Contour At The Movies

Overall Impression – A movie that generates small smiles instead of big laughs — which I can only assume was not the intent of the filmmakers.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Jane (Meryl Streep.)

What’s she trying to accomplish? – Professional: Decide if she should give her ex-husband another chance. Personal: Find love.  Private: Be okay being comfortably middle-aged.

Who’s trying to stop her? – Noone, really.  She has her own uncertainties, and her ex-husband’s nightmare of a wife and stepson are certainly an issue, but Jane’s obstacles are really her own doing.

What happens if she fails? – Absolutely nothing.  She either ends up with her über-repentant husband (played nicely by Alec Baldwin) or ends up with the puppy dog eyed  architect who adores her (played by the largely wasted Steve Martin.)

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – The last of Jane’s children is off to college and she is, for the first time since her divorce 10 years earlier, completely alone (except for her great house, great job, great friends, and great life.)

Wanderer – After attending her son’s graduation in NY, she hooks up with her ex-husband and has a drunken fling with him, starting the process for Jane of trying to figure out how to be the ‘other’ women; even if it’s with her ex-husband.

Warrior – As the smitten architect who is remodelling her home becomes more smitten with her, Jane has to fight to keep her relationship with her ex from spiralling out of control, keep her kids from finding out (supposedly, we are told towards the end) so that they don’t get hurt again by their mom and dad’s relationship, and decide who she really wants to be in love with.

Martyr – Because she has two suitors, each one eager to be with her and neither one a total jerk, Jane stands to lose little or nothing.  She seemingly gives up nothing, sacrifices nothing.

AND, IN THE END…

IT’S COMPLICATED is a movie that suffers from a surfeit of star-power, much of it misplaced. Meryl Streep has trouble finding a date?!  Alec Baldwin is a good guy?!  Steve Martin is earnest?!   One can imagine the excitement as word came in that these three agreed to be in the movie, but however good they are on paper they do not serve the needs of the story.

The  movie is also hamstrung by it’s own gentility.   The average audience member can no more relate to the polite, warm, and (dare I say?) ‘uncomplicated’ lifestyle of the protagonists than they can relate to the characters in a Victorian comedy of manners.

Another problem with the film is that we are told many things but shown very little.  We are told that Jane hasn’t done the deed in 10 years, but we aren’t shown why.  We are told that Jane doesn’t want to hurt her kids, but we don’t see that they’re damaged goods, though they tell us that they were in their incredibly well-scrubbed undamaged way.  We are told that Jane’s ex-husband is a jerk, but he’s actually…uh…nice.  In many scenes, he’s a lot nicer than Jane.  Perhaps that’s the point of the story: how JERK plus TIME plus INTROSPECTION equals NICE GUY, but again we are told this in a speech by the ex-husband.

The story itself is as mild as the characters inhabiting it.  With the exception of deciding not to subject her kids (all young adults) to the vagaries of starting up a relationship with their dad again, Jane seemingly has very little going on that will fall apart regardless of who she chooses to be with.  SOPHIE’S CHOICE, it isn’t.  Ultimately the story collapses from being top-heavy with talent and bottom-light with conflict.

Here’s a bad pitch version of the same story, just a little different: Jane’s bakery business is failing, her kids have all moved out, she’s barely holding onto the house because she’s poured every penny she has into keeping the business going, she hasn’t gotten laid in a decade…and into THIS situation comes two guys.  The first is her rich ex-husband who had been a world-class jerk and may or may not still be (Jane can’t tell because he’s really ‘walking the walk’), and the second is sweet, sincere architect Adam who is caught between a rock and a hard place: Jane’s really late paying for the plans for the renovation she can now no longer afford (Adam’s boss wants Adam to collect NOW!) however he’s falling in love with her.    Oh, and Jane is played by Kathy Bates, not Meryl Streep.

- Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Overall Impression – A movie as slight as a one-hit wonder, but just as endearing.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – ‘Young’ Carl.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Get his life together (at the insistence of his mother) by living on a pirate radio ship with a rowdy bunch of DJ’s.Personal: find out who his real father is.  Private: have a relationship with the father he’s been waiting his entire life for.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Ostensibly, Sir Alistair Dormandy, the government official charged with trying to shut down pirate radio.  Additionally, his mother who is vague about who his father really is.

What happens if he fails? – He will never know his father, and then when he does know who is father is, he and his father will actually die due to the government’s inaction when the ship starts to sink.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Carl doesn’t have much of a relationship with his mother, and doesn’t know who his father is.

Wanderer – Carl tries to learn how to fit in aboard the pirate radio ship, slowly becoming familiar with its’ peculiar rhythms.

Warrior – Carl gets the idea put into his head that one of the DJs might be his father, so he sets out to figure out which one.

Martyr – There are multiple martyr beats running simultaneously.  Once the government announces that pirate radio is illegal, everyone decides to keep broadcasting and risk jail time.  Then, with the ship sinking and Carl now aware of who his father is, Carl risks his own life to save his father from drowning.

AND, IN THE END…

PIRATE RADIO’s plot is more a series of episodes rather than a full story.  It actually reminded me of M.A.S.H.; a group of quirky, completely entertaining characters live and love together in tight quarters, doing something noble.  In M.A.S.H., the characters are saving lives.  In PIRATE RADIO, they’re saving rock and roll.

The fun of this movie is definitely NOT the story, the thinness of which is merely a delivery vehicle for the joy of spending time with a group of colorful and funny, characters.  And don’t mistake ‘colorful and funny’ for ‘well-defined.’  We never know who anyone really is or how they got that way.  There’s nary a backstory to be found.  Instead, it’s like going to a great party and being immediately drawn in by the people there. By the end of the night you feel like you’re one of them, without really knowing who ‘them’ is.

The movie is a brilliant example of funny writing given to memorable characters.  You leave the theater not enlightened, but certainly entertained.  Who wouldn’t want to spend a few deranged hours with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, and Rhys Ifans as they spin tunes, bond, and make the world a better place one transistor radio at a time?

- Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Overall Impression – Ignore those logic questions scratching at the back of your brain.  The movie’s kinda fun!

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Nick Rice.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: put an end to Clyde’s vendetta against the broken justice system. Personal: fix his relationship with his family.  Private: learn how justice should really be won.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Clyde Shelton.

What happens if he fails? – Clyde will continue killing people (including innocents) all over the city.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Nick’s focus is on his work instead of his family.  His approach to legal justice might also be seen as misguided, dubious and self-serving.

Wanderer – Nick joins forces with his colleague (Sarah) and a local detective, and together they try to figure out how and why Clyde’s killing people when he’s locked up in a maximum security prison.  When those attached to the case start dying after Nick doesn’t take Clyde’s demands seriously, Nick makes it his sole mission to stop Clyde.

Warrior – Nick throws everything into the investigation, eventually becomes the city’s DA, and races against time to stop Clyde’s murderous agenda.

Martyr – Nick is willing to die to stop the bombing of important government officials, and later risks his legal career by tricking Clyde into killing himself.

AND, IN THE END…

There’s certainly some dubious logic at work in LAW ABIDING CITIZEN (e.g., How does Clyde leave his cell for any length of time without the prison guards noticing?), but that’s a conceit that I have no trouble overlooking.  If that sort of thing got to me, I’d have issues with a lot of movies!  Like in HOME ALONE: why would Kevin take on a pair of bumbling burglars when he could simply call the police?  Answer: who cares?!  The movie’s fun!

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is an interesting take on the notion that the hero and villain create one another.  When high-flying lawyer Nick takes on Clyde’s case following the murder of Clyde’s family, his feeling of injustice at Nick’s handling of things creates his belief that the justice system is broken – and so begins Clyde’s vendetta.  This in turn brings Nick into action as the hero.  Similar cycles appear all the time in movies.  Batman: Jack Napier kills Bruce Wayne’s parents, creating Batman; Batman later causes Jack Napier to fall into a vat of acid, creating The Joker.  The Incredibles: Mr. Incredible crushes Buddy Pine’s dream of becoming a superhero, so he becomes Syndrome.  Syndrome’s antics later cause Mr. Incredible to come out of hiding and resume his crime-fighting career.  It’s a kinda cool pattern to watch out for.

