase sequences and a plot that goes south the longer the film is running.
    If you haven’t seen the previews, then you don’t know that yes, Tom Cruise finds out that he is going to murder someone in the future. So he runs away and tries to find out the truth. Granted, this all sounds good on paper, and the movie is interesting for a few split seconds, but whomever wrote this script should be commited. What could have been a great movie (and the ideas and story is there) ends up being a laughably silly, suprisingly awful film that ends with you, the viewer, saying, “That movie sucked.”
    Yes, they fucked up a perfectly good idea. They went too far. They ruined it. The kings of popcorn, and Spielberg himself, ruined it. If this movie had been an independent, it would have worked. They would have dealt with it specially, and they wouldn’t have added the crowd pleasing non-amusing licks that Spielberg has that take away all seriousness this film attempts to deliver.
    Tom Cruise, as John Anderton, is nothing special in this movie. He basically plays Tom Cruise, which isn’t a stretch. Collin Ferrel, who was great in Tigerland, should focus on only doing sequels to Tigerland. His character has no weight. One minute he’s an evil sunuvabitch, the next he’s the guy next door. He reads his lines like they’re on a cue card. And Max Von Sydow’s character shouldn’t even be in the script!
    The special f/x are nothing special, and by now we realize that 99.9% of all special f/x look fake anyway. The action sequences made me wonder if Spielberg had anything to do with the ballistic, balls to the wall carnage in Saving Private Ryan. The action sequences blow! Tom Cruise delivers a shallow line like, “I’m going to run.” Then he runs around in the future and Spielberg adds some humorous elements like a black kid playing a sax and some upsidedown yoga instructors and the audience is like, “What the fuck?” Is this movie supposed to be serious? Then why is the guy from Fargo playing someone from a bad David Lynch rip-off?
    Minority Report is all over the map. It goes from engaging to preposterous to silly to plain dumb to plain awful to get me outta the theater. It seems that they just threw everything into a pot and stirred it up without thinking. The last half an hour of this film actually is worse than the last half hour of A.I. After every good thing the film sets up, it shatters them and ruins everything with a popcorn blueprint that made me wish someone other than Spielberg had made this picture. He ruined it. He took a good idea and set it ablaze.
    There is one four star scene in this muddled mess, however. Just as there are good scenes in both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones (and in Jack…okay, just kidding). Tom Cruise holds a female close to him. Their eyes are looking opposite ways, but the camera frames them perfectly so that you can read both of their emotions. The room is dark, but you can read their eyes. Perfect, elegant, serene.
    Minority Report is a big disappointment. Although going with any summer film, it fits almost to a T. The majority of summer films are all disappointments. They’re silly and dumb and you want a good ride but the car just can’t get out of the station. You can taste the hill and the drops and the loops and see the careening vortex and camel back hump, but you’ll never get that far You’re stuck, and it is over.
    Spielberg, I’m sorry, but your reign as a good director has come to a close. Go direct Indiana Jones 4, and leave the bold, new ideas to the fresh fishes at Sundance. You had a good run, now go walk into the sunset. It’s over. Goodnight. *

Review: STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES

ATTACK OF THE SPECIAL F/X

(reviewed at KOP with Jack and Annie on opening day, Thursday May 16th, 2002)

