2014 Movies: #54-52

#54 Belle

I have to really be in the right mood to do high-society period dramas. I am getting to the point where I can follow Downton Abbey with minimal assistance, but even that has taken hard work and dedication on my part. Belle, if I remember correctly, was the unfortunate victim of a weeknight, possibly even Sunday night, viewing that involved plenty of sluggish food and probably some red wine. Needless to say, I slept through a good portion of the film. What I can tell you is that Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is our titular vixen, and she is of mixed race, making the fact that her white, nobleman great-uncle (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson) raising her is of course taboo. She has privilege, but only to a point because of her skin color. She comes to grow and navigate this world of prestige and love more or less on her own as Britain moves toward ending slavery. A snoozer, but under the right circumstances, it probably isn't. Plus, Draco Malfoy's in it, and that's good, right?

#53 Life of Crime

The "chronology of Elmore Leonard novels" section of Wikipedia also features a second column directly to the right for film adaptations. Out of the 50 book's he's written, about half of them have been adapted into big-screen or TV films. You've heard of some of them, certainly: Get Shorty, Out of Sight, the Big Bounce, Rum Punch (Jackie Brown) and a number of books thrown together in a blender to spit out FX's popular sheriff drama Justified. Life of Crime would be the final Leonard film production to be completed while he was still alive; he died just over a year ago at 87.

Which is a shame, because this adaptation does not quite do his uniquely sharp-tongued dialogue and his signature, complex double/triple/quadruple-crosses justice. Not to say that it's bad. But with the sum of its thespian parts (John Hawkes, Tim Robbins, Jennifer Aniston, Isla Fisher, Matt Forte and Yaasin Bey, Mos Def's new nom de plume), you'd expect it to be better. Small time crooks Ordell (Bey) and Louis (Hawkes) come up with a thoughtless scheme to kidnap Mickey (Aniston) and get a cool million from Frank (Robbins), a shadeball real estate mogul. Problem is, he wants nothing to do with her-he's trying to divorce her and move forward with his mistress Melanie (Fisher). Recognize some of the names? That's because it's the same Ordell, Louis and Melanie that Samuel Jackson, Bobby DeNiro and Bridget Fonda played in Jackie Brown almost 20 years ago. This takes place within that same world, so it's a prequel of sorts, only it doesn't feel like one because it is not done nearly as well.

#52 Dom Hemingway

Is that you, overweight Jude Law? Word has it that the Holiday hunk put on 30 pounds to play Dom, a safecracker coming off of a 12-year bid to collect on what he believed is owed to him for his loyalty and his keeping his mouth shut. Well, not everyone feels that way, especially not his previous boss Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bechir from a Better Life). But he'll humor him, and send him some hookers at the pub and a cocaine party and everything else his previous life of wanton excess afforded him. An accident and subsequent double-crossing cause him to take a good, hard look and to try to reconnect with his estranged daughter Evelyn (Game of Throne's Emilia Clarke). One final safe crack may be his shot at redemption. Or maybe it won't.

Jude Law does a decent enough job with the role, but rather than root for him to succeed like you are often prompted to do by the antihero, you find yourself just feeling sort for sorry for his blathering character. The action sequences bite the speed-up/slow-down technique that Guy Ritchie popularized a while back, not to mention the fast-talking snark. As someone to emulate, Guy Ritchie certainly isn't bad; he made Snatch and Lock, Stock, obviously. He also made Swept Away and Revolver.