Action! MOMENTUM hits DVD -- and a short chat with its director, Stephen Campanelli

When MOMENTUM arrived in theaters six weeks ago, TrustMovies was more than a little impressed with its fine action sequences, as well as its overall visual sense. (His original review can be found here.) So, when the opportunity arose to have a quick chat with its director, Stephen Campanelli (shown in the photos below), TM said, "Sure!" and the result can be found here -- with TrustMovies' questions in bold and Mr. Campanelli's answers in standard type.

TrustMovies: You have a real facility for action – making it fast, quick and most important understandable. 

Stephen Campanelli: Thanks. I’m really happy to hear you say that because I wanted to make the movie exactly that, a smart, fun action film that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

TM: How did you choose this project? Did it fall into your lap, or did you find it and help push it through.

SC:  A bit of both, actually. My composer who did the score recommended me to the producer, and they sent me the script. I liked it. It needed some work, so I gave them my ideas, which they went with. And it just happened.

TM: That sounds like it was pretty easy, overall… 

SC: Yeah -- things don’t normally work that well. This was a very rare thing.

TM: I liked the overall visual sense in the movie – as well as how you made the action both comprehensible and real.

SC: I’m a very visual person so I tried to give it the most visual impact that I could; And keep the movie short, too, so that people would remain engaged for the whole ride.

TM: And we were! Boy, James Purefoy makes such a great villain. 

SC: Doesn’t he!

TM: And Kurylenko was a great choice here, too. She manages to make her lean, lithe body look like a real weapon. 

SC: Olga was a dancer and a model and so she’s slim. I wanted her to seem like a normal person who has these amazing skills so that any woman might say, hey, maybe I could do that!

TM: What are you working on now?

SC: I did a second movie which was a 2-hour pilot for Fox that we shot in Brazil. It's called Rio Heat, a kind of Moonlighting type show about two cops working together who argue all the time, with Harvey Keitel, (above, right)  playing their boss in a kind of Charley’s Angels manner. This is more of a comedy action film than Momentum. More light hearted.

TM: When might we see it? 

SC: It’s still in the process of being sold. We just finished editing it, and we're now trying to get it to different networks. We hope to see it out within a year. The stars are Victor Webster and a wonderful and beautiful Brazilian actress, Thaila Ayala.

TM: How did Momentum's South African location come about?

SC: The script was first based in any North American city, but because the producer and some of the money was South African, we decided to shoot it there.

TM: Shooting in a city we don’t see a lot is more interesting, I think. I also like the way you handled the violence in the movie. There’s plenty of it, and it is – particularly the threat of it – pretty awful. And yet you never quite overdo it. This is a difficult line to walk without toppling over in either direction. 

SC: Thanks. That’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to bury the viewer in gore and guts. I wanted to show the violence as part of who these people are, but not to glorify it and make it gratuitous. I could have toned it down more, but because this was a smart movie, I didn’t want to have to do that. But I also didn’t want to use it to titillate.

TM: What about a sequel? Momentum leaves itself wide open—in fact, it practically promises us one! 

SC: We’re hoping the film does well enough, overall, so that this will happen. Olga would do it in a heartbeat, and if we give Morgan Freeman (shown above, left) a bigger role, he will, too. So I already have some good ideas for this. I’d love to do it again. A sequel might be able to deepen things, too. We would probably do the closure on the second one, rather than make a trilogy of it. But, again, if it got popular enough….

I also love it when a film has a strong female protagonist in the lead So, yes, I really hope we can do the sequel.

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Momentum, released to Blu-ray and DVD via Anchor Bay Entertainment, hits the street tomorrow, Tuesday, December 1 -- for purchase or rental. For more information, click here.

Stephen S. Campanelli's knock-your-socks-off MOMENTUM offers exactly that -- in spades

Say hello to a nifty new action director, whose first film -- MOMENTUM -- proves an object lesson in how to make a first-class action film on maybe one-tenth of the budget of one of those Hollywould-be blockbusters that bore us to distraction with their not-so-special effects. The poster, right, may be one of the least interesting, design-wise, to be seen in many a day, but the movie it heralds is a case study is how to do things right. The filmmaker, shown below, is a fellow named Stephen S, Campanelli, whose resume boasts nearly one hundred credits in the camera and electrical department. Momentum is his first film as director, and TrustMovies would like to suggest that this upgrade in position become permanent.

