'Without Remorse' is Mission Unaccomplished
#128: "Without Remorse," "Mortal Kombat," "The Outsiders," "Tenet"
Edition 128:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: Oh baby, it’s Oscars week! Let’s talk big picture, picks, and your last chance to join my winner-take-all pool. Then we throw in a new round of recommendations for a hidden gem movie, a new HBO drama, Quentin Tarintino’s one shining moment as an actor, and a new take on a New York City love story.
Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse
Shoutout to any agent who is able to negotiate the name of the source material author to the front of a movie’s title, though that oddity should be the earliest indication that Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse did not have ambitions on becoming the next Citizen Kane.
Clancy’s vary particular geo-political worldview present in all his books — an unflinching belief in highly skilled American agents to save the world from foreign threats — conflicts with the 2021 sensibility of distrust in authority and institutions, making for a chaotic and disjointed narrative that can’t seem to pinpoint its own motivation.
What is an incredibly simple and familiar revenge premise is thus weighed down by the garble of CIA yadda yadda, twisting the plot for twist’s sake only to end up in the most predictable place possible.
Wonderfully staged action set pieces and a general creativity toward shooting people in the face serve as a life raft floating away from the wreckage of the movie’s substance, though even there it’s difficult to find drama in the annihilation of faceless, nameless “bad guys.”
Not only that, the movie is super dark. Not thematically, I mean quite literally over half the movie takes place in low light environments with zero “cheat lights.” My TV is pretty large and pretty sharp, yet at several points I couldn’t even tell what was happening on screen.
That’s surprising coming from a talented director like Stefano Sollima, who did Sicario: Day of the Soldado and more recently “Zerozerozero.” But my guess would be that the epic scope and relative failure of the latter show may have led to the budget for this movie being gutted, an excuse which would explain the lighting and the bland sets (many of which look mysteriously similar though action is taking place in different countries).
Nearly every A-lister in Hollywood has taken a crack at Clancy’s Jack Ryan character, the reluctant analyst turned hero super spy, but Michael B. Jordan is the first to step into the boots of John Kelley (turned John Clark), Ryan’s much darker and more vengeful counterpart. He brings to it superstar charisma, a heroic body and yes, the added layer of being African-American, creating a new depth to the character’s distrust of the government. Though again, in classic Clancy fashion, what appears to be deep-seated frustrations are ultimately set aside for a core duty to country.
MBJ is compelling on screen, but his recent performances have given me enough evidence to conclude he’s mostly unable to disappear into his characters, making him far more of a movie star than a “great” actor. This is far from damning. His career trajectory could project out like a new Will Smith, except for the fact that the era of star vehicle dramas dominating the box office is dead and buried.
This project checked a lot of the boxes of the new movie landscape: it’s based on well-known IP and has massive “expanded universe” potential including a possible crossover with Amazon’s “Jack Ryan” show starring John Krasinski. Unfortunately we’re seeing the same landscape be strewn with the carcasses of franchises that never got out of the starting blocks (remember the “Dark” universe? The Golden Compass? What about The Dark Tower? Didn’t think so…).
Seems to me that one might want to focus on making an awesome movie that people will love before you build the massive framework that could hold future sequels. In this case, like a Russian terrorist threat, the mission was not accomplished.
Something New
Mortal Kombat (HBO Max): Admittedly, I’ve only been exposed to the world of Mortal Kombat for a week now, when this latest movie adaptation prompted the purchase of the $5 video game to battle a friend, and I’ll be the first to admit there’s something attractive about the explicit shamelessness of the franchise. The games basically entail mashing buttons until your avatar does something like rip your opponent limb from limb or rip their heart out of their chest. It’s not exactly a game that screams storytelling.
Which makes it an odd choice for a movie adaptation (especially since they tried one and failed 25 years ago). In the game the characters are cartoonish, exaggerated, and governed by truly uninspired names. On one side you’ve got…Earthworld, and they’re battling…Outworld? The two interchangeable Asian characters are named Liu Kang and Kung Lao? I mean come on, try a little harder than that. The mythology is a mess and the scene-to-scene writing and acting does little to redeem it, leaving the over-the-top gory executions as the only worthwhile element. If the ending here is any indication, Warner Brothers is trying to open up an extended universe off of this. Lord help us all.
Something Old
The Outsiders (1983): This weekend I’m going back to my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it recently came to my attention that not only have I never been to the famous “Outsiders house” filming location near downtown, I’ve never even seen the 80s movie based on S. E. Hinton’s classic novel. This movie did for the 80s what Dazed and Confused would do for the 90s, discovering an entire generation of stars out of nowhere all at once — Tom Cruise before Risky Business, Emilio Estevez before The Breakfast Club, Rob Lowe before St. Elmo’s Fire, Ralph Maccio before The Karate Kid, Patrick Swayze before Dirty Dancing, Diane Lane before The Cotton Club, and Matt Dillon before…whatever the heck Matt Dillon is known for. The performances of all these young stars wins you over.
Something to Stream
TeneT (HBO Max): One interesting wrinkle in this year’s Oscars hoopla is TeneT, a movie many people believe could’ve competed for awards in several categories were it not for the ongoing feud between Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan, who criticized the move to stream WB films same-day on HBO Max by saying they went from “the greatest movie studio” to “the worst streaming service.” Warner Brothers decided to abandon its awards campaign for the film, leaving only one nomination (and eventual win) for Best Visual Effects. They get the last laugh too, because as of this weekend Nolan’s movie has reached its final resting place on their streaming service.
In a pandemic-free alternate universe, this movie would likely have been a smash hit at the box office, but I actually think the home viewing experience is optimal for this particular movie. This is the only time you’ll hear me advocate for the use of subtitles, but the audio mix leaves dialogue at times indecipherable, and there are several more times throughout when rewinding or pausing to say “wtf just happened?” will be very useful. You all know by now Nolan is not my cup of tea (I’m one of those old fashioned types who likes my stories to make sense, call me crazy), but this movie is still the kind of huge, glitzy Hollywood adventure that audiences have been starved for over the past year.
Trailer Watch: Marvel’s Phase 4
Pardon me for sounding like Martin Scorcese, but Marvel isn’t doing much to combat the “theme park ride” label by releasing what is basically a list of logos and release dates for its next three years of projects. At least they aren’t shying away from their role as big, dumb diversionary entertainment, literally making the first text we see on screen, “We go to escape.”
Still, I can’t deny how intensely people love this stuff. No matter how many times I’ve seen the video I always get goosebumps watching the packed opening night crowd lose their freaking minds screaming at Captain America wielding Thor’s hammer — this generation’s “Luke, I am your father” moment.
So strap in for upcoming conversations about multiverse theory and quantum mechanics, I guess. Sounds like a blast.