Review: Lawless entertains with simplicity, charm, and blood

"Cars that transform into giant metal men, you say? I believe we can break them."

 Grade: A

"They don't make'em like they used to."

There's something to that simple statement that speaks as much to our yearning for the trappings of our youth as it does to our yearning the simplicity of those trappings.

Typically, when that saying is applied to movies, it's used an excuse to gripe that a new film is nowhere near as good as an older film remembered through rose-colored memories. Occasionally, it's used to point out an achievement in cinematic storytelling that harkens back to a "simpler", bygone era of filmmaking that put character and narrative above bombast and spectacle.

Director John Hillcoat and Screenwriter Nick Cave's Lawless, an adaptation of Northern Virginia-born writer Matt Bondurant's The Wettest County on Earth", is a superb example of the second circumstance.

Bringing together a cast that could rival a Nolan production, and borrowing a few of his repertory players to boot, Hillcoat and Cave,  craft an affecting, if simple narrative about the Bondurant brothers, three siblings who dominated the moonshine trade during the late 1920's in the isolated Appalachain-esque town of Franklin, Virginia. Tom Hardy, fresh off his lauded performance as the megaphone-voiced Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, plays the eldest Bondurant, Forrest, a reticent, broad shouldered bootlegger who evokes Karl Childers as much as he does Batman's latest heavy, whose is as devoted to the sale and procurement of white lightning as he is the cultivation of his family's legend of invincibility. Shia LaBeouf harness all that qualities that make him the prickly, smart ass you probably love to hate in a role as the youngest Bondurant, Jack, who has his sights set on being a big time gangster in the vein of Al Capone or Floyd Banner (Gotham's own Commissioner Gordon, Gary Oldman, appearing to have finally caught up with Bane). Jason Clarke rounds out the trio as middle brother Howard, a shell-shocked WWI vet who loves the consumption of the bush whiskey a bit more than the rest of his kin.

The Bondurants maintain an iron grip on the distribution in a town where everybody seems to have still, mostly through fear, intimidation, (sounds familiar, I just can't place it) and the propagation of their legend in and beyond Franklin. As the limp hand of Prohibition spreads to Franklin, the Bondurants find themselves forced to face giving up their enterprise to the likes of new Commonwealth attorney Mason Wardell and his foppish right hand Special Agent Charlie Rake (Guy Pearce, clearly reveling in Rake's snide villainy), a dapper hitman well versed in "The Chicago Way". Refusing to back down and undermine their legend and legacy, The Bondurants face enemies from within and beyond Franklin that threaten to change the peace of their kingdom by spilling as much, or more blood, than necessary. Suffice to say, shootings, beatings, and tar and featherings abound.

Lawless sounds terribly simple on paper, and in truth, it is, but the simplicity of narrative is what allowed Cave and Hillcoat to breathe such great life into Lawless' greatest achievements: its characters and the performances. Cave and Hillcoat, both responsible for 2005's phenomenal The Proposition (which also featured Pearce), have crafted some amazing and memorable characters in the Bondurant brothers and their opposition in the form of Charlie Rake. It is rare to come out of the theater today and hold on to the memory of the characters on screen over the spectacle of set pieces or left-field plot twists, but Cave, Hillcoat, and their cast have done an exceptional job in achieving that rarity. Tom Hardy, Shia Labeouf, and Guy Pearce especially excel at building great performances out of characters that were likely amazing on the page. Hardy harnesses his physicality to greater effect here than he did as Bane, making the audience believe his invincible with a few choice actions and even fewer words. In fact, if Lawless was screened right before Dark Knight Rises, I would be much more inclined to believe in the legend of Bane than I did after listening to Alfred Pennyworth's warning. Shia LaBeouf plays the role he has always played as that young punk whose appetite is bigger but not faster than his mouth. yet, in Lawless, his antics have greater context as he lives in the shadow of two brothers whose legend he knows he may never be able to live up to. And, Guy Pearce delivers one of the most memorable gangland villains to hit the screen in a while with his preening, snakish performance that makes the audience laugh at rakes as much as they cringe at his brutality. Even the extended cameos in lawless bear the fruit of great performances as Gary Oldman steps back on the rwrong side of the road with menace and wryness in his role as Banner.

