Movie Review: Two Lovers (2008)

Since being nominated for an Oscar for Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix has done a great job of baffling the public with increasingly odd behavior. His movie choices since his nomination have all been mediocre fare at best, and his attempt to become a bearded rapper have brought on speculation that he's gone certifiably insane. It's a shame that his (possibly) last movie role is Two Lovers, a bland indie drama that doesn't even come close to living up to the hype that it has garnered.

Phoenix plays Leonard Kraditor, a man who has just moved back in with his parents after becoming suicidal when his fiancee leaves him. He could be anywhere from his late twenties to his mid-thirties, but acts like he's fifteen. He's impulse, he mumbles almost all of his dialogue, and he has no real concern for the overarching effects of the decisions he makes.

Shortly after moving in, he meets both Sandra (Vanessa Shaw), the daughter of a family friend who likes Leonard from the first time she sees him, and Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), the new neighbor who's erratic behavior makes her character almost completely unlikeable...except, of course, to Leonard.

The story unfolds uncommonly slowly, and the characters are surprisingly one-dimensional for a drama of this magnitude. The characters' motivations are almost all completely selfish, and it's easy to wonder why Leonard continues to fall in love with Michelle when all she does is use him and play with his emotions. This is made even worse by almost insufferable performances from two of the leads (Phoenix and Paltrow).

Phoenix's performance is grating because of his constant mumbling. Every time he spoke, I wished there were subtitles on the screen to let me know what he said. Luckily, the dialogue is fairly sparse, and the long moments where very little happens allowed me to piece together what he said, and in the end I had a fairly good idea what was going on through most of the movie.

Paltrow's performance, however, was inexcusably bad. She seems bored, and her character comes off more annoying and manipulative than confused. Her voice rarely wavers from a dreary monotone, and she brings absolutely no life to the character. Leonard Kraditor might as well have fallen in love with a cardboard cutout. At least then it wouldn't have had any dialogue, and would've been just as believable as the situation we are actually presented with.

Two Lovers isn't all bad. Vanessa Shaw manages to deliver a good performance in her (very) limited screen time, and the story itself has some merits and good ideas, they're just drowned out by the utter stupidity of the two main characters, shattering the ability to actually connect with the characters directly, and unfortunately that is what lingers more than the few good moments that are found sprinkled throughout.

Rating: 5/10

Movie Review: Death Sentence (2007)

When a movie boasts Kevin Bacon in a leading role as a middle-aged office worker-turned-killer and John Goodman going off the rails in a supporting role as a psychotic gun dealer, there are two possible outcomes. The first is that it will be an off-the-wall, crazy adrenaline rush that surprises no-one by having plot roles but surprises everyone by actually holding the viewers' interest. The second outcome is that it will turn into a godawful mess that is barely watchable. Unfortunately, Death Sentence very firmly falls into the latter category.

The blame mainly falls in the lap of director James Wan (Saw), who muddles every action sequence by washing things in dull colors and poor lighting and using enough random cuts to almost rival music videos in their franticness. There was not one major action scene that did not at least once confuse the hell out of me, and thus the rest of the sequence was spent wondering who was where and trying to keep up with what the hell was actually going on.

This is made even more difficult by the utter stupidity of the plot. We're supposed to believe there are cartoonish street gangs who just go around and kill people for sport (and never with any real motivation). We're supposed to believe a somewhat wimpy office worker can not only be transformed by the brutal murder of his son, but actually be a very effective killer even though he looks like someone who has never even held a gun before in his life. We're supposed to believe that the police are so inept that this newly transformed killing machine can, without much effort, evade the police's grasp until his mission for revenge is complete.

Both Kevin Bacon, as the aforementioned office lackey-turned-Dirty Harry, and John Goodman, as a wildly eccentric gun runner who seems more likely to shoot someone rather than sell them guns, put more into their roles than was necessary. Both are, in the midst of continually building plot holes, somewhat believeable, which is a testament to the acting chops of both actors. The supporting cast, however, falls in line with the material, offering portrayals that are either excrutiatingly over the top or so bland that they might as well have not even been in the movie.

If you want an action movie with frantic editing and a disposable plot with John Goodman, Speed Racer was a hundred times more entertaining than Death Sentence. If you want a thriller with Kevin Bacon, he's done quite a few over the years, most of which are probably more thrilling and engaging than Death Sentence. If you want a creepy movie directed by James Wan (not exactly sure why you would), just check out Saw. Whatever you do, don't watch Death Sentence unless you're either a masochist or are easily entertained by horrible movies.

Rating: 2/10