Veronica Mars: The Movie - Reviews #187

Veronica Mars (Rob Thomas, 2014)



*NO REAL SPOILERS, BUT IF YOU'RE A FAN, BEST TO GO IN BLIND*

She's back!

The ballsy, whipsmart heroine of this iconic '00s teen noir series finally returns, thanks to the determination of creator Rob Thomas, and the cheque books of some 91,000 fans (me included).

For the uninitiated, Veronica Mars was one of the defining shows of the last decade, and certainly my favourite, creating a Hammett-style hero who just happened to be a teenage girl, and mixing equal parts mystery, high school drama and absurdly sharp comic writing. If you're wondering why some of us continue to root for that blonde girl with the distinctive schnozzola as she endures yet another dodgy romcom (including the other school reunion flick with Jamie Lee Curtis, the bowels of hell's You Again), then this is your answer - she's Kristen Bell, and she's cool as flip.

The show lasted just two spellbinding seasons in its true form before its poor ratings caught up with it. The third was a botch job that provided many memorable moments but smelt of compromise. The pilot for a divergent fourth was never picked up. There was talk of a novel or a comic book, before all went quiet. Then one day a Kickstarter page appeared...

The film picks up nine years after Season 3, with law graduate Veronica tempted out of retirement when her ex-boyfriend Logan (Jason Dohring, flexing that sad smile once more) is suspected of murdering his pop star girlfriend. He thinks an obsessive fan might be responsible, but her alibi isn't letting in much air.

Thomas, who directed as well as co-scripting with Diane Ruggiero, struggles to find his footing a little for the first half hour: his script inevitably exposition-heavy and overly compacted, needing stakes high enough to justify Warner Bros' backing, but having just 100 minutes to tell its tale.

But as it unfolds, toying with stock series tropes, dropping loving in-jokes and breathing life back into its strong, combustible human relationships, you see that it's doing everything right by its characters, right the way through to a simply stunning pay-off. The best evidence I can give? Boring old Piz is now likeable: a wry, smart and self-aware young man, rather than an interloping wet blanket with bad hair. Certainly the packed screening I was in seemed to go for the film completely, from the playful theme songs at the kick-off to the real thing over the end credits.

The performances are just a treat, Bell effortlessly recapturing Veronica's inimitable combo of bad-assery and off-kilter sentiment, Dohring slipping back into Logan's pec-boobs and sardonic asides (but where's his cool necklace?) and Rico Colantino giving the whole enterprise that lovely Keith Martian warmth. The clear affection that these actors have for their creations, abandoned seven years ago, extends right across the cast, to Mac (ace hair), Wallace (love that file gag) and Weevil, whose journey to respectability mirrors Veronica's own. Dick Casablancas is basically now just comic relief writ large, and who could object?

There are some things that maybe don't work (James Franco's cameo is funny but utterly incongruous) and others that certainly don't, including a mundane supporting performance from Martin Starr (one of *four* Freaks & Geeks alumni, including Percy Daggs III), and a smattering of clunky lines that would doubtless have been ironed out with a longer shooting schedule. Truth be told, the mystery itself is only middling, squashed into this shorter format instead of playing out over 22 shows.

The things that matter, though, it gets right: Veronica coming to terms with her past and herself - negotiating the ties that fray but never break, and facing the part of her personality that has lain dormant for seven years. Increasingly, those choices are presented in the most invigorating, viscerally exciting way, with Thomas all over his show's singular mythology in a way that should satiate even the most hard to please fans.

Is it objectively a very good film? How can I be objective? She's back. (3)

See also: Dohring also went to a school reunion - and tried to solve a mystery - whilst Scouting for Sonny. I'm sure I've reviewed it somewhere. Link to follow. Brief reviews of Veronica Mars Seasons 1 to 3 are via that link just there.

