Molly's Game Review

There are certain creative people that just hit us right between the eyes. They speak to us. While not everything that a specific creative person does appeals to that person’s fans, generally speaking, the fans are more geared to enjoy the work that person creates. For some people, it may be painting, and others may be spoken to by architecture, writing, sculpture, directing, acting, the list goes on.

    For most people of my generation, Steven Spielberg is very much a director like that. Maybe Empire of the Sun and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were not in your wheelhouse, but you cant imagine a world without ET, Jurassic Park, and Schindler’s List. I currently work with someone who feels that everything that Quentin Tarantino touches is gold. I am a huge fan of both Spielberg and Tarantino, but they each have certain projects that they have been connected to that speak to me more than others.

   Spielberg and Hitchcock are two of my personal creative idols. I would also put Cameron Crowe, John Sayles, and Rob Thomas (not the musician) also very high on my list. But, the talent that speaks to me first and foremost is writing. As a book author, Stephen King tops my list. But the current writing talent who creates both film and television who speaks to me most is Aaron Sorkin.

   I was on my mission in France when A Few Good Men came out, but it was one of the first films that I saw when I got home and I loved it! A courtroom drama with such amazing, crackling dialogue is definitely something I can appreciate!

   I didn’t know this until a couple of years ago, but I actually heard Sorkin dialogue on my first day back in theaters after my mission. Since A Few Good Men was so widely loved, for a few years, Sorkin worked as a script doctor on many huge hit films in the mid ‘90’s and, looking back on it, it is quite obvious to hear Sorkin dialogue in Spielberg’s aforementioned Jurassic Park. If you’re a Sorkin fan, think about it. Most everything out of Goldblum’s mouth was probably reworked by Sorkin in some way.

   Aaron Sorkin went on to write the film The American President (the less said about Malice the better, except for Baldwin’s ‘I am God’ speech) and Michael Douglas’ blistering speech at the end of that film made me take notice of who wrote that film.

   I tuned into the TV show SportsNight for 2 reasons- it was written by the guy who wrote The American President and it was right after Michael J Fox’s show Spin City, so I only had to elongate the taping time to catch SportsNight anyway. So I did. Even though I didn’t (and still don’t) care about sports. But ABC’s advertising called SportsNight a “Tv show about sports the same way that Charlie’s Angels was about law enforcement”. Even though it took 22 minutes for Casey McCall to come out of his funk from his recent divorce to do a cold tease about their upcoming show, I was basically a goner after a studio technician was asked to ensure that Helsinki was in Sweden and Dan Rydell responded with, “Yea, we think there’s a pretty good chance!” But, especially after SportsNight’s second episode where Dan had to give an on-air apology about an interview he gave and he ended up apologizing to his dead brother for mistakes made in his past, that I realized that Sorkin could tackle issues, comedy, and drama in even measure.

   Sorkin would go on to write 2 seasons of SportsNight, the first 4 seasons of The West Wing, 1 season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (and, while still having its share of problems, a show I feel is much better than 30 Rock), 3 seasons of The Newsroom (whose opening scene is a constant Facebook meme), along with the scripts for Charlie Wilson’s War, Bulworth, he co-scripted Moneyball, wrote Steve Jobs (the Michael Fassbender version NOT the Ashton Kutcher version), and The Social Network (whose opening scene of dropping you right into the middle of an argument and expecting you to keep up is still my favorite thing ever written for the screen).

   By this point of me explaining my adoration for all things Sorkin, you will pretty much be able to tell that I went into Molly’s Game extremely biased and also, if it will be your cup of tea or not.

Molly’s Game is based on the true story of Molly Bloom who, after flaming out in grand style during the final qualifying mogul skiing run before  the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, ends up going to Los Angeles, working for a real estate broker and running that broker’s weekly poker games. In real life, these games included such stars as Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey McGuire, Todd Phillips, A-Rod, and many more. Molly ended up taking over this game, and, after leaving Los Angeles and moving to New York, starting up her own game at an even higher price and running the highest priced private poker games in the nation. Until she ran into trouble with the law by crossing a small line and getting into trouble with the Federal Government.

   Molly’s Game, using Sorkin’s trademark back-and-forth style starts his film with the ski trial, then with Molly getting arrested, then flashbacks to explain how she got where she was, and continuing a forward motion story of Molly with her lawyer and how she is trying to stay out of prison while keeping her dignity. Sorkin (also directing for his first time) jumps out of the gate and never slows down. He expects you to keep up for the entire 2 hour and 20 minute runtime.

