Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012)

When set against the experience of seeing a production of Les Misérables,Tom Hooper’s adaptation single-handedly disproves Chaplin’s notion that life is tragedy in close-up and comedy in long shot. Hooper is so fixated on the musical’s reputation as a tear-jerker that he has no sense for its epic sweep, and his camera is rarely more than inches from an actor’s face as he or she sings. At times, performers even lurch suddenly toward the lens in a disorientingly pop effect, a gesture of spontaneity that sometimes comes across as their way of saying, “Would you back the hell off?”

Based, of course, on Victor Hugo’s epic, social romance novel, Les Misérables is one of the few musicals ripe for the current fetish for “realism” (emphasis on the quotation marks). Hooper always makes sure each face is covered in grime just so, that the stars’ teeth are not sparkling but also not blackened like the extras or significant characters of disrepute. These details make the film seem more fake than a stage show, not less, though the camera does such a fine job of its own on that front that the relatively minor sin of aesthetically arranged grit. One might not even notice this if, again, Hooper could bear to mix up his agonizingly long close-ups with a medium or long shot that lasted more than a second.

The Insider

Michael Mann deservedly earned himself a reputation as one of the preeminent action directors of the last 20 years, but that unfairly typecasts him. He brings the same attention to detail to his dramas that he does to his action flicks: Ali, heavily, heavily flawed as it was, was as interesting outside the boxing ring as it was within it. His experience with more visceral fare allows him to maintain a steady pace while maintaining an ability to capture every shot in pristine clarity. That precision makes every shot seem necessary, and it has a way of creating tension, as it leads the audience to believe that something important is on-screen, that anything cast in such detail will have some bearing on the narrative later in the film.

Ergo, while he may have superior films, The Insider best showcases Mann's talents. Making an actual thriller as opposed to shooting an action film like one gave the director license to make moments almost unbearable in their suspense. Even the scenes in which the corporate aspect of this corporate thriller come to the fore do not lessen the tension of Jeffrey Wigand's paranoia, for they expose a much deeper corruption than Wigand can uncover. Like the best of the old newspaper thrillers, The Insider pits intrepid whistle blowers against faceless enemies with unlimited resources as they desperately try to tell their story without dying.

Wigand, head of research for tobacco company Brown and Williamson, loses his job when he discovers that the tobacco industry used a chemically-altered form of nicotine in their cigarettes that made them more addictive while also increasing the risk of cancer and never informed the public in order to make bigger profits. Even though the company fired him, he must still honor his nondisclosure agreements or face a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit; fearing he might take his knowledge to the news anyway, executives attempt to force Wigand into signing an even more stringent agreement by threatening to withhold severance benefits, including the medical insurance he needs to cover his asthmatic daughter's medical fees. An outraged Wigand tells them where they can shove it and takes up a job as a high school teacher to get healthcare.

By random chance, Wigand crosses paths with 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), who was referred to the former executive to decode some information regarding health and safety-related documents concerning cigarettes. Worried that any involvement with a journalist could place him in a courtroom, Wigand initially refuses, but eventually capitulates and agrees to meet him at a hotel. The two begin a correspondence, and Wigand slowly reveals more and more details about the "Seven Dwarfs," the seven leading tobacco corporations, and how the CEOs of each perjured before Congress concerning their knowledge of nicotine's addictive properties.

The more Wigand divulges, the more he starts noticing strange things. A man spies on him at a golf course. Someone leaves a bullet in Wigand's mailbox. Eventually, his wife opens an email containing a death threat. Mann shoots these scenes in a style highly reminiscent of that great whistle blower film All the President's Men: shadow doesn't so much bathe the frame as wash over it like a tidal wave, all of it contrasted with the cold, artificial light he likes to use to play up his urban elements. That sickly faint-green hue only exacerbates that feeling in your gut that something terrible is about to happen.

Russell Crowe gives what may be his finest performance as the older Wigand: he walks with the slack gait of a desk jockey and delivers his lines with alternate boredom and frenzy. Sadly, Crowe seems to use that same characterization for any American role these days, but despite his self-typecasting, his Wigand stands out. He provides a nice foil for Pacino, playing against type as the more subdued of the leads; indeed, Crowe seems to be playing what would usually be the Pacino part, though Al excels in his "straight man" role.