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – A technically wonderful movie, but sadly it loses steam rather quickly.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Max.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: rule the Wild Things and keep ’sadness’ away.  Personal: forge a friendship with Carol. Private: learn the importance of family.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Some of the Wild Things are skeptical of Max (and kinda want to eat him!), and their idiosyncrasies throw up some challenges, but much of Max’s conflict is internal.

What happens if he fails? – Max will never be part of a family, and the Wild Things will probably eat him.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Max lives completely inside his imagination, which puts him at odds with the real world around him. He doesn’t have a dad, and his teenage sister has begun ditching him for her friends.  Soon, Max becomes the only human amongst the Wild Things.

Wanderer – Max gets to know the Wild Things, starts developing a friendship with Carol, begins to explore the island and learns about being part of a unit with creatures he can understand and relate to.  Max learns that Carol has been harboring a dream home (of sorts) for the Wild Things.

Warrior – Max leads the Wild Things as they make Carol’s vision a reality.   They act like a real team and build their new “base”.  However, when tensions rise between the Wild Things, Max must struggle to settle the disputes and keep the group from falling apart.  They begin to suspect that Max isn’t the magical leader he claimed to be, and Carol turns on him.

Martyr – To escape Carol, Max must let himself be “eaten” by a Wild Thing so he can hide in its stomach. Max realizes he can’t help the Wild Things, and decides he must return to the real world.

AND, IN THE END…

I think if I saw WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE a second time, I’d enjoy it more.  Most of my energy was spent trying to figure out what was going on, why stuff was happening, etc..  Then again, if this all happened in the mind of a wildly imaginative kid, maybe that’s to be expected.  Normally it doesn’t make a big difference to my enjoyment/understanding of a movie, but in this case, I think not having read the book beforehand was a big handicap!

That aside, the movie was rich in a lot of ways.  The puppetry really was amazing.  The level of imagination, feeling of fun and adventure – it really does make you feel as if you’re in a kid’s imagination; or maybe it reminded me of how easy it was to live in my own world when I was that age.   Max trying to be the king of the Wild Things was also a fun spin on the dynamic of a difficult child learning the challenges of parenting.

One issue I had with Max was that I just didn’t like him that much, despite elements present to make him a sympathetic character.  There’s certainly undeserved misfortune: Max’s father has left, a new father figure might be moving in, he lives in his own world and nobody understands that apart from him, he doesn’t seem to have any friends his own age, and so on.  However, all that sympathy went down the drain for me when Max bit his really, really nice mother.  Obviously this is only my opinion, but it draws attention to how you should be careful how you make your character sympathetic.  Or, to make sure you don’t undo the sympathy you’d built up for your character.

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – Gotta be my favorite zombie movie ever.  Probably one of my favorite MOVIES ever.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Columbus.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: survive the zombie armageddon.  Personal: win Wichita.  Private: fix his ’survival rules’ – stop avoiding attachment, learn to enjoy the little things, and (occasionally) be the hero.

Who’s trying to stop him? – The zombies, but also Wichita and her sister.

What happens if he fails? – They’ll all die.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Columbus is one of the most ‘orphaned’ characters I’ve seen.  He’s one of the few surviving humans.  He’s separated from his family.  He’s never had a girlfriend.  He avoided people even before they were zombies.   He even says, “We are all orphans in Zombieland”.  Columbus meets Tallahassee, and they team up, refusing to use their real names to avoid attachment.  They meet Wichita and her younger sister, who con the guys, steal Tallahassee’s ride and abandon them.

Wanderer – Columbus and Tallahassee go searching for a new vehicle, discover some weapons, and find Wichita and her sister again… only to be taken hostage once more.  They learn that the girls are headed to a zombie-free amusement park.  Columbus learns that his parents are dead, and feels lost as a result.  However, as the group travels, Columbus and Wichita bond, and he realizes he has something worth living for.