    “You are not all powerful.”
    “Well I should be!”
    No, this isn’t George Lucas reacting to an out of line employee telling him that there are too many special f/x in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. This is Hayden Christenson as Darth Vader…er, as Annakin Skywalker reacting to Natalie Portman as Padme, er…Senator Amidala. And not to spoil anything, but this little scene that features the troubling “evil” side of Annakin is the best sequence in the film, a muddled mess of special f/x overkill and non-story that doesn’t feature a single good fight sequence or space battle.
    Granted, when comparing Lucas’ latest over the top opus, Attack of the Clones, with his last outing, The Phantom (Disappointment) Menace, Clones seem a lot better. Yet when comparing Clones to the other three Star Wars films, it stands alone as being just short of plain awful.
    The story basically features Annakin Skywalker ten years after he was an annoying bad actor named Jake Lloyd (“A pod race? Coooooool” was just one horribly uttered line in Menace, the other one being “Are you an angel?” when he first lays eyes on the Israeli sex pot, Natalie Portman). Annakin is all grown up, but how does he become the villanious Darth Vader? How does he turn from being a strong Jedi to an evil dark lord of the Republic? Without a doubt, the best thing in this film is Hayden Christensen. Unlike Menace, which featured a plethora of stiff acting (Liam Neeson was the worst), Christensen has oomph. He’s a sly dog with mondo-problems. And while he doesn’t get the best lines to utter, he just plain steals the movie alongside Samuel L. Jackson (stiff) and the special f/x laden dud, Yoda, who looks even less realistic than the swamp living muppet he was back in Empire.
The “big” plot point involves some clones and a bounty hunter, but realistically, this is the thinnest Star Wars movie ever made. It’s as if Lucas only focused on the f/x (99.9% of the film looks like a fucking cartoon…and most of the f/x are ultra-fake and ultra-silly) and forgot about the script. Even the main “villain” shows up too late to become anything but a set decoration. It’s as if Lucas and his co-writer (some dude who worked with Lucas on The Young Indian Jones Chronicles) wrote most of the script then realized that, hey, who the hell are Obi Wan and Annakin gonna have a lightsaber fight with at the end? We have to create a new villain!
The main problem with Attack is the special f/x. Sadly, this is a special f/x movie. There’s some romance going on (pretty unrealistic and forced), but the majority of the film is focused on new worlds and new creatures and new f/x fight sequences. Lucas and Co. seemed hell-bent on forcing down us moviegoer’s throats so much special f/x that we would bow down and scream, “Okay! We get it! Lucas, you are the king of special f/x! Now go fucking work on a decent script for once and gimmie a story!”
In the first Star Wars, there was plenty of story. The world was interesting, and Luke was a real hero yearning for more. How can your heart not beat a little bit faster when Luke stands on Tatooine staring at the two setting suns while the John Williams’ score thumps in the backround? There is nothing that moving in Attack. It’s all mindless action and boring Jedi Counsel speak with a plot involving the Republic…or something. The opening crawl to Attack is without a doubt, pointless. Did you understand any of it? The story seems like just a reason for all of these worlds and creatures and big, silly battle sequences that that don’t look amazing, they look silly, preposterous, and cartoonish!
The movie works, though, a lot more than Menace, because for awhile it’s at least interesting. Then the Clone Wars begin and the last half an hour of the film is an utter waste of time. The “factory” sequence could be the worst thing Lucas ever concocted. It’s fake looking, silly, boring, and ludicrous. And you have to think that if this film had been done before special f/x circa 2002, it wouldn’t have been possible, but it would have been better. Can you imagine that sand monster in Jedi today? It would have all these special f/x laden tentacles and not look half as scary or half as fun. And we all saw how bad Jabba was when he was forced through a computer in that lame-ass “new” Star Wars.
Attack of the Clones is a mess of a film. The battle scenes don’t work, and neither does the romance. There are a few interesting sequences, but even the chase seems more like a video game than anything of interest. Sadly, special f/x have ruined George Lucas. He still has some bold ideas, and it’s interesting to see the story of Vader unfolding ever so slowly, but this film is a mess. Without Hayden Christenson, this would have been a complete disaster. And if Menace hadn’t have been such an epic disappointment, I probably would have said the same thing about this one. *1/2 (out of ****)

Review: PANIC ROOM

DON’T PANIC, A GOOD MOVIE HAS FINALLY ARRIVED

(reviewed at KOP with annie on Saturday, April 6th, 2002)

