For the week of September 16th, Lionsgate Home Entertainment is bringing Anna to Blu-ray, and with it, the latest directorial effort from Luc Besson. I wish I could tell you that Anna represented a return to form for Besson (cinematically, his 1990s run is unimpeachable: Nikita, Léon, The Fifth Element, and the wildly underrated The Messenger) or at least an extension of the lunatic abandon he brought to the space opera Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and the Scarlett Johansson vehicle/2001 For Morons that is Lucy. Alas, this tepid action-thriller has more in common with the spate of junky action programmers to which Besson often lends his producing imprimatur (From Paris with Love, Colombiana). The Russian model Sasha Luss plays the titular character, a runway model who moonlights as a KGB assassin, and if that setup sounds familiar to you, rest assured that the whole movie feels like Besson is just cribbing from recent "badass female killer" hits. We get some of Red Sparrow's trauma and abuse angle, a whole bunch of Atomic Blonde's byzantine approach to shifting loyalties and government instability, and just enough self-referential content (to, say, Nikita, which you could argue inspired both Red Sparrow and Atomic Blonde) so Besson can maintain his auteur status. The problem is, outside of one virtuoso action sequence (most of which you can see in the trailer below), Anna doesn't have enough combat to function as a kinetic thrill ride, and its geopolitics are so basic and dumb you wonder why Besson even included them in the first place. To wit: Besson sets Anna in 1990 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, yet that cultural realities informs the plot in no meaningful ways. Luss is a compelling enough presence - I'd like to see her in an action movie that valued her for more than what she looks like in lingerie. But overall, this is a flat, boring effort from a director who once seemed like he didn't know how to be either. Rewatch John Wick 3 instead.
Speaking of falls from grace, we need to talk about Yesterday, and what it represents for Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis. At his best, Boyle is one of the most effortlessly kinetic filmmakers on the planet - you get a contact high just from watching Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, or 28 Days Later - and Richard Curtis has written some of the most indelible British comedies of the last forty years (he co-created Black Adder; he penned Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral). I'm at a loss, then, as to how you get something as stodgy and saccharine as Yesterday when you put Curtis and Boyle together. I don't hate Yesterday's central hook. Like Curtis' last solo feature (the rom-com About Time), Curtis is working in a kind of light-fantasy realm: his hero Jack (the very charming Himesh Patel) gets into an accident just as a world-wide blackout occurs, and when he comes to, he's the only one who can remember any of the Beatles songs. Now, Jack is a struggling musician, and a better movie would exploit his condition for philosophically minded satire. What would be the harm in exploiting his knowledge of the Beatles' catalog if no one could remember it? Would there be any harm? And would the Beatles' music - which is so much the product of specific cultural moments - even resonate with modern audiences? But Yesterday has no interest in any of that. Outside of a few "What If...?" jokes (including an admittedly funny Oasis one), Curtis doesn't begin to untangle how our cultural and media literacy would look in a world without the Beatles. No, he instead pivots into a jukebox rom-com wherein Jack quickly finds success (so he can sing - and quite well - one of the Beatles' songs every few minutes) but ends up neglecting his kind wallflower of a manager (Lilly James) who's always loved him. It's so predictable, and just when you think Yesterday has come up with something clever (for example, introducing Ed Sheeran as the jealous Salieri to Jack's Mozart), it quickly deflates the moment for something less interesting (after his introduction, Sheeran loses any dark edges - the movie basically offers him fan service). One would hope Boyle could at least leaven the treacle, but lest we forget, he let the last third of Steve Jobs happen, and he's too willing to indulge Yesterday's sappiest inclinations without providing much in the way of directorial razzle-dazzle. Look, I like the Beatles, too, and I liked hearing them in this movie. A vote against Yesterday isn't a vote against John, Paul, George, and Ringo. But it is a vote against movies that shamelessly weaponize sentimentality against their audiences, that are so quick to pull on your heartstrings that they don't care about the damage they're doing in the process. Messers Boyle and Curtis: do better.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman wrote that "there are some deeper themes to explore. What does it mean to be oneself, and what is the penalty - not even so much in the world's eyes but within the mirror of one's own soul - for living a lie? Even if living the lie is allowing one to be the person one always dreamed of being, is there a little voice that becomes a shout with every step away from the life where true contentment is to be found? It's a universal prospect that transcends this story, which is why this story works. It takes the fantastical and the impossible and turns it into a simple question about life and love and purpose and contentment. The film answers it predictably, and correctly, and to satisfaction, thanks in large part to Boyle's even, soft touch and the quality of the performances that nail both the superficial and innermost struggles and realities that give meaning to the greater story."
