crime

RIDERS OF JUSTICE: thriller, comedy and much, much more

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Photo caption: RIDERS OF JUSTICE, a Magnet release. © Kasper Tuxen. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

In the marvelous Riders of Justice, Mads Mikkelsen plays Markus, a soldier on active duty in the Middle East; when his wife dies in an accident, Markus returns home to tend to their teenage daughter. Then two geeky data scientists show up at his door with an anti-social hacker – and Markus learns that the tragedy may not have been an accident. Markus, a human killing machine, and the three supernerds team up on a quest for revenge.

Riders of JustIce has been inadequately described as a revenge thriller and an action comedy. It is gloriously satisfying as entertainment, but the more I think about it, Riders of Justice explores grief, revenge and mortality – they’re all in here. And it’s still very, very funny.

The key is that Riders of Justice is so character-driven. At first, Markus and his three compatriots seem to be comic types, but writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen has fleshed them out – each of these men has a personality formed by a trauma.

Markus has the laser focus of a combat commander, which he uses to deflect any contemplation of his feelings – or those of others, including his grief-wracked daughter.

Mathematician Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is just socially aware enough to recognize how inappropriate his buddies are. His partner Lennart (Lars Brygmann), with 40,000 hours of therapy under his belt, is both psychologically savvy and remarkably devoid of self-awareness or boundaries. The hacker Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro) really can’t navigate any social interaction. These guys are hilarious from their opening presentation to a bunch of corporate suits, where they present an elaborate mathematical proof that rich people buy Mercedes and poor people drive Hyundais.

Mads Mikkelsen and Andrea Heick Gadeberg in RIDERS OF JUSTICE, a Magnet release. © Rolf Konow. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

Mads Mikkelsen is a favorite of mine. I can’t name a more compelling and versatile screen actor working to day. He has delivered some of the best performances of the past two decades in After the Wedding, The Hunt and Another Round. (And he was the Bond villain with the tears of blood in the 2006 Casino Royale). I recommend this wonderful NYT interview with Mikkelsen, who really used to be professional dancer (who knew?) and touches on his exhilarating dance scene in Another Round.

In Riders of Justice, Mikkelsen takes Markus’ men-don’t talk-about-their-feelings attitude just far enough to set up Jensen’s jokes and to create tension about what’s best for his daughter. It’s extreme, but not cartoonish.

Writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen, who won an Oscar for a 1998 short film, co-wrote Susanne Bier’s Brothers, After the Wedding and In a Better World. Brothers (Brødre) and After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) are two of the best films of the 2000s; watch the Danish originals, not the putrid American remakes.

Jensen, with his wicked wit at the ready, has also written and directed The Green Butchers, Stealing Rembrandt, Flickering Lights and Men & Chicken.

Riders of Justice is the best movie that I’ve seen so far in 2021. Riders of Justice has slipped out of Bay Area theaters, but is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

MY NAME IS BULGER: two brothers, two paths to power

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William Bulger in MY NAME IS BULGER. Photo courtesy of discovery+.

The documentary My Name Is Bulger traces the life of one fascinating man – made even more compelling by the life of a second man. Bill Bulger, one of nine kids raised in the projects, was a political wunderkind. First elected at age 26, his 35-year career in the Massachusetts State Legislature was topped by 18 years as President of the State Senate. No less than the squeaky clean former Governor Michael Dukakis credits Bill Bulger for cleaning up the previously corrupt institution.

Now, here’s the kicker – while Bill Bulger was dominating Massachusetts politics, his brother James “Whitey” Bulger was the state’s most fearsome crime lord.

Politics is public, and crime is private. Politics requires self-promotion, and crime requires secrecy. The brothers Bulger are parallel studies in power.

For decades, my day job has been in politics. It’s not unusual for politicians to deal with embarrassing, and even unsavory, relatives, but what do you do if your vocation is politics and your older sibling is a notorious criminal?

Very bright and armed with wit and charm, Bill Bulger was able to artfully, even miraculously, keep his career separate from Whitey’s. As Whitey became more infamous, Bill was able to delay being hurt by the association. It was widely known that Whitey had been in Alcatraz as early as 1959.

