Movie Review: Mud

Mud
Directed by: Jeff Nichols.
Written by: Jeff Nichols.
Starring: Matthew McConaughey (Mud), Reese Witherspoon (Juniper), Tye Sheridan (Ellis), Jacob Lofland (Neckbone), Sarah Paulson (Mary Lee), Ray McKinnon (Senior), Sam Shepard (Tom Blankenship), Michael Shannon (Galen), Paul Sparks (Carver), Joe Don Baker (King), Johnny Cheek (Kyle), Bonnie Sturdivant (May Pearl), Stuart Greer (Miller), Clayton Carson (Pryor).

In just three films, Jeff Nichols has established himself as one of the most interesting directors working today. He specializes in films set in the areas of the Southern U.S.A. that rarely have movies made about them – and even more rarely have respectful movies made about them. While his movies all have a certain degree of realism to them – there is something a little bit more in each of them. In his wonderful, little seen debut, Shotgun Stories, set in his native Arkansas, he tells the story of two warring sets of brothers – the ones who were abandoned by the father to raise the others – but when you name one set of brothers “Son, Boy and Kid” you know you are looking at an allegory. His even better follow-up, Take Shelter, was a paranoid thriller set in Ohio, with Michael Shannon as a regular guy convinces the storm to end all storms is coming. That film would have made Hitchcock proud, and is a film that grows in my mind even now, two years later. His latest film is Mud – which is a coming of age story that also has elements of a fairy tale at times. Once again, Nichols has made a wonderful film.

The film stars newcomers Tye Sheridan as Ellis and Jacob Lofland as the inventively named Neckbone, who live on the river in a small Arkansas town. Ellis’ father is a fisherman, and Neckbone lives with his uncle, who collects clams from the river bottom. They know their way of life is ending – as soon as they leave, river authority will tear down their houseboats – but for the boys, they love this place. Neckbone has heard from his uncle that on a small island on the river there is a boat caught in a tree. And when you’re a 13 or 14 year old boy, there are few things cooler than a boat in a tree. So off they head to the island – and they do in fact discover the boat. But they also discover a man living there. He calls himself Mud (Matthew McConaughey), and takes offense when Neckbone calls him a bum –“Call me a hobo, because they work for their money. Or call me homeless, because right now, that’s true. But you call me a bum again, and I’ll teach you the respect your daddy never did” he tells him. Mud has a gun, but he’s also fairly nice to the boys. He says he’ll be there for only a few days – he just has to wait for someone to meet him. And if the boys will help him out for some food, that would be appreciated. While most adults wouldn’t trust someone living on a small island, who packs a pistol, when you’re 13, you want to trust – want to believe. Especially when Mud tells Ellis he’s waiting for his girlfriend who he is madly in love with. Ellis’ parents are on the verge of divorce, and his own crush is out of his league – so he needs a love story to believe in.

Mud makes a good alternative to all the blockbusters out right now. We’re only three weeks into blockbuster season, and while I mildly enjoyed Iron Man 3, didn’t hate (but didn’t really like) The Great Gatsby, and was hugely entertained by Star Trek: Into Darkness, I feel myself already tiring of the blockbuster aesthetic of non-stop action, rapid fire editing and style over substance. A movie like Mud is the opposite of that – some will complain that the film is too slow and “nothing happens in it”, but that’s not true at all. Mud is a movie that takes it’s time – it lets its characters breathe, and become more than just pawns for Nichols to move around to simply advance a lame plot. You get to know these people, and care for them. There are no characters here that are simply here for convenience’s sake – even characters with little screen time – like Sam Shepherd’s grumpy old man across the river, or Ellis’ worn out mother, and especially Nichols’ favorite Michael Shannon as Neckbone’s uncle – who cares about his nephew, and knows enough to know he isn’t particularly suited to raise him, but he doesn’t have a choice. Ray McKinnon also leaves a large impression as Ellis’ father, who doesn’t like what is happening to him, but is powerless to stop them. Even when the movie introduces the bad guys – guys hunting down Mud – they are slightly more than generic bag men.

