Dog-gone Powerful

Ever since she burst onto the cinematic scene with The Piano in 1993, Jane Campion has dealt with toxic males and their negative effect on women, though usually with the women finding ways to overcome that toxicity. Ada, the silent mail-order wife in The Piano, may be brutally maimed by her husband before being cast aside, but she still finds a way to rise from those depths. The betrayed protagonist in The Portrait of a Lady manages to extricate herself from those who betrayed her. In the fierce pas de deux, Holy Smoke, a deprogrammer tries to break a young woman whose family believes she’s been caught up in a cult, only to have the woman turn the tables of the deprogrammer. While she’s only done a handful of movies, usually serving as both director and screenwriter, they are all sharply honed and memorable. The break between her last film, Bright Star, and her latest film was 12 long years, though several of those years were taken up producing the powerful mystery series Top of the Lake, filmed in her native New Zealand.

Now Campion is back with The Power of the Dog. Sometimes when there’s a long layoff, the movie delivered may be a pale copy of previous work. Instead, Campion has made the most powerful film of her career, attested to by its receiving 12 Oscar nominations, the most of any film of 2021. She’s also taken aim at a much larger target – the American West mythos of masculinity – and has hit that target dead center.

Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) runs a large ranch in Montana with the help of his brother George (Jessie Plemons). It’s 1925, and George is as likely to travel by Model T Ford as by saddling up a horse. Phil, though, embraces the ethos of the West with a virulence and volatility that overwhelms all in his sphere. Quiet and honorable George is often the target of Phil’s barbs, though from long experience he sloughs them off. While on a stop-off during a cattle drive, George meets Rose Gordon (Kristen Dunst), who runs an inn. Rose is the widow of a doctor who’d committed suicide, and she’s helped at the inn by her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is also studying to become a doctor himself. Peter is a quiet, self-contained young man who appears to be too delicate for the world in which he moves. One of the first things we see him do is create beautiful paper flowers to decorate the inn’s dining tables. Phil uses one to light a cigarette.

George marries Rose and moves her back to the ranch, while Peter is able to attend college to pursue his studies, thanks to George’s money. Phil treats Rose like a foreigner invading his territory, brutally demeaning her in multiple ways. Yet we learn there’s more to Phil, who’d had a classical education back east before he dove fully into his western persona. Phil’s constant belittling leads Rose to drown her feelings in whiskey. When Peter comes to spend the summer at the ranch, Phil finds the perfect way to destroy Rose – take her son away from her and change Peter into a version of himself.

The Power of the Dog is a film that seethes with the intensity of the characters, with underlying tension in every scene. It is a revelatory performance by Cumberbatch, winding through scenes like a rattlesnake ready to strike. Yet Campion also peels back Phil’s exterior, revealing a sensitivity that’s been almost crushed by his choice of personality. Plemons effectively plays the other Western stereotype, the strong, silent type, though he can’t protect Rose as Phil grinds away at her soul. The role gives Dunst a chance to shine in a way she couldn’t for years. (Interestingly, Plemons and Dunst have been in a long-term relationship in real life.) Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Peter is the epitome of the old phrase, “Still waters run deep.” While Phil and the ranch hands laugh at Peter as he walks around in stiff new jeans and a pristine western hat, he has no trouble gently capturing a rabbit, then dissecting it for practice. Smit-McPhee had begun as a child actor, though in roles you wouldn’t expect such as walking The Road with Viggo Mortensen or befriending a child vampire in Let Me In. He continued to work throughout his teens and early twenties, including playing Nightcrawler in the most recent X-Men films. With The Power of the Dog, he’s staked his claim to being a powerful adult actor in the vein of Christian Bale and his costar Cumberbatch.

The title is taken from a Bible verse, Psalms 22:20 in the King James Version: Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. It’s an open question, though, right up to a devastating final twist, who needs to be saved from the power of the dog. Campion has crafted a harsh, rough film that at first seems to grab you by the throat. But you’ll find that it keeps hold of your soul long after the credits have rolled.

Cruise Up, Cruise Down, Cruise All Around…

Disney has long had an incestuous relation with its intellectual properties, taking what they already owned and repurposing it for a new generation. As a kid I was moved to tears by the live-action animal story, The Incredible Journey. In the 1990s they redid the story adding snarky dialog for the animals and released Homeward Bound, ruining my childhood. Recently their canon of animate films became fodder for CGI-heavy live action versions that have made a mint in profits – Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, etc. And then there’s the theme park. From the day Disneyland opened they’ve had rides based on their movies, like the Nautilus submarine, the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, and it’s a successful pattern that other theme parks follow. Disney, though, also reversed the flow, using rides as the basis for movies like The Haunted Mansion and the billion-dollar franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean. (I’m just grateful they never inflicted “It’s A Small World” on movie patrons.)

One ride that appeared immune to a big screen adaptation is “Jungle Cruise.” It’s always been the lamest ride at Disneyland, but it was fun because it celebrated its lameness with guides whose patter was more suitable for borsch-belt comedians of the 1950s. But as Sean Connery’s Bond once advised us, never say never again. Disney has taken their kitschy ride, grafted it onto an adventure story suitable for Indiana Jones, and released it in theaters and on their streaming service. The crazy thing is, it works.

