Hanna

Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Jessica Barden
Running Time: 123 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

For as many story plots get recycled and movies remade it's at least reassuring to know there's still new and surprising ways acting performances can blow you away. The one given by Saoirse Ronan as a 16-year-old assassin in Hanna is proof of that. It's one thing for an actress her age to summon up enough poise, confidence and physical presence to believably portray a trained killing machine but what stuck out most for me out when it ended were all the other scenes where she's also called upon to play a scared, awkward teen. Comparisons have already been made to last year's Kick-Ass, which featured Chloe Moretz as a tween aged, foul-mouthed superhero killer named Hit-Girl but that character was was more satirical in nature. Director Joe Wright is deadly serious here, and takes a huge gamble in the process. But when it ended I was left with the feeling I had witnessed more than your routine action thriller, even if no one could be blamed for thinking that when evaluating the plot on paper.  Half action movie, half beautifully twisted fairy tale, it's not for everyone and will probably put off as many as it thrills, but it's still difficult to claim you've seen anything exactly like it.

Raised and trained in the woods of Finland by her father, ex-CIA agent Erik (Eric Bana), 16 year-old Hanna Heller (Ronan) is ready to go out on her own. With just the flick of a switch, a transmitter alerts the government to their location, setting their plan into motion for Erik to escape and Hanna to eventually meet up with her dad following a trek through Germany. Getting in the way of that reunion and leading the charge in their capture is the calculating Marissa Zeigler (Cate Blanchett) an obsessive CIA operative with a personal connection to the case who clearly wants Erik taken dead, but also harbors a strange fascination with the girl. Moving at a deliberate pace that effectively builds tension and suspense, Hanna's journey at times more closely resembles a road trip than a manhunt as she falls in with a married couple (Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng) on vacation and forms a friendship with their teenage daughter (Jessica Barden) but Marissa's always lurking in the shadows, as is her flamboyantly sadistic henchman Isaacs (Tom Hollander). Trained to kill but emotionally unprepared for the real world around her, Hanna must evade capture long enough to reunite with her papa in Berlin.

While the plot  may seem bare bones on the surface, but that's to its credit as the discoveries come in the details. Beyond the exciting action, this is really coming-of-age character study interested in exploring the psychological implications of an isolated child suddenly thrust into the real world without a life raft. Trained only to kill and protect herself, the most memorable sequences occur when Hanna's confronted with everyday life. This is a girl who can shoot someone in cold blood, but is scared to death of an electric kettle, giddily jumps up and down at the sight of an airplane, and has no idea how to work a remote control. She's been taught multiple languages and history by her father and is given a rehearsed back story to tell strangers, but there's no substitute for actual experience, which is why her journey is so scary. So far ahead of any child her age in terms of physical capability and intelligence, what stands out is how far behind she is emotionally. Because the script is so deeply interested in getting into the protagonist's head space it becomes more than your standard action outing, which could turn off some viewers expecting only chases and kills (not to say there isn't plenty).  There's an artistry at work that we're not used to seeing in a mainstream thriller in terms of the editing, performances, visuals and most memorably, an adrenaline fueled, pulse pounding score from the Chemical Brothers that couldn't possibly provide a better backdrop for many of the brilliantly choreographed action sequences.

Ronan's performance is flat-out unbelievable for precisely how impressively she handles Hanna's duality, shifting from scared little girl to trained assassin and back again at seemingly the drop of a hat. The underrated Eric Bana's greatest asset as Erik is his ability to invisibly slide into the fatherly role and not mind being upstaged by his younger co-star. As their nemesis, Cate Blanchett looks to be having the time of her life hamming it up as the "wicked witch" hunting the little girl, giving the kind of villainous performance that isn't too far removed from her work in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a few years ago (albeit this time in a quality film). Even while struggling a bit with what I think is supposed to be a southern accent, she makes Marissa Zeigler a cold, calculating perfectionist and I loved the small details that were put in to show that, like her obsessive dental hygiene and sterile apartment. She's a villain with an edge in a movie that not only feels edgy but also more "R" than "PG-13." Part of that could just have to do with the subject matter, though more of it probably has to do with presentation, visual style and tone.

There's one brief, but masterful performance that hijacks the movie and turns it into something darker and meaner. As Marissa's right hand man Isaacs, Tom Hollander almost seems to be channeling A Clockwork Orange's Alex if he were creepily reimagined as an effeminate tennis tracksuit wearing owner of a transvestite disco club. And how many villains have ever get their own catchy theme song, much less one so catchy even they whistle it? Hollander's total screen time probably doesn't even exceed 5 minutes but he makes each one of them terrifying, leaving the kind of indelible mark that deserves to be remembered come awards time.