The Fighter, Natalie Portman and a man repeatedly saying "Ravi" - Reviews #89

The Fighter (David O. Russell, 2010) - Conventional, sometimes muddled, but very entertaining and well-acted boxing drama about fighter Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) taking a last crack at the big time, as his brother (Christian Bale) just takes a load of crack. I'm a big fan of Wahlberg, but here he's blown off the screen by a trio of supporting players who are given far more interesting roles: Amy Adams, as the tough college dropout with whom he falls in love, Melissa Leo as his ferocious chain-smoking mother and - best of all - Bale as the self-destructive dreamer who once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. It's not up there with remarkable boxing movies like Body and Soul and Raging Bull - or even Champion - but it's the right mix of slick and gritty: the powerful mockumentary inserts underlining the most remarkable fact of all - that it's all based on a true story. (3)

***



*MINOR SPOILERS*
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) - A ballerina, caught in a love triangle, loses her mind as she takes on an impossible role. Yes, it's The Red Shoes II, with Aronofsky spinning the dance film into psychological thriller and body horror territory, as Natalie Portman's driven, frigid perfectionist begins to fall apart, both mentally and around the fingernails. Portman is excellent in the lead, Barbara Hershey works wonders with a cliched part as her mother and the whole piece is a triumph of directorial invention - vivid visuals and eerie soundscapes combining to chilling effect in fragments of black fantasy - but it's all to service a story that's a bit old hat and difficult to engage with. Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel (who can only act in French) offer a whole lot of nothing in support. Having seen many '30s musicals, I'm sure putting on a show used to be a lot more fun. (3)

***



The Distinguished Gentleman (Jonathan Lynn, 1992) - Underrated comedy that drops Murphy's familiar, wonderful, on-the-make persona into that old chestnut about a first-time congressman inspired by a sexy wumon to expose corruption, a story first filmed in 1932 as Washington Merry-Go-Round and popularised seven years later in Mr Smith Goes to Washington. It's predictable, then - and not nearly as biting as it could be - but great fun, with a handful of laugh-out-loud moments: the speech to the poultry moguls, the "she got her shoe back" gag and a scene where Murphy poses as a member of the NAACP. Indeed, most of his impressions get a run out at one stage or another. Lynn, who directed and shared writing duties here, was the co-creator of Yes, Minister, but had by this stage undergone a subtlety bypass, as evidenced by his revelling in the name 'Dick' and allowing Murphy to spout off about "homos" and keep threatening to kick people's ass. And, yes, while the impressive-looking supporting cast does include a nice bit from James Garner as a randy congressman, the star is really the whole show. But that's fine by me; at this stage Murphy was still firing on most cylinders - even if he's not quite another Jimmy Stewart. Or a Lee Tracy. (3)

***



*BIG SPOILERS*
Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010) - Michelle Williams, Moaning Myrtle and Nina from Bored to Death head off the beaten track in this incredibly ambitious, halfway-successful attempt to make an uber-realistic wagon train Western, which then compromises that raison d'etre with a weird, ambiguous ending. The photography is full of wonderfully-composed images: scorched earth, white skies and muddied faces. The land itself is the most striking character, which is a good thing, as only a couple of the others are really fleshed out. The ever-exciting Michelle Williams is good as an individualistic, compassionate frontierswoman, and Bruce Greenwood does quite well as the grizzled old racist of the title, who could be heading for a lynching if he can't lead the gang to water. Paul Dano is oddly crap in support - he's done very little of note since that astonishing turn in There Will Be Blood. This genre effort, shot in the Academy ratio of pre-1953 oaters, is too distinctive and original to dismiss completely, but too muted - and sometimes too tedious - to be fully embraced. John Ford did a similar thing a whole lot better with the peerless Wagon Master. (2.5)

***



*MORE BIG SPOILERS*
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008) - "Aaaauuuuuunnnnnnggggggh." Clint gets in a lot of good-quality growling in this simplistic but effective message movie about a bitter, bigoted old widower - whose worldview was shaped by the Korean War - bonding with the Hmong-folk next door. The ending cleverly and attractively inverts the Dirty Harry/Unforgiven fascist bloodbath pay-off, though the supporting cast is pretty wooden. (2.5)

***



*ONE INSTANCE OF SWEARING*
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese, 2010) - Oddly repetitive, annoying documentary about the Pretentious Beatle, who seems to have only written three great songs, all of them in 1968-9. Dishearteningly, Scorsese appears to have forgotten how to assemble a musical biopic in the five years since the remarkable No Direction Home, chasing passing leads with the enthusiasm and negligible attention span of a toddler: the Beatles are in Hamburg, then they're doing Sgt Pepper, then they've split up. If you don't already know the back-story, you're going to be stumped. The rest of it is all "Ravi" ... "mantra" ... "spiritualism" and Shankar twatting about on a sitar, which quickly palls. (2)