Three Oscar Awards for the Paul Haggis movie ‘Crash’

It was an ensemble cast that won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Writing on an Original Screenplay and Best Achievement in Film Editing for the film Crash (2004). The challenging issues, character arcs, and story offer a social commentary that can resonate today for those willing to listen.

(From left, Larenz Tate as Peter, a laid-back, good-natured carjacker and Anthony’s partner and Ludacris as Anthony, a violent carjacker and Peter’s partner in the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

Peter and Anthony, portrayed by Larenz Tate and Ludacris, respectively, lead an ensemble cast that examines “Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives [that] collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption,” as quoted by the Internet Movie Database. The two see their places in the world differently from the start, and connect with that world in vastly different ways.

(Thandie Newton as Christine Thayer, Cameron’s wife and Matt Dillon as Sgt. John Ryan, a bigoted police officer in the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

Christine Thayer, as portrayed by Thandie Newton, collides in multiple ways with situations in Crash. The places Sgt. John Ryan collides, as portrayed by Matt Dillon, offer a glimpse of multiple layers of commentary in the factors they initiate. The storylines here are powerful and frightening in the provocations internally and externally.

(From left, Jennifer Esposito as Ria, Graham Waters’ partner, Don Cheadle as Detective Graham Waters, an officer investigating recent murders based on racial tensions and Kathleen York as Officer Johnson in the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

The frame of the movie Crash, with writing credits for Bobby Moresco and film director Paul Haggis, physically begins the day after much of the action that is then explained through the course of the film. Introducing Detective Graham Waters with his partner, Ria, at a crime scene with Officer Johnson was a nice touch. Don Cheadle, Jennifer Esposito and Kathleen York play Waters, Ria and Johnson, respectively.

(From left, Ryan Phillippe as Officer Tom Hansen, a rookie policeman and Sgt. John Ryan’s partner and Terrence Howard as Cameron Thayer, a television director and husband to Christine in the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

The stories of Officer Tom Hansen and television director Cameron Thayer become intertwined with a troubling police stop of two people heading home after an awards event in the story of Crash. Hansen and Thayer get caught up in a blatant pattern of troubling behavior that begins in common while throwing four characters into film-long conflict. Ryan Phillippe portrays Hansen as Terrence Howard portrays Thayer.

(From left, Sandra Bullock as Jean Cabot, Rick’s wife, and Brendan Fraser as District Attorney Rick Cabot, Jean’s husband in the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

District Attorney Rick Cabot and his wife Jean, as portrayed by Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock, respectively, offer a perspective of wealth and influence at the top of the scale for all characters in Crash. There is love, in a fashion, between the Cabots atop the social ladder that is the object of the critique director Paul Haggis makes with the film. Tune into the feelings shared among those here and their attitudes geared at sharing those attitudes openly.

(From left, Michael Peña as Daniel Ruiz, a Hispanic locksmith and Shaun Toub as Farhad Golzari, a Persian shop owner in the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

Two additional storylines offering the clearest notion of emotional connection for the audience are the stories of the families of Daniel Ruiz and Farhad Golzari, as respectively portrayed by Michael Peña and Shaun Toub. These stories draw in the feelings of parents to children, whereas other storylines look at marital questions, children caring for parents, and the interpersonal connections of social group, immigration status, gender, race and socioeconomic status all in play. Who changes, how they change, and the stressors of one affecting the actions in other places fair game.

(From left, actor Matt Dillon, writer and director Paul Haggis, writer Bobby Moresco and actor Ryan Phillippe on set for the Paul Haggis movie Crash).

The film offers many different looks into tensions in Los Angeles, California where antagonists provoke protagonists in one another’s stories. Many characters intersect into the stories of others, thus asking that characters to serve as both in the context of character types in many cases. The authorial / directorial intent almost hits you over the head, though in service of clear and largely accessible questions for those willing to engage. My rating for Crash lands at 4-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, February 20, 2021

Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston and the film ‘For Love of the Game’

First there was Bull Durham (1988). Second there was Field of Dreams (1989). Third there was For Love of the Game (1999). At the time of this review, Kevin Costner has since narrated a baseball piece and played a former baseball player in another film. The movies Bull Durham, Field of Dreams and For Love of the Game reflect the stellar stable of baseball movies starring Kevin Costner.

(John C. Reilly as Gus Sinski, left, and Kevin Costner as Billy Chapel in For Love of the Game).

Michael Shaara wrote the book For Love of the Game, which became the 1999 film of the same name. In the film, we are introduced to battery mates Gus Sinski and Billy Chapel of the Detroit Tigers heading to New York City to play the New York Yankees. John C. Reilly and Kevin Costner play Sinski and Chapel, respectively. The audience learns early that the Tigers have had a losing season, are getting sold, and Chapel as the star of the Tigers is likely to be traded following the season. Add to this that the Yankees need a win to make the playoffs.

 

(J.K. Simmons as Detroit Tigers manager Frank Perry in For Love of the Game).