Because Lawless is such a uncomplicated narrative, the performances shine especially bright, but Cave and Hillcoat still manage to integrate a few welcome surprises, all of which a character-based and surprisingly logical despite appearing mythic in nature. Nothing makes this more evident than the closing scenes that focus on Forrest, a man who is defined by an outsized legend. Yet, Cave and Hillcoat wrap things in such a way that will make it hard for many in the audience to restrain an awe-filled smile. In many ways, that is Lawless' most unique and endearing quality. It takes a story built on equal parts legend and fact and weaves them into a narrative that manages to make audiences believe that these characters could ably embody the proportions of the myths built around them. It is also a film that makes you like these characters more than they deserve to  be liked. In achieving both tasks, Lawless recalls Brian DePalma's The Untouchables, a movie from my youth that I remember fondly for its great characters and, hindsight being 20-20, simple but effective narrative. Which goes to show that, with the right amount of craft, care and attention to character and narrative, they can make'em just like the used to, if not better.

In-Between Observations:

• Dane Dehaan plays Shia LaBeouf's "sidekick" with as much nuance as he brought to his role as would be world destroyer in Chronicle. Definitely, one to watch.
• Jessica Chastain also does a great job as a Chicago girl looking for peace in the woods of Franklin and brings a quiet dignity to her role that few gangster dames can cop to.
• Lawless manages to wrap up a plot pint in less than ten minutes that FX's Sons Anarchy could not wrap up in almost ten episodes. Ten minutes of screen time vs. ten hours. One point for movies.
• Bane's deadliest weapon is not fear or a gas mask, it's a pair of brass knuckles. Trust me.

Why the Oh So Serious Dark Knight Rises Above the Average Superhero movie

Grade: A-

The Dark Knight Rises may not be a masterpiece, but it is an exceptionally tense and taught epic that wraps up the plot threads that Christopher and Jonathan Nolan initiated in 2005's Batman Begins in a way that will satisfy a lot of people.

That said, I miss The Joker.

As a sequel to Batman Begins, Dark Knight Rises (DKR) is near perfect, but as a sequel that exists in the shadow of the more compelling The Dark Knight, DKR is weighed down by a rampant, but apt, joylessness that makes one long for Joker's antics. Indeed, the proceedings of DKR are no laughing matter, and while one doesn't go to a Nolan film expecting to double over in laughter, the general sense of unpredictability that permeated The Dark Knight is a bit lost in DKR. It's still a decent bit of work, but for those who prefer the Dark Knight over Batman Begins, it's a bit slight.

What works, more than anything else, in DKR is the characters, especially the arcs for the three main 'protagonists': Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), and John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Since the end of the Dark Knight, which saw Bats on the run after Commissioner Gordon lets Batman take the fall for Harvey Dent's death, Batman has disappeared and Bruce Wayne's been laying low. When a madman in a muzzle and a fur-lined pimpcoat, Bane (Tom Hardy) roles through Gotham threatening to turn the city into a prison-state, Wayne and the Bat come out of seclusion out of a sense of duty as a much as in response to goading by a slinky cat burglar, Kyle; a noble young cop, Blake; his trusty accomplices, Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman);  and earnest potential love interest Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard).

Bale, Hathaway, and Gordon-Levitt all excel at giving a range of depth to their characters despite splitting time with almost half a dozen other main characters. Hathaway and Gordon-Levitt in particular shine with Hathaway delivering the most accurate and compelling Selina Kyle ever committed to film. Her first scene with Bale, where she flips so casually between naiveté and sly aloofness is pretty masterful. Gordon-Levitt's Blake is also fascinating but hard to discuss without spoiling too much of the film; however, he does provide an interesting and inevitable twist on the notion that few good men survive in the GCPD. Not to be outdone, Bale continues to bring much needed humanity to a character who has grown increasingly bereft of humanity despite being the most human of heroes. The moment when Bruce Wayne literally rises is a triumph mostly because Bale shows that Wayne's fortitude burns through his body and mind. It's great to see each of the characters grow into their roles as they face the horror of Bane's plan, but so much of their growth is steeped in a lore that many members of the audience are extremely familiar with, which ultimately reveals that Nolan's take on Batman follows in the vein of other creators who have tweaked this infinitely malleable legend.