We meet Bill Bulger himself, now 85, and several of his adult children (who also remember their “Uncle Jim”). Dukakis appears, along with another former governor, William Weld. There’s also a former crime partner of Whitey’s. And we hear from the recently released Catherine Greig, Whitey’s longtime girlfriend and fellow fugitive, captured with Whitey in Santa Monica.

As sympathetic to Bill Bulger as is My Name Is Bulger, it doesn’t hide his opposition to busing in the 1970s, a political necessity that put him on the same side as South Boston’s ugliest racists. Nor does it shy away from the moment Whitey became a high-profile fugitive and Bill was cornered into taking the Fifth.

William Bulger in MY NAME IS BULGER. Photo courtesy of discovery+.

My Name Is Bulger is told from the point of view of Bill Bulger’s family. The Bulgers are understandably resentful of Bill’s political enemies in the press (and former Governor Mitt Romney). It’s more difficult to appreciate the family grudge against the government for harshness to Whitey, who, after all, was convicted of 19 murders.

For the story of how Whitey was able to use the FBI to eliminate his competition in the local Italian Mafia and the Irish mob, I also recommend another recent doc, Whitey: The United States vs. James J. Bulger.

My Name Is Bulger will stream on discovery+ beginning June 17.

THE DRY: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural

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Photo caption: Eric Bana in Robert Connolly’s film THE DRY, which playes at SFFILM. Photo courtesy of SFFILM.

Eric Bana soars in The Dry, an atmospheric, slow-burn tale of murder and long-festering secrets from the Australian outback. The Dry is as psychological as it is procedural.

Bana plays Aaron, a renowned big city police officer who returns to his remote, tiny hometown, for the funeral of his childhood best friend. The friend, with his wife and young son, have been shotgunned to death, and all signs point to a murder-suicide. The friends’ parents implore Aaron to see if there is another explanation.

That task is complicated by the act that Aaron is not welcomed by many in his hometown. His teen heartthrob was mysteriously drowned, and Aaron was a prime suspect, causing him to flee the town. Twenty years later, all he knows is that he didn’t do it and that he lied about his alibi.

As indicated by the title, writer-director Robert Connolly sets The Dry in Australian outback in the Climate Change. The vast, tinder-dry landscapes underscores the literal and psychological isolation of the locals.

Aaron, racked with feelings about the twenty-year-old mystery death, starts investigating the current day murders. He joins up with the inexperienced local cop, and they poke around the rural community over several, searingly hot days. It takes a while to get there, but I thought the payoff justified the slow pace; The Wife didn’t. Both of us were surprised when the The Real Killer was revealed.

Eric Bana’s performance as Aaron is superb. The whole movie is about Aaron trying to keep his investigative focus while being buffeted by feelings about his childhood friends and his hometown and the trauma that caused him to move away from them.

Because of his good looks and his physicality, Bana appears in a lot of big movies that don’t test his emotional range (Hulk, Troy, Black Hawk Down). But Bana is always good and even better in movies like Munich and Hanna, where we get to glimpse his thinking and feeling. For a really good and overlooked Eric Bana movie, I recommend the 2012 thriller Deadfall, available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

The Dry played at SFFILM in April, but I missed it there. The Dry is now in Bay Area theaters and streaming on AppleTV, YouTube and Google Play.

NIGHT STALKER: THE HUNT FOR SERIAL KILLER: a good man tracks down evil

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Gil Carrillo in NIGHT STALKER: THE HUNT FOR A SERIAL KILLER

The true crime limited series Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer tells a story of a public justifiably terrorized by profound evil, but it is elevated by one genuinely good guy.

In a five-and-a-half month 1985 crime spree, the serial killer nicknamed the Night Stalker inflicted unspeakable atrocities, mostly in a swath of Los Angeles. There were at least 14 murders, along with rapes and child rapes, brutal beatings and mutilations – enough carnage to ultimately to earn him 19 death sentences. And, to make it all even more sensational, he embraced Satanist symbology.

This was not a serial killer case to be solved by a profiler. The victims were of different ages, genders and races; his weapons of choice and his horrific acts all varied. There was no pattern to the crimes except that they were all nighttime home invasions.

Instead, it was a case for two dogged detectives, armed only with a single shoe print, trying to piece together more physical evidence. Frank Salerno, was the seasoned star detective of the LA Sheriff’s department, a local celebrity for cracking the notorious Hillside Strangler case. His partner was a fresh young cop who had just made detective, Gil Carrillo, underestimated by everyone except Salerno.

