Kim Byung-Woo's TAKE POINT: action, betrayal and international naughtiness via South Korea

Don't get involved if you want to stay alive -- the moral of this new film would seem to be -- with either mercenaries nor the governments of the USA, China, North Korea or South Korea. That's what happens to the two heroes of TAKE POINT, written and directed by Kim Byung-Woo, an ever-so-lightly-political action/adventure thriller in which betrayal is epidemic.

It doesn't matter whose side you imagine you may be on, you're still as good as dead.

Our heroes here (one of them takes a rather long time revealing himself) are a South Korean mercenary, now-residing in America with his pregnant wife, nicknamed Ahab (played by Ha Jung-woo, above and on poster, top), and a North Korean doctor (played by Lee Sun-kyun, below) whose job is to tend to the well-being of North Korea's premier, known here as "King."

The two men refer to each other as "Northie" and "Southie"(or so the English subtitles would have it) and eventually, if slowly, begin to bond and grow to respect their opponent for very good reasons. Mr. Lee played the lead role in that crackerjack South Korean crime thriller A Hard Day, and he is every bit as good (with much less to do) in this new film. Mr. Ha -- a staple of more first-rate South Korean films than you can shake a stick at -- is hugely impressive all over again. (That's Jennifer Ehle, below, right, who plays Ahab's American operative.)

The movie itself is manufactured to within an inch of its life, and yet it moves fast enough and is so filled with exciting twists and turns that it should more than keep fans of action, assassination, politics, explosions, and mistrust more than satisfied. The plot has to do with the mercenaries' need to kidnap and keep alive the North Korean head-of-state, and much of the action is seen via visual monitors located all over the place (including different countries) that show only one side of the action. Consequently, it is rare for more than than even a few cast members to share the screen in any particular scene.

So much is always happening simultaneously -- our Southie has to save the life of the North Korean President via everything from CPR to a blood transfusion at the same time as he is directing his team of mercenaries how to get out of ever more dangerous situations -- that the viewer barely has a chance to draw a breath. This makes the movie move like gangbusters. On the down side, however, is the heavily accented English spoken by both our heroes, which is difficult enough to understand that you may wish for the English subtitles to translate, not just the Korean dialog, but the English portion, too.

Yes, the movie is in many ways beyond ridiculous, with the events we see requiring super-human strength, skill and smarts from (and luck for) our two heroes. But if you can so easily accept the sanitized silliness of the latest Mission Impossible nonsense (which, clearly, most of the world did), then Take Point should prove a cakewalk of unusually piquant delight for most action fans. And if the film's finale offers up a nice nod toward a possible united Korea, it's too bad the filmmaker could not have allowed the emphasis to remain on the two men at the closing moment, rather than only on our heroic "Southie."

The film opened this past Friday in California in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, and will expand eastward across the country in the days to come. To find the theaters nearest you, click here and then click on Find a Theater and then just keep clicking on View More until you've exhausted either the list or yourself.

Israeli history, writ large: Amos Gitai's mostly recreated narrative doc--RABIN, THE LAST DAY

Probably the best thing TrustMovies can say about RABIN, THE LAST DAY -- the new and, as usual, oddball film from Israeli writer/director Amos Gitai (shown below) -- is that, despite its being over two-and-one-half hours long, it is quietly riveting and thought-provoking from first to last. In fact, its slow, steady pace results in a cumulative power that should easily carry along anyone who cares about Israel as a country and its place in the world situation today. And that, I would imagine, includes just about all of us sentient adults, whatever our feeling may be about the current Israel and Palestine situation.

That current situation is, in fact, alluded to almost immediately as the film begins, with Shimon Peres being interviewed by what appears to be a journalist. I say "appears" because most of the film is made up of recreations of what happened before, during and after the assassination, intercut with actual documentary footage. But so cleverly executed are Gitai's re-enactments that I suggest you not waste time during the film trying to decide which is which, or you will not be able to keep up with what is happening on-screen. During that interview Peres is asked if the state of Israel would be a different place today had the assassination (shown below) of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin not taken place 20 years ago -- just at the moment that what looked like a legitimate peace accord between Israel and Palestine had finally been hammered out. Peres answers yes, and the rest of the movie proceeds to support his assertion.

The recreated deposition scenes (these show one after another of the people who were present and/or involved in the assassination) were made using direct transcripts from the Shamgar Commission that investigated the Prime Minister's death. So these, one might assume, are pretty accurate recreations.

But from where, I wonder, comes one of the most bizarre and entertaining moments in the entire movie? This would be the extended scene (shown below) in which a woman who calls herself a clinical psychologist testifies before a groups of fundamentalist Jews bent on somehow destroying the Prime Minister and informs them that she has diagnosed Rabin as schizophrenic.

