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Lockout

I guess that’s why they call it a punchline.

I love a good action movie.  The self-awareness, the brute irreality, the one-liners, the (anti-) hero, all of it.  It’s just fun, you know.  Since when did “fun” and “entertaining” become bad words?  For some people, probably not those who read reviews, there’s no such dilemma.  They have only pleasures, not “guilty pleasures.”  They’ve got it half right.  You really should just like things that are good and not like things that are bad.  Well, I suppose there’s that third category of things that are so bad that they are ironically humorous.  Well, Lockout (2012) isn’t one of those.

Snow (Guy Pearce) is a CIA agent, in the mold of all clandestine martial artists, who has been arrested and imprisoned without trial for murder and treason.  He suspects foul play.  With some difficulty, he had reacquired a case from his friend and passed it onto his backup Mace (Tim Plester), who then hid it somewhere.  Meanwhile, the president’s daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace), is inspecting a maximum security space prison where all the inmates are in stasis.  Stasis causes some problems.  Snow is on his way there for his crimes when, during an interview with the zaniest of them all, Hydell (Joseph Gilgun), things go very bad.  Will people ever learn that no guns means no guns when in close contact with prisoners!  Well, now it’s up to Snow to get the girl to the escape pod and find out what happened to the case all the while avoiding the band of 500+ whacked inmates led by the also psychotic Alex (Vincent Regan).  Mace is in the prison, did I mention that?

This is great fun.  They say of Luc Besson that he only knows how to make one movie.  That movie is the comic-infused action movie, and that’s true of his English movies.  But while I would never say that every one he’s made is gold, about half of them are and that ain’t bad.  The English movies almost always have a darn good premise that only fail because they need to slow down.  The only pace Besson has is break-neck.  Well, Lockout works just fine at break-neck speed.

Guy Pearce is a great anti-hero.  He doesn’t punch his one-liners, he just lets them hang in the air.  I don’t know that I ever doubted he’d do well, but I wasn’t certain of it.  More like, “Guy Pearce, huh?  Interesting.”  And it was.  He played the character in this weird no-man’s land where he takes things seriously while being completely aware of the insanity of things around him.  Right where you need to be.

Nobody smokes anymore!

Maggie Grace does quite well at presenting a refreshingly strong victim.  She’s smart and capable while also being the president’s daughter–remind you of anyone?  I kind of wish the movie extended just 10 more minutes to give her denouement some more substance and reflection, but you can’t have everything.

Credit to either Stephen St. Leger and James Mather (also the directors) or Besson for filling this movie with some great dialogue.  Great, obviously not in The Lion in Winter (1968) sense of great, but in the Die Hard (1988) sense of great.  And it is great.  There’s a lot going on there.  The dialogue has to be funny, grounded, smart, and expressive without falling into sci-fi short hands that make everything sound like the first two pages of Dune (1965) or muscle-head, would-be intimidating stupidity.

This is what The Expendables (2010) should have been.  The Expendables promised the old-school action stars in a send-up of the 80′s actioneers.  What it gave was a crappy 21st century actioneer with single lines of Bond-like commentary.  The writers, ironically, lacked the self-awareness to realize that the movie has to take itself seriously without being solemn.

For a sci-fi actioneer, it does have some questionable CGI at times.  Apparently, the budget was $20 million, so we should all be impressed this thing looks at all plausible.  However, the motorcycle chase looks and sounds like something right out of a video game.  Trust me on this, I’ve played video games.

Now let’s talk about criticisms and their validity.  Can you complain that a movie about one man entering a prison full of well-armed psychos to save one woman has moments that aren’t plausible?  It’s like the bit at the end where it makes sure we all know that this is a work of fiction and any similarity to real people is purely coincidental.  Umm, duh!  The proper response to something utterly implausible is laughter, not a scoff of irritation.

Here’s where it gets a little bit tricky.