But the best performances are by the four major characters. After years of coasting on his easy Southern charm in one lazy romantic comedy after another, McConaughey has established himself as a more talented actor than I ever imagined – from his movie star performance in The Lincoln Lawyer, to his brilliant, slightly more than a cameo in Richard Linklater’s Bernie, to Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, which turns McConaughey’s persona on its head, to William Friedkin’s chilling Killer Joe to Lee Daniels’ over the top The Paperboy, and now this film, where he plays a man blinded by love, up to his eyeballs in trouble, who turns out to be more complex than we first thought, McConaughey is on a roll. If this isn’t quite his best performance in this group, it’s close. Another movie star known for coasting through romantic comedies, Reese Witherspoon, is always quite good as the object of his affection – a woman who knows the damage she causes, but still cannot stop herself for causing it. And from newcomers Sheridan and Lofland, Nichols gets a pair of the best children’s performance in recent memory. The two perfectly capture the confusing time right on the cusp of being a teenager – not quite there yet, but older than a child. They half grasp what is going on, and want to do the right thing – and think they are.

Mud may be a touch too long, and perhaps Nichols should have found a slightly better way to end the film – he has a few too many storylines crashing together at once at the end. But overall, Mud is another wonderful film by one of the best new filmmakers around. Nichols is just getting started, and he’s already made three great films. Some directors go their entire career and don’t do that.

Movie Review: Stark Trek: Into Darkness

Spoiler Warning: I’m not going to reveal overly much about the plot of Star Trek: Into Darkness – at least not more than any other movie – but I do know that many people complained about spoilers in critics reviews and even the IMDB page of this movie about revealing something they didn’t want to know. I’m going to assume that if you’re THAT much of a fan of Star Trek, than you saw it this weekend and if you are THAT adverse to spoilers, you wouldn’t be reading a review of the film anyway, but I thought I’d give a warning anyway. Read no further if you don’t want to know anything about the film.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Directed by: J.J. Abrams.
Written by: Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman & Damon Lindelof based on the TV Series created by Gene Roddenberry.
Starring: Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Karl Urban (Bones), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu), Benedict Cumberbatch (Khan), Anton Yelchin (Chekov), Bruce Greenwood (Pike), Peter Weller (Marcus), Alice Eve (Carol).

Doing remakes or reboots of beloved franchises is almost never a good idea. If the filmmakers are too reverent of the source material, you essentially end up with something almost as silly and pointless as Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot Psycho remake, because you are adding nothing new. If you go the other way, and try hard to make it different, you run the risk of draining what was so special about the original in the first place. But for the second time, J.J. Abrams seems to have made a Star Trek that walks the very fine line between being too reverent and too different. I’m not a Trekkie in the least – one of my big cinematic blind spots is pretty much every Star Trek movie made before 2000. But I know enough about the characters and the franchise to know why it worked so well. In 2009, Abrams took on the monumental task of rebooting the franchise – finding a new Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scott, Sulu, Chekov and the rest. The result was a highly enjoyable film that worked for everyone – not just Trekkies. I’m not sure if Into Darkness tops it – but it surely equals it. This time he takes an iconic storyline from the past, and makes it new.

The movie opens on a mission where once again Kirk (Chris Pine) doesn’t follow orders, but once again his not following orders actually works out better than if he had. Still, Star Fleet looks down on this sort of independence, and Kirk is called to the carpet for his actions – mainly because Spock told on him, not to be mean, but because Vulcans cannot lie. But even Star Fleet thinks Kirk could come in handy after two attacks by John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) – one of their own gone rogue. The second attack is at the heart of Star Fleet itself, and leaves Kirk’s mentor Pike dead. Vowing revenge, Kirk convinces Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to let him take the Enterprise to go get Harrison – even though he’s hiding out on Kronos, the home planet of the Klingons, and doing so may cause a war. Marcus equips Kirk with experimental, long range torpedoes to get the job done. But once again, Kirk doesn’t quite follow orders.

