The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald, 2006) Talk about lucky guys--at last year's Oscars, Peter Morgan was nominated for his screenplay for The Queen, and the two leading actors of his screenplays won both Best Performance Awards: Helen Mirren for The Queen, and Forrest Whitaker for this film. They both had great material to work with. Morgan's talents for breathing life and personality into history (catch his HBO film, "Longford," while you're at it) puts to shame the recent spate of "highlights-biographies" (Ali, Nixon, Man on the Moon, Chaplin, Ray) that are like filmed Cliff Notes. And Whittaker is amazing in the film ("How'd they get him?" K. asked when he was first on screen. No, it's not the real guy, it's Forrest Whittaker), projecting the half-baked soul of Idi Amin Dada. It's a Supporting-sized role, but so large does Whittaker's portrayal loom over the movie that he dwarfs everyone else, even James McAvoy's starring performance as cocky Scotts physician Nicholas Garrigan, who goes looking for some selfish adventures and winds up being The Devil's Internist in Uganda.

And what starts as lucky breaks for a kid out of medical school turns into a nightmare of bad choices as the wildly paranoid Amin sinks deeper into madness, torturing first his enemies, and then those in his circle of confidence. In a country run by a lunatic, its a short trip from adviser to being strung up from a meat-hook (lest you think, Last King... is as genteel as The Queen, think again, the violence is bloody, and the torture is dwelled upon).

The director is Kevin Macdonald, a former documentarian, and he seems to have a problem with pace. Last King feels drawn out, and in need of additional editing (as did his previous film, the interminable Touching the Void, which managed to make an incredible story something of a drag). But the sense of place and time feels genuine--you might not believe afterwards that the story is actually fictitious.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

I've been watching a lot of the old "The X-Files" TV series lately. Taken episode to episode, it's often fascinating and sometimes brilliant, like a "Twilight Zone" revival with FBI agents Mulder and Scully serving as Rod Serling. Taken in toto, it's a frustrating thing and why, despite its occasional brilliance, I didn't become a "TruFan." I just never believed, not completely.

And I bring up those issues in this review, written at the time of the film's release.

"That's not within your perview, Doctor"

The new "X-files" movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, feels just like an episode of the old series. They've returned to their old "haunts" filming in Vancouver, Canada. The mystery--the disappearance of an FBI agent--is solved, but not resolved. And Scully and/or "Spooky" Mulder spend a lot of screen-time working at x-crossed purposes searching for someone or something in a vacated building at night, with plastic sheets, rebar and lots of back-lighting, or in dark, drippy labs (why is that dark?) and what look like dilapidated double-wides in the sticks.

And they're bickering. Just like old times.

When last time we left Fox and Dana (in the series finale) they were one happy family with baby William* squeezed between them for that kiss it took the entire series to come to.***** By that time nobody cared a rip about Mulder's UFO-abducted sister, the bees, black oil, ET's, super-soldiers, and the government collusion concerning...well, probably all of it. Everybody was so confused by that time, the only thing the audience knew for sure was that Mulder and Scully had to get together.

Dr. Scully (Gillian Anderson) is recruited by the FBI to find Mulder (David Duchovny) ("What are you, my booking agent now?"), living by himself in a remote ranch-house presumably decorated by John Nash. He's been discredited, brought up "on charges" by the FBI (it's never explained--Hey, it's "The X-files!" They don't explain anything!**), but they still want his help.*** The Fed's have a lead from a psychic that they want Mulder to check out. He's a de-frocked Catholic priest and convicted pedophile who sees vague visions that might give clues to the missing Agent--or not. It does give an opportunity for the FBI's two biggest doubting Thomasi--he, of religion, she, of the supernatural—to lock horns and debate the whole movie. A psychic priest? They probably haven't had this much fun since they saw The Song of Bernadette!

While Mulder mulls with Father Joe (Billy Connolly), Scully goes back to work as a surgeon at the cheery Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Hospital, where her religion is tested with a patient who needs a radical stem-cell treatment, which gets the stink-eye from the father-in-charge, Father Ybarra. Scully threatens to take his objections to a higher authority. "I already have," says the priest.

While Scully deals with her perviews, Mulder deals with his perv's view, while we get to watch the perps do their dirty work, if we could only figure out what that was.

Creepy it is--you expect creepiness with "The X-Files," but there are none of those truly unsettling moments that trace an icy finger down your spine as the series could occassionally do. Nor are there any particularly good ideas that make you shake your head at the cleverness of the makers, those being "X-Files" veterans, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter. There's also a slight hint of homophobia, which might be attributable to its origins on Fox (20th Century Fox is the film's distributor).

 

But it's nice to see a continuation of the longest theological debate on television outside of Bishop Sheen. ****

I'd just like to see a question answered once in a while.

* A script complication dictated by Gillian Anderson's real-life pregnancy. Amanda Peet co-stars in this. She and Anderson must have compared stories of how a pregnancy can throw a TV series out of whack. Talk about yer complications.

** Consider yourself lucky to have the Credits! It's the only thing cut-and-dried in the movie!

*** If that doesn't make sense director Chris Carter defuses it somewhat at FBI headquarters by paying particular attention to portraits of Pres. Bush and FBI godfather J. Edgar Hoover. Oh, well...yeah...now it makes perfect sense!

