Movie Review: A Cure for Wellness

A Cure for Wellness *** / *****

Directed by: Gore Verbinski. 

Written by: Justin Haythe & Gore Verbinski.

Starring: Dane DeHaan (Lockhart), Jason Isaacs (Volmer), Mia Goth (Hannah), Ivo Nandi (Enrico),  Adrian Schiller (Deputy Director), Celia Imrie (Victoria Watkins), Harry Groener (Pembroke), Tomas Norström (Frank Hill), Ashok Mandanna (Ron Nair), Magnus Krepper (Pieter The Vet), Peter Benedict (Constable), Michael Mendl (Bartender), Maggie Steed (Mrs. Abramov), Craig Wroe (Morris), David Bishins (Hank Green), Lisa Banes (Hollis), Carl Lumbly (Wilson), Tom Flynn (Humphrey).

 

I wish we lived in a world in which Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness was a box office hit – instead of it bombing, which it pretty much did in its opening weekend. This isn’t because the film is particularly great – or even all that good (it’s not) – but because this is a large budgeted film that takes genuine risks and chances for the entirety of its two-and-a-half hour runtime, and even if the film flies off the rails at some point, it’s interesting to see how it does that. No, A Cure for Wellness isn’t a very good film – but in a world in which most wide-release, big budget films have become interchangeable, it’s certainly different.

 

The film stars Dane DeHaan as Lockhart – a young Wall Street asshole, who is sent by his firm to a spa in Switzerland to retrieve their CEO – Pembroke. There is an upcoming merger, and Pembroke has seemingly gone crazy – refusing to come back after his vacation. Lockhart is the one chosen because he has apparently done something that will get him in trouble with the SEC – but the Board tells him if he gets Pembroke back, they’ll make that go away. When Lockhart arrives, it at first seems like a normal spa, catering to the ultra-rich and aging – one built in the Swiss mountains, on top of some sort of special watering hole. But it doesn’t take long before Lockhart starts hearing stories about the places distant past – when it was a Castle, and a Baron, obsessed with his bloodline wanted to marry his sister – and the villagers who burnt the place done. And everyone there seem more like cult members than people on a spa retreat. And the head of the spa – Volmer (Jason Isaacs) is one of those creepy people who is incessantly happy all the time. When Lockhart tries to leave – he gets into a car accident, breaking his leg, and ends up back at the spa – but now as a patient. He’s still trying to reach Pembroke, but they won’t let the two of them speak. He is also drawn to Volmer’s daughter Hannah (Mia Goth), a strange young woman, who acts even younger than her age – who is at the spa, in an old fashioned dress, riding a bike everywhere.

 

There is so much to A Cure for Wellness that I liked. The visual look by director Gore Verbinski and his team is distinct- everything drained of color, but not in a way that simple recalls Tim Burton or other such directors. The clinic/castle is a wonderful example of production design, and creates memorable locales – the pristine, cleanliness of the room, the well-manicured lawn, that barely hides dark gates leading somewhere vile. The underground levels, in which horrible things happen. This is a Grand Guignol film – something that could very well have been (and perhaps should have been) made in black and white. This sort of thing is tough to pull off these days – Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island being the exception – and visually, at least, A Cure for Wellness comes close. Verbinski has even perfectly cast the main roles, both in terms of acting ability, and more importantly (to him anyway), because they all perfectly look the part. Dane DeHaan will have a career as long as directors need snide, contemptible, entitled assholes – he’s got a face you want to punch – and even if he’s the hero of the movie, it’s not because you actually like him, it’s because you have no one else to side with. Mia Goth delivers an excellent performance, which is impressive when you consider how underwritten her character her. She looks the part – and I think her performance helps (a little) to get over some of the questionable things to the move does to her. Jason Isaacs is essentially playing his character from Netflix’s The OA again – this time with a German accent (for the record, I really liked the first episode of The OA – and disliked every subsequent episode a little more than the last, until the finale, which was downright awful).

