The Last Movies I Saw

I saw two films in the last couple of days, and much like my previous post under this heading, the two had something in common. The movies were Cadillac Records directed by Darnell Martin and starring Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, and Beyonce Knowles; and Valkyrie directed by Bryan Singer and starring Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh. Both are pretty good but could have been better save for I see as a shared flaw (that manifests itself in slightly different ways), namely that they are undermined by their biggest stars.

Both movies are based on true stories, the first an account of the birth and development of the seminal Chicago blues record label, Chess Records in the late 1940s through the 1960s, and the second a retelling of the story of how a group of German military leaders tried to assasinate Hitler in 1944. The raw material in each case is strong, and most of what you see in each film is pretty compelling. I know a bit about the first story, having researched the record industry extensively (it was the subject of my doctoral dissertation). Like most "Hollywood-ized" true stories, there are some fairly jarring lapses in historical accuracy. For example-- where the heck was Phil Chess? The movie centers on brother Leonard, for good reason, but no mention of his business partner at all seemed a bit extreme. The film also suggests that dj Alan Freed had a role in breaking the Rolling Stones in the US (at WINS in New York City, no less), which is a pretty bizarre stretch given that he'd basically been run out of radio some years earlier. The movie also plays loose with the chronology of Chuck Berry's career, having him arrested in Chicago (for a crime committed in Missouri) while listening to a Beach Boys record that wouldn't come out until he was released from prison three years after his arrest. But that kind 0f stuff is to be expected. What really interrupts the narrative flow of the film is the switch in emphasis away from Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf to Etta James (played by Beyonce) at which point the film takes a pronounced melodramatic turn. It seemed that the filmmaker fell prey to Beyonce's star power and as a consequence lost the rhythm and I think the heart of the film. That really isn't a criticism of Beyonce's performance, it's just that it seemed like an appendage to a different movie that had been developing up to that point, with the more subtle portrayals by Jeffrey Wright as Waters and Eamonn Walker as Wolf sacrificed to play up the more conventional star power of Knowles. It didn't exactly ruin the movie, but it made me wish for a follow through to the narrative tension that was as a result left largely unexplored.

The shortcoming in Valkyrie was that its pre-eminent star, Tom Cruise, came across as incredibly lightweight, especially compared to those who surrounded him in this cast. I'm not one of those people who automatically discounts anything Cruise does, but he is hardly at his best in a role that requires a dose of emotional heft. He comes across as an earnest boy scout, while Wilkinson and Nighy create characters of real psychological depth. Again, this isn't a severe handicap, as the inherent drama of the story effectively moves it forward anyway; but I can't help but think it would have been elevated beyond the mere thriller category if the central figure were a bit more interesting to watch (as a comparison, I might cite George Clooney in Michael Clayton).

I'm probably sounding way more critical than I need to be in relation to the films I've written about recently, since I've actually enjoyed them all to some degree (I sure don't feel that I've wasted any money on any of them). It's partly that I'm waiting for something to knock my socks off this holiday season, and so far all the likely candidates have been somewhat pedestrian. I'll keep looking for a knockout and let you know when (being optomistic) I find one.