By Roger Moore
FILM: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
CAST: Ben Stiller, Kristin Wiig, Sean Penn, Shirley MacLaine
DIRECTION: Ben Stiller
James Thurber’s whimsical short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was about a bored, unassuming married man who escapes his humdrum life through wildly adventurous fantasies in which he becomes a war hero, a test pilot and the like. He avoids the boredom of errands and life’s routine that way.
In Ben Stiller’s new film based on that 1939 story, the daydreaming Mitty becomes a shy 40something who isn’t so much avoiding reality as using fantasy as an excuse for not seizing the day, for not asking out the woman (Kristen Wiig) at the office, for never travelling and experiencing the world. He’s not so much avoiding his dull reality as failing to, as the Latins said, “carpe diem”.
It’s a charming, whimsical and ever-so-slight film, a bit of an overreach but pleasant enough, even when it falls short.
Walter Mitty is a methodical man, carefully budgeting his life, looking after his elderly mother (Shirley MacLaine), too dull to have anything to post on his eHarmony dating profile, too shy to reach out to that pretty new hire Cheryl (Wiig) at work.
He has managed the photographic negatives at Life magazine for 16 years, living vicariously through the hero photographer (Sean Penn) who still shoots photos on celluloid in an Instagram world. But Life has just been taken over by a company that plans to close it after one last issue.
And the meticulous Walter, hounded by the corporate boor (Adam Scott) now in charge, has misplaced an image the famous photographer insisted was “the quintessence of Life”.
Every day, Walter walks through Life’s halls and loses himself in shots of mountain climbers in the Himalayas. He imagines the witty comebacks that would insult the new boss to his core or win the fair Cheryl. He “zones out” in these fantasies. Everybody notices.
And he sees that Life motto, emblazoned on the wall, which begins with “To see Life; see the world”. Which he never has.
One of the clever conceits of Steve Conrad’s adaptation of the Thurber story is to incorporate elements from It’s a Wonderful Life in it. Walter has been too caught up in responsibility and his own timidity to live the life of his dreams.
But that missing photo and photographer give him purpose. His stumbling conversations with Cheryl convince him that he has a mission — to track down the elusive photographer and find “frame 25”, “the quintessence of Life”.
And we’re off — to Greenland, Iceland and beyond, chasing ghosts, a photograph and a dream, emptying the bank account even as his life and career are upended in the Great Media Disruption that is journalism today.
One dream Walter wants to make come true is “a little ‘Pina Colada Song’ kind of thing” with Cheryl, making her see him anew, as someone who is more than he seems. The movie gives us hints (which Cheryl never sees) that this is actually true.
The film’s ambition and reach seem greater than they actually are, much like the locations and the product placement plot points. Its quiet tone — built around Stiller’s buttoned-down, meek, Steve Carell-like performance — can make you think it’s deeper than it is.
And the message — Life isn’t a magazine, a job or a savings account, but an experience — is as timeless as the boring and bored Walter Mittyesque dreamer that James Thurber created 75 years ago, when Life was still a magazine. — MCT
Mismatched cops on patrol
FILM: Ride Along
CAST: Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, John Leguizamo, Laurence Fishburne
DIRECTION: Tim Story
A little Kevin Hart goes a long way in Ride Along, a dull buddy picture engineered as a vehicle for the mini-motor mouth Hart and the perma-sneering Ice Cube. It’s mismatched cops on patrol in Atlanta in this 48 Hours/Bad Boys/ Showtime/The Hard Way action comedy where four screenwriters tried to find funny bug-eyed rants for the normally amusing Hart to deliver in between shootouts and chases.
But as producers of assorted Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy movies could have told them, just pointing the camera at a funny guy is never enough to save a lame, worn-out idea.
Cube, whose career seemed over after one too many Are We There Yet? sequels, is cranky cop James, whose pursuit of a mysterious villain named Omar is interrupted by his sister’s fiance. That would be Ben (Hart), a video game-addicted school security guard who longs to bring his wise-cracking/voice-cracking banter to the Atlanta Police Department.
James drags Ben on a ride-along just to convince the dude he isn’t cut out for police work and that he isn’t good enough for James’ supermodel sister Angela (Tika Sumpter).
James figures sis should be dating an Atlanta Falcon, an Atlanta Brave “or even somebody from the Hawks.” Instead, she’s hooked up with this sweet-talking shrimp who’s “about one chromosome away from being a midget”.
No, James isn’t politically correct.
He drags Ben along for a Training Day of botched interventions with bikers, silliness at the shooting range and a strip club shootout.
Even by the standards of this well-worn genre, Ride Along is a lazy movie, insulting the audience by letting us stay five steps ahead of the hack screenwriters.
At several points, Hart takes centre stage, plants his feet and unloads on a student headed down the wrong path, on a biker moll who has more facial hair than he can manage, etc. Sometimes, he finds a laugh or two. Often, these ranting monologues run out of gas before they start. His girlish shrieks at the first sign of danger are funnier, but not by much. And you start to wonder if Ice Cube’s feigned irritation with him involved any acting at all. — By Roger Moore/MCT
A tongue-in-cheek comedy
By Troy Ribeiro
FILM: Grudge Match
CAST: Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Kevin Hart, Alan Arkin
DIRECTION: Peter Segal
Peter Segal’s Grudge Match is a volatile, tongue-in-cheek comedy about two retired boxers from Pittsburg. They had fought each other twice earlier with each winning a single bout, but now they can’t see eye-to-eye. This Grudge Match is the resultant best of three matches between Henry Sharp aka Razor (Sylvester Stallone) and his ace opponent Billy McDonnen aka Kid (Robert De Niro) that takes place 30 years after their last bout.
Kid won the first bout in 1982. The next in 1984 was won by Razor, who baffles his fans by announcing his retirement soon after winning the light heavyweight championship. Post retirement, both lead sedentary lives away from the boxing ring with Razor as a factory worker and Kid as a stand-up comedian in a night club.
Now, they are far past their prime, and a fast-talking promoter named Dante Slate, Jr. (Kevin Hart) convinces them to step into the ring to promote a video game version of their famous fight. But unfortunately, an accidental confrontation between the two during the marketing promotion of the video game ends up going viral. This sets off a media frenzy, which ignites the public interest in the two ageing foes.
Both boxers agree to face each other in the ring to settle scores. The match is inevitable. Though the focus of the film is the final “grudge match”, the crux of the plot meanders capturing the lost years and personal moments in each boxer’s life.
Jam-packed with dialogues that are absolutely funny, exuberant with extempore loud and crass adult humour, the film keeps you in stitches.
The duel in the boxing ring reminds the audience of the iconic boxers the two ageing stars played during their hey days.
De Niro won a best actor Oscar for his career best performance as middleweight champion Jake LaMotta in Martin Scorsese’s classic Raging Bull, and Stallone, whose breakout Oscar-nominated performance as underdog boxer Rocky Balboa in John G Avildsen’s classic Academy Award winning best picture Rocky made him a cinematic superstar.
Today, De Niro is 70 and Stallone 67 — both fit and agile. They seem to be banking on their past laurels and hence have not put in much effort to emote. Considering their pervious performance as boxers, this one does not even qualify for Oscar nominations, but nevertheless they are persuasive and convincing. – IANS
DVDs courtesy: Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha
