BEFORE: Reporting from suburban Massachusetts today, after my first trip on Amtrak since the pandemic started. First real trip out of town, now that the virus numbers in both the NYC area and the Boston area are very acceptable (unlike some other areas of the country that re-opened too early) so I felt that there was an extremely minimal risk of me catching the virus on one three-hour train trip and then infecting my parents. Anyway, my sister's theory is that my parents both had the virus in January, before anyone knew what the symptoms were, and they were both diagnosed with "weird flu" - so if that theory holds, then I couldn't possibly infect them anyway.
So I'm here, and I'm spending time with them, doing crosswords with my Mom, running errands with my Dad and eating take-out subs (heroes) with both of them. Tomorrow after they watch church on TV I'm going to go downtown and buy them diner omelettes with all the breakfast fixings, and then maybe a Father's Day dinner (I know, it's a week late) from whatever restaurant they want. Also, I managed to find their TV remote, which has been missing for months - they have a Smart TV that my sister got them which can access Netflix and Amazon Prime, only without the right remote it's impossible to do that. With the cable remote I can switch the TV input so we can watch a DVD, so I programmed "Toy Story 4" for my Mom in the afternoon and this evening signed on to Netflix so they could watch "The Two Popes". That's on my list to, but I haven't been able to link there yet.
Ben Affleck carries over again from "State of Play", and today's film is also on Netflix, but I watched it on my phone late last night after they went to bed.
THE PLOT: A veteran D.C. journalist loses the thread of her own narrative when a guilt-propelled errand for her father thrusts her from byline to unwitting subject in the very story she's trying to break.
AFTER: This film is set back in 1984, during the Reagan re-election campaign, and the big story that the lead character wants to break concerns the Nicaraguan Contras, and whether they might be receiving arms and supplies from the U.S. administration. My first thought is "Jeez, are we still on this? It's been 36 years now, and the fact that our country was illegally supplying arms to certain forces in certain Latin American countries has been well established, right?" Plus, I've seen this same topic covered in several recent movies, like "American Made" and, more recently, "Lord of War". Why are we still beating this same well-played drum? Haven't there been more recent political scandals that we can make movies about instead?
To be fair, this is based on a novel by Joan Didion, which was written in 1996. But even back then, wasn't this Nicaraguan stuff old news? Why did it take almost 25 years to turn this into a movie, and wasn't there some kind of expiration date on adapting a novel into a book? I mean, I guess on the other hand if you can find some new angle on the Civil War you can certainly try to make a new movie about that, but everyone's then going to compare it to "Gone With the Wind", or at least "Glory", and if you're not bringing anything new to the table, then why bother?
It's fairly obvious that somebody created this story to demonstrate the height of irony - the female journalist who's been trying to crack the Nicaraguan Contras story finds herself pulled off of that story and assigned instead to the campaign trail - only when her father contacts her for the first time in years, and then falls ill, she finds herself taking his place on the "big deal" that he's set up, and wouldn't you know it, that deal involves delivering arms to Central America. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? She ends up right in the middle of the very story she was pulled off of, only now she's part of the story. (That's a theme that carries over from "State of Play", a journalist getting too close.)
In "The Next Three Days", I witnessed how far a man would go to rescue his wife from jail - in a similar manner here, we see just how far a daughter would go to try to keep her father out of trouble. Because it turns out that rebel forces in Nicaragua aren't necessarily the most honest people, so instead of the money he was promised, they pay for the arms with bags of little white powder, and it turns out that those are much harder to deposit in the bank. Look, I love my father, but if I found out he was involved in a drugs-for-guns scheme (not that he would), I think there's definitely a point where I would stop helping him, for sure.
But that's not what happens here, Elena doesn't get back on the plane and fly back to the U.S., instead she starts chasing after the money that her father is owed, because that also dovetails a little too neatly with the story that she wants to write. This puts her in touch with a number of shady characters in Costa Rica, and puts her in a position where she doesn't know who to trust. And every stupid choice she makes, from contacting her journalist friend back home to demanding a plane ticket home to showing up at the U.S. Embassy to try to get a new passport - just gets her deeper into trouble. Meanwhile, who's watching her sick father while she's chasing down leads, or just plain running away from gunfire?
Eventually a mid-level staffer from the State Department shows up and claims to want to help her, but is he on the level? He sets her up at a beach resort in Antigua and says he'll fly her home "tomorrow", but after several "tomorrows" come and go, she starts to realize that he was maybe just trying to get rid of her, or provide free maid service for his ex-pat pal who runs the beach resort. I guess there are worse ways to spend your time, but she's eager to get back to the U.S. and break the story? Choose your friends carefully, I guess.
Also starring Anne Hathaway (last seen in "Ocean's 8"), Rosie Perez (last seen in "It Could Happen to You"), Edi Gathegi (last seen in "Aloha"), Mel Rodriguez (last heard in "Onward"), Toby Jones (last seen in "Tale of Tales"), Willem Dafoe (last seen in "Motherless Brooklyn"), Carlos Leal, Julian Gamble, Ben Chase, Robert Sedgwick, David Vadim, Onata Aprile, Casinao Ancalle, Laura Niemi, Sewell Whitney, Sandra Rodriguez, Yetta Gottesman (last seen in "Lucky You"), Josette Pagan, Juan Carlos Diaz, Barbara Andres, Charles Gemmill, with archive footage of Jerry Falwell (last seen in "Capitalism: A Love Story") and the voice of Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton").
RATING: 4 out of 10 fresh coconuts
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