Mainstream fun: Guy Ritchie's THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. -- projected so poorly at a local Regal theater that the chain should offer refunds

A silly choice for would-be blockbuster status, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., the latest smart fluff entertainment from Guy Ritchie, is courting a demographic that has no idea of the original TV source material, let alone the history -- politics, culture and fashion -- of the 1960s time period. So money-wise Warner Bros. can write this one off, at least here in the USA. (Worldwide, the film might do a bit better, as audiences abroad may be a tad more "with it.") Still, older patrons will find a lot to enjoy in this alternately fast-moving and stationary spies-and-nuclear-reactor nonsense.

Mr. Ritchie, noted among other things for his homo-erotic playfulness between male characters in everything from RocknRolla to Sherlock Holmes, has either tamped down that tendency here, or else his two somewhat wooden stars -- Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer (shown above, respectively, right and left)-- don't have the acting chops to bring this off. So they stick to the script and manage to headline a generally breezy and occasionally subtly funny entertainment.

The funniest of the moments comes as a lakeside restaurant empties out, and the reasons why and how will put a smile on the face of anyone brought up on those cold-war spy films of an earlier decade. For female pulchritude and class, the film uses two interesting actresses, the lately all-over-the-place Alicia Vikander (above) and Elizabeth Debicki (below) as, respectively, the good girl and the bad.

You'll see car chases and foot chases and torture and death -- all served up with very little bloodshed and more than a few laughs. The movie's certainly not great entertainment but it is a pleasant enough version of the distinctly old-fashioned kind we rarely see these days. (Although Mr. Ritchie's use of split-screen effects now and again -- maybe a nod to the movie-making style of that era -- seems pretty useless.)

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But now, to get to the reason this movie-going experience was so irredeemably crappy, we must leave the movie itself and address its "print" (or whatever high technology has replaced film as we used to know it). What the audience saw last evening -- Thursday, August 13, at the 7pm showing at Regal Shadowood 16 movie theater in Boca Raton, Florida -- was a complete travesty: a movie shown out of focus for it entire two hour running time.  Not horrendously out of focus, mind you, but just enough so that the quality of the projection resembled that of an over-used VHS video tape from the 1980s. There was not a clear, clean, sharp image in all of its 116 minutes. (The trailers for upcoming movies that preceded the main attraction were, of course, sharp as a tack.) For this, the audience is paying first-run prices?

TrustMovies left the theater after around 30 minutes and asked two nearby ushers what was going on. They came into the theater and agreed that the film was not in proper focus. But because there are no longer "projectionists" in movie theaters, there was no one to fix things. (I couldn't find a theater manager anywhere nearby.) Either Warner Bros. had sent a faulty hard drive to be shown, or something was wrong with the projector in use. Either way, the audience for that performance (and any other that must make do with these particular facilities) is being cheated.

This is particularly galling because the movie was shot on location in some very pretty scenery (not to mention the beauty of the actors on view). Meanwhile, if you're lucky enough to get a decent hard-drive in your local theater, take a chance to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (To learn where it's playing near you, click here.) But be warned: If the image looks drab, muddy and consistently not sharp, head for the manager and demand your money back. Then wait for the Blu-ray or DVD discs to appear down the road. 

Ryoo Seung-wan's THE BERLIN FILE: Korean cinema hits the bull's-eye yet again

Action fans, lovers of spy movies, aficionados of dark love stories, folk who can't get enough smart, fast-moving chase films: All of you can now praise heaven, South Korean version, for the first-class genre delight that opens this week. If THE BERLIN FILE sounds a little le Carré-ish, that's fine because it is, but better. (John le Carré's books, and most of the the movies made from them are intelligent and well-plotted but, with the exception of the recent Tinker,Tailor... rather slow-moving.) This film barrels ahead at such a pace that you'll barely keep up, relishing every fast-moving moment, lingering over nothing. Not, at least, until the finale, set in a field of golden wheat in which the sight of one of our heroes and the load he carries on his back may break your heart.

Once again, those Koreans do such a masterful job of combining, thrills, chills, humor, horror and heartbreak that no other country seems to come close. The filmmaker this time around is someone new to me: Ryoo Seung-wan, left, who directed and wrote the Korean dialog (the English dialog, surprise, was written by a fellow I actually know and respect, Ted Geoghagen). Mr Ryoo has been around now for some 15 years and in that time has directed ten films. Though this is the first I've seen, it's good enough to make me want to view the rest.

This spy movie plops us into what looks to be more or less present-day Berlin, where, within a few minutes, we've encountered everything from a secret room in the apartment behind the pantry, a coded message implanted in food from a local falafel stand, a very unlucky pickpocket, and a deadly hypodermic inside a... fish. Fun! The film's first heavy-duty set piece is an arms deal involving quite the international set: Germany, North Korea, some Arab country (or countries), with South Korea, the CIA and the Mossad viewing from afar but eventually getting noticeably hands-on.

There are lots of characters to keep straight, but the film does a decent job of differentiation, which helps enormously in movies like this. The two people we come to care most about are a husband (Ha Jung-woo, above, right) and wife (Gianna Jun, above, left), North Korean spies, based in Berlin, who come under suspicion of being traitors to the cause. The why and how of this does not come fully clear until more than halfway along, which makes the movie all the more interesting for our not really knowing for who we should be rooting.

