Movie Nation

The new year has barely begun, but we’ll be hard pressed to find a movie as disturbing — on many levels — as the darkly comic Israeli thriller “Big Bad Wolves.”
It’s about the torture of an accused child molester-serial killer. The torturers are sure they have their guy. The accused keeps protesting his innocence and suffering horribly.
We see cops tase the guy’s dog, kidnap him, beat him with a phone book, bloody him and ruin his life. The police smirk and joke around as they carry out this destruction.
“Maniacs aren’t afraid of guns,” one experienced toenail-yanker says, justifying this lunacy. “Maniacs are afraid of maniacs.” So, that’s just who the cops become — maniacs.
And chillingly, co-writers/directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado intercut grim crime scene moments and extended, dread-building torture sessions with chuckles at the funny ring tones on this or that cop’s phone, at the bullying butterball son of the rotund police chief (Dvir Benedek of the Israeli sumo comedy, “A Matter of Size”) who parrots his dad’s criticism of loose-cannon cop Mickey (Lior Ashkenazi).
A game of hide-and-go-seek ends with a little girl snatched from the closet of the abandoned house she and her friends are playing in. We aren’t given the “evidence” the cops have for making mild-mannered school teacher Dror (Rotem Keinan) their one and only suspect. Next thing you know, four cops are dragging Dror into an empty warehouse and beating his head in with a phone book. A hidden teen tapes the torture on his phone.
But when that video goes viral, there’s no outrage. Kids in Dror’s junior high school class laugh at it and assume the police must have had good reason. His boss is the same way.
And Dror doesn’t go to other cops or the media to protest this. That’s puzzling, in a stack-the-deck sort of way.
Still, a scandal is about to erupt and Mickey is put on leave from the force. Most of the movie is about the bizarre, sometimes excruciating “enhanced interrogation methods” Dror is subjected to in the most cavalier ways. And not just by Mickey.
Most disturbing of all is the amusingly matter of fact way the movie suggests that every Israeli you run across has some experience torturing somebody. Everybody’s an expert. National service in the Army is the rationale for that. A scene or two with an unconcerned Palestinian bystander suggests that people used to dehumanizing others have no problem waterboarding, busting fingers or playing with fire with any suspect, Muslim or Jewish. The Army taught them.
Like “Hostel,” many moments will make you avert your eyes. There’s a touch of “Dragon Tattoo” self-righteousness. Like “Touch of Evil,” we’re made to ponder the “any means necessary” approach of police whom we’re just supposed to trust will “always get their man.”
And here and there, we’re supposed to laugh. Even though Keinan does a poor job of playing the cumulative effects of broken bones, burns and cuts, torture is a hard thing to turn funny. Perhaps that’s the broader point. If you laugh at this, you’re culpable, too. And if you made a comedy about something your security folks have been caught doing more often than not, perhaps the filmmakers are as well.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, with graphic violence, descriptions of sex crimes
Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Rotem Keinan, Dvir Benedek, Tzahi Grad
Credits: Directed by hidji. A Magnet release.
Running time: 1:49

Oscar has been doing all in his power these past few years to limit the impact of the less legit but more entertaining Golden Globes on the Academy Awards. Move the Oscars up and back, change nominations date, add to the best picture field.

People still watch the Globes. And their impact on the Oscars — in the past they limited the field by deciding, with their ten best picture (five drama, five musical or comedy) field, who had a legit shot at a nomination.

But in their ten nominations this year, they’ve got “Rush,” which is a film nobody is talking about a best picture. And “Philomena,” which has similar limited best picture buzz.

“12 Years a Slave,” “Captain Phillips,” “Gravity,” “NEbraska,” “Her,” The Wolf of Wall Street,” “American Hustle,” and “Inside Llewyn Davis” are the other Globes nominees.

No “Dallas Buyers Club,” no “All is Lost.” I kind of think “Llewyn Davis” is an outsider looking in Oscar film, too. No realistic shot. But that one and “August: Osage County” have awards bait pedigrees, even if they don’t deserve the honor.