I am guessing this scene was created via some testimony given anecdotally, as perhaps were all the scenes featuring a look into the workings of these fundamentalist and right-wing Israeli nut-jobs who allow, as do all fundamentalists -- Christians, Muslims or what-have-you -- their faith in "god" to supersede law, reason and all else. But that's OK, right? Because this is god's law, and we and our religion -- as opposed to everybody else and theirs -- have "his" ear.

Nowhere in the film does Mr. Gitai shout "conspiracy." But he does not need to. From all we see, it is clear that right-wing fundamentalism pervaded every part of society at this time, from the police to elected officials to the crowds of protesters who felt Rabin was giving away their state to "the other." The deposition of the top law enforcement official (along with that of several more "security" people) and his shocking answers to the questions put to him, indicates an attitude that goes beyond mere laxness/sloppy procedure into something much more frightening.

Rabin, the Last Day, along with last year's fine "divorce" film, Gett, offers up an Israel more deeply committed to "god's law" than to man's (and certainly not to women's). If this were not disturbing enough for those of us hoping for humanism and rationality, there is also the lingering question of "What happened to the gun the assassin used?" Oh -- it must have gotten lost in the shuffle is the answer we get from the authorities. The gun question is brought up once and then quickly discarded, but anyone paying attention can only wince in disbelief.

Likewise, the shot of the assassin, alone and praying prior to his deed, will remind us of those perpetrators of our own 9/11 and how "religious" and "in touch with god" they all were. As I say, this movie should keep alert audiences on their toes for its entire 153 minutes. On a negative, but very slight, note: the end credits are shamefully difficult to decipher. Clearly "designed" to be artful and clever rather than readable, they are an embarrassment to the designer and an impediment to the viewer who might care anything about who did what on this movie.

This very hybrid documentary, from Kino Lorber, opens Friday, January 29, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and in Scottsdale, AZ, at the Harkins Shea 14 on February 4. Other playdates? The distributor is probably awaiting results from these initial venues, followed, we hope, by more and very deserved bookings. We shall see.

On Blu-ray/DVD -- one of James Gandolfini's final frolics: Geoffrey Fletcher's VIOLET & DAISY

A movie I liked very much, though the majority of my critical brethren did not, is now out on DVD and Blu-ray, and on the latter it looks as smashing as you might expect, with the details all there and the colors bright and rich. Further, since VIOLET & DAISY was one of James Gandolfini's final films, and he is simply, and as usual, terrific in it, this should make it a must-see for his many fans. I won't belabor the point by repeating myself, so if you missed my original review, you can find it here.

Watching the film a second time makes me admit that I might have slightly over-rated it upon initial viewing. But it remains quite a lovely, sad, hopeful and original piece of work. Its writer/director Geoffrey Fletcher should be proud, and you'll probably be surprised by the movie and immediately swept away in the wake of those oh-so-religious pizza delivery girls....

Violet & Daisy, from Cinedigm, running 88 minutes plus some extra features, is available now on DVD and Blu-ray and on some streaming sites, as well (Amazon Instant Video, for instance, but not yet streamable from Netflix).

Netflix streaming tip: Cusack & Akerman in Barfoed/Frazier's THE NUMBERS STATION

As usual, out of seemingly nowhere, a whole bunch of new movies appear via Netflix's streaming capability, and you're left wondering, "Should I take a chance?" Where THE NUMBERS STATION is concerned, the answer is yes. TrustMovies thought that this film hadn't even received a theatrical release, but evidently, it had. How did he miss reading about it in The New York Times? What-ever: The film is now available via Netflix streaming.

Directed by Danish filmmaker Kasper Barfoed, with a screenplay from F. Scott Frazier, the movie -- one of those sort-of conspiracy thrillers in which a collusion of government-connected powerful is perfectly happy to murder any worker drones, as well as higher-levels underlings, should said person want to opt out of the organization, or should one of its secret projects goes amiss and therefore call for a kind of mini-mass murder to cover up everything. But it's all for the betterment of mankind, don'tcha know! The movie, a short 89 minutes, is fleet-footed and has two very good performance to ground it: John Cusack and Malin Ackerman, both of whom are working close to their capacity and so prove as good as they've been in some time.

Mr. Cusack, above, plays the higher level operative, a fellow who "offs" anyone who tries to "resign" from his department, while Ms. Ackerman (below) plays a young woman who is quite bright in the area of numbers and codes and so has been recruited for a job with this special "department."

When Cusack fails to murder the teenager daughter of one of his victims (and thus leave the slate totally clean), he is sent to what is clearly a kind of "Siberia" of these numbers stations, where he watches over the young woman who posts the "espionagy" sort of codes that emanate from that titular station. Supposedly these "numbers stations" do not exist. Our and other governments claim they have no part in them, but as so much of what our and other governments claim has been shown to be false, why not this, too?