You need to approach this and roughly every other movie in the way the people making it have done–balancing the serious with the silly.  Laugh at the joke, jump at the danger.  You’ll enjoy yourself a lot more.  But if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to enjoy themselves, then by all means fight the premise at every step.

In judging a movie like this, there are a couple things I look for.  Am I happy when the hero is on screen?  Do they have the roguish charm required?  Is the premise roughly straight-forward so that I know why we’re doing any of this?

Obviously, there needs to be a modicum of intelligence assumed on the part of the audience.  If you have trouble following Inception (2010), that’s one thing, if you still don’t get The Matrix (1999), you may want to begin entertaining the idea that you’re an idiot.

Other factors.  Is the villain roughly menacing without being too weird?  This is where The Transporter (2002) took a stumble (along with many Besson movies).  Is/are the victim/s too stupid to function?  Would it be kinder if they were just allowed to die or remain in prison?  Finally, and in a way most importantly, is there a clean thread of action so that I know why we’re running through the corridor at the moment?

Lockout satisfies all of these needs.  The clean thread does gets taut-to-breaking point with the “New disaster!” motif that comes in to throw a wrench in the works when things get too easy.  But that does not violate any of the rules.  And when it comes to actioneers, they are customs more honored in the breach than in the observance.

One critique:  you don’t need to reintroduce a setting.  Once is enough.

Comment to the critics.  If you spend all your time counting the ways Lockout is like other movies, then you’re probably only proving that this is its own movie.  When you call it “derivative,” that’s only a bad thing if it derives from only one or two sources, making it a “rip-off.”  Derivative-as-bad is really just a nonsense.

Source: Prof. Ratigan

Source: io9

For years now, Swedish actor extraordinaire Peter Stormare has been both dazzling and perplexing audiences. Best known for his slippery and/or menacing roles in FARGO, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and MINORITY REPORT, the image he has cultivated made him the perfect candidate to play the part of Langral in the new movie, LOCKOUT. Langral seems to be both for and against our hero of the film, Snow (Guy Pearce). You are never quite sure where Langral’s loyalties lie, but you know you just want to see more of him.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with the actor for the film’s press day. Despite not having to prod him with many questions, the pleasant actor had much to say about acting, filmmaking, and what interests him when he signs up for a role.

Q: This is quite an interesting role for you.

PS: “Yeah, why not? Why not?”

Q: And you play it so we’re never quite sure what side of the fence you’re on.

“No, the sequel will be out next year. (laughs) No, it’s a nice part. It was a beautiful script to get in your hands. Sometimes scripts are a little bit all over the place. But, I think Mr. Besson is quite an extraordinary visionary and he’s sort of the old school and before something gets the green light, he sees everything is there. When I read the script, it was like he’s almost flirting a little bit with the movies of the past. He always gives the characters some room. I’m not trashing the Hollywood action formula, but sometimes it becomes like one person and maybe a female lead. She is somewhere there. But usually it’s one guy all the time and the rest are shoot ‘em ups. I think this is a little bit of old filmmaking for me where you build a film with characters. You just don’t have one guy running around. Of course, Guy does a lot of running around and following here and there. But, at the same time, there is a place for me and Lennie (James) and also for the criminals up there. We get to know them a little bit and I think it would have looked very different if this would have been an entirely American production. The script would not have looked the same. I must say, I haven’t seen the whole movie. I’ve seen segments of the movie throughout the work as you do as an actor. Sometimes you have to put some new voice on, and if something is wrong, you see some snippets, but the whole start of the movie was there from the beginning. It’s like an old Philip Marlowe, [a fictional character created by] Raymond Chandler. I could have seen Humphrey Bogart sitting there in black and white with that light. It’s good old filmmaking for me and it was just a beautiful script. The part for me was nice because it was like wow, he’s eluding me all the time. What is he up to? Is he really a bad guy or a good guy? What side is he on? You never find out, which is kind of cool. That’s why Luc Besson belongs to [old style filmmaking] – not just because he’s European. There’s an old saying when they did movies in the good old days. You have to allow the audience to be part of the script, to write the script. Give the audience 60 percent and they’re going to fill in 40 percent. If you shove it down the throats, they’re just going to feel full and then want to throw up. But, if they’re part of the writing, they’re going to remember the movie and each person is going to have different opinions about the movie. That is like the old fairytale, the old way of telling a movie, which I like, and some directors do that in Hollywood still. Some directors are daring, but we see, in my opinion, too much of boom, crash, bang, things blowing up, falling from the sky or tumbling around and you get bored because you can’t [be a part of it]. If you’re denied to use your fantasy, like I love to fantasize still, as I did as a little boy. If I see a movie, I want to fantasize about what it’s all about. This movie invites the audience. It doesn’t kick the audience out. It says to the audience “Come, be part of this journey.”