 

There are too many problems with A Cure for Wellness though to really be a good movie however. At two-and-a-half hours, the film is way too long, and struggles to maintain a consistent tone. For the most part, unless you’re Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick – don’t make your horror movie this long, because all it does is draw out the suspense for so long that the audience is going to start thinking about all the ways your film doesn’t make sense (and in A Cure for Wellness that is a lot of way). The film seems to want it have it all ways – at times being subdued – a slow burn horror film, at times going for the jugular with the blood, and in the final act, going batshit crazy over-the-top. Had Verbinski picked a tone, it may have worked a lot better than this tonal mess of a film.

 

Still, what we are left with is a film that has a lot of memorable moments. If you were creeped out by eels before, this one will give you nightmares. Or a dental surgery scene that will haunt me forever. A strange sequence at the local bar – that starts with Mia Goth dancing, that goes kind of crazy. The strange final shot of the film. A Cure for Wellness has moments that will stick you, no matter how silly the film as a whole is.

 

I really do wish there was more of a market for a film like A Cure for Wellness – that there were more people out there willing to take a chance on a film this weird. If people don’t go see something like this, Hollywood won’t make anything like it anymore – they already barely do as it is. I’m not going to claim that the movie is great – or even good – it isn’t. But you’re not likely to forget it anytime soon.

Movie Review: The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger
Directed by:   Gore Verbinski.
Written by: Justin Haythe and Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio.
Starring: Johnny Depp (Tonto), Armie Hammer (John Reid), William Fichtner (Butch Cavendish), Tom Wilkinson (Latham Cole), Ruth Wilson (Rebecca Reid), Helena Bonham Carter (Red Harrington), James Badge Dale (Dan Reid), Bryant Prince (Danny), Barry Pepper (Fuller), Mason Cook (Will), JD Cullum (Wendell), Saginaw Grant (Chief Big Bear), Harry Treadaway (Frank), James Frain (Barret), Joaquín Cosio (Jesus), Damon Herriman (Ray), Matt O'Leary (Skinny), Stephen Root (Habberman).
 

I regret missing Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger on the big screen this summer. Based on the horrendous reviews, and poor box office (for a movie this size), I didn’t feel it was necessary to take time I didn’t really have when the film opened to ensure I caught it before it left theaters. Watching the film at home, I have to admit I was kind of mystified that out of all the blockbusters this summer, that The Lone Ranger was the film critics all seemed to pile on. The film is far from perfect – it’s far too long and has some sudden tonal shifts that don’t feel natural – but it is also among the most ambitious blockbusters of the year. Is it a good movie? I’m not sure, but it certainly doesn’t come close to being the disaster so many people seemed to think it was when it was released.

The film stars Armie Hammer as John Reid – a big city lawyer returning to his small Western town to become the head prosecutor. When we first meet him, on the train home, he doesn’t even believe in carrying a gun. He wants to do everything by the book – to civilize the West in other words, take it out of the hands of the thieves and murderers, and into the hands of normal people. It’s on that train ride that he first meets Tonto (Johnny Depp), who in this version of The Lone Ranger isn’t just a sidekick beholden to The Lone Ranger, but a man on a quest for redemption for the sins of his past – if anything, Reid becomes his sidekick, not vice versa. This change of Tonto – from one note comic relief, into a fully rounded out character, is one of the biggest (and best) changes in this new Lone Ranger.

It is also on this train ride, that Reid will first meet Butch Cavendish, an unrepentant murderer and criminal, who is being transported home so that he can be hanged. Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson), the most powerful man in this town, and representative of the railroad which will transform the Wild West, wants to make an example of Butch. So, of course, Butch will escape. And, of course, Reid’s big brother Dan (James Badge Dale) is the local ranger in town who heads off into the desert, his men (and little brother John) in tow to capture him. And, of course, Dan is married to Rebecca (Ruth Wilson), the woman John was in love with before he left town to become a lawyer. And, of course, things in the desert won’t go as planned, and Tonto will have to rescue John – who will eventually decide to take on his iconic persona and get the bad guys.