Either way, the idea of the thing makes for a smart and bracing premise which Barfoed and Frazier pull off with enough aplomb to make it work for the short running time. In addition, the relationship between the characters played by Akerman and Cusack builds quite well into something believable and genuine, so that the movie's emotional pull equals its thrill bill.

If there's nothing novel or great here, there is also nothing of which to be ashamed, thriller-wise. The ambience, whether among co-workers or alone in the underground fortress, is creepy and unsettling; the pacing is tight and right; and as the body count rises, so does the suspense.

You can catch the film, from Image Entertainment, via Netflix Streaming and on DVD, and maybe elsewhere digitally, too.

Tone conquers all in Geoffrey Fletcher's lighter-than-air hat trick, VIOLET & DAISY

 
TrustMovies is hazarding a guess here, but he'd say that in the annals of "filmdom" (especially film-dumb) there is little that's more difficult to manage than a movie about perky, adorable teen-age girls who earn their keep as paid assassins. Not that we've had all that many examples of this, of course. But movies featuring heroes and/or heroines with occupations generally loathed by society have some trouble reaching mainstream audiences. (This helps account for the fact that Arbitrage, extremely well-done and with an award-worthy performance from Richard Gere, did so little business theatrically: "Don't you dare make me sympathize with or understand a character like that!")

All of which brings us to the latest in a lengthy-though-very-irregularly-seen line of anti-hero movies, VIOLET & DAISY, that marks the film-making debut of Geoffrey Fletcher (who earlier adapted the screenplay for Precious, won an Oscar for his trouble, and here both writes and directs from his own original screenplay). Wisely, I think, Fletcher has set his tale of these kiddie killers in the slightly distant future, when humanity has given over almost entirely to "celebrity-hood," thus renouncing much of what makes it human. This helps somewhat bridge that large gap between watching horrendous deeds urfurl and having sympathy for the characters who are carrying them out.

What helps most in this regard, however, is the movie's tone. Mr. Fletcher has found a near-perfect one for the story at hand, and he has coupled it to performances that in all cases are spot-on in achieving an amazing balancing act. A little too much sweetness/cuteness (or conversely something so ugly that an audience cannot bear it) and everything can suddenly curdle. No worries: the filmmaker delivers delicious, sweet cream.

From one of his first images (above, of pizza-delivering nuns), we're in the la-la-land of someone with a fertile and charming imagination. Fletcher brings this imagination to bear upon just about everyone and everything in the film, which goes a long way toward making it not just palatable but damned enjoyable, too.

One wonders how the filmmaker got his cast on track with that special kind of performance that goes quite far but never over-the-top, offers up major cliches that manage not to bore us,  put its tongue in its cheek and still seems pretty real. It's an amazement, yet everyone -- smallest role to large -- comes through.

"Everyone" would include the two adorable leads, Alexis Bledel (the brunettes in the photos above) and Saoirse Ronan (the blond). Ms Ronan (of Hanna fame and lots else) has had some experience playing an assassin, but this is a first for Ms Bledel. Both young ladies take to it like killer pros. They're cute as buttons and utterly believable, too: alternately delighted, sad, frightened and surprised.

The object of their surprise is played by the wonderful James Gandolfini, who is -- surprise! -- wonderful again here, too. The movie is mostly a pas de trois between these characters, and no one misses a beat nor a step. They play so well together that you may want to see the film a second time simply to watch some terrific, moment-to-moment acting.

Also in the cast, and one of our favorite actors, is John Ventimiglia (above) as the head bad guy. He's as good as always, and his fine use of deadpan (and later just dead) helps the movie easily gloss over the bloody parts. (Ah, the internal-bleeding dance!) Fletcher's ability to give us these in bright red, while making us laugh at the same time, shows expert comic ability -- culminating in a bathtub full of corpses (below, and I think that's Ventimiglia, the second body down) that makes for a memorably goofy/ghastly image. There's a very funny little shower scene, as well (shown two photos below).

When it's time to forego the comedy and get more serious, Fletcher handles this expertly, too: lightly and without undo tear-jerking. He keeps his movie levitating in style, which he proves a natural at, and lets his ace cast members do the heavy lifting -- which they in turn make seem like an afternoon at Cirque du Soleil.

This kind of souffle is not easy to prepare, but Fletcher never lets the air out of his concoction. Violet & Daisy in an original, done with great style, feeling, strangeness and joy. Isn't it amazing -- all the ways in this world that you can find your family?

The movie, from Cinedigm and running just 88 minutes, opens this Friday, June 7, in 15 cities across the country. Consult the poster above for currently scheduled playdates.