Fast & Furious 6

By John Mulderig, Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — The title-shifting franchise that now gives us “Fast & Furious 6” (Universal) may be unreliable where the use of definite articles and the representation of conjunctions are concerned. But its underlying recipe is far more predictable.

So it’s unlikely that potential audience members really need a review to tell them that director Justin Lin has turned out yet another bar-room brawl of a movie. Or that screenwriter Chris Morgan’s script conjures up a teenage boy’s vision of the good life, an adolescent “la dolce vita” unencumbered by such killjoy detritus as stop signs and speed limits.

Those tiresome markers of conventionality have never bothered the crew of law-flouting underground car racers who make up the recurring characters of this series. And yes, their endless run-ins with the authorities may have left them on the lam from justice. But at least, as our current adventure begins, they’re living out their respective exiles in glamorous places (whence the heavy-duty product placement, in early scenes, for the tourism board of the Canary Islands).

The funds keeping them high on the hog, devotees will remember, were liberated from the coffers of bad guys during their last collective caper, staged down in colourful but corrupt Rio de Janeiro. Rio, Gran Canaria. … Oh, it’s a giddy whirl!

Still, America being home and all, it would be nice to be rehabilitated.

Well, gather round boys and girls because Federal Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) has just the proposition you’ve been waiting for: Help him thwart the civilisation-threatening schemes of criminal mastermind Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) — who uses hot-rods to speed his heists of top-secret military equipment — and Uncle Sam will dole out pardons to everyone.

Just in case team leaders Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) should require further inducement, Agent Hobbs has come armed with photos — recent photos! — of Dom’s presumed-dead love interest, Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez). Far from taking the Long Nap, it turns out, Letty is alive and well — a case of amnesia perhaps excepted — and serving as Shaw’s No. 2.

Time to cut to the chase or, in this case, the well-orchestrated series of chases that constitute the very essence of the exercise. Sit back and thrill to the sight of muscle cars flashing and zooming their way through the streets of London, leaving those stodgy double-decker buses far behind.

Lin softens the prevailing tone of grunting machismo with the occasional flourish of vague religiosity. Thus the cross Dom wears around his neck becomes a symbol of his bond with Letty, and the wrap-up includes a grace over backyard barbecue.

Yet the self-determined code which these ostensible heroes substitute for civil obedience — it seems to centre on loyalty to their self-created “family” — is morally dubious and certainly not for the impressionable.

The film contains murky moral values, considerable stylised violence including a scene of torture, cohabitation, partial nudity, a few uses of profanity, at least one rough term, much crude and crass language and an obscene gesture.

 

The Hangover Part III

By Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — On its surface a defanged and declawed version of the first two installments, “The Hangover Part III” (Warner Bros.) has no sex, no alcohol or drug abuse and almost no nudity, albeit that last element is eventually — perhaps inevitably — included via a closing-credits sight gag.

What’s left from director Todd Phillips, who co-wrote with Craig Mazin, is what used to be called a “caper comedy” filled with car chases, a few scattershot ethnic slurs involving Asians and Jews and, unsettlingly enough, what proves to be a quite benign view of coldblooded murder.

This time, Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis), the spoiled rich boy, finally has to mature — at age 42, it’s about time — following the death of his father, Sid (Jeffrey Tambor). Alan’s friends Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper) and Stu Price (Ed Helms) stage an intervention to get their unstable pal the help he needs at a mental health facility in Arizona.

En route, “The Wolfpack,” as they call themselves, are waylaid by gangster Marshall (John Goodman). Marshall wants them to help retrieve $21 million in gold bars stolen by arch-criminal Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), who recently escaped from a Bangkok prison. Marshall holds Alan’s brother-in-law, Doug (Justin Bartha), hostage until the loot is returned.

There are long stretches involving bungled criminal activity and hit-and-miss non-sequitur dialogue before a final showdown in Las Vegas, a place “The Wolfpack” now dreads after the group’s drug-fuelled adventure there in the first film. They reconnect with Jade (Heather Graham), who launched their initial debauch, and Alan finds love with Cassie (Melissa McCarthy), a pawnshop owner.

While the shenanigans that made the earlier entries repellent may mercifully be absent, there’s a different, deeper — and philosophically, at least, potentially more troubling — recklessness at work in this picture. In the inkiest vein of nihilistic black humour, the frequent intrusion of death — whether that of disposable animals or of equally disposable people — is presented as a cue for guffaws.

Thus, whenever the film-makers run out of uses for a character, as they do for Black Doug (Mike Epps), they simply have him killed.

The film contains stylised gun violence, a fleeting glimpse of frontal male nudity, a brief but vulgar reference to sexual activity, some profanity and pervasive rough and crude language.

 

Side Effects

By John Mulderig,Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Intriguing but somewhat sordid, the psychiatry-themed drama “Side Effects” (Open Road) messes, quite successfully, with viewers’ heads. Mature movie-goers may enjoy following the twisting trail of director Steven Soderbergh’s clever puzzler.

Yet a number of red-flag elements preclude not only youngsters but those in search of casual diversion as well.

This is the story of British-born, New York-based analyst Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) and one of his patients, Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara).

Emily suffers from depression and suicidal tendencies. But she also has more concrete troubles: Her formerly high-flying husband, Martin (Channing Tatum), has just finished serving a prison term for insider trading. With his arrest, their idyllic suburban lifestyle was left in ruins, and Emily has been struggling to make ends meet ever since.

As Martin works to re-establish himself, Dr. Banks experiments, all too casually, with various anti-depressants for Emily. One of them turns out to have side effects in the form of sleepwalking and unconscious behaviour. But Emily prefers these consequences to the far more unpleasant symptoms — like sudden nausea — induced by other prescriptions she’s tried. So, at her behest, Dr. Banks keeps her on the drug.

Soon after, however, Emily commits a sensational crime under the hypnosis like influence of the medication. The ensuing fire-storm of negative publicity threatens to destroy Dr. Banks’ career.

All is not what it seems, of course — as Dr. Banks discovers once he begins to dig into Emily’s past, including her relationship with her former shrink, Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Scott Z. Burns’ script raises implicit questions about a society awash in pharmaceuticals that may be more beneficial to their manufacturers’ bottom line than to those taking them. But a handful of sexual encounters, some of them aberrant — as well as the gory offence at the heart of the plot — mean the rough-edged pieces of this jigsaw are for the sturdiest only.

The film contains brief but bloody violence, graphic marital lovemaking with fleeting nudity, semi-graphic lesbian sensuality, mature themes, including mental illness and suicide, at least one use of profanity as well as some rough and crude language.