Aaron

Director James Mangold orchestrates this biopic about The Man In Black, Johnny Cash a bit like a conductor who doesn’t really understand what the notes are supposed to mean. Joaquin Phoenix takes on Cash in an uneven portrayal that focuses more on Cash’s drug use than oh, say the 100+ hits Johnny Cash had during the 50’s and 60’s. Reese Witherspoon fares better as the love of Johnny’s life, June Carter, but even her spirited performance can’t float a film that takes a man’s singularly unique life and turns it into movie of the week fare. Less treacly than the last high-profile music biopic (Ray), but a lot less engaging to boot. Fans familiar with Cash’s life will find themselves repeatedly groaning over inaccuracies (not to mention the nigh unthinkable omissions), and non fans will miss out both on Cash’s signature voice (Phoenix does all the singing) as well as any broader understanding of Cash’s music (seeing as you only hear maybe 6 or 7 Cash tunes in the film).

Walk the Line
2 & 1/2 Stars

Oh man, do I hate musical biography as a film genre.  My love of film and my love of music seem never destined to be satisfied at the same time.  Walk the Line is a film I’ve been wary of since I first head the crew listing, but I felt the same way about Ray.  Unfortunately, Walk the Line failed to win me over like Ray did.  Which is truly disappointing for someone like me who, while owning 85% of Ray Charles catalog, owns a hell of a lot more Johnny Cash records.  I could spend a lot of space going on about Walk the Line and what it should have been, but let’s just discuss what’s ultimately delivered.

As much as I hate to go on about the similarities, Walk the Line apes the structure of Ray by starting out with a young Johnny Cash (Ridge Canipe) living in the Federal Emergency Relief Administration community of Dyess, Arkansas, where his family picks cotton in order to survive. Just enough time is spent here to show the tragic loss of Johnny’s brother Jack before jumping ahead to the 19 year old Cash (Phoenix) heading off to the Air Force, where he learned to play the guitar and wrote his first few songs (including Folsom Prison Blues). Jump ahead four more years to Cash married to his first wife Vivian, schlepping along trying to sell appliances door-to-door while playing with his pals (who would later become the famed Tennessee Two, otherwise known as Marshall Grant (Larry Bagby) and Luther Perkins (Dan John Miller) and finally convincing Sam Phillips to record them on his Sun Records label. Another jump and Cash is on the road with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison, tearing up the stage as part of one of the best tour lineups in history. And it was there that (according to this film, at least) the dual whammy of amphetamines and June Carter (Witherspoon) came into Johnny’s life.  Over the next 15 years, Johnny pines for June, pops pills, pines some more, pops more pills, gets popped for pills, loses his family, pines real hard, hits the cellar of pill addiction, and wins both his sobriety and the hand of June in marriage. 

Seriously, folks.  This is a love story/battling addiction film that just happens to be about Johnny and June Carter Cash.  It’s like the Grand Ole Opry version of When A Man Loves a Woman, and that’s just one of the many, many missteps this film makes.  Cash’s career is never really explored, nor is his lifelong friendships with some of the biggest names in music.  No mention of his early film work (Door to Door Manic! Night Rider!), nor any real exploration of the man himself.  We’re treated to only the slightest of scenes where Johnny is hanging out with his tourmates, and worst of all we’re treated to so very few Johnny Cash songs.  Which, considering the baffling choice director James Mangold made in having Phoenix sing the songs himself, may have been a blessing in disguise.  Not that Phoenix can’t sing, in fact he’s got a very passable voice, but it’s hard to convey what made Cash’s music so iconic when we’re denied the signature voice that delivered them in the first place.  Phoenix only passingly attempts to capture Cash’s speaking voice, so the argument can be made that having Cash’s own recordings wouldn’t have worked, but that only highlights my problems with the film overall.  Accuracy is repeatedly slighted for a more Hollywood product.

I’m not particularly fond of Witherspoon, but I’ll admit she did a knock-out job portraying June Carter.  Her natural corniness dovetails beautifully with June’s flighty, sassy comedian stage presence, and her singing does a admirable job conveying June’s style.  She’s the real heart of this film, emotionally and morally, so I’ll gladly conceed my casting misgivings were all for naught.  Well, in her case at least.  Robert Patrick handles his thankless job as Cash’s stern father well, and in fact it took me a couple of scenes to even recognize him.  The man just oozed dour Southerner.

There’s nothing really outstanding about the look and feel of the film overall, as not enough time is spent with any one scene to really set a cohesive mood, outside of the ‘important’ scenes.  It feels like a TV movie for the most part, albeit one with a higher budget than most. 