What is less successful, or maybe just less surprising, is Nolan's take on Bane, which is unfortunate because he is one of the prime engines behind this story. At this point, I have to qualify this dissection by remarking on my knowledge of Batman lore, which is not relatively extensive but nowhere near as in-depth as some true Batmanologists. Having grown up in the age of the first round of Bat-flicks, the legendary Batman: The Animated Series, and the Knightfall crossover that introduced Bane, I know a thing or two about Bane. The Bane of the comics, and the animated series to some extent, may rock a luchador mask and get hopped on a comic book drug, but he is a smart guy who often gets the better of Bats because he is just as driven as Bats. Without spoiling anything, the Bane of DKR starts out just like this, but an eleventh hour twist to the character really hurts because it is very reminiscent of Schumacher's take on Bane in the maligned Batman and Robin. 

On its own merits and taken as an introspective and thoughtful superhero actioner and the second act to Batman Begins, DKR is solid if not exceptional. Nolan really excels at making the terror of a super-villian plot tangible. Something comic readers take for granted is the fact that living in the wake of a some deranged cosplayer with an itchy trigger finger is legitimately terrifying. What Nolan does with DKR, and has continually done with the series, is ground the world of Batman in a way that strikes a nerve with post 9/11 Americans. Bane's plot to take over Gotham is particularly unnerving, but not as unnerving as Joker's plot in the Dark Knight because the human element is less scarce in DKR. In DKR, Nolan focuses more on the suffering of the police force and the city's costumed hero than its people, which would have driven home the oppressive conditions of Bane's confusing "occupation" in  which he takes over the city to give people their freedom (?). Despite the missed opportunity to focus deeply on the suffering of Gotham's citizens, Nolan uses Bane's occupation to set a tense third act where the fate go Gotham hangs in the balance. It is here that DKR rises above other superhero epics, even the Avengers to a degree, because the tangibility of the threat makes the efforts of the heroes, all of the heroes, matter in a way that makes the Avengers battle in Manhattan lack some significance. 

DKR is smaller in scale than Avengers, but its tangibility makes it seem far more epic. Yet, it is not necessarily the better film. Simply, it is another variation on superhero mythos that shows just how adaptable superhero stories are. As the closest narratives to modern myths, superhero tales like Dark Knight and Avengers succeed not on their ability to follow a formula but to be shaped according to the needs of their audiences. Avengers and DKR both appeal to similar audiences but with tones that reflect jarringly different takes on urban terror in America. What is great about this fact is that these stories exist to address such topics in a way that entertains and challenges audiences. Granted, some audiences, myself included, may be more partial to a lighter take on the material, but Nolan's approach is just as valid. In fact, it is necessary because it never hurts to remind audiences that the folks in the goofy outfits can be serious when the occasion calls for it.

In-Between Observations:

• Bane's voice is clearer but absolutely hilarious; Joker would have never let him live it down.
• Anybody remotely familiar with the Birth of the Demon arc will not be surprised by the ending.
• Bruce Wayne's injuries recall Terry Funk's injuries as described in wrestling expose Beyond the Mat. Coincidence?
• Gotham City is no longer Chicago but Los Angeles and New York as evidenced by some sloppy editing.

Review - This Means War

Grade: C+

Yang: Occasionally funny with a few decent moments of spy vs spy action; Tom Hardy elevates his role as a hopelessly romantic superspy who could probably break you in two if he wasn’t such a nice guy.

Yin: Slight and weightless rip-off mash-up of buddy action flicks and Reese Witherspoon romantic comedies. For good and bad, director McG fails to deliver the stylistic flourish that marked his early efforts.

In-Between: Never challenge Tom Hardy to a game of paintball.

From the look of him, you’d never know that Bane is Captain Kirk’s type. Yet, their romance is at the heart of McDirector McG’s latest, This Means War.

Now, the ads, trailers and TV spots will try to convince you that Tom Hardy and Chris Pines’ superspies are fighting over Reese Witherspoon’s lovelorn career gal, but she’s really just a fly in the ointment of their—God help me— “bromance”.