Warrior – Columbus decides to stick with the group and tries in earnest to win Wichita.  They drive into Hollywood and party in Bill Murray’s mansion, and Columbus puts the “moves” on Wichita.  However, in the end the ‘no attachment’ rule wins out and Wichita and her sister ditch the guys once more, heading to the amusement park alone.  Columbus decides to man up and pursue Wichita, and he and Tallahassee race to the amusement park – which has become overrun with zombies.

Martyr – Columbus faces down his greatest fear – a clown zombie – and is willing to die to save Wichita and her sister from the zombie-infested amusement park.

AND, IN THE END…

I have to agree with Roger Ebert’s take on zombies: they’re hilarious, and ZOMBIELAND makes the most of that.  Boasting some extremely memorable characters, this was total anarchic, ridiculous fun from start to finish.  Please run out and see this movie before it leaves theaters.  If nothing else, see it for what’s probably the most hilarious cameo to come along in a while.

Much like in TITANIC or PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, it’s somewhat up for debate as to who the main character is: Columbus or Tallahassee?  There are some tests to help determine this:

1 – At the end of the movie, it’s the hero versus the villain over stakes.  Very close, but I’d go with Columbus. He clashes most directly with the zombies over the stakes characters (Wichita and Little Rock).

2 – The hero changes the most from the start to the finish.  I’m still undecided on this one.  Perhaps Tallahassee, by a hair.

3 – The hero is like the villain, but with a moral centre.  Definitely Tallahassee.  Zombies destroy without reason, love blood and guts, and have one-track minds (brains!).  What’s Tallahassee like?  He destroys without reason, loves blood and guts, and has a one-track mind (twinkies!).  The only difference between the two, apart from a pulse, is that Tallahassee has a moral centre.

4 – The hero drives the action.  Again very close, but I’d say Columbus makes most of the decisions.  (Notably, to save the girls from the amusement park).

5 - The hero is willing to sacrifice the most in Act 3. Tallahassee has something of a death-wish, and killing zombies is what he lives for.  Columbus on the other hand hates danger, and has to face his worst nightmare – the clown zombie.  I’d say Columbus.

In my book, Columbus emerges as the main character, but that doesn’t mean that Tallahassee’s character isn’t developed enough that he couldn’t be.  Clearly this test is somewhat subjective, but it’s always interesting to see who people peg as the main character in movies such as PIRATES, LETHAL WEAPON, RUSH HOUR, TITANIC, etc.  What’s your take?

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – While it doesn’t really tread any new territory, Pandorum boasts some genuinely creepy moments.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Bower.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: reactivate the ship’s power core so they can reach a new Earth.  Personal: find his wife. Private: fend off the effects of ‘pandorum’ and accept that they’re all that’s left of humanity.

Who’s trying to stop him? – The mutants, and to an extent, Payton.

What happens if he fails? – Everybody on the ship will die, as will the human race’s last chance for survival.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Bower awakens on a derelict ship adrift in deep space.  He brings another survivor out of hyper-sleep, (Payton) and they soon realize that they’re completely cut off from Earth, with no idea where they are or what happened to the ship.  They soon learn that if they don’t reactivate the ship’s power core, they’ll never reach the planet Titan.

Wanderer – Bower and Payton make a plan: Bower will move through the ship whilst Payton directs him to the core from a control room.  Whilst exploring the ship, Bower tries to figure out what happened, picks up an anti-riot gun, meets a couple of vicious survivors (Nadia and Manh), and soon learns that the ship is infested by terrifying humanoid mutants.

Warrior – Bower convinces Nadia and Manh to help him, and as a team they evade and fend off the mutants whilst heading for the core.  The stakes are upped as Bower realizes that the ship is essentially an ark, and that the future of Earth’s legacy is in his hands.  When they discover that Payton is behind everything, Bower must stop him in order to find a way off the ship.  All the while, Bower must combat the effects of ‘pandorum’.

Martyr – Bower is willing to crawl across a sea of mutants in order to reach the core, and is later again willing to sacrifice himself to stop Payton.