Q: Is the sense of humor important also? That’s often not a part of the sorts of movies you do.

“Humor? Yes, absolutely. Also, Guy thought it was important in the beginning. We changed a couple of lines, I think, in the beginning and there was also discussion with the director and Mr. Besson before we started shooting. We had a couple of days of rehearsals and we found some golden pieces in the opening segment that sets the tone. It feels like it could’ve been THE BIG EASY or whatever. For me, it feels like Humphrey Bogart who is a guy’s character.”

Q: Does that make you Claude Rains?

(laughs) “Yeah, I wish. You feel the humor when you have a character that is not all over you all the time. There’s also an old saying – when you show a character for the first time – this is like old school that I grew up with, people telling me – because I started as a director but I was too bored with actors so I’d rather do acting. But, when you introduce a character, don’t show him fully lit. Don’t show him one hundred percent to the audience. Show maybe 50 percent or 60 percent so the audience can fill in the dark spots. Sometimes it’s cool to have one light hanging. They did that in the good old days. Even in the good old days, you can sit in a room like this and have a dinner and they dimmed the light down and the camera was here and it went to dark and they all ducked down and they did it like this and another character came in and the same camera just focused in on the characters standing there. “Just sit down” and it continued on the scene over there and then it came up with the light. You see that in movies up to the sixties and then it got too much lights and too many technicalities. We forget sometimes about telling a story for an audience. Storytelling is all about using the imagination, for me at least it is. That’s why I’m bored sometimes to see movies. I’m bored to see TV. I never see TV. I see news sometimes. I’m sorry to say, I work in this business and I love working in it but I haven’t seen a movie in so many years. I don’t see TV. I have a lot of TVs at home, but if I see something, it’s an art channel or an opera maybe or some news and the Lakers. (laughs) They don’t give me a single minute to use my own fantasy. Thank God our kids can watch an old Peter Pan or some old Disney and then I’m just sucked in again, instead of the Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers. When I was a little kid growing up in Sweden in a small village, we had a tradition like now and then we had someone elderly telling a story and it was always late afternoon and it was sort of dark and somebody told the story. It was so beautiful to hear the story and you used your own fantasy. And being a kid, listening to the radio when someone told you a story, you had your imagination. You created the outer space. You created stuff. I don’t like to be spoon fed everything down my throat. It’s hard. They block out my fantasy and that’s my only friend on Earth really. It’s my own fantasy because I fantasize a lot and I’m very curious. I’m sitting here dissing moviemaking of today and that’s my livelihood.”

Q: Do you think that this movie can give the audience this kind of fantasy?