If there's one small mistake hampering the script it's in revealing a key piece of information about Hanna that would have been better left unrevealed. One of the story's biggest strengths right from the gripping opening sequence was it's realism so there's disappointment in having a plot device introduced that's more common in a superhero or sci-fi movie, which this strives to be much more than. There's a thrill in believing for 2 hours that a young girl could be trained from an early age to do this stuff so providing a scientific explanation robs that notion of some of its mystique. If it's okay with the filmmakers I'll just pretend they never went there since that slight slip-up hardly hampers the enjoyment of the whole experience, especially with when you have an ending that not only makes ingenious use of an unconventional setting, but provides real closure. You can almost hear the book closing shut on the movie, concluding almost exactly as it began. But the best thing about Hanna is how it never seems to be wimping out in any way, taking risks while challenging the audience to appreciate details that push it out of the comfort zone we've come to expect from most mainstream action thrillers.

Funny People

Director: Judd Apatow
Starring: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman
Running Time: 136 min.
Rating: R

★★★ 1/2 (out of ★★★★)

I was always fascinated to hear and watch stories about how people carry on with their lives after having a near-death experience. But I never really bought into the idea that you're necessarily "reborn" or become a "new person" as a result of it. Chances are that if your life is loaded with problems only you can fix, almost dying isn't going to wipe them all away. That's the central premise of Judd Apatow's third film, Funny People. That's right, only his THIRD film. I had to double-check that, but it's true. Doesn't it seem like he's made about 15,000 so far? As a writer and producer he probably has, but as strange as it seems, it really is only his third outing in the director's chair. And if recent box office estimates are to be trusted, it's officially his first commercial flop.

When his sophomore effort Knocked Up became a huge hit, I was puzzled what moviegoers found funny and endearing about a nasty, mean-spirited drama that unsuccessfully tried to pass itself off as sophisticated comedy. Now the shoe's on the other foot as I find myself defending the one film of his that has understandably been failing to striking a chord with mainstream audiences. To the relief of many, the days of Apatow indulging himself with nearly two and a half hour cuts have probably come to an end after this. But there's a lot of good news anyway.

Unlike Knocked Up (which this is about a thousand times better than by the way), what's supposed to be funny is funny and what's supposed to be dramatic is dramatic, with the two never mixing uncomfortably. It very much feels like a dramedy, if maybe an overly ambitious one. But at least there's no confusion as to what it's supposed to be. The film is a lot better than you've heard and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if in the coming years it starts to experience a re-evaluation from the same critics and audiences who dismissed it.

Funny People can be broken down into two sections: The BEFORE and the AFTER. When lonely, self-absorbed actor/comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia he falls into a deep depression questioning his life and career choices. Enter Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) a sub shop employee and aspiring stand-up comedian who has to unexpectedly follow George's depressing routine at a nightclub and responds by mocking him. Despite their shaky start, George sees something in the young comedian he likes and hires him as his writer and personal assistant, much to the chagrin of Ira's jealous roomates, aspiring stand-up Leo Keonig (Jonah Hill) and egotistical actor Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman), whose recent taste of fame as the star of the new NBC series, Yo Teach! is going straight to his head. That's the BEFORE.

The AFTER comes when George discovers he's been miraculously cured of the disease, a piece of information the studio has curiously gone to great lengths to reveal, perhaps fearing even fewer people would turn out for a comedy they think features Adam Sandler slowly perishing from a leukemia. George uses this new lease on life to re-connect with old flame Laura (Leslie Mann), an ex-actress who will always be better known to him as "the one that got away." But winning her back from husband Clarke (Eric Bana) is a problem since George has come away from his life altering ordeal no less of a jerk than he was before, if not more of one. He still has a long way to go before he can be considered a fully functioning human being capable of a real relationship. Ira is the only person who has George's back, even if he doesn't seem to appreciate it.

Surprisingly, nothing in this film feels forced. Celebrity cameos (from the likes of James Taylor, Eminem, Tom from MySpace and a whole bunch of comedians) and pop culture references are blended in seamlessly. Even more impressively, stand-up comedy is extremely difficult to depict on film in an entertaining way and here we're not only given a (presumably) inside look into that world, but the stand-up material is hilarious. Of all the three Apatow written/directed films this one has the highest percentage of jokes that hit the mark and it's a screenplay filled with clever in-jokes that shouldn't be spoiled.