With action films one tends to blame or praise the director for the visuals on view. In retrospect, after watching Momentum, I found myself also wondering how much the smart, tight screenplay by Adam Marcus and Debra Sullivan contributed to the film's success. Beginning with a voice telling us its intention to bring America back on course (uh-oh!), the movie returns to this voice and finally visage (yes, it's Morgan Freeman, playing quite against his usual type and taking us back to one of his earlier film roles). Marcus and Sullivan bring this character back briefly at various intervals and then hugely at their denouement -- which can only mean that a sequel is in store. I hope so; I'll be first in line to take a look.

The film's two stars turn out to be perfect choices for their roles. Olga Kurylenko (above) makes a swift and savvy, no-nonsense heroine, and she is matched well by James Purefoy (below) as her nemesis. Kurylenko is lithe and can handle, with some help from her body double, the action quite believably, while Purefoy -- a man whose demeanor and visage, even in repose, are enough to scare the pants off you -- makes his nasty villain a more-than-memorable one.

The movie's initial visual brilliantly combines a drum concert and a jewel heist by robbers in costumes that may make you imagine this to be some sci-fi film. You may also think the opening quite swell but wonder if the film can possibly match this segment down the road. Not to worry. It simply gets better and better.

It does this by giving us as much action -- hand-to-hand combat, foot and car chases -- as we could reasonably want while subverting many of the genre's cliches. You know the one about the auto speeding

toward the parking lot entrance in which those don't-drive-over spikes are protruding lethally? Just wait. And what about the mother and child in imminent danger from the bad guy? Again, there's something new here, too. Even the requisite "torture" scenes offer enough subtlety and difference to stand out from the pack.

Via suspense, action and surprise, Momentum keeps its momentum going full speed ahead. Only at the end does it suddenly seem a bit simple. And yet, that's the set-up for the sequel. Would we want to deny this tale that?

Don't think so. To watch Ms Kurylenko face off against Mr. Freeman and his henchmen ought to be, what? The bees' knees, the cat's pajamas, and the action lover's dream come true.

Momentum -- from Starz Digital and running 95 fast minutes -- opens tomorrow, Friday, October 16, in the dozen theaters/cities listed below, while simultaneously becoming availale for viewing via VOD.

New York, NY: Cinema Village

Los Angeles, CA: Arena Cinema

Atlanta, GA: Plaza Theater
Chicago, IL: Facets Cinematheque
Cleveland, OH: Tower City Cinema

Columbus, OH: Gateway Film Center 

Dallas, TX: Texas Theater
Detroit, MI: Cinema Detroit 

Houston, TX: AMC Gulf Point 30 

Miami, FL: AMC Aventura Mall 24 

San Francisco, CA: 4 Star Theatre
and Toronto, Canada at the
Magic Lantern Theatres' Carlton Cinema

From South Africa, Oliver Hermanus' ugly BEAUTY indicts a culture and a country....

A few days ago we covered the documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing; today we're doing a movie called simply BEAUTY (Skoon-heid) -- a much darker and troubling affair about how beauty and the craving for it can be lethal -- involving two South African families, the parents and their just-turning-adult children. In the excellent first scene of the film, taking place at a wedding reception, the father of one of those families notices the son of the other (perhaps for the first time as an adult), and the beauty of the young man rivets him. To all outwards appearances, this father is a straight-arrow, macho sort, but it is not long before we view a scene in which, by any standard except that of a supremely deluded mind, the fellow is at very least bi-sexual and most probably gay as a goose. Oh, but he's still super-macho, so that's just A-OK.

With Beauty, Oliver Hermanus (shown at left), the film's director and co-writer (with Didier Costet) indicts the entitled-white-male, post-Apartheid culture of South Africa that seems to dearly long for those days gone by. Our non-hero François van Heerden (memorably played by Deon Lotz, below, left), quickly becomes so obsessed with his friend's son, Christian (played by the very attractive Charlie Keegan, below, right), that he can think about and follow little else. He arranges to visit Christian's family, and begins to follow the young man, soon becoming a kind of hidden stalker, who then discovers a surprising connection between the two families.

What happens from there on in is appalling but quite believable. It might seem surprising that a film this good never got a theatrical release here in the USA. Instead it went straight to video via TLA Releasing, and can now be seen on Netflix streaming.

Well, it's not a happy movie, and its look at homosexuality, in this case, is anything but a healthy or positive one. Instead it shows us what a weirdly closeted man can feel and do, once his deepest needs come surging forth. So it wouldn't pack in the usual gay crowd looking to be entertained and shown in a positive light.