War is a slight, occasionally amusing romantic comedy with a featherweight spy story grafted on its bookends as a way of setting up a few serviceable action beats and hopefully keeping the males in the audience awake. War centers on CIA operatives FDR (Chris Pine)—every character calls him by his initials without blinking, seriously—and his partner Tuck (Thom Hardy), who were both obviously birthed from the buddy movie mold with FDR being the slick ladies man and Tuck being the gentle romantic with a British accent. As a former family man who is clearly still in love with his ex-wife, Tuck’s longing for the love of a good woman leads him to post a profile on an online dating site, which leads to a blind date with jaded, yet ever hopeful, consumer product tester Lauren Scott (Reese Witherspoon). The two hit it off smashingly and it all seems well until Lauren runs into the cocky FDR, who was on backup detail for Tuck’s blind date, and sparks fly. Soon enough the two once–inseparable partners find themselves locked in a battle of subterfuge and counterintelligence over the hand of a woman who seems a lot shallower than she thinks she is. Meanwhile, an international terrorist (Til Schweiger) is hot on Tuck and FDR’s tails after the two killed his brother in a sting gone haywire. Hijinks and dash of hilarity ensue.

War is no doubt descended from the Lethal Weapons and Bad Boys of the 80s, 90s, and early 00s, right down to the perpetually angry and disappointed chief, a criminally underused Angela Bassett who is clearly still in Amanda Waller-mode, and a goofy support team. War is also a typical Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy, complete with blissfully unrealistic lifestyle porn and a wacky, self-deprecating sidekick, Chelsea Handler who is stepping dangerously close to edge of overexposure. Viewed separately, neither narrative thread would hold a Dixie Cup worth of water; together, the two threads lead to some decent laughs and serviceable action after a slow start, but the whole thing still falls way short of being remotely memorable. Most of the failings could be placed on McG’s workman-like direction. Aside from his trademark sun-drenched palette and a few high-energy set-pieces—the highlight of which is Tuck’s assault on an army of paintballers—McG’s footprint is minimal. Sadly, the failure of Terminator: Salvation and the passing of time have taken its toll on a director who at one time could at least be regarded for an identifiable visual style. Now, he’s delivering flicks like War that are no more unique than offerings from any journeyman director.

Despite its somewhat limp direction, War is saved to a large degree by Tom Hardy’s performance. The man who would be Bane has shown remarkable range throughout his career and continues to do so in War, almost single-handedly outclassing everyone else involved by showing that human beings have more than two emotions. Chris Pine, on the other hand, is quickly proving that he may be a one-trick pony by making FDR little more than a smirking jackass. While Hardy clearly outclasses Pine, the two have a solid chemistry that lends to the theory that their relationship is the actual focus of the flick. Their banter and attempts to outflank each other setup a majority of the film’s funnier moments and the strain on their relationship proves far more interesting than their courtship of Reese Witherspoon’s Lauren. While Hardy and Pines spies fall deeper in love with each other, Reese Witherspoon does her “Reese Witherspoon thing” where she plays spunky mixed with a dash of tartness, hitting a lot of the same beats from one of her early hits, Sweet Home Alabama. Chelsea Handler bats about .400 with her performance, mostly by making fun of herself or letting the rest of the cast make fun of her. Sadly, strong performers like Angela Bassett and Til Schwieger are relegated to extended cameos that severely undercut their ability.

While War fails to make even adequate use of its strongest assets, it does entertain on a fundamental level, providing just enough romance and action to satiate almost any audience. Yes, it’s a bit safe and only a handful of the actors seem reasonably engaged, but, as one of this year’s big Valentine’s Day release, it’s much better than tripe like 2010’s movie star paycheck-generator Valentine’s Day. On its own, War is nowhere near as tight and unique as it could be, but, thankfully, Tom Hardy’s performance as well as some decent action and moments of hilarity elevate the flick beyond total mediocrity.

SPOILER ALERT: Review - Dark Knight Rises Prologue

Tell someone they’re smart enough for long enough and sooner or later they start to believe it.

Contrary to popular, and surely his personal belief, Christopher Nolan isn’t as smart as everyone thinks he is, himself included.

This is not to say Nolan isn’t an intelligent auteur with the rare gift of vision in an era where mainstream cinema is bewilderingly bereft of directors with a unique voice. It does, however, mean that his approach to storytelling can be rather sterile—which isn’t news to the mildly observant—and less dynamic than the throngs of Nolanites might suggest.

SPOILER ALERT

Two nights ago, I had the fortune of catching the 6-minute prologue to next summer’s The Dark Knight Rises. The clip, and make no mistake that’s all it is, opens with Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon delivering a eulogy at Harvey Dent’s funeral. It is a quick scene punctuated by Gordon’s dignified remark, “I remember Harvey Dent.” From there, the clip jumps to what appears to be South America (a subtitle might help, just for the sake of geography and those who don’t know that big bad Bane is from the Caribbean).