“Yes. I think so because it’s set in the future. It doesn’t say a year. It says in the nearby future. It’s ordinary, regular people. One movie that did the same thing for me was the first Alien because I didn’t know anything about that movie and I went to an early screening where there was nobody in the audience. I sat in the front and I saw it from the beginning and I like science fiction. But, all of a sudden, they were regular people on a spaceship eating corn flakes and trying to open stuff. They were regular people so I could identify with these people. I think in this movie too, it’s not STAR TREK with strange ears and we’re fighting monsters and giants and everything is CGI. It’s not all those monsters in Michael Bay’s TRANSFORMERS. I just came back from doing a movie with him. I love him to death and he’s raising the bar in all the action, but it’s got to be boring. When I was a kid, at least they gave you a little bit. They told you “Use your fantasy. Come with us on this journey. Use your head, use your soul, use your heart.” Now it’s just being slapped. If you don’t like this, we’ll hate you. As a kid, I was always invited to listen to stories. I was always invited to the movies that I loved. Maybe it’s because of my age that I don’t understand, but I think it’s kind of boring and this is a different kind of movie for me than the science fiction movies. It’s related to ALIEN a little bit but without the monsters. I think you can identify with Guy’s character even if he’s doing extremely good out there on his own. He’s a guy. He doesn’t eat pills as it was in a lot of movies. You have pills and people are walking around in strange outfits and pointy ears. For me, it’s just a very good script and hopefully we did some good work and hopefully the audience will come. But, I haven’t done my dream movie yet, even if Luc was only the producer and oversaw everything, but I would really love to work with Terrence Malick. I would love to do just a poetic journey. It doesn’t have to have a story just as long as it’s beautiful and you can lean back. That’s why I love opera sometimes because you’re allowed to lean back and fall asleep.

Q: I had a chance to see YOU SAID WHAT or the title that I prefer, HELP, WE’RE IN THE FILM INDUSTRY. Was that fun to play a spoofed version of yourself?

“Yes, absolutely. I’m glad you saw that. That’s a funny little thing. But also, I love Japan. My wife is Japanese and there’s something called the Noh theater which is also funny that it’s ‘no’ instead of ‘yes.’ The Noh theater, if you know it, is very slow. You sit there on the floor sometimes and they act so slow. In the beginning, I didn’t understand. I mean, people are falling asleep here. Do they get upset? And then, I befriended some actors. I worked with actors there who said no. One of the main reasons with the Noh theater is to transcend you into another elevation. So if you fall asleep, maybe if you snore too loud, they’ll get [upset]. But the whole thing with Noh theater is to transcend you into another dimension. I think as human beings we need that. We need that in this country, too, to be elevated. I hope that people get a need and an urge to go and see movies in the future that are beautiful. I’ll make it up about poetic movies with beautiful colors, fragmented stories, and nice music. You lean back and you’re sort of half asleep but it’s something that you’re going to carry with you for the rest of your life. Some movies I’ve seen I don’t remember at all. But then there are some movies that I remember a couple of seconds and I want to carry those couple of seconds in my heart forever or wherever it is, and that’s worth it. Also, my mentor, [Ingmar] Bergman, when we worked on stage, he said you can’t convince a thousand people at the big stage where we were working. You can’t convince everybody, but just pick one every night that you perform for and make sure that he or she will have an experience that alters their life in a more positive way. So, just one every night. That’s worth all the struggle and screaming. (laughs)”

Q: Is Terrence Malick aware of the fact that you want to work with him? It seems like it could be a very good marriage.