For a while things are going so perfectly that you don't ever want the movie to end. Of course, you could say that with a running time of almost 140 minutes, it almost never does. There's only one thing that doesn't completely work and while it doesn't completely fail either, it's problematic enough that it starts to become an issue in the third act, especially considering the amount of time allotted to it. Apatow makes a questionable judgement call in asking us to root for George and Laura's potentially rekindled relationship, despite being spawned from desperation and infidelity. But that's not much the problem as it's a reflection of George's immorality, of which only Ira seems able to see. The problem is, save for a couple of flashbacks, we're not given enough background on their relationship to really care about it all that much.

Apatow didn't necessarily craft a role for his wife that's underwritten since she gets plenty of screen time and is given a lot to do, but that's not to say it could have been written better. Sure, we don't want Laura leaving her husband and kids (played by Apatow and Mann's real life daughters) for the selfish George but we don't want her staying with her jerk husband either. This gives us no one to root for and and a host of unlikable people, chief among them Laura for her awful judgment. Luckily, she played by Mann who's able to conceal much of that and I was just so happy to finally see her in a well deserved major role that I hardly noticed the writing flaw. Bana, who was the subject of Knocked Up's most memorable joke, helps save the final act by showing a charisma and gift for comedy we never knew he had. Or at least we wouldn't know he had it from watching Munich, Hulk or Troy. It's a real shocker. Almost as shocking as the fact that Bana used to be a stand-up comedian.

I'm not sure that this is Sandler's best performance but I am positive that George Simmons is my favorite character that Sandler has ever played, mainly because it recalls so much of what I always imagined he's really like. For those like me who grew up watching him on SNL and listening to his early comedy albums it's thrill to see him sending up his own image like this and the incorporation of his early career footage into the film just adds to that authenticity and nostalgia.

It's difficult to discern the game Sandler's playing with us in taking this role, if it's a game at all. Is this some kind of admission of guilt or apology for making the choices he has in his career, despite the fame and success it's brought him? Or is he laughing at us for being stupid enough to enjoy them? Is he in on this joke? We'll never know, but the cruel irony is that after the commercial failure of this film Sandler will once again have to go back to making the same kinds of movies he appears to be mocking himself for in this picture. We criticize his "sell-out" choices but whenever he attempts to stretch with more meaningful work like this we hate him for it. It makes me wonder if George's speech about people expecting too much from him could have come from Sandler himself. Scarier still, he may be right.

As interesting as his performance is, it isn't the best in the film. Rogen's is. Even though many feel as if he's been overexposed of late, he just seems to get better and better with each role he takes. Despite the comedic elements surrounding him, he gives Ira a full-fledged dramatic arc, making his friendship with George the focal point from which everything else in the story bounces off of. Because Rogen's work is subtly present and understated (words I never thought I'd ever use to describe a performance of his), it isn't instantly obvious how well he serves the material. Had another actor been cast in the part this wouldn't have been the same experience at all. And bonus points to Apatow for cleverly incorporating Rogen's recent weight loss into the character's backstory.

As autobiographical a film as this is for Sandler, it feels like it could be even more autobiographical for Apatow, kind of like he was shooting for his own Almost Famous. We knew this guy was a major writing talent when his his TV series Freaks and Geeks was cancelled almost a decade ago, but I don't think anyone (including him) had a clue he would go on to enjoy the kind of success he's had. This movie seems like his way of reconciling that and maybe just stopping for a breather to take it all in.This looks and feels like his first real adult movie and more like the kind of film that would be directed by James L. Brooks and released into theaters during awards season (he even employs Schindler's List and Munich cinematographer Janusz Kaminski ). He really came to play this time. And as oppressive as it's running time might seem to be on paper it didn't FEEL long to me, at least compared to other movies these past few years that have abused their running times.

This picture was on my list of most anticipated films of 2009 not because I thought it would be some kind of masterpiece (which it isn't) but because I know no matter what Apatow does right or wrong it's almost always guaranteed to be more interesting than a lot of what else is out there. Go figure I would enjoy the ugly step-child in his filmography this much. At best, Funny People will have a far longer shelf life than most expect, or at worst, be remembered as a fascinating curiosity in the career of one of comedy's most influential voices.