AND, IN THE END…

Why do architects of the future love designing terrifying space ships?  How about some carpet?  Even the odd recliner?  Obviously, the setting might be a little less scary if you took that approach, but isn’t that preferable to a setting that’s obviously trying to be scary?  In my mind it is.  In fact, it might’ve been creepier if Pandorum had been set on a plush ship that had decayed over the 900-odd years it was adrift.  Or not.  Anybody got any thoughts on this?  I personally find it hard to ignore a set that draws attention to itself in such a way, and so i start thinking of it as a set.  One horror flick’s setting that totally sucked me in was The Descent.  A cave’s a cave, and caves are creepy.  It’s hard for me to find holes in that.

ANYWAY.  There was a lot I loved about Pandorum.  I jumped, a lot, and the atmosphere was great at evoking panic and claustrophobia.  Even more noteworthy was the general feeling of abandon, for which the ORPHAN element is largely to thank.  Actually, this is one of the most extreme cases of movie orphaning that I’ve come across.  They’re adrift in deep space.  They’re the last of humanity (their home, Earth, has been destroyed).  They’re confused, and lost on a huge ship.  Bower has lost his wife.  The list goes on, and this orphan thread is continued and amplified throughout the duration of the film, which only makes Bower’s goals harder to achieve.  Pandorum might not be in theaters for very long, but I think it’s worth checking out to see that dynamic in action.

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – Death gets creative.  IN 3D!

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Nick.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: stop Death and survive.  Personal: keep his girlfriend alive.  Private: N/A.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Death, and anybody who doesn’t believe Nick’s story.

What happens if he fails? –  They all die.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Nick and a select few are the only survivors of a tragedy at the race track.  Nick soon starts having visions, premonitions of gruesome deaths.

Wanderer – When the survivors of the tragedy start dying, Nick figures they were supposed to die in a certain order, and that he’s having premonitions of how the next person in the chain will be killed.  He thinks that if they can keep the next victim alive, they can cheat Death by ‘breaking the chain’.  A security guard helps Nick remember the order they were supposed to die in.

Warrior – Nick and his gf race against Death to prevent the demise of the next victims, which include their friends, but soon realize that Death is kinda hard to overcome.  Throw into the mix the fact that Nick remembered the order incorrectly, and it becomes a frenzied battle for survival. Eventually, they think they’ve broken the chain for real.

Martyr – Only they’re wrong, and Nick must risk his life to stop Death and save his girlfriend. Ultimately, this turns out to be futile.

AND, IN THE END…

This won’t come as much of a surprise, but THE FINAL DESTINATION’s biggest offering is seeing attractive teens getting splattered, in 3D. Plot-wise, the fourth installment is so similar to its predecessors that you know beat for beat what’s going to happen.  Indeed, the characters seem to be the only ones not to realize that fighting Death is futile – he’s gonna get you in the end!  The only element of mystery in this movie is how the kids are going to die.

One complaint that tends to crop up about movies with attractive teens getting splattered is that the characters are a little too 2D, which normally means that you don’t care about them.  While I think it’s fair to claim that cannon fodder doesn’t need character depth, I also find horror movies to be far more affecting if you care about the fodder being splattered.  Just watch Aliens.

The root cause of zero character depth is often a lack of any real private goals, of which THE FINAL DESTINATION is a prime example.  If that wasn’t enough, I found them to be largely unsympathetic.  After all, how much can you care about a group of rich, attractive, largely arrogant teens?  This all sounds pretty negative, but in a weird way, it acted as a reverse appeal that made me want to see them die a gruesome death!  When a character that I’ve been led to hate gets splattered by an engine, I feel pretty good!  Given the tidy $65m that THE FINAL DESTINATION cleared at the box office, perhaps 2D characters that everybody loves to hate are the way to go with teen-splatter movies.

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – An incredible action-horror classic that deserves a place on your DVD shelf.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Ripley.

What’s she trying to accomplish? –Professional: wipe out the aliens for good.  Personal: forge new relationships with Newt and Hicks.  Private: get over her fear of the aliens.

