So fresh, and so Lee

Inside Man (2006)
Universal Pictures presents a Spike Lee film, starring Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster. Written by Russell Gewirtz. 129m. R for language and some violent images.

2.5 stars

With apologies to the Bard: Something is rotten about the bait in this banking landmark.

Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), an above-board detective, senses it too. Positioned outside the Wall Street branch of Manhattan Trust, he pounds on the padlocked doors, screaming at the hostage takers, “What are you doing? This ain’t no bank robbery!”

Aye, there’s the rub (apologies, apologies). “Inside Man” isn’t a straightforward stick-’em-up; there’s some genuine intrigue here. Thankfully, those nuanced elements are handled by Spike Lee, whose appreciation for film prevents him from merely reinventing “Dog Day Afternoon.”

In fact, Sidney Lumet’s seminal film is the template for “Inside Man.” When Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) requests safe passage in exchange for the Trust’s employees and customers, we know he’ll never get off the tarmac.

This seeming contradiction, which is nagging at Frazier, is exacerbated by the presence of Madeline White (Jodie Foster) who wants to begin her own negotiations with those orchestrating the heist.

Miss White shares a cinematic kinship with Winston Wolfe, Harvey Keitel’s ominous character from “Pulp Fiction”: She cleans up very big messes for very important people.

She’s smart, but curt; alluring, but focused. Her direction comes from Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), the bank’s patriarch who has stashed something very embarrassing in an uncataloged deposit box. Most times I’m very poor at deduction, but even I figured out what the sensitive documents would reveal before they were properly explained.

Although “Inside Man” is likely Lee’s most mainstream output to date, the master educator doesn’t cede his opportunity to again stand on the celluloid soapbox. This time, there’s a bit of cheekiness to his observations about post-Sept. 11 stereotyping.

For a bit of mind control, the robbers release one of their bank employee hostages, a Sikh, with what looks to be a laptop strapped around his neck. One of New York’s finest, undoubtedly still highly strung from the attacks, makes a quick, but flawed, assessment: He’s Arab and he’s got a bomb.

The man’s turban is foisted off, and he’s wrestled to the ground. Later, when investigators try to pump him for information, he’s seething about the indignity of having his religious beliefs trampled on so recklessly.

That complaint is a metamorphosis for the scene, creating a dialogue between Frazier, his partner Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the disgraced hostage about 21st century prejudices.

“I bet you can get a cab, though,” Frazier wryly concludes to the Sikh.

Manhattan is a revered melting pot of faiths and cultures; many are implemented during the course of the day-long standoff. The criminals mastermind a scheme in which hostages are forced to dress like their captors: in painter’s overalls. Everyone who leaves the building must be considered a suspect, even the old Jewish lady who undoubtedly wasn’t gallivanting around with an AK-47 locked and loaded.

The main suspect could be a Chinese man, whose predilections for busty females may be the primary reason he fingers a well-endowed woman for the crime. Or it could be a Puerto Rican woman whose sassy, self-involved, attitude stymies the inquisition.

For once, the criminals are smarter than the cops, which makes for an ending fraught with “gotcha”-type moments. But after a full two hours, we can quickly deduce what went wrong – not with the caper, but with the film’s execution.

Although Washington’s allegiance to Lee is strong – this is, after all, their fifth film together – his presence is wasted on a character that doesn’t demand his range. And Willem Dafoe acts extremely lost as a police captain; he may have been better served on the other side of this equation.

The great disappointment of this film, perhaps, is that is doesn’t measure up with other Lee’s other work. It’s hard to believe that “Do the Right Thing” is already 17 years old; that film still has the power to drastically transform ideologies. The observations about our culture of violence contained within “Inside Man,” however, will likely not stand that test of time.

Scrub this “launch”

Failure to Launch (2006)
Paramount Pictures presents a Tom Dey film, starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker. Written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember. 97m. PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and language.

1 star

“Failure to Launch” has an unmistakable contempt for its audience. Why else would its creators believe we’d enjoy watching two patently dishonest and shallow individuals fall in love with each other?

He’s a boat broker named Tripp (Matthew McConaughey), who is firmly ensconced in his parents’ suburban house. She is Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), a woman who has made a living out of detaching 30-something men from their lifelong nests.

There’s a better movie in here, about Paula’s unique profession. Who was her first client? That must have been one hell of a Yellow Pages ad.

She’s hired to intervene in Tripp’s life by his parents, Sue (Kathy Bates) and Al (Terry Bradshaw), who claim they’re desperate to detach their son from the inviting umbilical cord they’ve willingly provided.

Reviews of comedic films don’t warrant ceaseless analysis of these characters’ psychological states. So I’ll leave it at this: How can the film ask its audience to feel sympathy for these two retirees when we’re provided several scenes in which they shamelessly dote on their son?

What’s more reprehensible is that they’re complicit participants in his obnoxious plan to dump women by bringing them to the house. If mom made me a full breakfast daily, did my laundry and cleaned up after me and dad helped me excise bad dates, I’m not sure I would have ever left either.

Tripp’s life is woefully misguided, but at least there are hints of pleasure. Paula is essentially joyless before she dates Tripp, doomed to transform one bad personal experience into the foundations for many professional ones. It’s this sort of sadomasochism that draws us instead to Paula’s more dynamic housemate, Kit (Zooey Deschanel). She’s rudderless, but redeemable; her off-beat persona is mistakenly underutilized.

