Watching Mel Gibson as a loving father gone raging madman in Martin Campbell’s (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) 2010 Edge of Darkness doesn’t seem as much a stretch of the imagination as it might have seemed a few years ago. In his first starring role since 2002’s Signs, Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a detective of the Boston Police Department and a single father of one. After Craven witnesses the killing of his 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), murdered on the steps of his own by a drive-by shooter, he becomes obsessed with finding out who killed his daughter and, more importantly, why. This movie was a modest success both with critics and with audiences. Still, it made over $100 million less than the 2008 Liam Neeson movie Taken, which is similar in plot but delivers the goods and has you rooting for Neeson. This is more than you can say for Gibson’s character.
Category Archives: Drama
Love & Other Drugs (2010)
The 2010’s Love & and Other Drugs trailer makes it seem like the movie is a romantic comedy. In actuality, that could not be further from the truth. While there is quite a bit of romance and lots and lots of humor, the movie is far more profound and dramatic than I could have imagined. No purely romantic comedy can take you through the range of emotions that Love & Other Drugs will take you through. This movie slipped under the radar, earning just $32 million at the box office. Referred to more as “that movie that has Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler, Brothers) and Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married, Interstellar) naked the whole time,” it was more than it was anything else. I saw the movie for two reasons. The first was that I was intrigued by the buzz surrounding this movie’s release date.
A Little Trip to Heaven (2005)
Long before he was turning heads and receiving Oscar nominations for dismantling bombs in Iraq (The Hurt Locker) or playing Ben Affleck’s trigger-happy sidekick (The Town), Jeremy Renner was honing his craft with character roles alongside some of Hollywood’s most elite. Among these include roles with Charlize Theron (North Country), Brad Pitt (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), and Forest Whitaker in 2005’s A Little Trip to Heaven.
Into The Wild (2007)
The Sean Penn (The Crossing Guard, The Pledge) directed Into the Wild had all the promise of a movie that could have lived in the lives of high school students around the country for years to come. The novel of the same name, penned by Jon Krakauer, is part of the high school curriculum in many school systems around the country. The movie is rated R. I’ve seen it twice. Had a couple of scenes been toned down, the movie could have easily garnered a PG-13 rating, thus allowing it to be viewed in English class after reading the book. I don’t know if Penn thought about this when making the movie and, if he did, if he even cared. It is, however, food for thought.
Up In The Air (2009)
The trailers for Jason Retitman’s (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) 2009 heavy-hitting dramedy Up In The Air make it seem like any corny romance, comedy, drama movie blend we’ve seen 100 times before. The trailer made me wonder what George Clooney (Michael Clayton, Oceans 11) was thinking about agreeing to make what I perceived as One Fine Day Part II. This movie had all the makings for a character so disconnected from the world, only to realize three-quarters of the way through that what they thought they never needed was what they felt they needed the most.