The leading South Korea intelligence agent (Han Suk-kyu, above) rabidly hates the North and what it stands for: "A political deal with Commies? I don't even make left turns at intersections!" is how he puts it. (It's good to know the cold war is still alive and well.)

As our leading villain, whose actions grow scurvier as the movie proceeds, Ryoo Seung-beom (above) makes  a wily, creepy and very smart nemesis -- the kind of fellow for whom torture was invented (oh, no -- did I just say that?).

The plot, convoluted by follow-able, is great fun, and the action set pieces are as good as you'll see this year, I'd wager. In particular there's a superb and lengthy escape/fight/chase scene involving husband, wife and a most adept killer that will keep you on tenterhooks throughout.

Along the way, you'll pick up some interesting information. In the morgue for example, while trying to identify recently deceased killers, we learn that North Korean men are likely to be uncircumcised, while those in the South are evidently cut. Regarding defectors from the North, are they really given the choice  to go South or to some other U.N. sanctioned country? Interesting.

Coming in at just two hours, the film is on the short side of most South Korean cinema. Even at that length you will not be bored. And the film's lessons have less to do with politics and geography than with humanity and morality. "We're men; we betray" notes one character, whose words come back to bite him in the ass (or, in this case, the shoulder).

And once again we learn that, wherever in the world we find ourselves, Follow the money is always the best advice. The Berlin File, from CJ Enter-tainment, and as much fun as you're likely to find at the movies this month (maybe this year) opens Friday, February 15: in the New York City area at the AMC's Empire 25 and Bay Terrace; in New Jersey AMC Ridgefield Park, and Philadelphia at AMC Plymouth Meeting. It will also open simultaneously in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, Honolulu -- with more locations yet to come. You can view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters by clicking here.

Christian Carion's FAREWELL exposes a funny/nasty/true cold-war spy tale

Real-life spy stories don't get much more bizarre than the one told in Christian Carion's by-turns droll and sad FAREWELL (L'Affaire Farewell). When this film made its American premiere last March at the FSLC's Rendez-vous with French Cinema (my earlier, shorter notice is here: click and scroll down), it seemed to provoke some confusion: Was the film a thriller? A satire? A drama? Truth? Or one of those semi-concocted creations "based on a real event"?  All of the above, I would guess.

The details of the actual "caper," as it unfolds under the quiet direction of M. Carion (shown at right), are just too juicy to spoil.  Suffice it to say that, via the leadership of our own Ronald Reagan, Russians spies had managed to reach as far up the U.S. ladder as the President's White House staff (and, yes, this is documented). If that's not enough to entice you to the film, the inspired casting of and surprising impersonation/performance by Fred Ward (below) as the then-sitting, if rarely thinking, President should clinch the deal. Mr. Ward, usually a delightful addition to any movie -- The Right Stuff to Remo Williams to Tremors -- here outdoes even himself.

With dialog in French, English and Russian and cinematography that appears to capture each place well (though the movie may have been economically filmed in Romania, for all I know), writer/director Carion (who also gave us the Academy-nominated Merry Christmas and The Girl from Paris) has now hit a very solid three for three, with each movie so different in time, place and subject matter that the only thing uniting them is intelligence and quality.

At the heart of his new film are two men: a young French engineer working in Russia and an older, disenchanted Colonel in the KGB. The latter, intent on bringing to a halt the degrading of the Communicst ideal, makes contact with the former, and after convincing him to help, begins passing documents that will blow open the vast Russian spy network that has by then infiltrated both France and the USA (many other countries, too, one suspects -- but it's these two that are here concerned).

Our Frenchman is played by Gallic "Everyman" Guillaume Canet (above) and the Russian by former-Yugoslav writer/director Emir Kusturica (below, right with Ingeborga Dapkunaite, as his wife).  Canet is just fine as the somewhat reluctant and then rather gung-ho emissary, but it is Kusturica who commands the movie.  His performance is so strong and deeply-felt (yet underplayed and quiet, as befits a fellow who has spent his working life pretending).  He possesses the natural gravitas to carry off what is one of the more difficult roles in recent cinema.

The real Russian Colonel, I recall reading, was not nearly as pure-minded and in fact more venal and cynical than the man portrayed by the film. Here perhaps is where the film's reality becomes smudged.  Yet, the filmmaker and his actor have created such an indelible portrait -- a sad, cynical man who still retains enough hope to continue trying -- that I happily sacrifice some reality in order to meet a character as richly conceived and portrayed as this one.

As the movie progresses, it also becomes more interesting, but then toward the end, there is a bit too much last-minute frenetics involving the usual "escape" routine of the Canet character and his family (Alexandra Maria Lara, shown above, right, with Canet, plays his wife).  So much of the film has been about ideas and ideals, how governments work (or don't) that this sudden escalation, even if true-to-life, seems manufactured.  The final section, however, devoted to what happens to our Russian, is so effective and moving that it is this you'll leave the theater feeling and thinking about.

Farewell, from NeoClassics Films Ltd., makes its theatrical debut today in NYC (at the Sunshine and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas) and in L.A. (The Landmark, Playhouse 7, Town Center 5 and Regal Westpark) today and will open on a number of other screens in the weeks to come.  You can find all scheduled playdates here (just click the link, then scroll down).