Sweet, Serious, Smart and Silent

The Artist, Haywire soar but Underworld Awakening snoozes

(Jan. 26, 2012) Reviews

The Artist. Director Michel Hazanavicius is a peerless visual stylist. His leading man Jean DuJardin is a gifted comic actor and an unnatural showman. Together they reinvented the character Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath/OSS 117 and made two deliriously funny spy spoofs bearing his moniker: OSS 117 Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 117 Lost in Rio(2009). In addition to being hilarious, they are noteworthy for their amazing evocation of the 1960s. Every detail, down to the technical aspects of the look and sound, is perfect.

Jean DuJardin and Berenice Bejo in The Artist

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With The Artist, Hazanavicius and DuJardin have pulled off another, even more ambitious trick: They’ve turned a silent movie about silent movies into a commercial and critical hit. (It’s nominated for 10 Oscars including “Best Picture.”) This time around, the movie is fashioned to look and feel like the pictures from the time period in which it’s set. Except for the lack of degradation to the film-print, one could easily believe The Artist was made in 1930.

It has been out long enough in other quarters for almost everything to have been said already, so I’ll leave it at this: The Artist is sweet, serious, smart, funny, and a grand celebration of movies that rivals Hugoin craft and exuberance. PG-13. 103m. At the Minor.

Haywire. The last time director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs collaborated, it resulted in The Limey(1999), arguably a high-water mark for both of them. This time they’ve made Haywire, and it is the best thing I’ve seen this year.

Star Gina Carano may not be a very good actress. But she may well be the baaaadest. And the movie in which she stars is cooler than cool. From the (perhaps overly) complex international espionage plot, to the ‘70s jazz-funk score, to the artfully brutal fights, to the smirking humor of the whole thing, Haywirehits all the marks and makes me a happy lad. R. 93m. At the Broadway, Fortuna and Mill Creek.

Red Tailsopens with a spectacular air combat sequence that is, within moments, deflated by expository dialogue, inappropriate music and a sloppily assembled title sequence. The movie gets back on its feet before too long, but the damage has been done.

In retelling the oft-told story of the Tuskegee airmen, Red Tailsgets a lot of things right: The historical detail is spot-on, the characters are well-played and generally believable, and the dogfights are pretty incredible to watch. There are elements of a great movie here, but some fundamental problems with script and direction keep it from getting there.

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