    “I’ve heard about these.”
    Some call it a panic room. USA Today had an article about them last week. I guess if anyone really has them, they’re either super rich, super paranoid, both, or they live in Montana and pray to a God that hovers above the world in a space ship.
    Basically, a panic room is a safe haven. It’s a small fortress-type room for people in case of emergency. The doors lock and it keeps you safe from the big bad world. Forget A-bombs, these are for simple matters. Like if a few burglars come in with guns, you can run and hide and they can’t find you. So what’s inside a panic room? Guns maybe, food, water, basic survival asthetics. A phone…maybe some TV monitors to show you what’s going on outside. Just to let you know where that serial rapist is inside your house.
    The basic premise of David Fincher & David Koepp’s new popcorn thriller, Panic Room, is this: what if a few burglars break into your house? And what if you actually have a panic room? What if something goes wrong? Will you survive? Will you fight back? Will you die a terrible death? Will the cops find you in time?
    David Koepp has written a terrific script, albeit by the numbers in terms of popcorn fun. Yet it’s a total surprise that everyone who praises or dislikes the film seems to hark about how bad Koepp’s script is. What??? The fucking movie wouldn’t be in existance or half as fun if –not- for Koepp’s talent! If you don’t know (and most normal people have no idea), Koepp is a writer/director. He wrote & directed The Trigger Effect, a pretty wild paranoid thriller about a blackout. He adapted and directed Richard Matheson’s novel, Stir of Echoes. And his biggest writing duties were on Mission:Impossible and The Lost World. While Koepp is definitely not the sort of writer who features controversial or highly philosophizing antics, he does not how to entertain en masse. And Panic Room is just that, a popcorn thriller cloaked in doom and gloom and awash in dark rain. Koepp has written an ultra-simple script. Three burlgars played by Forrest Whittaker, Dwight Yoakam, and Jared Leto. A mom played by Jodie Foster, and her little girl by some newcomer who looks like a boy. Koepp’s script, thoug, is actually very intelligent. There are plenty of surprises, and while the majority is ultra-intense and paranoid, there are some big laughs by the Coen-esque burlgars (i.e. not that smart). It also helps that these burlgars present three of the best talents working today in film, even though all three of them are barely stretching in terms of acting ability. Leto is a cunning cutthroat, yet oddly amiss in what he’s doing. Yoakam more or less plays his Sling Blade character with even more blood thirsty vengeance (if that’s even possible). And Whittaker plays a villain with a tinge of heart, a sort of extension of his Ghost Dog character, who killed people but still bought little kids ice cream. Foster, on the other hand, seems merely there. She screams a few times in panic as if the audience is supposed to let her know that, yes, we know you won an Oscar…but you also were in Contact you idiot!
    & while David Koepp’s script is wild and solid, David Fincher, the music score, and the two cinematographer’s (one of them supposedly got into a few fights with Fincher…I guess that’s why you can barely read his name in the opening credits thanks to a reflection of sunlight) have to get kudos for their work. The entire film is seeped in Fincher-esque doom and gloom. The entire picture save a few scenes is dark and dreary, with night rain slashing outside and broken lights and shadows and darkness. The entire film is eeriely quiet, with a fore
    Panic Room is pretty mindless fun, even though it’s seeped in paranoia and violence. It’s nothing grand, nothing that will blow your mind. It’s by the numbers…yet it works. Koepp and Fincher should be proud, they’ve brought the entertainment back into the multiplex. *** (out of ****)

boding sense of dread that hangs heavy throughout. And while Fincher has admitted that his only intention was to entertain with a popcorn film (alas, he’s breaking no ground here as he did with the great scripts by Palahniuk -Fight Club- & Walker -Se7en-), this is a very entertaining popcorn film. And different because…well, unlike most popcorn films these past few years, it’s actually good!