The actual plot of The Lone Ranger is probably its single weakest aspect. At two-and-a-half, the plot creaks and lurches at times, and like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (the first three directed by Verbinski), the film is overstuffed, and runs way longer than it really needs to. It’s hard to sustain any sort of momentum in a film this size for that long, and The Lone Ranger doesn’t. The fact that most of the characters are merely archetypes doesn’t help very much.

But there is also a lot in The Lone Ranger to admire – including the action sequences, several involving trains, which are expertly crafted by Verbinski and company. There may be too many of them, and like the movie itself, they may run on a little too long, but it’s still rare to see an action movie that can handle action sequences of this size, and make them thrilling, and coherent – Verbinski doesn’t like the shaky handheld camera work and rapid fire editing that so many contemporary action directors prefer – and his action sequences are better for that. The sequences reference directors like Spielberg and Buster Keaton – and if they aren’t up to quite those levels, that’s understandable – few movies are. What’s admirable is that Verbinski isn’t just coasting, and doing the same thing as everyone else.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie is Johnny Depp. After so many years of mugging his way through movies – from the Pirates sequels to Alice in Wonderland to Dark Shadows and most others in recent years – I was expecting another exceedingly eccentric performance from Depp, but that isn’t what I got. I’m not going to argue that he’s subtle in any real way in The Lone Ranger, but he certainly is less manic than in much of his recent work. His Tonto moves and talks slower than Depp has in years – he is seemingly calm, even when he is also seemingly crazy. It’s the best work I have seen from him in quite some time.

The rest of the cast isn’t quite so good. Hammer is pretty good as The Lone Ranger – who the movie uses at times for comic relief because he is so square and rigid on the rules – he is too much of an idealist for much of the movie, until he learns his ideals do not match reality. He does, at times, get buried by Depp, but that’s almost to be expected. The rest of the cast are fine in their roles – but they aren’t given much to do – Fichtner snarls, Wilkinson telegraphs his untrustworthiness, Helena Bonham Carter shows up to an add another eccentric to her resume, Ruth Wilson fades into the background as the damsel in distress, etc.

Perhaps the reason why critics piled onto so much heavily on The Lone Ranger was because of its content concerning the massacre of Native Americans. Is a $200 million tent pole action film from Walt Disney really the correct venue to address such concerns – especially since it seemingly comes out of nowhere in the middle of the movie? Isn’t this supposed to be a fun movie, and not something more serious? It’s true that The Lone Ranger doesn’t integrate this material into the rest of the movie as well as it should have – but the other option would be to ignore it all together, and once again portray Tonto as little more than the Noble Savage we see him as in the museum in 1933, where, while wearing Little Big Man inspired makeup, he encourages a young boy to not buy the official version of history. There is an element of John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the film’s view of history – “When legend becomes fact, print the legend” – that movie has a character say. Tonto tries to get the young boy to not look at the legend, but at the fact. It may not be a subtle message, and it may not quite fit in with a summer blockbuster, but I find it preferable than not addressing it at all.

I’ve spent much of this review defending The Lone Ranger, so I now feel obliged to make it clear that I have extremely mixed feelings on the movie. I had fun with much of the movie – you could have great fun playing a game of spot the references in the film, of which there are many – and I enjoyed the action sequences, and Depp’s performance as Tonto. I also have to admit that the film is far too long - it drags mightily in the long middle portion of the movie. And while I admire the fact that movie didn’t simply ignore the massacre of Native Americans by white settlers, I also have to admit that it wasn’t integrated all that well into the rest of the movie, and made for some bizarre tonal shifts the movie doesn’t handle very well. I’m not sure if The Lone Ranger is a good movie or a bad movie (thank god I stopped assigning star ratings to films, because I would have no idea what to give this one). What I do know if that it is an ambitious movie – a $200 million dollar blockbuster that takes risks. They don’t all pay off but I prefer a movie that swings for the fences, even if it comes up short, to a movie that plays it safe and gives you precisely what you expect. When critics complain that Hollywood doesn’t take many chances in their tent pole movies (and believe me, they will) remember their reaction to The Lone Ranger. This may not be a great movie – it may not even be a good movie – but it takes chances. For that, if nothing else, I admire it.