The whodunit and the man hunt make for a great story. It’s a roller coaster, with at least two breathtakingly squandered opportunities and a huge gaffe by, of all people, Dianne Feinstein,

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is graced by the the testimony of survivors, victims, journalists and witnesses who encountered the Night Stalker face-to-face.

But the man reason I recommend Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is Gil Carrillo, who is an intoxicating story teller. As professional detectives can be, Carrillo is a disciplined observer who has the gift of narrative, whether in a bar or in a courtroom. He also wears his salt-of-the-earthness on his sleeve. I’m sure that Carrillo can be as terse as any cop on the street, but he lowers his guard here, and lets his humanity flow. The good guy, Carrillo, not the evil guy, is the real star of this movie.

And now a creepy possible connection with The Movie Gourmet. Many of my acquaintances have heard my “rats in the toilet” story from 1983-84, an episode that culminated when a city crew eradicated a colony of sewer rats from the sewer main under South 16th Street in San Jose. I later learned that, at the time, the Night Stalker himself was working as a San Jose sewer worker.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is streaming on Netflix.

THE MYSTERY OF D.B. COOPER: the hijacking that keeps on giving

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THE MYSTERY OF D.B. COOPER

We are justifiably still intrigued by the only unsolved American air hijacking. The documentary The Mystery of D.B. Cooper takes us back and adds some detail to the story. Most importantly, it makes four suspects become almost tangible to us.

We get to meet the flight attendant forced to sit next to the hijacker, and the guy who sat across the aisle and the pilot. But, the highlights come from the folks that are today convinced that they knew D.B. Cooper. These stories range from odd to bizarre.

The Mystery of D.B. Cooper is streaming on HBO.

coming up on TV: THE BURGLAR – loyalty among

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Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea in THE BURGLAR

Turner Classic Movies is presenting one of my Overlooked Noir on December 12, and you shouldn’t miss it. The Burglar (1957) is known popularly as the movie debut of Jayne Mansfield,  but it’s a fine film noir.  It starts out with a tense burglary, but once the necklace is successfully burgled, the story focuses on the heist team going stir crazy as they wait for the environment to cool down so they can safely fence the booty. They are strung so tight that even the whistle of a tea kettle is enough to startle the gang. While dodging the cops, they find that they are also being hunted by a corrupt rogue cop and his partner.

The core of The Burglar is the stellar lead performance of Dan Duryea as the chief burglar. He’s a tortured and worn-out guy – with one deep loyalty.

There are plenty of noir moments – lots of shadows, uplit faces in the darkness and amoral, grasping characters. We have not one, but two noir vixens – Jayne Mansfield and Martha Vickers. Asked at a bar by Duryea what she wants, Vickers answers “Basically, I’m out to find myself a man.” The characters in this fine film noir find themselves in Atlantic City, where the bad cop chases the protagonists through the House of Horrors and the Steel Pier, culminating in a final confrontation under the boardwalk.

The acting is excellent, other than Peter Capell, who gives over-acting a bad name while playing the most nerve-wracked member of the gang.  Even Mansfield is good; (The Burglar was held in the can for two years and then released when Mansfield became a sensation with The Girl Can’t Help It).

The movie was shot on location in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. We see Independence Hall, and it’s hard not to think of Rocky when Duryea climbs the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The Burglar plays from time to time on Turner Classic Movies and is available streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, and other platforms.

[Note: The Burglar features John Facenda as his real-life role as a Philadelphia newscaster (when local TV stations aired 15-minute newscasts). Facenda later found much broader fame as “The Voice of God” for his narration for NFL Films football documentaries.]

a Sicilian Mafia double bill: THE TRAITOR and SHOOTING THE MAFIA

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Pierfrancesco Favino and Totò Riina in THE TRAITOR, Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Mafia movies have long been a cinematic staple and two current films explore the original Sicilian Mafia, the Cosa Nostra. The true life epic The Traitor and the documentary Shooting the Mafia cover the same territory – the Cosa Nostra‘s utter domination of Sicily until prosecuting judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellini convicted almost 400 mafiosi in the bizarre Maxi Trial in 1986-87, the Mafia War on the State and assassination of the judges, leading to public outrage and arrests which have somewhat tamed the Cosa Nostra. Both films even feature the real village of Corleone, the home village of the fictional Godfather.