Once again, the cast in the movie is excellent. Chris Pine’s Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Spock have already established a relationship that feels real – Spock reins Kirk in when he’s going to go too far, and Kirk helps to humanize Spock – gets him to see things the way the rest of us do. They are the heart of the cast – and they are both just about perfect for their roles. The rest of the Enterprise cast are really just stock characters – and yet Karl Urban as Bones, John Cho as Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov and especially Simon Pegg as Scotty are all entertaining in their roles. They are trying, with mixed results, to get Zoe Saldana’s Uhura to be a more major character – but as good as she is, she still gets shunted to the background.

The storyline – in particular the villain – are much stronger this time than they were in Abrams s first Star Trek movie. As entertaining as the first film was, I think we can all admit that Eric Bana’s villain left something to be desired. He was shunted to the background, as Abrams concentrated more on re-establishing the characters for a new generation than the story itself. This time, Cumberbatch has one of the best roles in the film as the bad guy – a heartless villain willing to sacrifice everything for what he wants.

As for Abrams as a director, he still has a little too much of a TV perspective for my taste behind the camera. His last film, Super 8, was his best as it was his only original one so far, and did a far better job of imitating his idol Steven Spielberg. With Star Trek: Into Darkness, he is back to the TV aesthetics of his first films – with perhaps a little too much Paul Greengrass style editing and shaky camera in the action sequences for my taste. Still though, the film mainly looks great – the special effects are well handled. I didn’t see the film in 3-D, because generally I don’t like 3-D for live action films (although, admittedly, Baz Luhrmann used it well in Gatsby, even if I was disappointed in the film).

We are just three weeks into Hollywood’s annual blockbuster season – and we’ll see many more BIG films over the next few months. Star Trek: Into Darkness is the first blockbuster this year that I can fully get behind. I enjoyed it far more than Iron Man 3 or The Great Gatsby. It’s a must for Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike.

Movie Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Directed by: Mira Nair.
Written by: Ami Boghani & Mohsin Hamid & William Wheeler based on the novel by Hamid.
Starring: Riz Ahmed (Changez), Kate Hudson (Erica), Liev Schreiber (Bobby Lincoln), Kiefer Sutherland (Jim Cross), Om Puri (Abu), Shabana Azmi (Ammi), Martin Donovan (Ludlow Cooper), Nelsan Ellis (Wainwright), Haluk Bilginer (Nazmi Kemal), Meesha Shafi (Bina), Imaaduddin Shah (Sameer), Christopher Nicholas Smith (Mike Rizzo), Ashwath Bhatt (Junaid), Sarah Quinn (Clea), Chandrachur Singh (Bandy Uncle), Adil Hussain (Mustafa Fazil), Ali Sethi (Ahmed), Deepti Datt (Amreh), Gary Richardson (Anse Rainier).

At the center of Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist there is a wonderful story of a young man from Pakistan who comes to America for his part of the American dream, and in the aftermath of 9/11 grows disillusioned with everything he thought he wanted. That right there is a great story. The problem with the movie itself is that it wraps itself as a thriller with a needless framing device and story about a kidnapped American, who they must find soon or else he’ll be killed. The movie doesn’t need any of that – it’s just a distraction, but it’s a big distraction – one that pretty much sinks the movie.