Movie Review: Rango

Rango ****
Directed by: Gore Verbinski.
Written by: John Logan & Gore Verbinski & James Ward Byrkit.
Starring: Johnny Depp (Rango / Lars), Isla Fisher (Beans), Abigail Breslin (Priscilla), Ned Beatty (Mayor), Alfred Molina (Roadkill), Bill Nighy (Rattlesnake Jake), Stephen Root (Doc / Merrimack / Mr. Snuggles), Harry Dean Stanton (Balthazar), Timothy Olyphant (Spirit of the West), Ray Winstone (Bad Bill), Ian Abercrombie (Ambrose).

Rango is an animated comedy that children are going to enjoy because it’s fast paced, colorful and funny – but that adults, especially adult film lovers – are going to absolutely love. It has been a while since I had as much fun at a movie as I did at Rango, which is proof that Pixar is not the only outfit out there making great animated film. This film is from Gore Verbinski, who has spent the better part of his career making Pirates of the Caribbean movies (although he is not doing the next one). This film, like the first Pirates movie, is fun, fast paced, witty and drowning in movie love. For a film lover like me, nothing could be better.

Rango is a lizard who leads a lonely existence. He fancies himself an actor, and puts on elaborate plays, but there is no one there to watch them, or even to act with him – his companions are a toy fish and a headless Barbie doll. We soon find out why – Rango is someone’s pet, but when the car he is riding in hits a bump, his aquarium falls out and smashes on the ground, leaving Rango, for the first time in his life, to fend for himself. He meets the aptly named Roadkill, who tells him of a town out in the desert, so off Rango goes, crossing the desert on foot. When he gets to the town, it is straight out of an old Western. The town is suffering its worst drought ever, with water nowhere to be found. Rango is not exactly welcomed into the community – so he becomes an actor once again, and puts on a tough façade. Through a series of weird things, he kills an eagle, and becomes a hero. But it isn’t long before the real Rango comes out.

The plot is pretty much standard issue kids movie stuff – the hero acts like a tough guy, even though he’s not, and then gets humiliated and leaves – only to triumphantly return in the last reel. Come to think of it, that describes many Westerns as well. Verbinski is a clever director, and he plays with Western stereotypes the whole way through. Film buffs will love to spot the film references littered throughout the movie, both obvious and not so obvious. Verbinski also fills the screen with so much clever visual details, I have a feeling it is going to take a few times through in order to catch them all.

The supporting cast of characters helps Verbinski a great deal in poking loving fun of the old Westerns. I particularly loved Ned Beatty as the turtle mayor of the small town, who looks, sounds and acts just like you expect Chinatown era John Huston would – if he was a turtle of course. Isla Fisher is the lovable love interest for Rango – a no nonsense farm girl, trying to make her way after her father’s tragic death. Bill Nighy is excellent as the evil rattlesnake (is there any other kind?). Abigail Breslin has the role of the smart aleck kid who gets to tell Rango that “Strangers don’t last long around here” – and the Stephen Root plays a trio of characters, who are comic versions of the stock characters we saw in all those John Ford westerns. And finally, I will not spoil one of my favorite moments in the film, but I did love Timothy Olyphant as the “Spirit of the West”.

But this really is Johnny Depp’s film, even though he is only a voice behind Rango, it continues his string of lovably eccentric characters, where Depp makes interesting choices in his performance. In fact, it was actually quite refreshing to see (or I guess hear) Depp be this good in a film – as it has been a while since he did more than just coast, either on his charm or his weirdness. His Rango truly is a wonderful comic creation for Depp.

I have always thought that Verbinski was an underrated director. He improved upon what I thought was an overrated Japanese horror movie when he made The Ring, and his The Weatherman is one of the most underrated dark comedies of the last decade. The Pirates movies became far more bloated than they should have been as they moved along, and I am glad that he is finally out from under them, but at their best, they did show some great imagination on his part. Rango takes that all a step further, and proves that Verbinski is the real deal. I had an almost impossible amount of fun at Rango – if I see a better animated film in 2011, I will be truly stunned.