**** And when you see it, be sure to watch all the ways through the credits for the answer to one question....

 

***** Again, this was written at the time of the film's release—there have been a couple more series continuations whenever schedules and salaries could be negotiated. But, even so, the ongoing story only seems to get more confusing—while simultaneously more internalized—than revelatory. 

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

Hidden in Plain Sight

or

The Poe-Eyed Detective ("It Will Work Out")

 

There is something ingenious, if not precious, about the conceit: a murder mystery featuring the creator of the modern detective story.*

 

Sure, every depressive knows Edgar Allen Poe as the writer of morbid, anguished poetry with repeated lines at the ends of stanzas. But, with his publication of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in 1841, he began a new genre of mystery story, based, not only on the dark corners of the human psyche, but it's very opposite, the power of reasoning and deduction—or what he called "ratiocination." With the success of his Dupin stories, came the inspiration for Doyle of Sherlock Holmes (he never shied from admitting it or his other sources) and, from there, the progeny of the countless numbers of problem-solving busybodies that have expanded and pushed the envelope of the Dewey Decimal System for decades.

Homage must be paid.

The Pale Blue Eye (love the title...) begins with an image, a surrealistic scene veiled in fog, of a man handing by the neck from a tree. But, something's off. His feet are on the ground, rather than being suspended above it. The explanation for that image will take the entire movie to explain, but already you're hooked, and that image is a wonderful metaphor for a mystery. Something deadly has happened, but why, and by whom, needs to be sussed out. Only one person knows and that is the one who did the deed.

It's 1830. Retired constable Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) lives a solitary life in his rustic, but well-libraried cabin, another in a long line of isolated men, known for "getting a confession with just a stare." His wife died many years ago, and his only daughter, whom he mourns, has disappeared—a mystery that still haunts him. One day he is greeted by Captain *ahem* Hitchcock (Simon McBurney) from nearby West Point Academy. One of their cadets has been found dead—he'd been hung, apparently, but the most grisly aspect of the deed is that his heart has been carved out of his chest.

Landor has some restrictions put on him by the Academy Superintendent, Thayer (Timothy Spall):he is to report to him and Hitchcock daily on his progress; he works for them as an employee as long as they approve of his work; interviews with cadets must be done with Hitchcock's supervision; he can't drink on the job. There is a tavern in the town, however, which he visits after hours. He runs afoul of the Academy's physician, Dr. Marquis (Toby Jones), when he proves himself unsatisfied with the doctor's autopsy—but Landor's thorough work does win him enough grudging respect that he is invited to the doctor's home, where he meets his somewhat-hysterical wife (Gillian Anderson, always great, even when she's not doing the autopsies) and his children, cadet Artemus (Harry Lawtey) and his lovely daughter Lea (Lucy Boynton).

The cadet interviews do not go well. The young men are less than forthcoming-especially under the baleful eye of Hitchcock. But, there is one young Virginian cadet who attracts Landor's attention, not only because he has an obvious intelligence and grand-if precise manner of speaking. He's also a bit of an outsider at the Academy, a frequent object of scorn among the students...and the instructors.

This is cadet E.A. Poe (Harry Melling), not the finest example of military discipline, frequently seeking permission to be excused from outside drills, citing poor health and spending his time writing poetry. When Landor first meets Poe, he is struck by his eloquence and directness, but more by his opinion that the perpetrator may have chosen a mundane way to kill the victim, but the cutting out of the heart "makes him a poet." Poe's creepiness makes him a "usual suspect" as far as murder mysteries go, but at a later meeting in a tavern, Landor suggests to him that they should work together on the case, as Poe might have opinions—and access—that Landor could use.

Then, there is Landor's mentor, Jean Pepe (Robert Duvall), an elderly recluse, with a vast knowledge of all things ritualistic and arcane. It's always good to see Duvall in anything, and his presence reminds one of the useful—but supplementary— characters that inform and give a certain historical sub-text to many a fictional detective.

The investigation twists and turns like a speckled band—no, the story doesn't involve snakes—but, is enhanced and complicated by young cadet Poe's besotted enchantment with the doctor's daughter Lea Marquis, prone to seizures that might be due to epilepsy—or maybe it's just a family curse.

Oh, this one is a corker, with a resolution that will surprise casual mystery watchers, and inspire appreciative smiles from aficionados with its echoes of Poe's own detective fiction. There might be a bump or two in motivation, a red-herring here and there (aren't there always?), but, by the end, one will be properly sanguine with the mystification they experience.

And the cast is top-notch. Bale isn't grand-standing here with tics and business, but relies on a relaxed body language that he rarely employs, and the relationship between he and Melling's overelegant Poe is a nice study in contrasts in a mutual admiration society of two. Director Cooper keeps things moving swiftly and takes full advantage of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi's ability to create astounding images of nature and the unnatural. And Howard Shore's score is lovely, another wonderful example of why he should be doing more music for films these days.

It's a very well-done film, that is only undermined by the fact that it will never light—and darken—a theater screen, where it can be truly appreciated, and, although it is nice that Netflix gave it a healthy paycheck to be produced, why it should be relegated to a small screen, is a real mystery.

* When the Mystery Writers of America organization hands out their little trophies, they are dubbed "The Edgars." There are some scholars who begrudge Poe the title. But, they can't do anything about the little statues.