No matter. Beauty is eminently worth seeing and thinking about. Nominated for an Un Certain regard award at the 2011 Cannes Film fest, it won the Queer Palm there that year, as well as Best Film at the Durban International Film Fest.

The acting by all is commendable (Mr. Lotz is unforgettable), the direction sure, and the writing -- subtle and spare -- manages to pack a real punch, while delineating character surprisingly well. Apartheid may have officially ended, but as films like this one and Disgrace clearly show us, its effects are long-term and far-reaching.

Beauty is available now via Netflix, but nowhere else that  I can so far ascertain.

Sara Blecher's OTELO BURNING debuts digitally via Sundance Institute's Artist Services Program

If you were lucky enough to see the unusual and eye-opening 2011 documentary White Wash (if you'd like to, click here), you'll already be one-up on the idea of black surfboarders taking to the waves and having one of those waves "catch them," rather than the other way around -- which, as we're told, is simply untrue: A surfer, black or white, never "catches a wave." Rather, the wave catches him or her. All of the above is a kind of prelude to my discussion of the film that arrives here digitally this coming week: OTELO BURNING, a narrative movie by Sara Blecher that has its style and roots deep in the documentary form.

This should be no surprise, for the documentary realm is from where Ms Blecher hails (the filmmaker is shown above), having made the 2011 South African "train surfing" doc Surfing Soweto and then the South African version of the TV reality series, Who Do You Think You Are?  Initially, Otelo Burning seems quite like a documentary in many ways, from its look, sound (the movie is narrated as often as any dialog is spoken) and performances, which have to them, the kind of "reality" we often expect from that other, true-life movie format.

The film tracks a groups of friends -- Otelo (below, right); his little brother, Ntwe (below, left, and in the fourth photo down); their friend New Year and his sister Dezi (above); and a new and possible friend named Mandla, a sexy interloper (two photos below) who introduces the group to surfing, at which Mandla is pretty damned good.

There's a lot going on in Otelo Burning, much of it seemingly peripheral to the story -- the coming end of apartheid and the rebellions forming toward that purpose; Otelo and Ntwe's father's great fear that something will happen to Little Ntwe (he imagines it to be the mythical/legendary snake that's said to inhabit the local river, in which Ntwe almost drowns at the film's beginning); the expected racism that shows itself more in the white families for whom these blacks toil than in the surfing competitions in which they eventually engage.

Ms Blecher manages to weave all this together, however, and pretty well, until we understand that all of it is connected in ways that most of these kids -- too young and immature to do much more than surf, fall in love and get in a little trouble -- can possibly yet have figured out.

What dialog is heard is spoken mostly in Zulu and occasionally in English, and the performances by all range from at least serviceable to quite good. Blecher coaxes a real feeling of community and pleasant extemporaneous-ness from her actors, at least up until the point that coming-of-age morphs into heavy melodrama and something supremely dark.

We know that some of the folk we've seen and heard have access to guns, and that talk of an informer has been heard circulating. When a sudden and truly horrific act occurs, the horror of it threatens to derail the movie and in fact turns it into another genre -- without the filmmaker's possessing quite the genre-jumping expertise that a more seasoned hand might bring to the project.

Maturity is thrust suddenly upon certain characters, while the chance for this is stolen from one of them. Yet another is shown up to be supremely, shockingly evil. How well you buy all this will depend, I think, on how much you've given yourself over to the movie at the point at which it seems to change course. I had some trouble here, though I'm happy to have had the chance to meet this little group and share in their lives for a time.

The tag line about "freedom" on the movie's poster steals from the old Janis Joplin song. Freedom of a sort is certainly important to Otelo and his friends, though their understanding of it is at this point woefully limited. Surfing provides a taste of it (oddly, the movie spends rather little time on the actual learning of the skill or even of its being practiced in the water, above), but any kind of genuine freedom for South African blacks (or whites, for that matter) still eludes this sad, traumatized country. (For the best and deepest look so far at post-Apartheid South Africa, do see -- if you haven't already -- Disgrace, the fine and disturbing movie starring John Malkovich.)

Meanwhile, Otelo Burning opens digitally this Tuesday, January 14, via the Sundance Institute's Artist Services Program -- with the film available for pre-order through Sundance Institute’s Now Playing page, as a result of the partnership between Sundance Institute and IFP, which release several of their alumni films each year through this collaboration. Otelo Burning will also be making its debut on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Microsoft Xbox, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, VUDU and YouTube/GooglePlay.