Pierfrancesco Favino in THE TRAITOR, Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

The Traitor chronicles the career of Tommaso Buscetta, a mafia figure who traded in billions of dollars worth of heroin. Then, an internal gangland power grab led to the murders of his sons and to his arrest by very harsh Brazilian authorities. Buscetta retaliated by turning state’s evidence and testifying against his former Mafiosi, becoming the first and most important Sicilian Cosa Nostra informer.

The Traitor opens at a Mafia party where Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino) is sniffing out betrayal by his colleagues. It’s poker wisdom that, if you can’t spot the player who is :”the fish”, then it’s you. Or, as Victor Mature said in Gambling House, “You know what I think, Willie? I think I’m the fall guy.”

Written and directed by Marco Bellocchio, The Traitor is a two-and-a-half hour epic that spans decades and three continents. The highlight is the Maxi Trial, held in a super-secure fortified arnea, ringed by over 400 defendants caged around the top.

Pierfrancesco Favino is very, very good as Buscetta, a guy who is firmly devoted to his personal code. Luigi Lo Cascio from The Best of Youth also appears as a Buscetta friend.

Letizia Battaglia in SHOOTING THE MAFIA

The documentary Shooting the Mafia introduces us to Letizia Battaglia, a talented Palermo photographer, whose photojournalistic specialty became photographing murder victims – scores, perhaps hundreds of corpses, bullet-riddled and bomb-mangled, in pools of blood. Her work also documented the grief. trauma and outrage of the Sicilian population.

Battaglia is open and unapologetic about her lusty personal appetites – and she over-shares. She would be an interesting subject for a biodoc even if she photographed ears of corn.

A Letizia Battaglia photograph in SHOOTING THE MAFIA

Shooting the Mafia, an Irish and US production, is directed by Kim Longinotto.

The Traitor can be rented from all the major streaming services. Shooting the Mafia can be streamed on iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.

NOIR CITY’S fiesta of Mexican noir

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Anita Blanch and Pedro Armendáriz in NIGHT FALLS (LA NOCHE AVANZA)

This year’s Noir City had an international theme and was highlighted by an all day noirathon of four, count ’em, FOUR classics from a storied era in Mexican cinema. This Fiesta of Mexican Noir was hosted by the Film Noir Foundation’s Eddie Muller and Daniela Michel, an expert preservationist and historian of Mexican cinema and the founder and Director General of the Morelia International Film Festival.

Michel presented films by all three of the pillars of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema – Julio Bracho, Emilio Fernandez, and the Mexican director most identified with noir – or cine negro – Roberto Gavaldón.

Daniela Michel and Eddie Muller

Here’s the program:

  • In the deliriously entertaining Night Falls (La Noche Avanza) (1952), Pedro Armendáriz plays a ladykiller who treats his women horribly – and is begging for a noirish downfall. Night Falls was directed by Roberto Gavaldón, the Mexican director most well-known for film noir. In a uniquely Mexican touch of noir torture, waterboarding is performed with tequila. Stay to the end for for cinema’s act of greatest canine revenge.
  • Julio Bracho’s Another Dawn (Distinto Amancer) (1943) is a paranoid thriller about a heroic labor organizer (Pedro Armendáriz again) who has the evidence to expose corruption by the PRI, Mexico’s ruling party for 70 years.
  • In Bracho’s Twilight (Crepusculo) (1945), a surgeon is tormented by an obsession, and then by guilt. When former lovers – now married to others – are isolated together in a weekend house party during a thunderstorm, it’s inevitable this concentrated passion, obsession and betrayal is going to explode.
  • Salón México(1949) is an unusual contemporary noir directed by Emilio Fernandez, more often known for movies with rural and historical settings, Salon Mexico is a cabaretera, a uniquely Mexican genre about a woman with a heart of gold (Marga López here) who is forced by poverty to work as a singer in a sketchy nightspot or even as a prostitute. It’s also a time capsule of 1949 Mexico City.

Follow the links for my commentary on the films, images and where to find them.