Review: THE TIME MACHINE

I WANT MY TIME AND MONEY BACK

(reviewed at KOP with Jack on Wednesday, March 13th, 2002)

   There were a few movies postponed because of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 (or 9/11 as it is now commonly referred to as). One of them was Big Trouble, based on Dave Barry’s first novel. It hasn’t been released yet, but supposedly it features a subplot where a few idiots like Jackass’ Johnny Knoxville easily smuggle a nuclear warhead onto a U.S. commercial airliner. Another movie that was pushed from October to February was Ahnold’s Collateral Damage, which dealt with terrorists blowing up a building in the United States. Now when you think about the plots of those two movies, it seems fairly obvious as to why they were pushed further ahead in the release schedule. But why was Dreamworks/Warner Brother’s The Time Machine bumped from December to March 8th? The reason the studios gave was that the film features a scene where the moon blows up, and the pieces crash to Earth and destroy buildings in New York City. Well I saw The Time Machine, and yes the moon blows apart above New York City, and yes the pieces supposedly fall into the city and destroy much of it. But we never see much of this destruction. We only see one city street that has a few flames an army men running around in disarray. So my question is…why couldn’t they have released this in December if they weren’t going to change anything but just simply cut a few special f/x scenes? I believe I know the answer. This movie was test screened and got such horrible reviews from the filmgoers, that the studios were worried. Maybe the re-edited it. Maybe the added more action and more f/x. Maybe they changed the ending. Maybe they didn’t change a thing. I think they moved the movie into the death bed of cinema known as March because the movie sucked and they knew it. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Go ahead and watch this mess. I dare you.
    They kept the basic plot the same, except for one notable exception. Guy Pearce plays a college professor in the late 1800’s who comes up with a time machine. We never learn exactly how he figured out how to travel through time, although since it is impossible, I guess there was no reason to make up even a small excuse or reason. He travels to the future to answer a question he has, and eventually ends up in the distant future where good and evil people live. If you’ve seen the original, then good for you, because the 1960 version was an instant classic. This film, however, is a total dud.
    Without giving anything away, the era that Pearce travels to is just plain silly in this version. Since this is a popcorn film, there has to be some big f/x action, which fails on every level. And of course there has to be a comedy sidekick, played here by Orlando Jones who isn’t really funny at all, which is sad because he’s usually good in good moves (Liberty Heights) and bad movies (Evolution). Here he has nothing much to do except be annoying, dull, silly, and preposterous. I guess they added him for the kids. I don’t know.
    Guy Pearce does his job of being a stuck up loser who turns time travelling mad man and heroic superman over, well, time. But it’s sad that he was put into such a mess of a film. There is seriously nothing very interesting in this film. It’s all over the map, and you have to keep thinking to yourself…a time travel movie has so many possibilities…why is it such a drag? But they’ve kept the same basic plot as the original H.G. Wells classic. But then what is the point of remaking it if you’re going to do it almost exactly the same? They have changed a few things, but haven’t added anything worthwhile. The f/x in the film aren’t bad, but the movie is. How hard is it to make a good time travel movie? When Pearce enters the New York City of the future, it made Back to the Future II’s Hill Valley of the future seem cool (and remember how dumb that Jaws 3-D crap was?).
    Sad to say, this movie is the first ‘big’ popcorn film of the 2002. It hasn’t exactly kicked the year off on a good note. Granted, it was a leftover from 2001, but this year doesn’t bode well. It looks to be the year of the horrible f/x laden bombs. Spiderman will be good except for the cartoon f/x. And Attack of the Clones looks like a fucking cartoon. And don’t even get me going on Scooby Doo.
    I wish I could use this time machine to go back to the meeting where they actually greenlit this thing. I’d change everything. Promise. ½*

Review: BLACK HAWK DOWN

BRUCKHEIMER FINALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF WITH BLACK HAWK DOWN

(reviewed at KOP with Annie on Monday, January 14th, 2002)
 