Who’s trying to stop her? – The aliens, Burk.

What happens if she fails? – They’re all gonna die, man!

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Ripley is found marooned in space, the only survivor of her massacred crew.  She has outlived everybody she knew, including her daughter.  She’s totally alone.

Wanderer – Ripley meets the marines, including Hicks and Bishop.  They prepare for war and investigate a colony believed to be harboring aliens.  They investigate, discovering clues that indicate an alien attack, and find Newt, a young girl who managed to survive.  Ripley negotiates her feelings for her lost daughter as she befriends the helpless Newt, and they soon learn that aliens have nested in the colony.

Warrior – Ripley takes command of the marines as they try to fend off the aliens long enough to escape the planet.  When she loses Newt, Ripley must venture back into the alien nest to rescue her.

Martyr – Ripley faces the alien queen one on one, and is willing to die to blast it out of an airlock and destroy the aliens forever.

AND, IN THE END…

Definitely one of my top 10 favorites.  It’s got it all: a great antagonist, a unique and driven heroine, and marines splattering aliens with giant guns. ALIENS is also great to study because it’s so well structured.

One element I’ll draw attention to is ALIENS’ solid ending.  When Ripley blasts the alien queen out of the air lock, she simultaneously destroys the aliens for good (PROFESSIONAL), saves Newt (PERSONAL), and overcomes her ultimate fear (PRIVATE). By definitively answering the PROFESSIONAL, PERSONAL, and PRIVATE components of the Central Question as closely together as possible, ALIENS delivers a satisfying ending that’s on the mark, clean, and has impact.

Another example, STAR WARS: when Luke fires the final proton torpedo, he simultaneously destroys the Death Star (PROFESSIONAL), saves Princess Leia (PERSONAL) and gives himself over to The Force to become a Jedi like his father (PRIVATE).  A third example, SPIDERMAN: Peter Parker simultaneously defeats the Green Goblin and saves New York (PROFESSIONAL), saves MJ (PERSONAL) and accepts his responsibility as a superhero (PRIVATE).

Paying attention to when the Central Question is answered also helps you avoid structuring a movie that keeps going… and going… and going.  With this approach, you’ll know when the movie should end, because after the Central Question is answered, there isn’t much more to say!

On a random note, I’ve always thought that puppets beat CG when it comes to believing that characters and creatures are real, my logic being that puppets are made of something tangible, whereas CG just objects just aren’t really there.  IMO, The aliens in ALIENS are infinitely more believable that anything that could be created with CG, even today.  I’d be interested in hearing some opinions on this.  When it comes to creating something filmic… puppetry or CG?

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – A sweeping epic that’s as fresh now as the day it was released.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Kambei Shimada.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: lead the samurai in defending a peasant village from 40 bandits.  Personal: bridge the samurai/peasant caste division. Private: figure out if it’s possible to overcome the negative social conventions placed on samurai.

Who’s trying to stop him? – The bandits, dissent among the samurai, and conflicts between the samurai and the peasants.

What happens if he fails? – The bandits will kill the samurai and the villagers.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Kambei is a ronin – a rogue samurai with no master.

Wanderer – Kambei finds and recruits six samurai whom he believes are necessary to defeat the bandits. They travel to the village, where longstanding tensions between the samurai and peasant castes become apparent.  Eventually they learn to trust each other, and Kambei forms his strategies to fight the bandits and trains the peasants for battle.  When some bandit scouts are killed, a few samurai undertake a preemptive strike, learning that the bandits possess not only superior numbers, but also three muskets.

Warrior – Under Kambei’s leadership, the samurai try to hold the peasants together as they launch a variety of attacks and defenses against the bandits, whittling down their vast numbers through strategy and guerilla tactics.  They also try to reduce the bandits’ advantage by taking their muskets, the youngest samurai Katsushiro begins an affair with a village girl, and Kikuchiyo becomes more active in his goal to earn respect as a samurai.

Martyr – The samurai and the peasants stage a final battle to wipe out the bandits for good, risking everything by luring them into the village.

