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Review: Honest Thief

HONEST THIEF

A movie even more dull than its title, Honest Thief finds Liam Neeson as Tom, a bank robber extraordinaire who’s fallen in love (with Kate Walsh) and decided to come clean to the Feds. He’ll give them all the robbery loot in exchange for a light sentence. Tom calls the FBI 800 number, two low-level agents (Jai Courtney and Anthony Ramos) appear, steal the money, and in the process, end up killing their FBI boss (Robert Patrick). They pin the muder on Neeson, who goes on the run only to later vow revenge after the two rough up his girlfriend. Don’t mess with Liam’s loved ones, right?

It takes writer-director Mark Williams (A Family Man) and co-writer Steve Allrich (The Canyon) half of forever to set all this up, after which there are poorly staged car chases and an exploding house, but zero forward motion, much less tension. The script, which must have been short, cannot have read well.

So maybe Neeson really is here for the cash, and all of it apparently because there was clearly no budget for extras, much less an army of FBI agents to give chase to the agent killer. There are six featured characters in Honest Thief, but no one else, not even passerbys in danger of being hit by speeding cars. In what might be a first, there are more credited executive producers than actors on screen. This movie would be a bust even as a direct-to-video rental. My dad, a Neeson man from way back, is going to be so bummed. (Chuck Wilson)

Review: The Glorias

THE GLORIAS

In The Glorias, the unwieldy but transfixing dramatization of Gloria Steinem’s autobiography, four actresses portray the feminist icon at key points — at age nine (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), as a teenager (Lulu Wilson), in her 20s (Alicia Vikander), and in mid-life (Julianne Moore). Often, two or more Glorias appear in the same scene, as when the older Gloria quietly takes the hand of her distressed younger self.

The Glorias appear throughout the film aboard a Greyhound bus that’s seemingly meant to symbolize Steinem’s roots-free life, first as a reporter, beginning with her culture-shaking Playboy Bunny story, and later, as reluctant feminist leader (and founder of Ms. magazine). A born truth-seeker, Steinem, who’s 86 now, had a remarkable instinct for being present at turning points in American history, a byproduct, she would say, of constantly being on the road, just like her dream-chasing traveling salesman father (Timothy Hutton).

Writer-director Julie Taymor (Frida) and co-writer Sarah Ruhl seem determined to include every historic moment Steinem witnessed, and if the resulting film is overly episodic, it’s also rich with vibrant brief encounters. At the 1963 March on Washington, Gloria (played by Moore) is way back in the crowd. Standing next to her is an older Black woman (Deeta West, wonderful) who’s furious that the only Black woman on the podium is Marian Anderson. “Singing ain’t speaking,” she declares, and sets off to lodge a complaint, a bit of activism that alters Steinem’s perception of what one person can do.

Taymor, who directed The Lion King on Broadway, uses special effects to bring visual wit to a long movie, some of which fall flat, as when Gloria imagines a sexist TV host being swept up in the Wizard of Oz tornado. But the more delicate touches delight. As a teenage Gloria rides the bus onto Hollywood Boulevard on a 1950s night, the street is suffused in the warm neon of old Hollywood, a sight so magical Gloria doesn’t appear surprised when a miniature Fred Astaire dances off the Vogue Theater marquee to come gliding by her window.

The Glorias may be seeped in issues of social import but it’s the promise of another unexpected performance that propels the movie forward. Janelle Monáe, Lorraine Toussaint, Kimberly Guerrero, Monica Sanchez, and Bette Midler, among others, portray the real-life activists who worked alongside Steinem, and more importantly, helped her to evolve both as a woman and a leader by sharing with her their own truths. Women talk, Gloria listens, history shifts. (Chuck Wilson)

John Updike at the mailbox

JOHN UPDIKE: "In those days when a postage stamp cost three cents, I sent letters to great and distant men, cartoonists and writers, some of who deigned, to my eternal gratitude, to respond. Each day's mail brought potential treasure. This is still true for me. I send manuscripts away, I sometimes get praise and money in return. It is the United States mails, with the myriad routes and mechanisms that the service implies, not to mention the basic honesty and efficiency and non-interference of its thousands of employees, that enable me to live as I do, and to do what I do. I never see a blue mailbox without a spark of warmth and wonder and gratitude that this intricate and extensive service is maintained for my benefit." (1986) 

Review: The Forty-Year-Old Version (Netflix)

The Forty-Year-Old Version

“Potential has a shelf-life,” Margaret Atwood wrote in her novel Cat’s Eye, a brutal assessment writer-director-star Radha Blank disproves with élan in her wonderful first film, The Forty-Year-Old Version. Drawing on her own life, Blank, who is African American, plays Radha, a once heralded playwright whose career is at a stand-still. Nearing 40 and close to broke, she’s teaching writing to high-school students who aren’t very impressed by the ‘most promising playwright’ award Radha won ten long years ago. “She’s no Tyler Perry” one student declares.

Radha has the chance to see her new play produced at an influential theater but only if she agrees to the producer’s suggestion (a.k.a. demand) that she add a socially conscious white character. That’s sure to please the theater’s tony patrons, including two older white women who can be heard excitedly discussing a “multi-racial” staging of August Wilson’s Fences, “now integrated!”

If Radha had heard those women, she’d have likely made them characters in the songs she’s been secretly writing. One night, she allows herself to wonder: Can a 40-year-old woman become a hip-hop star? To find out, she visits D (Oswin Benjamin), a Brooklyn beat maker who hears in Radha’s life-specific rhymes a gift for “storytelling” missing from the clichéd language of the young rappers who stand before his mixing board each day.

When D takes her to an underground rap club in the Bronx, Radha proves herself to be a natural, if only she could learn to get out of her own way. (Watch the closing credits for footage of a real-life Blank club rap.) Sharp as a tack and also completely clueless, Radha is slow to realize that D finds her attractive. When they make love, the scene is intimate and sensual but also quite funny, as such moments often are in life. A bit stunned by this turn of events, Radha can’t stop commenting on the proceedings, right down to a delightfully inspired riff on her lover’s alphabetic name.

The next morning, the two lie around talking, asking questions the other isn’t ready to answer — challenges only love can resolve. As Radha and D speak of their mothers, both gone now, Blank intercuts photos of her own late mother and soon Radha and D are sitting at the foot of the bed (filmed in Blank’s real apartment) conjuring a hip-hop song that calls out to their respective mothers. It’s a beautiful scene and a powerful reminder that musicians live within their music, 24/7, even when there’s no audience.

It’s hard not to think of Woody Allen’s Manhattan as a confused Radha walks the city while the soundtrack plays a hopeful tune, but Allen was in love with the city skyline, not its people. He was always looking up. Blank’s gaze is ground level, where the people are. Radha looks left and then right, as if trying to include everyone, as if calling on them to give her strength. Supremely entertaining, The Forty-Year-Old Version is a love song to the power of being real.

Chuck Wilson

The Pauline Kael documentary is currently airing on Prime