 Sorkin is known for using very fast paced dialogue to explain hard to explain things in a very compact way, but also while using high aptitude language. In order to speak Sorkinese, an actor has to be of a very high caliber to ensure that the words placed in their mouths come out flowing instead of tripping and dribbling. This is why I have had to rethink my initial impressions of Matthew Perry, Jesse Eisenberg, Brad Pitt, and Jonah Hill.

    Luckily, Molly’s Game is lead by Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba. They are high quality actors who feel comfortable with Sorkin’s words in their mouths and it sounds right coming from them. Normally, near the end of a Sorkin script, one character gets to use all the bombast at their disposal to make large declarative statements that sum up the themes of the story. Idris Elba gets that chance here and he does it in a very non-bombastic way, but it works perfectly and gets the point across just as powerfully.

   Chastain is always powerful on screen and solidifies it here. Having read the book written by the real Molly Bloom, Chastain puts the attitude of the real Bloom in her performance and, mixed with Sorkin’s dialogue, gives a, perhaps, career high performance. Elba keeps up with her in every way. His role is more to pull the exposition for the audience out of Molly and he gives a fascinatingly strong, even performance. Where many actors could have blustered their way through it, Elba subtly nudges the audience through the emotions and the case, and gets the quiet moments of power. Chastain’s is the showy role, but Elba’s is the solid rock that she can bounce off.

   As a first time director, it is easy to see that Sorkin studied the people who have directed his previous scripts and used some of their tricks to keep the camera and the forward motion of the picture moving while the dialogue keeps going at a breakneck pace. There are several times where one can see an exact directoral lift from SportsNight’s own poker episode ‘Shoe Money Tonight’. Other times, you can see a camera angle that David Fincher would have used in Social Network. Yet, Sorkin makes it his own and keeps the movie’s pace humming right along. He doesn’t get in his own way. He trusted Chastain and the film’s costume designer to choose clothing that looks expensive and sexy, yet never in a sexualized way. In a year which could be called The Year of the Woman, a very strong female story and performance is guided by a man who trusts the women around him.

   If you are not a Sorkin fan, this film will not change your mind. In fact, to paraphrase Spinal Tap, How much more Sorkin could it be? None. None more Sorkin. But, if you are a fan, or even intrigued a little bit by this story, give it a shot.

   Molly’s Game is as much about poker as SportsNight was about sports and Charlie’s Angels was about law enforcement. Even if you don’t know a straight from a Royal Flush, I would recommend that you give this film a whirl and jump right in.

   Living in St George, this film was only playing for 2 weeks and I only got to see it twice. As of this moment, it is my favorite film of the year 2017. I still have a lot of films that I still need to see from 2017, but I do not see Molly’s Game falling that far down my list, no matter what. I will definitely be watching Molly’s Game many, many more times throughout this year and the rest of my life. But, I am an obsessive Sorkin fan, and that is just part of what I do.

   Molly’s Game is a tour de force of acting and writing, and many times in a film, that’s what captivates me- a character and an actor portraying that character’s emotions through a well written script. There are no explosions in Molly’s Game, and it couldn’t be called an action film by any stretch of the imagination, but it shows you just how breathless words and actors can make an audience.

    Film rating- 10/10

   Movie rating- 10/10

Insidious- The Last Key Review Review

   Horror films are a strange quantity to review. Generally speaking, people like comedies if they make them laugh, dramas if they feel something, and action films if things are kept moving and enough stuff blows up or goes flying through the air- specifically on fire. Horror films, though, people tend to like for a lot of different reasons. Some people want to be creeped out, others want to laugh at how stupid they are, some want to see how bloody and gory they get, and some just want their significant other to hold them just a little bit tighter on the way home from the theater.

   It gets even tougher to review a horror film that is the fourth film in a franchise- especially a franchise about which I have very conflicted feelings.

   The Insidious franchise comes from the mind of Leigh Wannell, who gave us the Saw franchise, and Jason Blum, the producer of such varied micro-budgeted films as Get Out, The Purge, Split, and Jem and the Holograms. It should be noted that Insidious was never meant to be a franchise, but when your $1.5 million budgeted horror film makes a $95 million profit, the studio wants you to keep making them. As such, the four Insidious films have a chronological continuity of films 3, 4 (The Last Key), 1, and 2.