We need to talk about Shaft, which bombed at the box office this year but is conceptually more interesting than its toxic reputation might suggest. See, I don't think there's a franchise as quietly bizarre as the Shaft series. What started in 1971 as a gritty blaxploitation vehicle for star Richard Roundtree quickly turned into a discount Bond movie (1972's Shaft's Big Score!) and a globetrotting adventure movie (1973's Shaft in Africa). And that's just the initial run of Shaft features! In 2000, John Singleton and Richard Price (you know, of Clockers and The Wire fame) offered a Shaft rebootquel before that genre really existed, casting Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft's nephew (and bringing Roundtree back for a cameo as the original character) and plugging him inside a socially conscious cop-and-criminals procedural: now Shaft was a cop investigating a racially motivated killing involving Christian Bale's entitled rich jerk (who Price modeled on, and this is true, Donald Trump Jr.). You can get whiplash from watching these movies, which is why it's either fitting or even more confusing that the latest Shaft tries to go full 21 Jump Street. At times, it's an out-and-out comedy (scripted by Black-ish's Kenya Barris) with a new, wildly under-qualified Shaft: Jesse T. Usher plays him as an MIT-educated computer geek who freaks out at violence and generally doesn't live up to the host of self-referential jokes comparing him to any of the previous character iterations. This stuff works best, and Usher is an engaging presence, but the film also wants to fit alongside everything that preceded it, which means both Jackson and Roundtree return and bring a certain tonal confusion with them. Their scenes suggest a dopey action movie than the obvious (but funny) comedy of the Usher material. I have no idea why Warner greenlit this version, or if they had anyone minding the store for even minimal quality control. Despite its constant feints towards comedy, it isn't as funny as it wants to be - if you think Samuel L. Jackson swearing and making genitalia jokes is always funny, then you'll get a from from Shaft - and it also never satisfies as an action movie. Recall that Tim Story, director of the 2005 Fantastic Four and the Jimmy Fallon/Queen Latifah Taxi, helmed this one, and he's done little to advance his stunt choreography work in the intervening years. But I will say this: Shaft moves fast and is high-energy enough so that even when it's not working, it passes the time. It's weirdly perfect viewing in you don't want to commit to a better movie or if you just need something on in the background. For that, I'm grateful.
Finally, from Warner Archive comes Robert Wise's 1949 The Set-Up. Warner has been quick to brand The Set-Up as a classic noir (it was one of the first titles in the studio's Film Noir Classic Collection), and to be sure, the film does include key signifiers of the genre. DP Milton Krasner's gorgeous chiaroscuro photography casts everything in shadows of silver and black, and Art Cohn's script includes all sorts of disreputable characters, like George Tobias' scheming boxing manager or Alan Baxter's violent gangster, who exist in the liminal spaces between traditional moralities. Yet to brand The Set-Up as a true noir feels a little imprecise. More than anything, it's a character study of one Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan), a washed-up boxer preparing for the fight of his life. Thompson's opponent (Hal Fieberling) is younger and more aggressive, and at thirty-five, Stoker is feeling his age acutely after years of punishment inside the ring. But Stoker clings to his dignity like a religious totem, and he's determined to go the distance even if it kills him. He's a true hero, noble and proud and decent, and his goodness separates him from the doomed ambivalence of a traditional noir hero. It also gives Ryan such a showcase for the actor's understated blend of grit and tenderness. No one played heavies quite like him (watch The Naked Spur and Bad Day at Black Rock to see what I mean), but when you gave him a part with more sympathetic bearing (like this, On Dangerous Ground, or The Iceman Cometh), Ryan would melt that rage into a kind of burnished sadness. Guys like Stoker know the world is a bad place - hell, they might have contributed to its badness back in the day - and they seek redemption as a kind of shelter from its ills. Ryan is mesmerizing whether he's arguing with his wife (Audrey Totter) over his chances or going four rounds with Fieberling's Tiger Nelson in a boxing match that, even post-Rocky and Raging Bull, has lost none of its power to enthrall. A B-movie masterpiece.
Of The Set-Up, Randy Miller III wrote that "if you're the type that enjoys simple stories told with precision, The Set-Up just might be up your alley...especially if you've never watched a full boxing match on purpose. For the most part, it casts the sport in a negative light: one that chews up and spits out young athletes while igniting bloodthirsty crowds who crave action, excitement, and hot dogs. In turn, Stoker wants a victory so bad that when he's told about 'the set-up' mid-fight, he still swings for the fences. We see the growing differences between man and wife during Julie's less eventful but equally important path during the film: Stoker's well-being is more important than prize money, and her empty seat at the area speaks volumes. Robert Ryan turns in another great performance as the washed up 35-year-old Stoker, whose calm and charismatic demeanor is enough to deflect almost every old man joke hurled his way."