Even as the threats pour in and his family begins to crumble, the strong-arming only strengthens Wigand's resolve. He agrees to testify in a Mississippi state case against Big Tobacco for Medicaid costs covering those affected by smoking, only to find himself served with a restraining order that the industry's elite lawyers cooked up. At last, Mann reveals the real thrust of the story: this is not the story of Jeff Wigand so much as a commentary on the monetary structure of news groups. CBS interviews Wigand for a 60 Minutes segment, only to censor the interview because the station receives ad money from the tobacco industry and can also be sued for billions. Mann and writers Eric Roth and Marie Brenner uncover the irony of journalists striving for integrity and truth when corporations known for their corruption have a stake in major journalistic avenues.

That's what makes The Insider so enraging: though Wigand succeeds in getting his message to the public, how many people in how many fields have been silenced in one form or another by corporations that seem to have sway over everything? Whistle blowing always takes a degree of courage, but it's downright suicide in some cases. But Mann never beats us over the head with this theme, allowing us to spend more time gripped by the plot. For all its talkative scenes held in boardrooms and surreptitious meeting places, The Insider is Mann's most involving film. It may not reach the heights of his epic, Heat, but I can think of no better argument for the man's greatness than this 2-1/2 thriller that passes in half the time.

State of Play

State of Play comes with a plot so tailor-made for adoration from journalists that cynics everywhere will dismiss it as a cheap ploy to drum up praise. It’s a shame, because by all accounts it’s a solid thriller and a more-than-worthy entry into the tried and true newspaper genre. You know the one: intrepid reporters pursue the story no matter the personal danger, uncovering layers of corruption until justice is served.

Cal McAffrey sort of fits that bill. Played by a scruffy, pudgy Russell Crowe, he hardly fits the profile of the fresh-faced, idealistic journalist. No, he’s been around the block, and just about everyone with a lick of importance in D.C. is on a first-name basis. Those friendships give him an edge when an unknown assailant kills a drug addict and a witness, setting off the events of the film.

Soon after those killings, a senator’s aide falls (or is pushed…) off a subway platform in front of an oncoming train. The senator in question, Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), receives the news and breaks down in the middle of a subcommittee hearing and admits he was having an affair with the young woman. Collins was Cal’s college roommate, and his wife Anne (Robin Wright Penn) had a fling with the reporter. It’s a testament to the film’s structure and writing that everyone in the room didn’t tune out there and then.

As Cal investigates whether the staffer killed herself or was murdered, he attempts to protect his old friend as much as possible. Soon he plunges deep into what he believes is a corporate conspiracy perpetuated by PointCorp, an obvious Blackwater stand-in that’s the subject of Collins’ hearings. Aiding the gruff reporter is Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), the paper’s lead blogger. This of course immediately casts the film as an old guard/new wave examination more than a mere thriller, but thankfully the writers keep things varied: Frye is certainly naïve but she knows how to get facts quickly, while McAffrey teaches her not to blow a big story by rushing individual threads of clues to the internet to claim firsties.

But Cal lets the relationships that give him an edge get in the way, and soon he’s playing cop instead of reporter. He and Frye tie threads together, but soon the roles of muckraker and ethical reporter switch: Cal begins to break the law to get the truth (or at least the truth he wants), while Della protests in vain. And hovering over them always is their editor, Cameron Lynne, played with conviction by Helen Mirren. The only real road bump is the ending, which plays out in the predictable fashion of giving us a twist, then throwing in an even bigger one just because.

Thrillers tend to unfold by rote at this point, but State of Play threw me more than once. Some scenes reminded me strongly of the shadowy terror of All the President’s Men, the film about Woodward and Bernstein’s uncovering of the Watergate scandal: a late-game scene in which Cal runs through a parking garage attempting to hide from the killer behind the initial murders is genuinely pulse-pounding. And many of the reveals drew gasps and “oh’s” from the audience, which is always a good sign.