Miguel Inclán and Marga López in SALON MEXICO

UNCUT GEMS: neo-noir in a pressure cooker

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Adam Sandler in UNCUT GEMS

Adam Sandler and filmmaking brothers Benny and Josh Safdie serve up neo-noir in a pressure cooker in the relentlessly tense Uncut Gems.

Howard (Adam Sandler) is a Jewish jewelry dealer in New York City’s Diamond District, who makes his big bucks catering to NBA stars brought in by his associate (LaKeith Stanfield). He’s also a gambling addict. One of the consequences of gambling addiction is losing more than you can afford and owing money that you don’t have to very nasty people.

Kevin Garnett, LaKeith Stanfield and Adam Sandler in UNCUT GEMS

Howard has a lot – a wife and kids in a luxurious suburban house, a young mistress in a Manhattan apartment, a thriving business. But he’s always on the verge of losing it all because it’s not enough; his life is driven by the compulsion to make five figure exotic sports bets.

That means that he is constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul, shifting money, jewelry, schemes and bullshit around like a spinning plate act on The Ed Sullivan Show. Throughout Uncut Gems, the chaos elevates, as Howard bets on being bailed out by the Big Sale and the Big Bet. There’s a massive Ethiopian opal (a MacGuffin like the Maltese Falcon), a spine chilling auction and an even more gripping sports bet.

It’s clear that the inevitable will catch up with Howard – we just don’t know where it will fall on the continuum between having all of the bones in his hand broken and wearing cement shoes in the East River. Or whether his spiking blood pressure will send him out with a stroke or heart attack. Come to think of it, this probably isn’t the best movie choice for a cardiologist.

Adam Sandler in UNCUT GEMS

Here’s the challenge that the Safdies faced in writing this character and that Sandler faced in playing him. How do you make him just appealing enough to keep us engaged with his situation? This is a guy who, were we in the same family or community, we would dread his every approach (Here comes trouble).

This is an extraordinary, awards-worthy performance by Sandler; he inhabits a perpetually frenetic guy, fueled by his compulsions and by the resultant desperation.

Idina Menzel is superb as the wife who knows Howard best and assesses him the most accurately (and cruelly). Stanfield is very good, as are Julia Fox as the girlfriend and Eric Bogosian as a frustrated creditor. Former NBA star Kevin Garnett plays NBA star Kevin Garnett and holds his own with the professional actors.

The 2 hours and 15 minutes of Uncut Gems flies by (and you feel like you’ve been running the whole time). This is one of the Best Movies of 2019.

ASH IS PUREST WHITE: a survivor’s journey

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Fan Liao and Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE

Ash Is Purest White is writer-director Zhangke Jia’s portrait of an unforgettable woman surviving betrayal, the crime world and the tidal waves of change in modern China, all embedded in a gangster neo-noir.

Qiao (Tao Zhao), is the tough and spirited girlfriend of the provincial jianghu gang leader Bin (Fan Liao). They are the big fish in their little pond, and they are relishing life. Then circumstances change – great and unperceived economic forces are enervating their hometown and a younger rival gang emerges. Qiao takes a heroic action with severe consequnces. When she re-emerges, she finds herself personally betrayed and unsupported. The seventeen-year span of Ash Is Purest White follows Qiao as she roams across China to rebuild her life. She is at times devastated but refuses to accept permanent defeat.

Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE

Tao Zhao is Jia’s wife and muse. Ash Is Purest White is a sweeping epic, and it is her movie. Her performance is a tour de force. Watch her portray Qiao’s confidence in the opening scenes, her resourcefulness and ingenious cons when she is dumped out on her own and the resolve that powers her quest. Fan Liao is also excellent as Bin.

As Qiao’s journey spans almost two decades and thousands of miles, we get insights into contemporary China. Jia’s China is a place where, when the coal industry plays out in one city, the government builds a new city for hundreds of thousands of people to movie into the oil industry. Economic forces sweep across China like flash floods that inundate and sudenly recede. Qiao rides these changes like a fishing bobber on the surface of a tsunami.

Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE

We are familiar with movies about the Mafia and yakuza, but Ash Is Purest White is a glimpse into jianghu – their Chinese equivalent.

Ash is Purest White is on my list of Best Movies of 2019, and it’s streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.