On a desolate airstrip, Mayor Carcetti (Aiden Gillen, genre film and TV’s fastest rising go-to slimeball) is double dipping as a smarmy—shocking—CIA agent who is awaiting the delivery of three poor unfortunate souls (read: hooded prisoners) who are clearly on their way to the Nolanverse version of Abu Grahib. The requisite heavily armed paramilitary pseudo-spies flank Carcetti and exchange tales of the man called "Bane". “Why does he wear the mask?” they ask. Isn’t it obvious or do that not realize that eight years prior some damaged rich boy in a Kevlar gimp outfit “escalated” the war on crime to a point where a jacked mercenary from the South American Alcatraz has decided the best way to intimidate innocents is to wear a third of Darth Vader’s mask and talk through a vocoder?

The three prisoners are soon delivered along with a Dr. Exotic Name (Pavel, actually, and thanks to IMDB for that info because the sound was for crap.). Apparently, Dr. Pavel has some kind of MacGuffin, but since cryptic is the order of the day, it is not really clear if it’s a formula like the well-known Venom that turned comic book Bane into a supersized luchador or something more sinister. Carcetti is surprised to see the three prisoners, having only expected two, and begrudgingly brings them on the plane in hopes of learning about "Bane".

Once on the plane, Carcetti tries to pull some of that bull-in-a-china-shop shit that never flew in Baltimore and threatens to shoot the prisoners or throw them off the plane. Of course, no one talks after the first two threats. After the third threat, one of the prisoners speaks. In a voice that is virtually indistinguishable from a cashier speaking through a drive-thru microphone, the hooded prisoner says something. Whatever he says forces Carcetti to rip off the hood and….dun dun dun…reveal Bane, complete with a Darth Vader muzzle that covers his mouth with what look like metal teeth. From here, Bane (Tom Hardy, still sporting the muscles he earned on the MMA Rocky movie, Warrior) rambles some completely incomprehensible rhetoric that is enough to rattle Carcetti and spur Carcetti’s bodyguards to train their guns on Bane’s head.

While Carcetti and his crew are distracted, another plane, a longer black plane, flies above Carcetti’s plane. A squad of paratroopers drops from the rear of the black plane and attaches to Carcetti’s plane with suction cups. Through a ridiculously complicated process, the squad strings up the wings and tail of Carcetti’s plane, attaching it to the black plane, then shoots out the windows of Carcetti’s plane. The black plane pulls up just enough to rip the wings and tail of the plane off, turn the plane vertical, and throw it into freefall. Bane, Carcetti, the bodyguards, Dr. Exotic Name and the other prisoners flop around the plane like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Dream Soldier #695 did in level 2 of Fischer’s dream in Inception. With the tail nothing more than a gaping hole, the paratroopers drop in and, through another complicated series of actions, place harnesses on the doctor and Bane, while lowering a fresh corpse into the cabin. Bane administer a funky blood transfusion between the doctor and the fresh corpse in what appears to be a poorly planned attempt to convince the world that the doctor will die in the impending crash. As Bane, the doctor and the paratroopers prepare to be ejected from the falling plane, in a manner much like Batman and his ‘skyhook’ escape from Hong Kong in Dark Knight, one of the formerly masked prisoners asks Bane for a harness. Bane grumbles indecipherably again and the prisoner nods and slides into the seat that will carry him to his grave. The black plane then releases Carcetti’s plane, which nosedives into oblivion and a disgusting wreckage that will likely kill at least five unsuspecting innocent people, all while Bane and doctor are safely lifted into the black plane.

The scene cuts and a far more fascinating sizzle reel plays, showing in quick succession: Bane arriving in Gotham with a boss chinchilla down coat, an collision between two tumblers, Batman arriving in Batman-style, a collision between the tumbler and a dump truck, Anne Hathaway dressed up as a cat and sneaking around, Bane punching Batman, Batman punching Bane, the 99% finally fighting the 1%, Anne Hathaway frowning (because that’s what Catwoman would do), Bane dropping Batman’s broken mask, and—the coup de grace—a Tumbler-fied Batwing flying over a camo tumbler!