I can’t find too much nice to say about Walk the Line, as it’s hard to forgive a film that so badly portrays such an iconic figure.  The real story of Johnny Cash’s life is both fascinating and important, as he was at the forefront of a musical wave that changed the landscape of American music, but you wouldn’t know that from this film.  If you’re really wanting to learn about Johnny Cash, my suggestion would be to find the PBS American Masters program on him, or just read his excellent autobiography. Sure it’ll take a little longer than sitting through Walk the Line, but at least you’ll understand why his life would be worth a movie in the first place. 

Sam Mendes (American Beauty, The Road to Perdition) directs Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain) in this adaptaion of Anthony Swofford’s excellent bio, Jarhead.  A war movie without a war, Jarhead’s excellent cast and great cinematography save this film from being a waste of time, but you’ll find yourself playing ‘what war movie was that from’ quite a bit in between the good bits.  Whether Mendes is adrift in a film that lacks an internal life for it’s lead, or whether he’s unable to find a cinematic language to fill in for Swafford’s astoundingly good (and unfilmable) prose, Jarhead is yet another movie where one is left with a ‘what was the point of that’ feeling. 

Jarhead
3 & 1/2 Stars

The first Gulf War seems an unlikely topic for cinematic review, as nothing much happened that could carry a traditional war film.  David O. Russell’s excellent Three Kings pulled it off by using the conflict to jump into a heist film, and a black comedy, but Sam Mendes’ latest effort, Jarhead, seems unable to tread any ground that hasn’t already been paved.  I remember my first reaction to hearing that Anthony Swofford’s Marine life memoir was being given the Hollywood treatment being roughly ‘How the hell are they going to make that book into a movie?”, but I’m sad to say that neither myself of Mendes seemed to come up with a good answer to that.

An almost ridiculously buff Jake Gyllenhaal takes on the role of Swoff, a young, bright individual that inexplicitly makes the decision to join the Marine Corps; an act which eventually lands him in Kuwait as a sniper in a conflict fought more with heavy artillery.  His squadmates are a collection of barely functioning time bombs, his staff seargant (Jamie Foxx in that most trite of roles: the gruff leader) is somewhere between his mentor and his tormentor, and all Swoff can think about is either killing some Iraqis, or his faraway girlfriend, who may or may not be cheating on him.  Needless to say, the waiting game of war and the surrealness of military life combine to unsettle Swoff to the point of near madness.

For a film whose trailer is chock full of explosions and guns, 99% of Jarhead is simply an account of the minutiae and infinite bordedom that fills the life of a soldier deployed in a conflict that has no use for him.  While that might make for an interesting study of a man, ultimately we’re locked out of Swoff’s life and internal process.  A suprising result, considering the flashbacks and narration that pepper the film.  At the end of it’s running time, we know no more about Gyllenhaal’s character than we did in the beginning beyond the anecedotal details of various moments of his life.  He’s a closed book, leaving us to scratch our heads in bewilderment over his oscillations from smart-ass slacker, to blood thirsty killer, to suicidal loon, and back again.  While his body is ridiculously buff (a fact not unexplored by the film;  He’s half naked for goodly chunks of it, and full-on frontal naked for a scene), Gyllenhaal’s boyish face and deep-set eyes hide his internal process from curious on-lookers. 

Peter Sarsgaard (another facial cipher) has what should be the more interesting role as a quietly dignified man defined by an organization that doesn’t want him, but he’s given only a single scene in which to shine (and shine he does).  The rest of the cast is an interchangable mix of war movie stereotypes which, while a little trite, probably represent an accurate cross-section of our modern enlisted man.  Jamie Foxx is another character given nothing to do, but is further saddled with a colorless and thankless role, leading one to wonder why he signed on to the project in the first place. 

That’s not to say that Jarhead is without it’s charms or merits.  There are more than a few moments of comedic gold, but once the laugh dies down it’s difficult to not go through the mental checklist of war movie moments.  Full Metal Jacket?  Three Kings?  Just like Ragu, it’s in there.  And so on and so on.  It’s a hard game to escape from when even the film itself seems to be playing along, with it’s multiple references to Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.  While it’s charms are many, it’s just hard to care much about what’s going on.  Much life Desert Storm itself, the film teases us with the potential for more, but repeatedly fails to deliver anything of substance.

More than anything I’m disappointed by Jarhead because I simply wanted to like it more than I did.  Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard are exceptionally talented actors, but can’t work past the limitations of the script.  The film is beautifully shot, but what’s the point if what’s show ultimately leads us no where?  Do we really need another movie to tell us that war fucks up it’s participants?  I’m not sure many of us haven’t already learned that lesson.  The film posits itself as apolitical, but there’s blatent messages to be found in everything from the dialogue of the soldiers to the text telling us how many troops have been deployed.  Perhaps this is the logical result of a generation of filmmakers who have not experienced war themselves.

In the end, this is a film to see for the performances, not the story.  It’s enjoyable, but eventually it’ll fade from memory, leaving only the vague impressions.