That is unfortunate, because the movie basically wastes an excellent performance by Riz Ahmed in the lead role of Changez. Changez grew up the son of a famous poet in Pakistan – his is a good family, and yet they are still broke. He goes to America for University, where he excels, and then gets a job on Wall Street. In a room full of brilliant, young go-getters, Changez is the smartest and most ambitious of them all. His boss, Jim Cross (Kiefer Sutherland) takes him under his wing – and he seems to be on the fast track to success. He even meets and falls in love with a beautiful American, Erica (Kate Hudson). On the day he gets the best news of his life – that he will become the youngest Associate in his firm’s history, he turns on the TV and watches 9/11 play out before his eyes. After that, things change for the worse. His adopted country looks at him with nothing but suspicion – and his home country does much the same thing – and Changez is caught not quite knowing what to do.

This should be more than enough plot for one movie. But instead of just making a character study of life for a Muslim immigrant in pre and post 9/11 America, the film feels the need to add a thriller framing device. 10 years after 9/11, where Changez is now a University Professor in Pakistan, an American journalist – Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber) finally gets an interview with him. Lincoln thinks Changez is the poster child for “new radical intellectuals” in Pakistan – and given that an American born professor at the same University has been kidnapped, he thinks Changez may know something about it. And then the CIA gets involved, and the whole thing pretty much turns into one of those ticking clock movies, but without an actual ticking clock.

There are other problems in the movie – mostly in the casting. Perhaps because he is TV’s most famous anti-terrorist expert, Nair thought that casting Sutherland in a completely non-Jack Bauer-ish role would be interesting in that it subverts our expectations of him. Cross is perhaps the most sympathetic of all the American characters – he never looks at Changez differently after 9/11, and even when he gets angry with him, it is justified – he did put his neck on the line for him after all, only to have it thrown in his face. It has nothing to do with Changez being Muslim. Yet Sutherland is not the most nuanced of actors, so other than wearing ridiculous glasses, he never seems natural in the role. Perhaps worse is Kate Hudson as Erica, who is a complicated character, who ends up doing something that (in my mind anyway) is rather abhorrent – but Hudson cannot pull off this character rife with contradictions. Even when she is supposedly Changez’s dream girl, there is something off about her.

But Ahmed’s performance would have more than made up for those flaws. He was good in the under seen, terrorist comedy Four Lions a few years ago, but was given an impossible role to play last year in Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna, where he was stuck playing an amalgamation of the two men in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles – a role that made him seem schizophrenic. Yet here, he plays Changez – flaws, contradictions and all – and turns in a wonderful performance. He anchors the film, and never ceases to hold the screen. He drew me into the movie, even though the film itself is more frustrating than engrossing.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is still at least an interesting movie. But it’s a frustrating one because had the movie tried to do less, it could have been so much more. Perhaps the only way Nair could get funding for a movie of this nature was to make a thriller – and if that’s the case, than that’s said. Because there is so much here to admire, but the film is sunk by the rest of the crap the movie throws in.

My Answer to the Most Recent Criticwire Survey: Best on the Big Screen

This week’s question is about what movie every movie buff should try to see on the big screen at least once. The answer, of course, is all of them. Every movie, no matter how large or small, is meant to be seen on the big screen, and while it’s wonderful that we can see way more movies than ever before on our TV’s, this should not be treated as a substitute for seeing things on the big screen. Anyway, that answer is a copout, so if you want me to name one movie I’ll say the best film ever made Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. I’ve seen that film countless times – but only once on the big screen – and that was the inferior Apocalypse Now Redux – but it was still one of the best movie going experiences of my life. Other films I had seen many times on TV, VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray that I also loved when I saw them on the big screen include Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Rear Window and Psycho (this actually increased my admiration for Psycho immeasurably), Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and especially 2001: A Space Odyssey (which would be second only to Apocalypse Now if I really did this list) – and of course Welles’ Citizen Kane. And I’m still kicking myself for not finding time to see Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and Jacques Tati’s Playtime on the big screen when I had the chance. Basically, I think if you have a chance to see any great film on the big screen, you shouldn’t pass that up.