Without question, the sizzle reel was far more engaging than the prologue. Finally, Nolan and crew are showing something more than stills and, so far, it seems as impressive and morose as expected.

There’s no sense of the overarching theme, but, knowing Nolan, it will be stated early and often. The prologue itself truly pales compared to the Joker prologue from a few years ago. It’s not news that the Joker is a hard act to follow, and this prologue proves it. Bane is an average villain at best, despite being nudged into two Bat-films, and this prologue didn’t go a long way to making him any more memorable than KGBeast. The heist itself is needlessly convoluted, as movie heists often are, and lacks the slight innovation and personality of Joker’s heist. Also, the widely reported problems with understanding Bane prevent the audience getting any sense of his personality or purpose beyond being a plane-jacker with a muzzle.

Bane can be an interesting villain—think reverse Captain America. He was born in a South American Prison that is compared to hell and subjected to a super steroid treatment. He demonstrates gray morality yet orchestrated a plan that lead to Batman taking a year off to recover. He could be something. The fact that he was born in a prison, alone, presents an opportunity for a great short origin. In fact, I’d like to offer this idea as a better prologue:

Bane, wearing a simple black balaclava and a prison jumper, is restrained and being prepared to receive his treatment. For months, he has heard his doctors discuss “The Batman” from Gotham city. For months, someone has been planning Bane’s escape. Before receiving his first shot, Bane finds his restraints are looser than normal. He gets his first shot. His muscles bulge. He breaks the restraint. The doctors notice much too late. He advances on them. They sound the alarm. Five guards rush in. Bane lays waste to them in a manner reminiscent of the beatdowns from the Arkham game series, complete with swift counters, reversals and punishing finishing blows. He escapes the treatment room and makes his way from the bottom of the jail to the top, using his memory to beat the locks and his physical prowess to punish wave after wave of guards. He reaches the outside. He breathes in the fresh air for a moment then looks to the sky. A black plane flies above. He ponders for a moment then runs about five yards from the prison gate and starts digging. He retrieves a harness, a grappling gun, and a newspaper clipping that reads “Batman: Scourge or Savior?” He pockets the clipping, steps into the harness, and points the grapple gun to the sky. The black plane circles while opening its hatch. It closes in on Bane. Bane fires the grapple, shooting off a skyhook like Batman’s, and is lifted by the plane. He is reeled into the hatch as the plane changes trajectory, flying north towards Gotham city.

That’s for free, Nolan.

Review - Warrior

Grade: A

Good: Amazing performances from Hardy, Edgerton and Nolte; Superbly filmed and choreographed MMA fights; Great dramatic restraint that prevents taxing melodrama.

Bad: Plot is a nakedly contrived.

Ugly: All of the submission moves used by Edgerton’s character.

Earlier this year, David O. Russell’s The Fighter won a few people some awards, and rightly so. Stars Melissa Leo and Christian Bale deserved to be recognized for their superb performances as the most co-dependent mother-son duo south of the Merrimack. As good as the performances in the Fighter were, it didn’t exactly re-invent the wheel that is the sports movie, but it did show how the traditional framework could amplify a narrative built around family drama. Now, a few months shy of a year later, Gavin O’Connor tries his hand at the family drama-sports movie hybrid with Warrior, a deceptively moving film that transcends a contrived plot and delivers a legitimate emotional gut punch.

The plot for Warrior sounds like it was copied straight out of a Street Fighter instruction manual. Former marine Tommy Reardon (Tom Hardy) has returned to the Pittsburgh home of his father, recovering alcoholic and ex-boxer Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), after years of estrangement. Tommy wants nothing to do with his father, who apparently spent most of Tommy’s formative years beating his wife and terrorizing his family, but he needs Paddy to train him for an upcoming Mixed Martial Arts tournament, cleverly named SPARTA, with a $5 million purse that he desperately needs to help the family of one of his lost squad mates. On the other side of Pennsylvania, the brother Tommy hasn't spoken to in years, former UFC competitor Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton), is family man who spends his days teaching high school physics and his nights competing in bush league MMA fights. His luck hits the skids when he is suspended from teaching for coming into work looking like Edward Norton after a night at Fight Club, and, adding to the misery, his bank threatens to foreclose on his family's home. With his world falling apart, Brendan decides to give it another go as a fighter. After getting the begrudging support of his wife (Jennifer Morrison), hooking up with ace trainer Frank Campana (Frank Grillo) and benefitting from a cruel, contrived twist of fate, Brendan finds himself in position to enter the SPARTA tourney. The two brothers arrive at SPARTA and set forth on a collision course that includes a litany of brutal beatdowns and moments of measured catharsis that threaten to tear the family apart as much as it may bring them together.