AND, IN THE END…

There’s so much packed into this movie that I can barely scratch the surface, but one element I’d like to draw attention to is how fleshed out the samurai characters are, due in no small part to the fact that each samurai, to a greater or lesser extent, featured his own path from ORPHAN to MARTYR.  For example, Kambei’s protege Katsushiro starts off as a masterless samurai ORPHANED by his aristocratic heritage.  He becomes a WANDERER through his tutelage under Kambei and as he negotiates his feelings for a village girl.  He’s a WARRIOR when the fighting starts and as he pursues the village girl, and switches to a MARTYR along with everyone else in the final showdown.

Additionally, SEVEN SAMURAI is said to have established certain plot points that’ve become convention in modern movies.   The most obvious of these is the hero’s gathering of allies into a team to accomplish a specific goal, and if Wikipedia’s to be believed, Roger Ebert speculated that SEVEN SAMURAI established the practice of introducing the main character involved with an undertaking unrelated to the main plot (e.g., Kambei is introduced rescuing a child from a thief).  In hindsight, the movie didn’t feel as dated as I’d expected it to, and that’s probably because it’s filled with filmic elements present in so many contemporary films.

Lastly, you can’t have a samurai movie without some good old fighting, and SEVEN SAMURAI boasts some of the most intelligent sequences I’ve seen.  If you want a great action movie with some incredible depth, give this one a look-see.

- Dan Pilditch

Overall Impression – A fun and inventive movie that really sucks you into Mark Whitacre’s confused, paranoid world.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Mark Whitacre.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: help the FBI gather evidence against a supposed worldwide price fixing conspiracy organized by his company.  Personal: keep his personal life intact.  Private: deal with paranoia caused by his bipolar disorder.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Mostly obstacles brought on by his bipolar condition, at times being the FBI and his coworkers.

What happens if he fails? – Consumers the world over will remain victims of price fixing, and Whitacre and his family will lose everything.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – When the FBI investigates a price fixing conspiracy rooted in Whitacre’s company, he can’t talk to anybody and feels like he’s being watched – he becomes an outsider in his own life.  Additionally, Whitacre’s unique way of looking at the world sets him apart.

Wanderer – Naively believing that he’s going to become a hero and secure the top job at the company after the ‘bad elements’ have been rooted out, Whitacre becomes an FBI informant.  Working with agent Shepard, they figure out the best way to gather workable evidence.  Gradually, the FBI learns that Whitacre isn’t he saint he made himself out to be, and that his accounts are as much fantasy as truth.

Warrior – When Whitacre’s ever-changing accounts threaten the case, the FBI tries to sort truth from lies and keep Whitacre on track.  However, Whitacre becomes aware that being an informant is ruining his life instead of improving it.  As he contends with financial, professional, personal and media fall-out, Whitacre starts doubting himself and what he’s gotten himself into.

Martyr – When Whitacre finally starts telling the truth, he becomes what he was trying to avoid: the fall guy. Even after everything he’s done for the FBI, his lies and criminal activity (which he’d justified in his mind) burn him more than anyone he was trying to incriminate. Whitacre loses everything and goes to jail in the name of ‘justice’.

AND, IN THE END…

I’m still wrapping my head around THE INFORMANT!, which I think is its intended effect.  Mark Whitacre is such an enigma that he had trouble discerning between reality and his own fiction, and the movie does such a great job of pulling you in that when Whitacre is revealed as untrustworthy, you start questioning the film’s events as much as the characters do.

THE INFORMANT! provides an interesting twist on the notion that the hero must give up what he wants before he can get what he needs.  Often, the hero willingly becomes a martyr, or at the very least, accepts that there are no other means by which success can be achieved.  By contrast, Whitacre can be seen as an unwilling martyr.  He wanted nothing more than for the FBI to go away, leaving him with his perfectly planned life.  Instead Whitacre had everything taken from him, which really amped up a feeling of poignancy that might not have existed had he been willing and compliant.  It’s interesting to see how a movie’s message can vary by making the main character a willing or unwilling martyr.

- Dan Pilditch