So if Oscar puts up a full slate of ten nominees they should be significantly different from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s take.

The actress and actor Globes fields should contain pretty much every Oscar nominee — Blanchett and Dench, Bullock, Thompson and either Streep (ugh) or maybe Amy Adams as a lead actress in “American Hustle,” Redford, McConaughey, Elba, Hanks and…Idris Elba? I don’t hear “Mandela” buzz, so possibly Leonardo DiCaprio will get that spot.

Best animated film? “Croods” vs. “Despicable” vs. “Frozen” or “The Wind Rises.”

The point, as always, is that all of Oscar’s efforts to avoid having repeat acceptance speeches and further erosion of their brand have failed. Most of the same nominees, certainly most of the same winners.

Folks with Dwayne Johnson’s new “Hercules” feature have got to be sweating things a bit over the low turnout for the no-name “Legend of Hercules” that opened in fourth place this weekend. On the one hand, nobody saw it, so it won’t use up the audience the way “Olympus Has Fallen” did for “White House Down.”

On the other hand, nobody wanted to see a Hercules movie. Well under $9 million.

“Lone Survivor” opened wide, has Oscar pretentions (screenplay, etc.) and did a whopping $38.5 million on its first weekend in front of a national audience. It opened Christmas in NY/LA.

“August: Osage County” did very well platforming into other markets. Over $7 million.

“Her” opened reasonably wide, and finished just outside of the top ten.

Nobody but nobody expected the all-guys, bloody and downbeat combat picture “Lone Survivor” to do over $25 million this weekend.

But it’s headed towards a $37 million opening (wide), according to deadline.com. Saturday will be the most telling day, but based on a boffo Friday, it looks like a hit.

“The Legend of Hercules,” meanwhile, appears to be falling down to expectations — $8-8.5 million. That’s good enough for third place in a field still dominated by holiday releases.

“Her” and “August: Osage County” and “Inside Llewyn Davis” also go into wider release this weekend, and could get a Golden Globes bounce if Sunday night is good to them. “Osage County” has cracked the top ten, “Her” is at 11. “Llewyn” isn’t doing much of anything outside of New York.

Almost certainly.

Well, almost.

Decent (not rapturous) reviews for “Lone Survivor,” which opened in a couple of markets over Christmas, should help Mark Wahlberg climb back up that January mountain (he’s had a movie in January every year since “Contraband” blew up for him a couple of years ago).

“The Legend of Hercules,” which aims to be the “Olympus has Fallen” to Brett Ratner’s summer release, “Hercules” (in theaters first, stealing the thunder), was hidden from critics and has been roundly trounced in reviews. A true “January” movie.

Box Office Mojo says this “Legend” won’t do more than $8 million. Zero awareness for it, in other words. Weak cast, little advertising. They’re abandoning it.

But “Lone Survivor”? That should win the weekend — $23 million plus, says Mojo. That seems optimistic. The picture has zero date movie appeal.

The Hollywood Reporter figures it’ll do $19 or so.

The Box Office Guru thinks $15-16 is in line.

EVERYBODY says “The Legend of Hercules” is only headed toward $8 million this weekend.

It’s “Clash of the Titans,” pretty much without Titans, a “Gladiator” with nobody to root for and a “Samson” without a proper “Delilah.” At times, with its stiff, charisma-impaired cast, its digital sets and slo-mo slaughter, “The Legend of Hercules” has a whiff of the Augean Stables about it — if you catch my drift.

The rest of the time, this star vehicle for “Twilight” lesser light Kellan Lutz rises to adequate — an ancient Greece action pic that benefits by coming out before “Pompei,” before “300: Rise of an Empire” and long before Brett Ratner’s summer spectacle titled, um, “Hercules.” A parade of carnage without blood, romance without heat, stilted dialogue and male cleavage, at its best it is still vexing as all get out even to those with a high tolerance for the Cinema of the Gods.