As the leads, it is implied that Warrior is a showcase for Hardy and Edgerton, but both truly own this film with superb performances that show a restraint and humanity that few films like this ever possess. Hardy does an outstanding job as Tommy, a literal caged animal haunted by the pain of his past. Hardy avoids making Tommy a moper and a whiner, and opts to present Tommy as reticent when outside the ring and frighteningly ferocious inside of it. If this is what audiences can expect from him as Bane in next year’s The Dark Knight Rises then Christian Bale better bring Mickey Ward’s kidney punch. Joel Edgerton may not play the flashier of the two brothers, but his performance as Brendan is noble and relatable in the way that classic underdog sports heroes should be. Brendan’s attempts to deal with very real issues motivating his pursuit is laudable for its avoidance of melodramatics and embrace of dignified control. Probably the most impressive part of both performances is how well both actors translate their characters personalities into physicality. As Tommy, Hardy is constantly moving and shifting in the cage, as if he cannot wait to knock his opponent on their back. Conversely, Edgerton gives Brendan a patience that manifests in superb timing and an aptitude for eschewing the knockout and making his opponents tap out in the most painful way possible. When these two bring their physicality and emotion to their respective final bouts, they do so in a way that tells a story better than any words on page ever could.

Hardy and Edgerton’s performance are only elevated by the strong work Nick Nolte does as their father, Paddy. Nolte carries the weight of past sins deep inside much like his sons do, but his quest for redemption balances exaggerated desperation with honest compassion. Nolte never lets Paddy devolve to the point where his love for his sons is questioned. As haunted and demolished as the man is, he carries on because the love of his sons is pretty much all he has, and Nolte plays that beat perfectly. The rest of the supporting cast is fairly marginalized with Morrison having a bit more impact than the rest, playing the beleaguered, reluctantly supportive wife that is required for any boxing/fighting drama. Pro wrestling fans will be interested to see that Olympic Gold medalist, TNA wrestler and all around all-American Kurt Angle has a fairly significant role as, ironically, Russian powerhouse Koba. Thankfully, he doesn’t speak; he just annihilates opponents, which is probably the wisest use of a wrestler who is untrained in more traditional acting.

Director Gavin O’Connor, best known for the underrated Miracle, does a superb job in keeping the affairs outside of the ring fairly low-key. By avoiding melodramatics and grounding the character’s motivations in relatable, contemporary issues, he allows Warrior to reach beyond the expectations of the average sports film. Admittedly, the plot is a bit contrived in the sense that the two brothers both enter the same tournament at the same time, but without it there’d be no movie. Ignoring the plot contrivances, audiences will find that O’Connor, who manages a cameo as SPARTA organizer J.J. Riley, has a strong hand for not only storytelling sans dialogue, as evident in the fights and the scenes of utter quiet, but also for atmosphere. As artificial as the plot may seem, the atmosphere is absolutely tangible, as the darkness and claustrophobia of the character’s lives at home provides a powerful contrast to the spectacle of MMA competition. O’Connor is also no slouch with filming the superbly choreographed MMA fights. The fights are appropriately brutal without being overly bloody and deliver an impact that should ring true to most fans of the sport. The balance of restrained drama, tangible atmosphere and solidly filmed and choreographed fights that O’Connor brings to the table is crucial to giving the film an authenticity and an insight that many may not find when watching a real MMA competition.

All things considered, Warrior is a remarkable achievement. It brings a new twist to the genre of boxing/fighting sports film and shines a light on the contemporary successor to the sweet science. Based on the cheap-ish commercials, Warrior seems like something better suited to a late-night run on FX or Spike TV, but make no mistake this is as good as a movie like this can be. Like its two leads, Warrior is much more than it appears and deserves to mentioned in the same breath as champions of fight films like Rocky, Raging Bull, and The Fighter.

