Review: In the Heights

 

It’s easy to write a check list of all the things In the Heights does right. It features a stellar cast of fresh faces (though getting to see Jimmy Smits sing and dance is an added treat), the songs are toe-tapping to a fault, the big numbers are staged with verve and energy, and the whole thing is so defiantly good-natured it’s all but impossible to not feel your spirits soar at the high notes. So why does the whole thing fall just a little flat?

 

In the Heights is the story of Washington Heights in New York, a Latinx neighbourhood undergoing the usual pressures of gentrification and social mobility. Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) owns the local bodega, but is saving up to return home to the Dominican Republic to restore his father’s beachfront bar; Nina (Leslie Grace) is back home from Stanford to the praise of her community (and her father, the aforementioned Smits) for having “made it out”, but in her heart she doesn’t think she can go back.

 

The two stories mirror each other. He wants to leave but forces are pulling him back, most notably Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), a beauty technician who’s dreams of moving into fashion remain firmly local. Nina wants to stay – and her ex Benny (Corey Hawkins), who works at her father’s taxi company, is definitely ok with that – but giving up her one shot to make a difference in the world and her community is a tough choice.

 

Weaving in and out are a range of other characters, all of whom illuminate one aspect or another of the community – the past, the future, the need to belong, and so on. It’s a patchwork quilt where the real story develops from the intersections between characters; if you’re after a dramatic story built around personal choices, this isn’t for you.

 

What sells all of this, and what was no doubt so impressive to see on the stage, is the spectacle of it all. This is a real musical, where the music is at least as much the point of it all as everything else – but on the big screen two hours twenty of song after song can feel a little draining, even though this is constantly mixing things up, refusing to settle into a rut.

 

While its high angle view of a community is perfect for a stage show – where the audience is automatically at a remove from what’s they’re seeing – movies by their very nature are much more up close and intimate. We can’t help but get involved with individual characters when they’re looming large on the screen; despite strong performances across the board, In the Heights just isn’t that kind of story.

 

Ironically for something clearly designed to be experienced surround by people, In the Heights might end up working best at home, where audiences (once they know the story) can dip in and out of it. There are plenty of great moments here; it’s when they’re piled up one atop another for over two hours that the connecting threads start to fray.

 

- Anthony Morris

Review: The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

 

There are a lot of obvious ways a sequel to The Hitman's Bodyguard could have improved on the original and The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard ignores every single one of them. This is a sequel to a buddy comedy where the "buddy" part of the comedy was the only thing that even half worked, so what do they do? Slap a third character slap bang in the middle of things to make sure what little chemistry there was in the first film is nowhere to be found.

To be fair, that isn't entirely Salma Hayek's fault - her character Sonia (the wife of the title) might have been annoying in the first film, but at least there are long stretches where Hayek seems aware she's in a movie that requires her to give a performance. Samuel L Jackson as Darius Kincaid, super-cool hitman and, uh, that's about it? Is there a more dismissive term than "phoning it in"? Because that would definitely come in handy right about now.

Not that Ryan Reynolds is doing much better as bodyguard Michael Bryce. If Jackson's default "whatever" mode is acting so laid back it's a wonder he can stand up, Reynolds' is a kind of hyperactive whining that wears out its welcome two scenes in. Most of the remarkably limited reason to keep watching this is the extremely slim chance that meeting any of the various other big names in this film will shock Reynolds into delivering a decent performance. Spoiler alert: it doesn't happen.

This has the kind of story that's both overly complicated and extremely flippant, bringing everyone reluctantly together through a series of mix-ups (Bryce has retired and refuses to pick up a gun) and then giving them a mission to save Europe from Aristotle Papadopolous (Antonio Banderas). He wants to avenge Greece's financial humiliation at the hands of the EU by using a virus to turn everything connected to a computer into an explosive device, as you do.

There's a lot going on - double crosses, Morgan Freeman, a European crime agency that for some reason hired Frank Grillo, a thirty second cameo from Richard E Grant that doesn't even give his character a close-up - so you'd be forgiven for thinking something must come close to working at some stage. After all, this kind of dopey action romp doesn't really require much to get it over the line. Some minor charm, some ok stunts, a sense that those involved are having fun and you're done.

None of that is on offer here. Yes, the scattershot attempts at comedy do occasionally come close to being mildly amusing; it's totally possible that in another movie surrounded by other actors all three leads (who even here are charismatic performers) could have removed some of the fingernails-on-blackboards qualities from their characters. But on the whole this fails at pretty much everything you could possibly ask for, usually in ways that suggest nobody involved was really all that bothered in the first place. 

While most of this film's flaws were there in the first installment, it's still rare to see a sequel so aggressively discard the only element that made the original work. You've got Jackson and Reynolds right there on screen: why this doesn't give them more than a brief handful of moments together (and those come towards the end when the damage is done) is a mystery. 

Maybe those involved thought simply adding more of everything else would make this a better film - they certainly succeeded in adding more words to the title.

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: Lapsis

One of the trickiest problems facing movie-makers today is finding ways to depict on screen the ever-growing segment of our lives that take place on screen. Even showing people texting in a movie is often clumsy; how do you create a modern workplace drama when most workplaces are a corner office in someone's house?

So it's a big thumbs up to first-time writer / director Noah Hutton for coming up with the concept of "cabling" a pointless drudge of a job-slash-scam that's both a spot-on metaphor for a growing number of "real" jobs and something that's actually interesting to watch take place on screen. Lapsis might not be the kind of science fiction a lot of audiences expect - though there are robots, and they are evil - but as a window on the world today it's got a lot of big budget blockbusters beat.

New Jersey delivery man Ray Tincelli (Dean Imperial) is struggling. He can barely afford the new-fangled quantum computer he needs to keep up with the street parking schedules; with brother Jamie (Babe Howard) stuck on the couch with chronic disease Omnia and a day job that's shaky at best, he needs to start doing some serious earning.

Becoming a "cabler" - someone who roams the upstate wilderness physically laying cable between quantum computing nodes so Wall Street can cash in on the new routes - seems like easy money. And maybe if Ray didn't get his cabling medallion from a shady acquaintance clearly up to no good, it would be. But as Ray blunders his way through the bustling but struggling cabling community, it's increasingly clear that he's in over his head in more ways than one. Will Anna (Madaline Wise) be the one to guide him out of the woods? And who was the former owner of his medallion "Lapsis Beefcake" anyway?

Lapsis is probably best enjoyed as a hang out session with the likable Ray, as Imperial's performance is the one consistent element that holds this all together. Hutton has a lot of good ideas and plenty of scenes and sequences work well, but there's a grab-bag feel here that's not uncommon in first films. The plot keeps twisting and adding layers long after it should have settled down for the run home, while some of the earlier elements, while fun in themselves, end up not adding up to much.

The central concept of cabling as a job is easily the most interesting idea here, especially once it's revealed that the human cablers have to compete with small cable-laying robots that will steal their routes and (if they finish laying first) take their money. The world built up around it, with trade expos and feral child gangs, is both inventive and intriguing; while the early scenes are solid, the film doesn't come to life until Ray hits the trail.

For all its spark, this ends up not having a whole lot to say about the gig economy: to be fair, providing a physical metaphor for online work and exploring its ramifications is more than enough. Ironically, while the setting is the big draw it's the character work that's probably the most assured thing about this film; both Ray and Anna are fully realised, very distinct characters, and it's their evolving relationship that's some small consolation in a world dominated by tech giants and the scammers who thrive in the cracks.

 

- Anthony Morris