Flag Day

Year 15, Day 31 - 1/31/23 - Movie #4,332

BEFORE: Here we go, the last film of January - man, it's been a ride. That's what I get for programming a bunch of action movies, I feel like I've been bounced around by drug dealers and safe crackers, mobsters and con artists, and then on the other side a bunch of FBI agents, detectives, black ops contractors and, umm, ice road truckers. Yeah, that happened. And let's not forget that Adam Sandler played a basketball scout, Orlando Bloom defended Jerusalem, Jon Hamm replaced Chevy Chase as Fletch, and Michelle Yeoh became the best version of herself and saved the multiverse.  Also, we learned why you should never go to the private island of a mad genius, even if he's a chef, why you should never have sex with a horse, and why you should never watch a film if it's free on YouTube. Good to know. 

Here's the format breakdown for January: 

14 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): The Family, Leave No Trace, The Contractor, Bulletproof, Eraser, Confess Fletch, The Death of Dick Long, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Marksman, Kingdom of Heaven, No Time to Die, Blood Father, Domino, Flag Day

4 Movies watched on cable (not saved): City by the Sea, Being Flynn, The Menu, See How They Run

7 watched on Netflix: Hustle, Wendell & Wild, The Ice Road, Glass Onion, The Informer, The Gray Man, Blonde

1 watched on Amazon Prime: Needle in a Timestack

2 watched on YouTube: Gun Shy, Welcome to Collinwood
1 watched on Disney+: Turning Red
1 watched on Tubi: Undercover Grandpa

1 watched on Pluto TV: Wind River

1 watched on commercial DVD: Narrowsburg
32 TOTAL

Dale Dickey carries over again from "Domino", and she's in the lead right now for the year, with five appearances.  Just over 10% through my movies for 2023, so it's doubtful that she'll finish in the lead, but she's followed by Ana de Armas, Robert De Niro and Liam Neeson with four films each, and James Caan, Ben Foster and James Hong with three each.  Tomorrow the annual romance chain starts, so expect strong showings from people like Julianne Moore and Andie MacDowell. 

THE PLOT: A father lives a double life as a counterfeiter, bank robber and con man in order to provide for his daughter. 

AFTER: This is a movie that doesn't give up much information, not without a fight - it's very light on the details when it comes to the life of John Vogel, a con-man who served time for bank robbery and then later counterfeited more than $20 million, the fourth-largest sum ever seized by federal agents. It's based on a book called "The Flim-Flam Man", written by his daughter, Jennifer, and the book focuses on the six-month period where her father was on the run from the authorities.  But the movie goes back to when she was younger, when she looked up to her father despite all his weird habits and eccentricities, then later when she left home and dropped out of high school, she traveled to find her father and re-connected with him. They both had substance abuse issues, they were both sort of lost and maybe helped each other out during rough patches in their lives - or maybe their lives were just big rough patches, I don't know. 

The movie also won't come out and tell you that John Vogel had a bunch of scams and schemes going on, had a habit of burning down buildings, and plotted murder, and then when he put his artistic and criminal talents together to make counterfeit money, he only spent the fake money at Wal-Mart, for his own political reasons.  Umm, OK - the movie just wanted to be very "arty" about it and focus on things like teaching his 10-year old daughter how to drive so he could take a nap in the car, or yelling at his 18-year old daughter for smoking his weed.  OK, so he wasn't going to win any "Father of the Year" awards, but apparently he was better than her step-father, who tried to sleep with her.  I can't decide if it's heartwarming or not, that this very damaged father-daughter pair re-connected over the years between his prison stints and tried hard to help each other through the tough times.  But even then, he claimed to land an executive job at a seaplane company and then she saw him just towing the planes around the airport - so he wasn't above lying to his own daughter.  Classy. 

I guess we're supposed to commend her for ALMOST following in his footsteps, like she got called out for lying about her background when she applied to journalism school, but the whole point of journalism is to uncover the truth, so she almost didn't get in.  I guess they're really sticklers over there at the University of Minnesota. 

So many things were confusing here - like, who was Josh Brolin's character, "Uncle Beck"?  Was he John Vogel's brother, or Jennifer's stepfather? Or Jennifer's mother's brother?  It's unclear, from his dialogue I couldn't be sure.  Dale Dickey played "Grandma Margaret", so I assume that was John Vogel's mother?  Look, I know that characters don't mention their relationships each time they talk, but come on, help a viewer out a bit, you've kind of got to explain how all these people are connected.  The problem here is that in such a flashback-heavy film that jumps around in time liberally, we've got to put all these pieces together, and we just don't know if we're doing it right.  I feel like maybe I fell asleep and missed some crucial piece of the movie, where all the information was given out, but I don't think that I did. Instead there's just arty montage after arty montage of Jennifer partying, hanging out, crying, and then riding on a bus somewhere - repeat as necessary.  Well, I guess it's better than footage of someone sitting in front of a typewriter, trying to think of something to write. 

I just went back and watched the last 15 minutes of the film again, I'm guessing I must have dozed off just when things were about to get exciting. Yeah, if you blink at the wrong times you're going to miss all the footage of John Vogel making those counterfeit bills, or really, doing much of anything that would have provided helpful information. Like everything else here, that information came in the form of an arty montage filled with flashbacks. I think it would have been nice to, you know, see stuff happen but it's just not that kind of movie, not until the ending at least. Anyway, I'm SO going to put this film on a DVD with "Blood Father" because the films have so much in common - alcoholic ex-con father looking for redemption, re-connecting with his drug-using daughter as an older teen, doing his best to protect her in his own effed-up way, and then a really depressing, futile pointless ending. 

Also starring Sean Penn (last seen in "An Accidental Studio"), Dylan Penn (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Katheryn Winnick (last seen in "The Marksman"), Josh Brolin (last seen in "Dune"), Hopper Penn (last seen in "Between Worlds"), Regina King (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Norbert Leo Butz (last seen in "Fair Game"), Eddie Marsan (last seen in "The Contractor"), Bailey Noble, Jadyn Rylee, Addison Tymec, Beckam Crawford, Nigel Fisher, Adam Hurtig (last seen in "The Ice Road"), Terry Hamel with archive footage of Bill Clinton (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G")

RATING: 5 out of 10 halfway houses