VEHICLE 19: In Mukunda Michael Dewil's South African chase thriller, Paul Walker goes fast and furious, B-movie level

First-off, TrustMovies sees nothing wrong with a good "B" movie. We should have more of them, as in the good ol' 1940s and 50s eras, when I was growing up. "A" movies these days are so often bloated in length, while paltry in style and content, that the new Paul Walker vehicle made in South African and titled VEHICLE 19 -- though for all I know it may be an "A" movie so far as South African is concerned (we don't see that many home-grown films from there; District 9 was something of an anomaly) -- seems to me a good example of a generally tight, twisty little B film.

Written and directed by a South African fellow with the mouthful of a name -- Mukunda Michael Dewil (shown at right) -- the movie tosses you into an immediate car chase with Mr. Walker (below) at the wheel (Fast & Furious franchise fans should feel right at home with the person, if not the place). Then, after some speedy, scary moments, we come to a sudden halt, and then we're taken back to a few hours earlier, as the plot kicks into action. While there is not a hell of a lot of plot, there's enough to keep us and Walker occupied tidily for the 85-minute running time. Basically, this is one of those in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time movies, but with a little bureaucratic twist in which an employee makes a simple mistake in her assignment of a particular object. And then all hell breaks loose.

I don't want to go much further plot-wise because the movie has a couple of neat surprises up its sleeve, one of which involves another character. I will just say that, as usual, with films in which you find dirty cops at the top of the food chain -- from L.A. Confidential to the recent Eden -- things do not look all that bright for the protagonists on view.

Mr. Walker's character, Michael, has a checkered history himself, which adds to our hero's problems, and while the actor plays mostly angry and determined (with a couple of very moving moments of concern and grief), but he handles these two states well enough. Naima McLean (above, right) plays her "whistleblower" role quite well, too, and the only other major character is essayed by Gys de Villiers, first heard as a phone voice and finally given the solidity of a body to go with it.

In an article I searched out about the making of the film, it was said that all the action takes place inside the titular vehicle. I don't quite remember the movie that way. There are plenty of scenes shot from outside the car looking in, so this is not on of those "contained thrillers" like Buried or Brake.) I also think I recall Walker's getting out of the vehicle, as well. Still, most of the movie does take place in the generally speeding car, and the fact that it gets such good mileage out of this situation is very much to the filmmaker's credit as writer and director.

Distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, Vehicle 19, a good title, the meaning of which comes eventually clear, opens this Friday via AMC theaters in ten cities across the country, including New York City (at the Empire 25), Ontario (in California, at the Ontario Mills 30), Atlanta (at the Southlake Pavilion in Morrow, GA), Chicago (at the Barrington in So. Barrington, Il.), Dallas at the Mesquite in Mesquite, TX), Houston (at the Studio, Houston), Miami (at the Sunset Place in South Miami), Philadelphia (at the Neshaminy in Bensalem, Pa.), San Francisco (at the Deer Valley Stadium in Antioch, Ca.), Washington DC (at the Hoffman in Alexandria, VA). If you don't live near these locations, I expect VOD and DVD will be coming semi-soon.

Oliver Schmitz's LIFE, ABOVE ALL: a mix of South African reality and sentimentality

Strong, memorable, central performances ground the festival favorite from South Africa, LIFE, ABOVE ALL, which has already played Cannes' Un Certain Regard, 2010; Toronto, 2010; and this year's San Francisco, Roger Ebert and the Human Rights Watch film fests. Ostensibly taking place in present-day South Africa, the movie will remind many of us, in terms of the attitudes of the citizens on view, of the early 1980s in America's big cities, as AIDS, as yet unnamed, was harvesting lives and scaring the wits out of communities, gay and straight.

If homosexuality was for decades "the love that dare not speak its name," AIDS was (in many ways still is) the disease that had better shut up -- never more so, if Life, Above All has it right -- than in South Africa. Interestingly enough, homosexuality is nowhere to be seen in this movie, while AIDS is all over the place, taking its toll even as the citizens refuse to recognize it -- denying, lying and pretending, but ostracizing anyone suspected of suffering from the plague.

