Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

I’m here this week to discuss a couple of new movies that are each excellent viewing experiences for very different reasons. Cases in point:

Knight and Day

This is a good movie because it is exactly what it sets out to be. This not reason enough for you? Okay, how about Tom Cruise. Sure, he’s had a fair share of setbacks in recent years, both in the public eye and on screen (in the forgettable Lions for Lambs). But I’ll tell you right now, privates, there is something to be said for actors who can take their enjoyment of the craft to the extremes, and show you just how much they enjoy it.

Maverick!

When Cruise’s Roy Miller smiles, does his little chuckle at Cameron Diaz, he’s almost parodying himself. Even the character — a deep undercover spy who has apparently gone rogue, and crazy, over a top-secret device — is a complete parody of his Mission Impossible Ethan Hunt character — typically brooding, dark, barely breaks a smile, work is number one, etc. Roy Miller likes the work he does, likes the people he meets despite having to cut himself off personally from the world.

Likewise, Cameron Diaz plays an ultimate damsel in distress, crying out for help when she can probably, by now, learn to fend for herself, and being the thorn in the side of our hero as he tries to reach his goals.

Okay, at times the film’s “plot” becomes repetitive (you drugged her how many times?), and the “plot” truly is paper thin. But Cruise…come on. He is a screen presence. It’s high time the dude found a middle ground between brooding, self-centered anti-heroes and comedic caricatures (Knight and Day, Tropic Thunder). Then again, watching Maverick on a screen will always hold a special place in the box office charts. The dude knows what movies he wants to do, and luckily, he gets his pick.

Winter’s Bone

Double-award-winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (Grand Jury and Best Screenplay), Debra Granik’s second film as writer/director is a wonder, to be sure. Images and the synopsis will cause one to think of “typical indie fare” — a girl who takes care of her siblings in an economically deprived, drug-ridden town searches for her missing father, a meth cook.

To the contrary, Winter’s Bone is a startlingly original take on the classic detective tale, set in a depressing place, filled with criminals and grungy neighbors, untrustworthy friends, and danger around every turn. Jennifer Lawrence, plays Ree. She is truly a star, embodying a strong resolve despite her familial and economic strife, who has grown “beyond her years” despite a lack of parental guidance. She aims only to care for her brother and sister, and the county is threatening to take away their home, which her father put up for bond on arrest. If her father doesn’t show up to court, they will be out of a home.

So begins her journey, inquiring her father’s old friends, namely his brother, Teardrop. John Hawkes plays Teardrop. You know John Hawkes, even if you don’t know him. Teardrop is a waste of space, a mean-mannered man who wants nothing to do with Ree or her situation. Does blood run thin in this hole in the world, or are there some ties that just won’t let go?

Ree’s trek to find her father brings her to a Southern crime-lord’s beat up house, a drug-addict’s shack, and to dark corners of realization and last resorts.

This is the kind of film that screenwriter John August (Go, Big Fish) would tell you to write — asking you, constantly, does everything that can happen on screen happen on screen, or are your characters sitting around talking about food?

There are a lot of shots, you see, of Ree with her brother and sister — teaching them how to shoot squirrels, for instance — that we might think are lingering pointlessly on the moment. But they are not. They advance her character when her character has gone into all the corners she knows to go, and then the story finds her. I do not think this is a bad thing. In fact, this is a great thing. When your characters is down and out and lost, with nowhere else to go, show us how he/she will react to a typical situation, then turn that situation upside down. In this instance, Ree is teaching her too-young-to-hold-a-gun siblings to shoot, when her friend shows up with a nice surprise to take her to the next step in finding her father.

Unlike Knight and Day, for instance. In that film, Tom Cruise will show up out of the blue to rescue our damsel in distress again and again. But this is different, isn’t it? This is an example of a writer forcing the story to happen, whereas in Winter’s Bone, Ree has done all she could do, and along the way we’ve met her friend turn her away once. Now’s the time to come back. It’s a payoff, ten-fold.

Knight and Day features predictable rescue moments, and Winter’s Bone, because of the strength of the character and her determination coming to a sudden halt, we’re given unpredictable solutions in a world where everything should be dark and everyone should be turning their backs on you.

Winter’s Bone takes the classic detective genre and A) gives us a female detective with a heart of stone, and B) sets it in such a wasted and decrepit location, we don’t even recognize the structure until her second or third inquiry. Then, it’s all a thrill ride until the end.

Please do yourselves a favor and see both of the above films when you get your next free moment. You’ll see Cruise at his best, and with Winter’s Bone you will get a chance to witness one of the best movies of the year, as well as a possible award-winning performance from John Hawkes.

Dismissed!

Sgt. Angle.