** (out of ****)
Starring Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, and Sean Bean
Directed by Niki Caro & written by Michael Seitzman
2005
126 min R
A sanctimonious chore that’s “Erin Brockovich” in the snow, right down to the snotty, buttoned-down female lawyer from back East. Can I enjoy any “inspiring real-life stories” or am I just a miserable ogre?
Kiwi director Niki Caro has already made one “women good, men bad” movie: it was called “Whale Rider” and was sweet, observant, and populated by rich, ambivalent characters. (It also, like “North Country,” near-steals music from “The Insider,” this time Gustavo Santaololla instead of Lisa Gerrard.) With “North Country” she takes the same theme to the mines of Minnesota and makes her heavies about as eye-rollingly obvious as Nazis in an “Indiana Jones” movie. Maybe it was that bad (or worse) in real-life but it makes for lousy drama. 50 minutes in I was so bored I didn’t know if I could finish it. I was un-gripped. I was in a state of total non-grippage. Things kind of turn around in the third act but then, oh God, there’s a slow clap.
This is, of course, an important chapter in American history, but so was curing smallpox, and maybe like the cure for smallpox, “North Country” is better suited as a PBS documentary. In her defense, Charlize Theron’s miner isn’t irritating like Julia Roberts’ Erin Brockovich; she doesn’t go around blaming the rest of the world for stupid things she did when she was young. Also, Theron works on behalf of her kids and doesn’t expect preferential treatment just because she has them.
Nice atmosphere and acting though, in the “1975 Chevy truck working class chic” style, especially from the warmly reliable Woody Harrelson. Some of the hetero male-on-male “you’re not a real man unless [fill in arbitrary thingy]” sexual harassment was illuminating. It reminds me why I like working with girls more than with boys.
Finished Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Friday & Saturday Night
*** (out of ****)
Starring Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgen, Felicity Huffman, Ben Gazzara, and Ricky Jay
Directed & written by David Mamet
1997
110 min PG
A junk food movie for brainiacs.
This gamey piece of virtuosity from David Mamet is a maze of cons within cons, set in an obliquely-seen world of “the market.” Campbell Scott plays the ambitious automaton beset by employers who won’t pay him, FBI agents who are willing to put him in harm’s way, and scammers out to rip him off. Ricky Jay is his sidekick, Steve Martin is the wealthy man-of-mystery he meets in the Caribbean, and Rebecca Pidgen is the girl from the office with the hots for him.
It’s The Process that everyone’s after, a mess of equations that Scott’s been hired to put together, and it’s the process that “The Spanish Prisoner” is all about, not the destination. We basically know a lot of the broad strokes right from the get-go, yet it’s all the little delicious twists and turns that Mamet makes, and all the goofy cadences used by the characters, that make this movie so much fun. Pidgen seems to be reading every line from some Raymond Chandler/Damon Runyon hybrid she’s just put down. Ricky Jay never expresses an opinion without couching it in something out of “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations;” he prefaces everything with “you know what the fella said.” And Steve Martin is superb as a smooth smoothie with too much dough. You just know everyone’s up to no good.