For a film that many people are calling potentially the last newspaper movie ever – it won’t be I can assure you – it mostly avoids proselytizing about the superiority of paper over blog. Well, there’s some cheap dismissal at the start, and a groanworthy moment at the end where Della tells Cal that their story is too important to be just thrown on the internet, but otherwise the film suggest a healthy co-habitation. I only wish they’d really stuck with that point at the end instead of suddenly making it all about the thriller.

Body of Lies

Sir Ridley Scott is looking to take the John Le Carré style of spy fiction into the 21st century in his new film “Body of Lies,” an adaptation of David Ignatius’ thriller, and the results are hit and miss. We follow CIA field agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he works with contacts to find Al-Saleem, a high-ranking terrorist orchestrating a number of bombings in Europe. Calling the shots all the way back in Langley, Virginia is Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), a fat desk jockey who’s always planning ahead of his agents without letting them in on the secrets.

As one would expect, the two are polar opposites. Hoffman does not care about the potential casualties of the mission, nor does he seem to understand Middle Eastern diplomacy, despite being in charge of the Middle East division. Ferris, on the other hand, is an kindler soul; he treats his contacts with respect, cares for whatever partner the locals assign him, and feels a growing sense of disillusionment with his job, at which he is nevertheless brilliant.

The film constantly cuts between locations, ranging from Iraq to Langley to Jordan, where the bulk of the plot unfolds. As Ferris sets up surveillance, we get constant bird’s eye views from circling spy planes. If the images they produce are at all realistic, then it’s only a matter of time before the United States find anyone it’s looking for. Then again, as the film reminds us several times, this technology relies on the ability to link with other technology, and that terrorists can effectively disappear by returning to the Stone Age, so to speak. They remove batteries from cell phones, destroy computers, communicate face to face; in a futuristic war, they are holding their own by running to the past.

In an attempt to lure Al-Saleem to communicating by phone (and thus exposing his position), Ferris dreams up a bold scheme: create a fake terrorist to steal Al-Saleem’s thunder, making him jealous enough to come out of hiding. Along the way, Ferris joins forces with Jordanian intelligence, run by a suave chief named Hani Salaam. Played marvelously by Mark Strong, Hani is a constant in the spy genre: the partying, drinking quasi-socialite who never loses focus of his command. When he meets Ferris, he takes an instant shine to the young man, but warns the American never to lie to him, which seems an odd request in the spy field.

So far so good, right? Well, nothing mucks things up faster than a poorly thought-out romance, and the one on display in “Body of Lies” is the most inexplicable in a long time. Ferris, who remains focused on his job even as he doubts its worth, strikes up a relationship with an Arabic nurse named Aisha. Of course, their love can never be because they can’t have a meaningful conversation while Ferris is in covert ops, and Aisha will be ostracized by the community for a relationship with an “infidel.” It’s nothing but a plot device to lead to a hamstrung ending so implausible it hurts the realism of the film’s visuals.

No director is more qualified to make this film than Ridley Scott. His “Black Hawk Down” stands as one of the two great films about modern warfare (the other being “Three Kings”) and, once the director’s cut re-inserted the plot of the movie, “Kingdom of Heaven” was a brilliant dissection of Christian/Muslim relations, both past and present. But this is an action film posing as a study of our enemies, though it does have a few genuine moments of clarity that fit neatly into the story. Others are clumsily inserted, such as Hani telling Ferris out of nowhere that torture is ineffective. Ferris comes off like a mix of Jason Bourne and James Bond; he takes Bourne’s freshness and disillusionment and Bond’s apparent godlike invincibility and ability to always make time for some ridiculous skirt-chasing and tries to mesh them like a child trying to force a rectangular block into a circular hole. Ultimately, the film’s visual realism and great performances from its leads make it a fun watch, but the mounting ridiculousness will ensure it a place on Scott’s second-tier of “dumb but fun” films alongside “Gladiator” and “American Gangster.”

Incidentally, a new track from Guns ‘N Roses is played over the credits. It sounds like a gravelly woman crooning over some electronic-funk, white soul track with a splash of Middle Eastern feel. It’s kind of good, but the elements don’t mesh that well. Come to think of it, it’s a solid aural metaphor for the film itself.