Joaquin Phoenix and the film ‘Joker’

The film Joker (2019) works. Joaquin Phoenix starring in a gritty, physically demanding, emotional gut punch of a role as Arthur Fleck demands your attention. While given credible support in roles supporting him, make no mistake that Joaquin Phoenix as star of this character study surpasses the critical appreciation granted Christian Bale for Batman Begins (2005). While in the conversation, it is hard for me to say Phoenix’ Joker surpasses that of Heath Ledger from The Dark Knight (2008).

(Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck in the film Joker).

While thinking quite highly of the film Joker and the role Joaquin Phoenix played, this commentary is largely intended to keep the story of the experience to myself. Robert De Niro starring in a role reminiscent of Johnny Carson‘s The Tonight Show brings credibility to a sense of time and place in setting to a time of the maybe the 1970’s with the fictional city of Gotham standing in for New York City.

(Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin in the film Joker).

Arthur Fleck faced the gritty hardship of experiencing the difficult sides of a life that lacked stability, a future, and other elements that brought the Joker, as a character and villain, into conflict with the character Batman we know through the myth of the comic books, the multiple television series, and the multiple movie franchises. Arthur’s relationship with Penny Fleck, as portrayed by Frances Conroy, is given appropriate treatment in Joker.

(Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck, Arthur’s mother, in the film Joker).

Further, critical roles were given convincing voice in giving the role of Arthur Fleck an escalating series of events, each deepening Fleck into his culmination as sociopath Joker. Bringing Gotham with him in parallel offers a tangible sense of what guides the Batman we see on the reverse side of the coin. Those leveling criticism of this film as juvenile, bleak, clichéd, derivative or not angry enough miss a large point that this was a character study. Part of what made the slow burn of Quention Tarantino‘s film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019) film work made Joker also work.

(Joaquin Phoenix with director and co-screenwriter Todd Phillips from the film Joker).

Todd Phillips directed Joker. Scott Silver joined Phillips with screenwriting credits. My feeling of this movie, following my first viewing on Sunday of opening weekend, is that the film deserves the 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five that I am granting it. The audience score (91% favorable) rather than the score of critics (69% favorable) from Rotten Tomatoes on Sunday evening at roughly 10:30 PM Eastern Time, is more in line with my experience.

Matt – Wednesday, October 9, 2019

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