Not to say that it contorts Greek mythology beyond recognition. It doesn’t. This Renny “Driven” Harlin picture is about Hercules before he knew he was Hercules. His mother Alcmene (Roxanne McKee) so hates her war-mad husband that she prays for a means of bringing him down. Hera, wife to Zeus, promises her a baby conceived by her husband. And that lad, called Alcides, doesn’t know that the cruel King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins) isn’t his real dad.

Dad had his suspicions, and lavishes his attention on the inferior first-born son Iphicles (Liam Garrigan). While Alcides (Lutz) falls for the bland but pretty Princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss). That’s the princess the king wants Iphicles to marry.

Hercules gets banished for trying to run off with the princess, and as she is to marry “three moons (months) hence,” he’d better get cracking, gladiating his way from Egypt to Sicily to the MMA Greek Octagon finals so he can win back the lady and avenge himself on those wayward relatives.

Armies besiege digital fortresses, digital triremes plow through the Mediterranean and slo-motion sword fights, with stabbings, impalings, and virtually no blood fill the screen.

And in between the fights, an utterly generic cast utters the blandest lines ever written as they court, conspire, fight and fume.

Lutz is built like a guy who would never get voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and bellows his lines in manly fashion. But he makes little impression. As do his foes. Weiss doesn’t inspire Helen of Troy comparisons, and the villains aren’t any threat to the guy with all the muscles.

There’s precious little sorcery to the “sword and sorcery” genre elements, and the story beats simply hit (and miss) the movies this borrows from that I mentioned at the opening of this review.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense combat action and violence, and for some sensuality

Cast: Kellan Lutz, Roxanne McKee, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins, Liam McIntyre, Liam Garrigan

Credits: Directed by Renny Harlin, written by Sean Hood, Daniel Giat, Giulio Steve and Renny Harlin. A Summit release.

Running time: 1:36

She was up for the lead in “Saving Mr. Banks.” And she would have been great in it, co-starring with Tom Hanks, being a bit more age appropriate for P.L. Travers, being bitchy as all get out.

But no, Meryl Streep chose to chew the scenery and pile on the ham in “August: Osage County,” an ensemble picture that lets her and Julia Roberts raise the volume in a film of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize winning play.

Which brings a whole new slant to her decision to do a press event where she rips into…Walt Disney, Hanks’ character in “Saving Mr. Banks.” While HANDING Emma Thompson an award for her performance in “Saving Mr. Banks.”

Ouch.

Nothing she says is far from the truth. Exaggerated and shrill, but not far off the mark. Was Walt anti-Semitic? Possibly. Sexist? No more than was normal for his era. Racist? Possibly, certainly racially insensitive, even though he tried to get civil rights leaders to sign off on “Song of the South.”

But seriously, going back over all this, while handing Emma an award, seems ill-timed, ill-considered and petty. It makes Streep look needy, like she needs the Oscar she so does NOT deserve for “Osage.”

This is very Weinstein of her, for those who know the rep of the film studio famed for managing their films’ Oscar campaigns, and snarky counter-campaigns. Tacky. And wouldn’t you know it, “August: Osage County” is a Weinstein Co. release.

Expect her to walk this bit of venting back within a day or two.

Meanwhile, The New Yorker sets out to explain it all away. Streep, who gives few interviews and fewer public speeches, has a “history” of taking public feminist stands about Hollywood subjects. Maybe so. But she’s not that public, which makes her decision to do all this on one of those rare-ish occasions when she does a little public speaking just amplifies it.

True confession, I’m a fan. I’ve interviewed her before. She’s been pretty good in most everything she’s done, post “High School Musical.” Well, nobody was good in “Sucker Punch.”

Vanessa Hudgens has been aggressively making that leap from teen idol to adult roles — in films from “Spring Breakers” to “The Frozen GRound” ( a teen hooker in that one) to her latest, “Gimme Shelter.”

We’re talking about that latest film and the transition she seemingly started the moment that infamous selfie turned up on the net years ago, and I’m looking for lines of questioning.

Any suggestions? Comment below, and thanks for the help.