The Idea of Control (INCEPTION SPOILERS AHEAD)

Regardless of one’s interpretation of Inception’s conclusion, the final minutes of the film exemplify the film’s overarching theme of control. Christopher Nolan’s dream-twisting heist flick may have audiences battling over the “truth” of the final frame, but the undeniable thematic truth is that Inception affirms the individual, conscious desire to control the uncontrollable, be it dreams, emotions or a life spiraling into the hands of fate. Inception, for all its sleek tidiness and meticulous narrative design, is essentially about taking control of the uncontrollable by letting go. Whether Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom is in the real world or limbo by that closing shot, he decides to abandon the dreams and emotions that ruled his life and rushes to embrace his children, effectively reclaiming control of his life. Dom’s decision punctuates the theme of taking control that reverberates through every facet of Inception, from the setup to each “stage” of its climax to the dénouement.

Long before Inception’s multi-layered climax and perplexing conclusion, Nolan examines the concept of controlling the uncontrollable through co-mingling A-stories: Dom’s struggle to control “Mal” and his team’s quest to control the dreams of Fischer. Both plotlines deftly illustrate how the characters struggle and conspire to control unbound elements of the human psyche, specifically emotions and dreams. From the opening “extraction,” Dom struggles to avoid, ignore and altogether obfuscate “Mal,” the embodiment of his guilt over the death of his wife. Dom cripples his ability to perform dream-share extractions because he cannot control the grief that disturbs his subconscious. So disturbing is this grief that it emanates in the visage of his deceased wife and constantly threatens his team’s missions. Dom’s journey in Inception is as much about returning to his family as it is gaining control over a debilitating emotional handicap, in his case a devastating amount of grief. He fights with “Mal” through the duration of the film—physically, verbally and emotionally—and it is only when he faces her and embraces the irony of control—letting go in order to gain control—does he begin to conquer his emotions and escape his own personal “limbo.” By facing his emotions as an addict does an addiction that has overrun their life—by confronting and releasing the source of the pain—Dom achieves a semblance of control over a seemingly uncontrollable adversary.

Accordingly, Dom’s team plots a meticulous strategy—one that makes use of a wealth of talents to control the heretofore uncontrollable realm of dreams—to manipulate the dreams of global energy conglomerate heir, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), and plant an idea that will prevent him from monopolizing the energy industry. Each member of Dom’s team represents an attempt to control some aspect of the dream process, from Yusuf (Dileep Rao) the Chemist, whose sedatives initiate near-endless sleep, to Ariadne (Ellen Page) the Architect, who constructs the dream world, to the Eames (Tom Hardy) the Forger, who creates weapons and identities out of thin air. The specialists all prepare clever plans to control their respective aspects during the multi-stage inception, the act of planting an idea in the mind by delving into deeper dream levels, yet they face seemingly preternatural resistance the longer they spend in Fischer’s dreamscape. In response, the dreamer, or controller, of each level must wrest control of their dream level from forces beyond their control, be they physiological or emotional. Inception’s climax bounces between dreamers on each level as they battle subconscious soldiers, anti-gravity, and errant emotional manifestations to regain control of their dream worlds. At crucial points during the climax, each dreamer regains control of their level moments before they are “kicked,” or awakened, into relinquishing control.

The concept of control also surfaces in certain concepts, characterizations and arcs. The very concept of dream-sharing, including the acts of extraction and inception, is built on the foundation of attempting to control a realm of uncontrolled thought. A victim of a dream-share extraction, Saito hires Dom to perform an inception on Fischer in an effort to both prevent Fischer from controlling an industrial monopoly and likely establish his own conglomerate. Even the target of the inception, Fischer, is seeking his deceased father’s approval to control his own life. To varying degrees, each character and concept in Inception is dedicated to echoing the theme of gaining or losing control.

By the conclusion of Inception, the idea of control is prevalent in every aspect of the story from the characterizations to concepts to the props (i.e. totems like Dom’s spinning top, which act as barometers of differences between controlled dreams and reality). When Dom abandons the top in favor of his children at the end, he becomes the embodiment of the idea of control and its inherent irony. He has become a man who has regained control, but only after struggling against, and frequently losing to, forces beyond his control, both internal and external. However, even in this moment of triumph, the irony of control—that delicate balance between losing and gaining control—lords over the scene. As Dom makes his way to his children and exits the frame, the top, which affirms Dom’s presence in reality by falling, he spun seconds earlier continues to spin until it wobbles, seemingly losing control.