“I think so, yes. I’m going to reach out because I would love to do that. We need it more and more I think in our world. We need more and more spas. There’s more and more candles being sold. There’s more and more people sitting at home trying to find peace and find space to rejuvenate. But I think as a society, if I had the money, I would love to open up a movie theater that just played images and colors and played beautiful music. For me, there’s nothing like listening to a beautiful opera sometimes – on a record or seeing it live – just to be sleepy and let those beautiful voices take me somewhere I’ve never been before. I dislike those people that see an opera and say oh they can’t act it. They just sing. It’s boring. Lean back and just listen to the voices. We can do that in movies, too. I think in the modern world we really need to have movie theaters or places we can go in and rejuvenate ourselves. I think we’ll have less problems with our souls and our health. I do that in my life and I feel healthy and happy, but I made that into a thing in my life that I need those hours sort of in the darkness where I was spending as a kid, sitting in a little closet in the darkness, listening to AM radio, having glowing paint that I illuminated, and just sitting there, dreaming about anything, not being disturbed for an hour or two, just alone in the dark. I’m still that little boy in my brain. It’s unfortunate that the body gets older but the brain stays the same if you want to. I don’t understand people who say “I don’t believe in anything. No, I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in this.” It’s got to be boring, I say. They say, “Do you believe in UFOs?” and I say “Why not?” That’s why it’s wonderful to be part of a movie like this because it’s not the regular formula. It’s not the regular Hollywood paint by number action movie. It is a little bit one of the last outposts of old European movie directing in a way that Luc Besson represents. Slowly, slowly it’s going to die out, I think, unless people like me save up and open up a movie theater. (laughs)”

VeryAware: Speaking of connecting with audiences, there are quite a few projects that you have done that really struck a chord with mainstream audiences, like FARGO, THE BIG LEBOWSKI and Slippery Pete on SEINFELD. How does it feel for you when projects like that have taken on a life of their own such as with THE BIG LEBOWSKI conventions?

“I know, I played on two of them and it’s bigger than ROCKY HORROR [PICTURE] SHOW now. It’s completely crazy and they’re going to go to Europe now and have conventions in Europe. They do magnificent work. Their artwork is fantastic. I must say, for me, to be born in a tiny village in the north of Sweden with a thousand people where we still have snow and to have done this journey over living in Africa and London and New York, working here and being on stage in New York, working with Bergman for ten years, being at his side, being adopted by him as his son…for me, when I look back, it’s like wow, that’s quite a journey. I feel like I am blessed but I’m still that little boy that walks around. I usually say I might have a talent or I’m lacking a talent because everyday, I must tell you, I thank whatever is up there or out there that I’m alive and that I get to do what I’m doing, and I think that sends off a lot of good vibrations in different directions. If what I think is God should come down today after our meeting and somebody is standing out there and says “I’m God, or the thing you call God, and you’re never going to do any more movies. You’re never going to do television. You’re never going to do theater again in your life.” I would just [claps hands] “What are we doing? What is the next step?” and that’s how I try to approach it. I feel so honored to be working with one of the best people in the world and the only thing I try to contribute is tap into my fantasy and not to do one dimensional characters because unfortunately in our business or industry, the schedule is so fast and tight. It’s all about money, more or less, so you go in to deliver your lines, say it as fast as you can and then hit the mark and get out of there. Sometimes people are delivering typos because they think this is the line and it’s a typo. We’re living under that stress. I go in and say “Why do I have to say this line? Isn’t it better if I just cut that line and just look and then I say this line down here as it is?” And then the director says “Yeah, that’s awesome.” That’s why I think I get to work with a lot of directors over and over again because I have ideas and I try to create characters. There’s also a saying, if you do a character, always make the character with a big question mark. Even if the character is very enigmatic and all over the place, make him always with a question mark, because if you turn a question mark upside down, like they do in South America in Spanish, then it becomes a hook. I still love CLOSE ENCOUNTERS because that’s also very enigmatic. It’s very enigmatic and it tapped right into my fantasy when I saw it as a teenager. But I was surprised when I asked Bergman and he said to me, “Hey, make a list of your ten top movies,” and I put CLOSE ENCOUNTERS the top ones. In one of his movies, I haven’t seen all of them, but he had THE BLUES BROTHERS as his number one. It was funny. And he had CLOSE ENCOUNTERS as number three. I said “BLUES BROTHERS?” “Yeah, absolutely, best movie.”

Q: With this movie, you made me go to another dimension.

“Good, you’re allowed to fall asleep.”

LOCKOUT opens in theaters nationwide on April 13.

Source: Very Aware