  Since this film bridges films 3 and 1, if you have not seen either of those films, then I would not recommend seeing this one. While The Last Key tells a relatively straight forward story in and of itself, it does not go into details such as what exactly is The Further? How does one get to The Further? Who is Dalton? Who is Quinn? Who are any of these characters? Why does a red door matter? And if none of this makes any sense to you, then Insidious The Last Key is not a film for you.

   The sequel to the prequel, this film goes back in time and starts with, and then intermingles, the childhood of current psychic Elise Rainier with a case that is presently taking place at the house where she was raised. We find out why Tucker and Specs wear the outfits they wear and get in on an early case with Elise and her sidekicks.

   Before getting deeper into this film, it must be said that I loved the original Insidious. It reinvented the genre and created an immense amount of tension and scares and creepiness that was all done in a way that looked so easy (and most of the effects and scares were done in a very inventive yet physically simple way which could technically be done by any film student) but needs a real pro of storytelling and directing to be able to pull it off. The strong alpha-female mother character played by Rose Byrne who would do anything to protect and get her son back brought a strong emotional kick to the proceedings that created a real backbone for the story. Byrne and her husband, played by Patrick Wilson,  get a psychic (Lin Shaye) who helped Wilson’s character with some disturbing things when he was younger.

   Then came Insidious Chapter 2 which, in my opinion, turned Byrne’s character into a damsel in distress a few too many times and took away her strength and decision making capabilities, and let Shaye’s psychic (who is still an intriguing character) do the saving of the family.

   For Insidious 3, like I said, we jumped back several years and Shaye’s psychic character is helping a young motherless girl who is stuck in a cast at home, being terrorized by an entity in the building which may be affecting her friends as well.

    In The Last Key, we now go back and try to explain how all these films connect in a way that isn’t just through Lin Shaye’s character while making the film solely about her.

   And this is both a very good and a very bad thing.

   Lin Shaye, as Elise Rainier, is easily the best part of this film. She immediately gains your empathy and is very likeable right off the bat. When she is frightened, you are right there with her, when she feels sad, or overwhelmed, or mildly amused, you feel it, too. Unfortunately, this is not a one person show.

   Horror films almost always need at least a bit of humor injected into the runtime so that a little pressure can be released before the next big scare. The humor used in this film feels weak and forced and the characters to whom it is given do not perform it well and the humor is more cringe-inducing and seems like it comes from a Saturday Night Live sketch mocking the Insidious films instead of from an Insidious film. Another couple of actors also seem to be in that same SNL sketch.

   The scares in the original Insidious film were all very low tech, but here, the need for special effects and CGI, for me, lessened the terror in the film. While some of the shots are indeed, very creepy, after the camera cut from the shot, it didn’t stay with me.

   My problem with this film comes purely down to the script and the direction. Needing to connect all of these films with something other than the psychic Elise Rainier also felt like more of a studio need for another film in the franchise than a plot or story need to wrap things up. Is the main plot idea a bad one? Not at all. In fact, in and of itself, if it could have just told the story of Elise as a child and how it affected her work in modern day, I think it would have been a solid entry, but needing to tie everything together and lace it with some badly timed and written humor creates more of a feeling of ‘meh’ then anything else. Also, several of the performances come across as ham handed, over the top, and don’t fit emotionally. There is also an over-reliance on musical stinging jump scares. If a horror film has nothing else in its playbook, it has almost nothing, and they go to this well a few too many times, instead of trying to create a truly scary scene.

   Yet, with all of these problems, I would also be lying if I said that certain scenes didn’t work on an emotional or creepy level. They do. Special mention must be made for many of the actresses in the film, not just Lin Shaye, who do more for this film than they have any right to do. Even the emotionally cathartic resolutions all hit home for me when, purely by the film and script alone, they didn’t earn it. It’s just that the good is on screen with the bad at the exact same time and it makes the viewing a very jarring one, and not in the ways the filmmakers intended, I am sure.

   If you are a fan of these films, I would definitely say to go see it- not that me telling you not to see it would really keep you away. If you have always been interested in these films, but have yet to see any of them, start with the first one. If you see every horror film that comes out, you will have seen much better and also much worse.

For me in rating films, a film rating is more of a critical rating and the movie rating is more of an audience type of rating.

Insidious The Last Key-

Film Rating- 3

Movie rating- 5