Written by Dennis Foon, from a novel by Allan Stratton, and directed with a combination of skill and schmaltz by Oliver Schmitz (shown at right, who has directed mostly for television -- and one of the fine episodes from Paris je  t'aime), the movie is never less than involving as it tells the story of the young girl Chandra, played by first-time actress, Khomotso Manyaka, shown above, who gives a commanding performance. At the film's beginning, Chandra's younger sister is dying, and her mom, we soon discover, is also sick. The townspeople are suspicious about the causes.

The most venerated woman in the village (Harriet Lenabe, above), also clearly the wealthiest (she's got a phone!), is a friend to Chandra and advises the girl as to what to say and how to phrase the reasons for the death and sickness. Chandra would be happy to simply tell the truth, but this is not allowed, and the movie soon becomes a push-and-pull tale of Chandra on one side and her relatives, the villagers and ever her own mother -- shamed into silence and secrecy -- on the other.

Whether by design of the filmmakers or the reality of the situation in Black South Africa today, the movie is very pro-woman. Whether they be right or wrong, it's the women who are strong, while the men -- with the exception of the village schoolteacher, above -- are low-life expendables or seem pussy-whipped hubbies unable to think for themselves.

And yet, because almost all of the women shown here, with the exception of Chandra and her friend Esther (a sad, angry and very impressive first performance by Keaobaka Makanyane, below, left) are on the wrong side, including the woman witch doctor sent to "explain" the situation (above, right), one might have some trouble calling the movie "feminist."

As Life, Above All, moves toward the point of showdown, coincidences pile up and, I'm afraid, the movie takes the easier path to a feel-good, lessons-leaned-thank-you, finale. Oh, it's moving enough, all right, but it isn't particularly believable, given all we've seen prior to it. Worth viewing for the performances, the beauty of the faces and the landscapes, the film leaves us with the sense that we've just witnessed a big-screen, art-house, foreign-language version of an after-school special.

Life Above All, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens Friday, July 15, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Film Forum, and at the Royal in West Los Angeles. Further playdates all around the country can be found by clicking here.

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On a related note, if you have not yet seen the excellent and quite provocative documentary, House of Numbers by Brent Leung  (my earlier review is here), which deals with AIDS in South Africa and how the incidence of poverty impacts on its diagnosis, you might want to give this worthwhile film a look.

On DVD: Michael Swan/Kevin Richardson's WHITE LION, a fable of South Africa

A dulcet-toned black man speaks to a group of children, black and white, telling them the tale of a supposedly famous and unusual white lion whose "reign" augurs peace and prosperity for the land. This lion ruled over his domain way back when, but then he disappeared. Years -- maybe decades -- later, a new white cub is born and the tale takes us through his birth to young adulthood, with the teller and his kids breaking into the narrative now and again to ask questions or express concern. Other than some pleasant and occasionally beautiful wildlife photography, that's pretty much it for this unexceptional but mildly rewarding "family" movie from South Africa. If you and your kids can't get to the new documentary that opens this week -- The Last Lions -- then White Lion might be a presentable alternative, as it makes its DVD debut this week, after a very limited theatrical release last fall.

Although there are various threats to the little cub and his older version that pop up along the way -- hyenas, a snake, crocodiles (below), other lions, fire and, of course, man -- filmmakers Michael Swan (above, left) and Kevin Richardson (above, right, with camera) make certain that scares and violence are kept to the minimum, along with any blood and gore.

Though there are actors in the film, primarily the young native boy Gisani (Thabo Malema, shown center, two photos above), who becomes the lion cub's primary protector, the movie relies mostly on photography and that narrator, essayed by South African theater-and-film luminary John Kani, to guide the film to fruition. Along the way, according to the credits, some 25 white lions were used to portray the lead, awhile something like double or triple that amount were used to brings us the more heavily populated "tawny" variety.

In the midst of all this,there is quite an interesting moment when the narrator tells the kids that there is a new threat to our lovely lion: the "most dangerous creature in all the land: man."  Well, excuse me, but what species would he call our friend Gisani, who's been protecting and following the lion for most of the movie?  Of course, our narrator really means to say "white man," and if he had added that extra word, it would have been perfectly appropriate -- and OK by me.

In any case, by the film's end only one lion has bitten the dust (off-screen, of course) and there has been one nice little surprise, too. And, despite your being able to resist the film for most of the way, its ending is likely to leave you feeling more emotional than you'd intended and maybe even with a catch in your throat.

From Screen Media Films, White Lion makes its DVD debut Tuesday, February 15, for sale or rental.