Chapel is called onto pitch. Being loyal to his friend, Chapel makes the demand to Tigers manager Frank Perry that Gus Sinski, who hasn’t hit well all season, will continue to catch him that day if Perry wants Chapel to start. As an ending to the season and possibly a career, Perry was not going to deny the demand. J.K. Simmons portrayed manager Frank Perry.

(Kevin Costner as Billy Chapel, left, and Kelly Preston as Jane Aubrey in For Love of the Game).

It is among all this that Billy Chapel’s love interest, Jane Aubrey, has declared to the veteran pitcher that she, Jane, has accepted a job in London and would be leaving the same day Chapel is due to pitch. Being poised in the face of the adversity of losing a loyal owner, his team, his career, and his love interest, we see this story roll out into the telling of a pitcher putting everything on the line in pitching the game of a career as he, Billy Chapel, copes with his feelings of loss through the recollections of a relationship with Jane Aubrey, and as we learn her daughter Heather, between innings and batters. Kelly Preston plays Jane Aubrey as Jena Malone plays Heather Aubrey.

(Kevin Costner as Billy Chapel, left, and Jena Malone as Heather Aubrey in For Love of the Game).

In being a game about baseball and an ethos portrayed in a single game, the central question of the movie really centers on something different. The question becomes what love can Billy Chapel and Jane Aubrey believe in and make after Chapel’s career. The movie spent effort to show the romance and passion between the two as well as that between Chapel and the game of baseball. The mystery of this, combined with the hook of a baseball story, gives the viewer a sports romance film. The movie works at that level, and makes for decent date movie material. I grade the experience at 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, March 28, 2020

Bruce Willis, Richard Gere and the movie ‘The Jackal’

Today we at Matt Lynn Digital choose to review a decent if not great film called The Jackal (1997). Made perhaps a decade later than was appropriate for the look and feel of the film, the story follows a decent Cold War era with little in terms of pretense in trying to capture a nostalgic feel that fans of movies from bygone eras might seek. Despite this, some celluloid heroism was on the menu with The Jackal.

(Bruce Willis as The Jackal in The Jackal).

The movie called The Jackal is a fictionalized account that is inspired by the legend of Carlos the Jackal. This film gets little into the historical figure though seeks to tell a story of the legend with a single statement of crime as the central premise for the film. Bruce Willis stars as the character The Jackal bent upon transacting a crime for hire with infiltration into the actions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the USA.

(Sidney Poitier as Preston in The Jackal).

Sidney Poitier, as the character Preston, heads an FBI unit tasked with thwarting the criminal enterprise of The Jackal. Preston runs a well run team that uses instinct and judgment in preventing crime. Willing to take risks while also cooperating with foreign intelligence units to prevent the crime to be perpetuated by The Jackal, Preston takes a gamble in seeking the assistance of an imprisoned IRA fighter by the name of Declan Mulqueen.

(Richard Gere as Declan Mulqueen in The Jackal).

Richard Gere is the imprisoned IRA fighter Declan Mulqueen that Preston and the MVD‘s Valentina Koslova, as portrayed by Diane Venora, peg as the support needed to track The Jackal and stop the crime all parties know The Jackal to be plotting while not being clear if The Jackal even exists. A justification for including Mulqueen in the effort to preempt the politically motivated crime is offered in the film.

(Diane Venora as Valentina Koslova in The Jackal).

The rationale that brings about Mulqueen’s support for the preemptive law enforcement effort is that Mulqueen’s primary love interest and would-have-been mother to Mulqueen’s child Isabella, as played by Mathilda May, was purported to have a reliable connection to the Jackal. This cajoled association brings about the movie trope rationale befitting a movie from the 1980s, yet was a narrative device in The Jackal.

The Jackal as a character, meanwhile, has been moving forward with the planning for his criminal enterprise with the acquisition of a high powered repeating rifle, an era appropriate computer and phone system to broach communication and imaging considerations, and thus needed a platform on which to mount the weapon within an era appropriate mini-van. Jack Black as Lamont was that supplier and naive player in the larger narrative of the crime to which the film was building.

(Jack Black as Lamont, left, and Bruce Willis as The Jackal in The Jackal).

FBI agent Witherspoon as played by J.K. Simmons was a member of the team tasked with enforcing the joint FBI/MVD mission to protect people and prevent crime aligned against the efforts being enacted by The Jackal. Witherspoon and MVD operative Valentina Koslova quite possibly share a similar fate in the movie as the effort to prevent crime and thwart the political motivation in play at the hands of The Jackal. Where the movie’s outcome concludes is with a natural confrontation that is required of this type of film, and the tension in how that transpires, in addition to the outcome of the larger crime, were in fact resolved with the film.

(J.K. Simmons as Witherspoon in The Jackal).

There was action, suspense, and turning points of growing tension through The Jackal, so the film worked with regards to including appropriate plot points and narrative structure. The story, despite multiple stars with the chops to carry that story, somewhat disappointed. The feeling of the film, as mentioned, would have been more appropriate given a release date of 1987 rather than 1997. Some of the notions for expressing a more equitable role for ladies in this type of story also were also more contemporary of at least a decade earlier. Given this, and how I felt in response to the film’s resolution, I give The Jackal 3.25-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Saturday, May 25, 2019