Lexington, KY - The serious movies of award season are behind us, and summer blockbusters are still on the horizon. But three recent thrillers have appeared in theaters to wake us from our winter hibernation.
The International
Clive Owen's trademark intensity is put to good use in "The International." He plays a driven Interpol officer trying to ferret out the shady dealings of an international bank.
Misdeeds in the financial industry may have been in recent headlines, but the wrongdoing of the fictional bank in this picture is a lot more terrifying than subprime mortgages. Assassinations, hit squads, missile guidance systems for rogue governments - this is one bad bank.
Like "Taken," "The International" understands and respects the suspense genre and delivers. It takes its time as Owen, along with prosecutor Naomi Watts, slowly peels away the layers of villainy. Hitchcock often liked stage confrontations in iconic locations and monuments. "The International" pays tribute to that tradition in an astounding showdown scene in the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
"The International" is a smart and stylish thriller, with surprises, violence and a tortured hero who refuses to recognize that he's in over his head. It manages to combine suspense with thoughtfulness, and action with a dark take on the powers that shape our world. If you're up for a thriller, this is the one to see.
Taken
If you saw the trailers for "Taken," you got the gist of this film. Retired spy Liam Neeson coolly tells his daughter, hiding from kidnappers under a bed, "They're going to take you." Later, on the phone with the bad guys, "I don't have money, but what I do have is a particular set of skills that makes me a nightmare for people like you."
So the hook is very simple - a professional in covert warfare who has made a career out of being detached and unemotional must deal with the emotional trauma of rescuing his own daughter.
If anything, Liam Neeson plays it too detached. His face is a blank slate, not quite showing us a father's agony who finally gave up his long CIA career to be closer to his daughter.
Then there are the improbabilities of any action movie. After crashing cars, single-handedly dispatching cutthroat killers and jumping off bridges onto moving boats, Neeson walks away without a scratch. Even more incongruous, Neeson is, like many of us, not a young man anymore, and it's obvious his action scenes are heavily outsourced to stunt men and obscured by herky-jerky camera movement.
But, after all, "Taken" accomplishes what it sets out to do. The rescue moves at a brisk clip and with cool precision. It's a modern-day Western, with Neeson reprising the John Wayne character in "The Searchers," an avenging angel on a mission.
Push
In the alternate reality world of "Push," psychics live among us. Some see visions of the future (watchers), some move objects (movers), some plant ideas in people's heads (pushers). And don't even get me started about the sniffs and wipers.
In Hong Kong, a hidden briefcase contains a powerful psychic secret weapon and everybody wants it. A watcher (Dakota Fanning) and a mover (Chris Evans) team up to find the case before it falls into the hands of a sinister secret government organization or an even more sinister criminal organization.
On the surface, it's a premise with promise. But "Push" is amazingly inept. The superpowers at work here are confusing and inconsistent. These misunderstood mutants come across as X-Men Light. And the final showdown tries too hard to be clever, ending up as an overblown sound and light show.
Dakota Fanning continues her journey from child star to grown-up actress, but this role was a detour. She may have shed her childlike innocence, but her world-weary smart aleck here is just not convincing. Chris Evans has honed his superpower credentials ("Fantastic Four"), but is only slightly more believable as the loser who struggles to master his abilities.
The dialogue is often obscured by unnecessary music, the action is heavy on CGI, and the plot doesn't give us much motivation to try and figure out what's going on. So don't even try.