BEFORE: This is going to be a bit of a weird mix of films this week, but hey, isn't it always? I can't be too choosy, because I have to hustle to make my connections to the start of February's romance/relationship movies.
Bill Camp carries over from "Dark Waters", and it looks like another trial movie tonight? They were really pushing this film with guild screenings a little over a year ago, I saw my boss get a LOT of e-mails about this, but then it got like zero Oscar nominations. So I wonder if the lead actors just had it in their contracts that the studio would have some kind of campaigns for them - because even if you have an Oscar, having two Oscars would be even better. And you can't get a nomination these days unless the studio gets behind you and promotes you as a candidate.
THE PLOT: A lawyer helps a funeral home owner save his family business from a corporate behemoth, exposing a complex web of race, power and injustice.
AFTER: Yeah, I kind of see why this didn't get any nominations last year, it's kind of clear. What the heck was this movie even about? Some multiple funeral home owner in Alabama got in some money trouble (we find out WAY late in the movie exactly why, but who cares?) and his biggest concern is that he's getting old, and he's got no real legacy to give his children when he passes. OK, that sucks, but really, how is that MY problem, he effed up and created this situation, the world doesn't OWE him more money that he can leave to his kids. Dude, just leave them the 8 funeral homes, they'll figure it out, or they won't. His lawyer comes up with a bright idea, to sell three of the homes to this multi-millionaire who seems to be collecting them, because he knows how many Americans are over the age of 55, this is set just before the Baby Boomers all started dying en masse, I guess.
All right, problem solved, sell off three funeral homes, make a little cash and still have five funeral homes to leave to your thirteen kids. Are we done here? No, not by a long shot. It turns out that multi-millionaire never signs the contract, instead he probably thinks it would be easier and cheaper to just wait for the funeral home owner to DIE, then he can buy those businesses at a much lower price. Well, there, that's American ingenuity for you - he didn't sign the contract, so no deal, let's move on. Except we CAN'T because now the funeral home owner wants to sue the guy he made a handshake deal with, and force him to buy the homes he was going to buy, or else pay him restitution. But you can't put a gun to a person's head and make them sign a contract, if he wants to back out of a deal, not signing the contract seems like a pretty simple way to accomplish that, and as far as I know, changing your mind and not signing a contract is still pretty legal. Please, for the love of God, let's get past this and move on to something, anything else.
No such luck, this is apparently the story that somebody found VERY important, a businessman backed out of a deal. Great, and in other news, water is wet. This is why we HAVE signed contracts, because they mean something, and by extension, then an unsigned contract means nothing. My own boss had a handshake deal with a writer to animate a feature film for him, in exchange for a particular monthly payment until the film was finished. Aha, I think I see where this is going, if he takes his time animating the film, he'll keep getting the monthly payments, so this deal could go on for YEARS if he animates slowly enough. But the writer never signed the contract, then decided that he could get the film animated in China for much less, oh, well, that's how the cookie crumbles I guess. We never thought to SUE him for not meeting the terms of the contract he didn't sign, because that's madness, plus it wouldn't exactly create good feelings so that he'd change his mind, and pay the money he chose not to pay in the first place. Sometimes you just have to pick up your ball and head home, look forward to the next game.
It feels here like the screenwriters didn't know what exactly would connect with audiences, so they just threw everything in and kind of hoped for the best. So there's a lot of racial stuff about the O.J. Simpson trial and the KKK, whether the plaintiff was a supporter of civil rights 30 years ago, also some weird shady dealings maybe connected to the savings and loan scandals from years ago, and I think they even get into what happened to the Lindbergh baby. One team of lawyers ore the other is always objecting that this stuff has nothing to do with the case, and they're right - so what the heck is all this stuff doing in the movie, then? If it's not relevant, get rid of it!
Also confusing was showing the lawyer character, Willie E. Gary, as a preacher in a black church, talking about how great it was to be in a black church. Huh? How can he be BOTH a preacher and a personal injury lawyer? Wouldn't those two things be in conflict with each other, somehow? I mean, this is based on a true story, so maybe the real Mr. Gary is both things, but still, putting this same character in both situations, the courtroom and the pulpit, is still very confusing. Maybe if you left out the church thing, we'd figure out who this guy is much quicker, and the lawyer part is much more important to this story. Sure, people can be many different things over the course of a lifetime, the other main character was a Marine pilot, the mayor of Biloxi and then the owner of a chain of funeral homes, but he was smart enough to not try and do all of those things at the same time.
Directed by: Maggie Betts
Also starring Jamie Foxx (last heard in "Strays"), Tommy Lee Jones (last seen in "The Homesman"), Jurnee Smollett (last seen in "Lou"), Alan Ruck (last seen in "Freaky"), Mamoudou Athie (last seen in "Unicorn Store"), Pamela Reed (last seen in "Outside In"), Amanda Warren (last seen in "All Is Bright"), Dorian Missick (last seen in "Lucky Number Slevin"), Tywayne Wheatt (last seen in "Shaft" (2019)), Lance E. Nichols (last seen in "The Mechanic"), Keith Jefferson (last seen in "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"), B.J. Clinkscales (last seen in "The Sessions"), Doug Spearman (last seen in "We Have a Ghost"), Billy Slaughter (ditto), Gralen Bryant Banks (last seen in "Brothers"), Olivia Brody (last seen in "Barbie"), David Maldonado (last seen in "Poms"), Christopher Winchester, Lorna Street Dopson, Erika Robel, Fracaswell Hyman (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Donna Duplantier (last seen in "Fire with Fire"), David Alexander, Dan Sheynin, Andrea Frankle (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Logan Macrae (last seen in "Where the Crawdads Sing"), Mike Harkins (ditto), Jalene Mack, Sam Malone (last seen in "Project Power"), Nicole Collins, Summer Selby (last seen in "Quiz Lady"), David Shae (last seen in "They Cloned Tyrone"), Eric Mendenhall (last seen in "Allegiant"), Dan Thorp, George Ketsios, Patrick Gallagher, Reynada Robinson, Dennis Hornsby, Michael Hinson, LeBaron Foster Thornton, Kamille McCuin, Xavier Mills (last seen in "Civil War"), Jasmine Thomas, Shanessa Sweeney, Jason Bayle (last seen in "Trumbo"), Michael Francis Horn, Jesse Gavin, Jim Klock (last seen in "The Whole Truth"), Vince Pasani (last seen in "Civil War"), Brad Blanchard (last seen in "Blue Bayou"), Marcqus Clark, Jennifer Lynn Warren, with a cameo from the real Willie E. Gary.
RATING: 4 out of 10 objections (overruled!)
No comments:
Post a Comment