Movie Review Black Los Angeles

BlackNLA Movie Reviews

*****THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*****

by Edwardo Jackson

BIASES: Early 30s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

CHILDREN OF MEN (R)

MOVIE BIASES: Cool concept, cooler stars.

MAJOR PLAYERS: Clive Owen (Closer), Julianne Moore (The Forgotten), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty Things), Michael Caine (The Prestige), Claire-Hope Ashitey, and director Alfonso Cuaron (Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban)

In the year 2027, it's been over 18 years since women have been able to have children. ANYWHERE. In fact, on this particular November day, the youngest person in the world dies, just a little over 18 years old, striking a hopeless, slightly totalitarian world with grief. When Theo (Owen) is abducted on his way to work by his ex-wife turned revolutionary Julian (Moore). Julian needs his help to provide
transport for a very special young lady named Kee (Ashitey), an immigrant street urchin who's the world's least likely but most probable vessel of hope: she's pregnant.

Creeping up on you with a paradoxically polished but gritty style of filmmaking, Cuaron's "Children of Men" thrills on every level: social treatise on tolerance and immigration, insular human drama dealing with the loss of a child, and dystopian sci-fi masterpiece of a future that looks very much like an extrapolation of our present. The script, cobbled together as a five writer adaptation of the novel by P.D.
James, mirrors a tone as realistic as the filmmaking, with the near future looking like the present but with a few credible, technological enhancements (i.e. cars still drive, they don't fly a la "Back to the Future II"). Where some socio-political thrillers with visions of the future come up short is in the script, by falling in love more with
the look of the what's next instead of the heart of it. In "Men," Cuaron's drab, grayish, muddy view is so low tech real, you have no choice but to focus on the humans involved, their emotional stakes, and what's at stake for the world at large.

Good thing Clive Owen is just such a human/actor. With standout turns all around from Moore and Ejiofor as freedom fighters against the fascist, anti-immigration government, Caine as a hippie, immigrant sympathizer, and the potty-mouthed beauty of newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey in a Best Supporting Actress nomination-worthy role, Owen girds this picture with a very tangible (sorry – I'm desperate for new adjectives for "realistic") sense of our present apathy and social disassociation, and what happens when it gets an abrupt – and all too needed – awakening. As a cynical, quite self-deprecatingly charming British Everyman, Owen, his tall, dark, and handsomeness tamped down by Cuaron's moody, melancholy lens, becomes that Shakespearean "greatness thrust upon him" type hero put into extraordinary
situations, but a believable one who stumbles through on guile and fear rather than some hidden military, Bond-like past that kicks in; his Theo has NOT been trained for this. Evidenced by a continuous, hazardous, uninterrupted nine minute tracking shot boldly staged by Cuaron, Owen's Theo quick steps through a war zone with death and dismay abounding all around, a constant state of panic and purpose
glazed over his face.

If not before that scene, it's in Owen's frantic green eyes – and Cuaron's insert-your-own-adjective-for-realistic direction – that demonstrate how purposeful and powerful good acting married with great filmmaking can be. Easily one of the best films of the year.

@@@@ REELS
(FOUR REELS)
An urban legend/instant classic.

Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com!

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com




			BlackNLA Movie Reviews ***THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*** by Edwardo Jackson BIASES: Early 30s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare CHILDREN OF MEN (R) MOVIE BIASES: Cool concept, cooler stars. MAJOR PLAYERS: Clive Owen (Closer), Julianne Moore (The Forgotten), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty Things), Michael Caine (The Prestige), Claire-Hope Ashitey, and director Alfonso Cuaron (Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban) In the year 2027, it's been over 18 years since women have been able to have children. ANYWHERE. In fact, on this particular November day, the youngest person in the world dies, just a little over 18 years old, striking a hopeless, slightly totalitarian world with grief. When Theo (Owen) is abducted on his way to work by his ex-wife turned revolutionary Julian (Moore). Julian needs his help to provide transport for a very special young lady named Kee (Ashitey), an immigrant street urchin who's the world's least likely but most probable vessel of hope: she's pregnant. Creeping up on you with a paradoxically polished but gritty style of filmmaking, Cuaron's "Children of Men" thrills on every level: social treatise on tolerance and immigration, insular human drama dealing with the loss of a child, and dystopian sci-fi masterpiece of a future that looks very much like an extrapolation of our present. The script, cobbled together as a five writer adaptation of the novel by P.D. James, mirrors a tone as realistic as the filmmaking, with the near future looking like the present but with a few credible, technological enhancements (i.e. cars still drive, they don't fly a la "Back to the Future II"). Where some socio-political thrillers with visions of the future come up short is in the script, by falling in love more with the look of the what's next instead of the heart of it. In "Men," Cuaron's drab, grayish, muddy view is so low tech real, you have no choice but to focus on the humans involved, their emotional stakes, and what's at stake for the world at large. Good thing Clive Owen is just such a human/actor. With standout turns all around from Moore and Ejiofor as freedom fighters against the fascist, anti-immigration government, Caine as a hippie, immigrant sympathizer, and the potty-mouthed beauty of newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey in a Best Supporting Actress nomination-worthy role, Owen girds this picture with a very tangible (sorry – I'm desperate for new adjectives for "realistic") sense of our present apathy and social disassociation, and what happens when it gets an abrupt – and all too needed – awakening. As a cynical, quite self-deprecatingly charming British Everyman, Owen, his tall, dark, and handsomeness tamped down by Cuaron's moody, melancholy lens, becomes that Shakespearean "greatness thrust upon him" type hero put into extraordinary situations, but a believable one who stumbles through on guile and fear rather than some hidden military, Bond-like past that kicks in; his Theo has NOT been trained for this. Evidenced by a continuous, hazardous, uninterrupted nine minute tracking shot boldly staged by Cuaron, Owen's Theo quick steps through a war zone with death and dismay abounding all around, a constant state of panic and purpose glazed over his face. If not before that scene, it's in Owen's frantic green eyes – and Cuaron's insert-your-own-adjective-for-realistic direction – that demonstrate how purposeful and powerful good acting married with great filmmaking can be. Easily one of the best films of the year. @@@@ REELS (FOUR REELS) An urban legend/instant classic. Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com! Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com © 2004, Edwardo Jackson