  There has always been a stigma attached to any movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (and Don Simpson to some extent…although with Simpson along the duo seemed to produce better movies…go figure). All explosions and no heart. Or silly special f/x and no emotion. Or no script but plenty of car chases. You get the point. Bruckheimer is the king of popcorn. He produced Pearl Harbor last year, a popcorn action dud dressed up as an Oscar worthy drama, and he produced the cantankerous Con-Air and the over the top The Rock. But it seems that finally Jerry Bruckheimer has produced a serious film. Granted, a serious film with two hours of deafening gun fire, helicopter crashes, and shaved headed military men running towards sun splashed war torn buildings.
    Black Hawk Down could possibly be the best Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film ever made. Why? Because while Black Hawk Down bombards the audience with explosions and gun fire and blood and guts and over the top militarism, there’s actually a point to all of it.
    The film is based on an event that took place in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993. A war lord was keeping food from starving villagers and living like a, well…like a warlord. Clinton and the brass in the U.S. decided to do something about it. Well what happened was on CNN we got to see a white army guy being dragged through the streets by the Somalians. We failed the mission. And you would think that something so awry would never have gotten out, or at the very least, totally forgotten about thanks to the military. But no, Mark Bowden from the Philly Inquirer (yeah, I met him a year ago) brought back the story and published it in installments in the paper, then went on to publish a longer book version. And now, years later, Hollywood has Hollywood-ized it thanks to Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridney Scott. But the good thing is that what happened over in Africa in 1993 was a total fuck up…and the movie admits this. We fucked up. Even in such patriotic post-9/11 culture, a big, bad, blood soaked war movie can be number one at the box office that portrays a total and utter failure by the U.S. military. After Pearl Harbor, who knew Bruckheimer would reclaim his throne so swiftly?
    Basically, the film features a two hour action sequence that takes place on the streets of Mogadishu. Some of the ‘big’ stars in the film include Ewan McGregor (who is horrible in this…I still can’t picture him in fatigues), Josh Hartnett, and Tom Sizemore (who we’ve all seen too much of). The military kids are young and dumb and most have never been in combat before. When the military sends a few black hawk choppers and jeeps filled with gun toting rangers towards the warlord’s point of location, things turn bad very fast. The best aspect of the film is the battle sequences. For at least two hours the action never lets up. We feel like we’re a part of it all. It’s confusing and chaotic and loud (thanks to THX…which does nothing but turn up the volume)    and breath taking and realistic and wild. The battle scenes get so down and dirty that after awhile you want to throw your hands up and yell, “Kill the warlord and end it already!” But this is life, and there aren’t many happy endings in life.
    The worst aspect of the film is the by the numbers script. Granted, this film barely has a script since the majority is guys running around and shooting (it feels oddly like a video game, since the Somalians aren’t really portrayed as characters…it’s a complete one-sided film, which is okay since the U.S. did make it). The dialogue in the film and the characterization is horrendous, though. There’s Ewan McGregor who makes coffee? Yeah, maybe it was true, but it’s ridiculous to even put into the film. It turns out that the only thing we learn about Ewan is that he likes coffee. Come on! That’s not a good character portrayal!
    The characters are all shallow…they’re gun toting and firing and running around and trying to be heroes when it’s very hard to do so. The best scene is given away in the trailers, but it makes Ridley Scott look like a genius (and after Hannibal destroyed the book, I give him major kudos…even though Gladiator sucked). The soldiers are running the ‘Mogadishu Mile.’ They don’t have a car or a jeep or a tank. They’re alone with guns and are being fired at and want to be safe. They run through white smoke and see children dancing and see Somalians at the side of the road cheering for them. It’s a quiet moment in the white smoke while the solders run. It’s a great moment in a pretty good film. And yes, maybe the U.S. fucked up by ever going to Somalia…or maybe we were just trying to make a difference. This film doesn’t answer that question. And I’m glad. Jerry Bruckheimer may be the popcorn king, but it’s good to see him make a quality film finally. They don’t sugarcoat anything. This is the U.S. military. This is it. *** (out of ****)