Instead, the film seems fixated on balancing our paint-by-numbers love story with scenes of Tripp demonstrating the “extreme” nature of his life. With buddies Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper), he goes mountain biking, rock climbing, surfing and paintballing as if to constantly prove testosterone still pumps through his system.

The extreme scenes usually climax with Tripp getting bitten by some sort of animal, ranging from dolphin to chipmunk. The audience howled with laughter at the slapstick approach. But if the point was merely to prove that the animals feared Tripp’s unbalanced nature, then isn’t that sort of silly?

On the other hand, this film would have garnered few other guffaws if not for Trip’s multiple contusions. Trust me. The sight of Terry Bradshaw’s naked rear end in three different shots is not funny; it’s terrifying. You have been warned.

There are some curious, late-arriving, scenes which try to provide sympathy for these reprehensible protagonists. Tripp isn’t afraid of commitment because he’s immature; he’s gun-shy because of an unexpected tragedy. And his mother fears Tripp’s now-imminent departure because she’s insecure about how much her husband still loves her.

There are some intriguing inklings for a very depressing film about pitiful people who mask their pain by existing in a state of arrested development. But the film doesn’t really go here, except when trying to soften their characters’ depravity.

Paula’s protocol, at least as the film’s trailer suggested, was to trick Tripp into falling for her so that she could manipulate him. It had curious similarities to McConaughey’s previous foray into the romantic comedy realm, “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”

The thought of scratching my own eyes out to spare myself the pain coming from the screen did not materialize during this film as it had during “10 Days.” It doesn’t redeem this film’s bottom-line however. It’s a mess.

Dench delivers in droll film

Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)
BBC Films presents a Stephen Frears film, starring Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins. Written by David and Kathy Rose and Martin Sherman. 103m. R for nudity and brief language.

2 stars

To say Laura Henderson germinated the first seeds of mainstream smut in London would be considered a preposterous notion, especially, I’d imagine, to her. She saw her Windmill Theatre, which tantalized its audience with nudes, as both a service to her country and to its fresh-faced troops awaiting the battlefields of World War II.

At the onset of the film, Mrs. Henderson (Judi Dench) is finding that independence suits her quite nicely after standing in the shadow of her now-late husband for seven decades. Instead of mindfully guarding her inheritance, she’s buys the theater because she fancies it being open instead of closed.

Since she doesn’t know a prop from a pantomime, she solicits strong-minded theater manager Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to oversee productions. Cognizant of his benefactor’s relaxed purse strings, Van Damm pitches a bold detour: a variety revue that plays almost all day.

The idea is a smash success, which lends it to a whole host of copy-cat imitations. Instead of packing it in, Mrs. Henderson rings the man who holds dominion over theater decency regulations and pitches a nude idea.

Lord Chamberlain (Christopher Guest) doesn’t stand a chance. Mrs. Henderson’s assertiveness trumps his Puritanical constraints, leaving him whimpering only about what’s to be done to gracefully obscure each woman’s “midlands.” The pair reaches an ingenious compromise: the nudes would act as statues and cast in soft light, so that they may be considered as works of art, not blatant pornography.

And while a cavalcade of British nipples could act as a film’s catalyst, things tend to get much duller in the film’s second half. The theater is allowed to run virtually unrestricted, pandering to a lower class of theatergoers who are delighted by a series of music numbers that end with bare-breasted females posing like Greek goddesses.

Lord Chamberlain is helpless to intervene, too unnerved to renege on compromise made over fine wines and imported cheese. His only opportunity comes during the German blitzkrieg of 1940, when the government tries to compel theaters to close for safety.

But the West End performers take after their founder, demonstrating staunch anti-establishment attitudes. Besides, Mrs. Henderson brilliantly adds, not only is the Windmill below street level (and therefore, presumably safer), “Revudeville” is a necessary part of a British soldier’s morale. It may be the only opportunity for many of them to see a nude woman in their short lifetimes.

It’s a charming perspective. No matter how flawed, we give the notion a fair amount of credence because the film sells it through Dench. We’re taken three times to the gravesite of Mrs. Henderson’s son, who, we learn, tucked a naughty postcard under his bed to keep him company during long nights fighting on the frontlines in Northern France. In her unending grief, Mrs. Henderson sees the Windmill as her repentance for a son’s unfinished life.

Dynamic performances are commonplace for distinguished thespians like Judi Dench, so her Academy Award nomination for this film comes as little surprise. And while it’s hard to bet against a dame, Dench will likely be penalized because “Mrs. Henderson Presents” is merely another great performance in a seemingly unending continuum of great performances. Conversely, it could be argued that Reese Witherspoon, who was magnificent in “Walk the Line,” exceeded her usual capacity. (As an aside, Sandy Powell received a well-deserved nomination for costume direction in “Mrs. Henderson.”)

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised by a little watch-checking as “Mrs. Henderson Presents” dives into some B-plots, like warmed-over hints of romance between theater owner and manager. In a typical Stephen Frears film, there would undoubtedly be a love triangle in which someone came off the worse for it in the end. Thankfully, we’re spared that sort of melodrama, which would be an unwarranted distraction.

For a movie that considers nude women as common place as war-time soldiers, “Mrs. Henderson Presents” surprisingly lacks the punch that’s needed to give it a formal recommendation. Watch for Dench if you wish, but I suspect there will be little else to tickle your imagination.