Movie Review: The We and the I

The We and the I
Directed by: Michel Gondry.
Written by: Michel Gondry & Jeffrey Grimshaw & Paul Proch.
Starring: Michael Brodie (Michael), Teresa Lynn (Teresa), Raymond Delgado (Little Raymond), Jonathan Ortiz (Jonathan), Jonathan Scott Worrell (Big T), Alex Raul Barrios (Alex), Laidychen Carrasco (Laidychen), Meghan Murphy (Niomi), Chenkon Carrasco (Chen), Jacob Carrasco (Jacobchen), Konchen Carrasco (Kon), Raymond Rios (Big Raymond), Kenneth Quinones (Kenny), Amanda Mercado (Amy), Manuel Rivera (Manuel), Jillian Rice (Jillian), Chantelle-Lisa Davis (Chantelle), Brandon Diaz (Brandon), Luis Figueroa (Luis), Marlene Perez (Marlene), Patricia Jade Persaud (Willowy Patricia), Carolina Noboa (Carolina), Esmeralda Herrera (Esmeralda), Justin McMillan (Sam), Elijah Canada (Elijah), Shade Antanique Coleman Blanch (Shade), Marie Raphael (Marie), Alexis Davila (Alexis), Kendrick Martinez (Kendrick), Patricia Marie Collazo (Patricia), Evonny Escoto (Evonny), Nicole Janine Rivera (Nicole), Jazmine Rivera (Jazmine), Darius D. Davis (Darius), Omar Mualimmak (Omar), Hector Maldonado (Hector), Mia Lobo (Bus Driver).

As far as burdens go, Michel Gondry is stuck with a pretty great one. In 2004, he directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of the very best films of the 21^st Century – a film that seems to get better, deeper, funnier and more inventive each time I watch it. In the nine years since, he hasn’t approached that level of brilliance. True, the screenwriter of the film Charlie Kaufman deserves a lot deal of credit for the greatness of that movie (and he know directs his own screenplays), and Gondry has gone onto direct some good films since – Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2005), The Science of Sleep (2006), Be Kind Rewind (2008) and my personal favorite of his post Sunshine work – his segment of Tokyo! (2008) – about a young girl who changes into a chair. Perhaps because his new film, The We and the I, doesn’t try to be as off the wall strange as his other films, it is probably his best film since Eternal Sunshine. No, it’s still not in the same league – but then few films are.

The film takes place on the absurdly long bus ride home through New York City for a group of high school students on the last day before summer vacation. Gondry cast real students from the area in Brooklyn he was filming in, and while none of them are great actors, they are wonderful at playing, what we expect, are exaggerated versions of themselves. When the movie simply sits back and allows them to be that, it works wonderfully – it works less so when it tries to impose some dramatics on the proceedings.

Anyone who takes public transportation will tell you just how accurate the movie is. While I don’t live in New York, I do work in Toronto, and getting on the subway some days, and finding the car full of teenagers can fill me with dread. One or two of them are fine – they typically will then just sit or stand quietly – but when a group comes, they can be loud, obnoxious, profane and inconsiderate to all those around them. It’s no wonder that shortly after the teenagers pile onto the bus in The We and the I, that most of the adults file out – presumably to wait for another bus – one not filled with teenagers.

Gondry flashes around from one group to the next – the losers, the popular kids, the group of bullies in the back, the girl obsessing about her sweet sixteen, the ones who just want to be left alone, and the ones trying desperately to fit in. They are all recognizable types, and yet they feel organic and real.

And that’s what I liked about The We and the I – that it all felt so natural to me. True, I think Gondry tries a little too hard near the end of the film – trying to put a happy face on it, and teach the teens a lesson at the same time. And he drives the point home – the point made by the title – that for teenagers, perhaps more than anyone else, they really are two people – the person they are when they are by themselves, and the person they are when they are surrounded by their friends. The character who embodies this is Michael (Michael Brodie), who doesn’t have a “real” moment until all his friends are gone, and he lets his guard down – confesses some true feelings, and makes a connection with a student he has ignored all year.

