‘Kill Your Darlings’ tells noirish backstory of beat poets

October 16, 2013 by

Kill Your Darlings posterKill Your Darlings/2013/Killer Films/104 min.

Thinking about the 1940s, an era largely defined by World War II vets and the women they came home to, it’s easy to forget the generation just after – the post-war crop of young people on the cusp of adulthood as the long battles finally ended and the course of history forever changed.

I was reminded of that watching “Kill Your Darlings,” a dark story about poet Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), the relationships he forged with other beat-generation writers while at Columbia University and his connection to a 1944 murder.

As a student, Ginsberg clashes with academic convention. On the personal front, he quickly falls under the romantic spell of fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a feline beauty: polished, urbane, subversive and jaded. Through Carr, Ginsberg meets the rugged and dynamic, as well as older and more established, Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and the bizarre, dope-addicted literateur William Burroughs (Ben Foster). On the fringe of their circle is Carr’s mentor-turned-stalker (and one-time lover?), academic David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall).

Director and co-writer John Krokidas masterfully renders the period and its prejudices, and elicits exceptionally good performances from his energetic cast – they are all memorable, especially Ben Foster as Burroughs. Jennifer Jason Leigh, as Ginsberg’s mother Naomi, is also a standout. Though it doesn’t play as a thriller (it’s not trying to, particularly), “Kill Your Darlings” tells the tense, disturbing, sometimes-moving backstory of a few inspired and reckless geniuses who redrew the boundaries of literary expression.

“Kill Your Darlings” opens today in LA.

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Neo-noir ‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saints’ is a pretty tone poem that skimps on story

August 23, 2013 by

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints/2013/IFC Films/105 min.

“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” by writer/director David Lowery, opens with a quarrel between a pair of young lovers, ambling along the hills of desolate central Texas. Ruth (Rooney Mara with a Plain Jane, ’70s vibe) frets that her restless boyfriend Bob (Casey Affleck) is going to take off on his own and leave her behind.

He reassures her but her fears are not unfounded – when a robbery goes wrong, Bob goes to jail and Ruth must fend for herself. But knowing that Ruth is pregnant, Bob determines to escape and return to his wife and child.

Lowery creates and sustains a languid mood tinged with loneliness, frustration, guilt and longing, underscored by steady dread, thanks particularly to cinematographer Bradford Young’s pretty camerawork and Daniel Hart’s plaintive music. The director also draws subtle performances from Mara as a teen transformed by motherhood and a tenderly expressive Ben Foster as the cop who forms the third side of the love triangle.

Lowery’s work essentially belongs to the lovers-on-the-run tradition that mixes film noir, poetic realism and grisly fairy tale – presumably attempting to join the ranks of movies like “Gun Crazy,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Badlands.”

“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” has impressed many critics, but I found it hard to connect with and the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. Lowery seems uncomfortable letting a simple tale unfold. Several narrative threads felt clunky and tacked on, without adding anything of substance. Some of the storytelling was hard to follow; other parts were boring (though, to be fair, action isn’t the aim here) and hollow.

Pretentious and plodding more than heartfelt and contemplative,“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” failed to move me.

“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” opens nationwide today.

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Strong acting, stellar cast can’t save ‘Rampart’

February 10, 2012 by

Rampart/2011/Millennium Entertainment/108 min.

“This used to be a glorious soldiers’ department,” says Woody Harrelson as dirty LA cop and Vietnam vet Dave Brown early on in “Rampart” by director Oren Moverman.

He’s right. Beset by the Rampart scandal, the LAPD in 1999 is anything but glorious. And corrupt, bloodthirsty, womanizing, racist Dave is anything but sympathetic. Dave’s also oddly verbose at times, perhaps signaling that he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.

The best part of “Rampart” is the strong acting by Harrelson and the rest of the cast – Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Robin Wright, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Ice Cube, and a cameo from Steve Buscemi.

Despite the formidable acting, there’s scant character development, a turbid storyline and gimmicky camerawork. Sometimes the script, by Moverman and James Ellroy, just thuds. When Dave meets Linda (Wright) in a bar, his opening gambit is: “You’re wearing a courtroom suit and you have litigator eyes.” Really?

And when Beatty’s character, an ex-bad-cop, meets Dave in a library, he tells him: “I don’t play games. I don’t name names.”

As much as I wanted to like “Rampart,” I found the film unpleasant to watch. Granted, it is unpleasant subject matter, but dramatically this is a letdown. I had high hopes for “Rampart” because I admired Harrelson and Moverman’s excellent movie “The Messenger” from 2009. For really sizzling neo-noir stories of police corruption, give me “L.A. Confidential” (based on Ellroy’s novel) or “Serpico” anytime.

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