Overall, some clumsy dramatics aside – not to mention why Gondry felt the need to use the songs of Young MC – older than all of the kids on the bus – as the soundtrack to the film (not that I’m complaining – it’s been while since I heard Young MC), The We and the I is an honest exploration of modern teenagers. By the time the end of the movie came, I felt I got to know these teens – I didn’t like them all – but they were all real people to me. I still don’t want to be on a subway car with a bunch of loud, obnoxious teenagers, but I may look at them slightly differently next time.

Movie Review: The Angels' Share

The Angels’ Share
Directed by: Ken Loach.
Written by: Paul Laverty.
Starring: Paul Brannigan (Robbie), John Henshaw (Harry), Gary Maitland (Albert), Jasmine Riggins (Mo), William Ruane (Rhino), Roger Allam (Thaddeus), Siobhan Reilly (Leonie).

Through more than 40 years, and nearly as many films, Ken Loach as been the U.K. preeminent Leftist filmmaker – making films about social justice and the underclass whether they were fashionable at the time or not – and he has gone through long stretches of his career when both of these things were true. You have to admire that Loach has stuck by his beliefs throughout his entire career. He hasn’t always made good films – some are far too preachy, some like his last film Route Irish were muddled and confused. But he has stuck by his core beliefs. You have to give him that.

His latest film, The Angels’ Share, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes last year, is similar to many of his other films. Once again, Loach is looking at the underclass – this time at Robbie (newcomer Paul Brannigan), a young man with seemingly no family, who likes to get drunk and get into fights. But now he wants to turn over a new leaf. His girlfriend Leonie (Siobhan Reilly) is pregnant, and he wants to be more of a father to his son than his father was to him. But he is stuck in a cycle of violence that he may not be able to break free from. His girlfriend’s father hates him – beats him up, and tells him to stay away from his daughter and grandson. He even attempts to buy Robbie off – and most astonishingly, seems to have renamed Robbie’s newborn son. Robbie also has a long running feud with another local drunk – stretching back to his father’s days, and while Robbie wants to bury the hatchet, this other guy doesn’t. The smartest thing Robbie can do is get out of Glasgow. But how? And what will he do when he does? Besides, he’s 300 hours of community service to go through.

It’s at Community Service where he finally discovers his purpose. He meets Harry (John Henshaw), responsible for overseeing the assorted people working. He treats them kindly and with respect – assuming the best about them. And he is proven right. It seems that none of the people at community service are really that bad – they’ve just made mistakes. Harry’s greatest love is Scotch – not to get drunk, but to simply savor the flavor. It’s this love that sets up the film’s second half – that you could describe as a comic caper, when Robbie and his pals decide to steal a few bottles of the most expensive, rarest Scotch on earth.

The Angels’ Share – which refers to the 2% of Scotch that disappears a year while it is being aged – is a strange movie. On one hand, it wants to be a hard hitting movie about Robbie, who is basically a good guy, who wants to set his life straight, and how because he is poor, and has no way out, he is trapped. On the other hand, it’s a comic caper – almost wish fulfillment – about Robbie and his pals conspiring to get out of their dire circumstances by stealing whiskey. These two sides fight with each other – often scene to scene – and so the movie never really settles into a groove. It’s hard, if not impossible, to get on the film’s wavelength, because it switches every few minutes. It’s hard to think of a more schizophrenic film in recent memory.

It should be said though that in Brannigan, Ken Loach has discovered a major talent. This was his first film role, and although the movie makes him change rapidly and constantly, he mainly succeeds in grounding the movie. The scene where he has to go meet the young man he beat up – and his family – is heartbreaking, precisely because Brannigan seems so natural and ashamed, although he doesn’t say anything. He also has charm and comic timing, which the movie requires in its last half. He is a star, if he’s given the right role.

Perhaps Loach and his constant writer Paul Laverty – who have worked together on every film Loach has made since 1996 (that’s 12 films if you’re counting), should start working with others more often. Since Loach’s triumph – The Wind That Shakes the Barley in 2006 (for which he won the Palme D’Or, although I suspect that the honor was almost more of a lifetime achievement award than for the film itself), their collaborations seem stuck in some sort of rut. With The Angels’ Share, they are obviously trying to change – make a comic caper, with a mix of the social realism they are known for – but it quite simply doesn’t work.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Family Plot (1976)

Family Plot
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock.
Written by: Ernest Lehman based on the novel by Victor Canning.
Starring: Karen Black (Fran), Bruce Dern (George Lumley), Barbara Harris (Blanche Tyler), William Devane (Arthur Adamson aka Edward Shoebridge), Ed Lauter (Joseph P. Maloney), Cathleen Nesbitt (Julia Rainbird), Katherine Helmond (Mrs. Maloney), Warren J. Kemmerling (Grandison), Edith Atwater (Mrs. Clay), William Prince (Bishop Wood), Nicholas Colasanto (Constantine).

Watching Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot, his 53^rd and final feature film, I got the impression that the Master was simply having fun toying with the audience with this movie. This isn’t a Hitchcock masterpiece, where the thrills mask something deeper. But the movie is made like a well oiled machine is visually superb, and proved that Hitchcock could make a dark comedy if he wanted to (his previous attempt, The Trouble With Harry, may just be my least favorite Hitchcock film). No, it isn’t great. But it’s good – and a hell of a lot of fun.

Hitchcock never liked a lot of explanatory dialogue in his films – and hated it at the beginning, preferring to dive right into the action first, and then explaining as he went along. He made an exception with Family Plot – and he pretty much had to. The plot is so convoluted, that it needs some setting up before we can dive right in. The movie stars Barbara Harris as Blanche Tyler, a phony psychic, whose elderly client Julia Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbitt) is approaching death, and wants to set things right before she goes. Her sister gave birth to a bastard child 40 years before, and gave him up for adoption. The sister is now dead, and Rainbird has no heirs of her own – and wants to leave the Rainbird legacy to a blood relative. Because Blanche is a psychic, Rainbird figures that she should be able to find the child, even though Rainbird cannot give her any information about him, other than he was a boy.

If you assume that Blanche is just going to get her somewhat dimwitted boyfriend George (Bruce Dern) to pose as the long lost bastard, while so did I. But Blanche decides instead to actually find the nephew – and sends George out looking for clues. Little do they know that they almost ran directly into the bastard’s wife Fran (Karen Black) early in the movie. He now goes by the name Arthur Adamson (William Devane) and along with Fran, he kidnaps wealthy people, and holds them hostage for a payout in jewels – that because he runs a jewelry store, he can move easily. If the plot already sounds needlessly complex, don’t worry, it gets even more convoluted as the movie goes along.

Family Plot is a movie built on coincidence after coincidence, offbeat performances, in jokes and of course, Hitchcock’s classic style. While Family Plot is more comedic than most Hitchcock films, there are still some great set pieces – a chase in a cemetery, a kidnapping in church, a car chase gone awry – that have all of Hitchcock’s trademarks. The performers hit an interesting tone, somewhere between manic and over the top, and all of them do a fine job. I particularly liked Bruce Dern as George, a cabdriver turned Private Investigator – but only when he’s off shift. The movie glides effortlessly along, and if he doesn’t demand too much of the audience, that’s okay, because it’s an entertaining ride.

The final shot of the movie has Barbara Harris winking directly at the audience. Apparently screenwriter Ernest Lehman hated this, but Hitchcock didn’t care. He winked at the audience subtlety throughout his career, and in his final movie, he decided to be overt about it. While the film isn’t a masterpiece, and certainly cannot compare with Hitchcock’s best films, it is an entertaining little ride. A fitting end to one of the greatest careers in Hollywood history.