In 1916, in the middle of the Great War, MacGregor Houghton (Jack Whitehall) addresses a scientific society in London about research his sister Lily (Emily Blunt) has done on a legendary tree hidden in the Amazon rainforest called the Tears of the Moon. The blossoms of the tree are said to have amazing healing powers, which could make a difference in the war effort. The address is a diversion, allowing Lily to sneak into the archives of the society in search of an arrowhead found by an earlier explorer that may hold the secret to finding the tree. The arrowhead had been stolen from an indigenous tribe by a 16^th Century conquistador, Aguirre (Edgar Ramirez), and his soldiers. Legend has it that they were cursed by the tribe so they would never die but could never leave the environs of the river. Lily manages to get the arrowhead just before the society’s archivist is to give it to Count Joachim (Jessie Plemons), who wants the Tears of the Moon for the same reason as Lily, only for the other side.

Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) runs an independent tour boat for short trips into the jungle, enlivened by fake dangers and a running dialog filled with horrible jokes, such as “I had a girlfriend who was cross-eyed, but we broke up – we couldn’t see eye to eye – and I think she was seeing someone on the side.” Frank is in debt to Nilo (Paul Giamatti), who owns all the other tour boats in the town. When Lily and MacGregor arrive, mounting an expedition to find the tree, it looks to Frank like Lily’s deep pockets will be the answer to his money problems. Then Count Joachim arrives, traveling in his personal U-boat. Frank and the Houghtons barely get out of town, heading into the jungle. Joachim finds an ally in his quest for the tree: Aguirre, who’s been trapped with his men in a cave, unable to reach the river, unable to die.

As is common with movies like this, five different writers worked on the base screen story and then turned it into a screenplay, including Michael Green (Logan, Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express) and the team of Glen Ficarra and John Requa (Bad Santa, Smallfoot). They manage to string together a series of set pieces that run at breakneck speed, keeping the plot flowing. Yet they also manage some twists that do take you by surprise.

One bone to pick, though. The story is about heading upriver to the depths of the jungle, but they have to shoot rapids and almost go over a waterfall. You would only face those going downstream, not up. Granted, scenes of portaging to get around those obstacles would have been deathly boring, but I notice things like that. (The most flagrant example is in an old Geena Davis/Samuel L. Jackson flick, The Long Kiss Goodnight, where the climax happens on an international bridge between Canada and the US near Niagara Falls, and the filmmakers get the countries reversed.)

But that’s a minor quibble. Director Jaume Collet-Serra has shown a sure hand with action and building tension in the past, having done the tense Blake Lively killer-shark movie, The Shallows, and four (!) of Liam Neeson’s post-Taken thrillers (The Commuter, Non-Stop, Run All Night and Unknown). He’s also the director of Johnson’s entrance into the DC Universe, Black Adam. Collet-Serra knows to play the action straight, but push it up just a notch so it’s just enough over the top to be fun.

This isn’t art, and you probably won’t think of it much after you leave the theater or log off Disney+, but while you’re watching it, you’ll be laughing even as you feel a rush of adrenalin. Not a bad way to spend a smidge over two hours.

The Quiet Man

Adam McKay has a strong pedigree in comedy, having worked with the Second City Improv Company in Chicago and made short films for Saturday Night Live in the 1990s. He helped found the “Upright Citizen’s Brigade” along with the webcast “Funny or Die.” In partnership with Will Ferrell, he wrote and directed Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Stepbrothers and The Other Guys, producing the last three as well. In 2012, he continued his work with Ferrell by producing and collaborating on the story for The Campaign, directed by Jay Roach, which fit Ferrell’s slapstick style but also had a true edge of political commentary. Three years later, he won the Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Oscar and was nominated for Best Director for “The Big Short.” You usually don’t think of comedy and financial crisis together, but McKay tapped into the true outlandishness of the sub-prime mortgage debacle.

Now McKay has brought his off-kilter view to the bio-pic. Vice tells the story of Dick Cheney, a man for whom the exercise of power was more thrilling than fame, and who has had a huge impact on this country from essentially behind the scenes. Vice shines a spotlight on a man who preferred the shadows, and it gives Christian Bale the chance to shine in an absolutely stunning portrayal.

The film begins at the nadir of Cheney’s life, after he was kicked out of Yale for poor grades aggravated by drunkenness and brawling. Back home in Wyoming, he continued his profligate ways, running afoul of the law until his fiancée, Lynne (Amy Adams), told him he could either clean himself up or she’d wash her hands of him. He made the change in his behavior, but what set him on the path to success was an internship at the US Capitol, where he went to work for a young congressman from Illinois named Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell).

Essentially Cheney’s life breaks down into two acts, with the first act working with Rumsfeld in the Nixon White House (where he meets an operative named Roger Ailes who has the idea of creating a conservative TV news network to counter the big three broadcast networks), a brief time in exile that saved both Rumsfeld and Cheney from involvement in Watergate, followed by being Chief of Staff for Ford. With Carter’s win, he returned to Wyoming and became its lone congressman for ten years, through the Reagan presidency, before returning to the executive branch as Defense Secretary for Bush 41. Following the loss to Clinton, Cheney became CEO of Halliburton. His story could have ended there, except for a call from George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) offering him the Vice President slot.

That would be a suitable summation for a regular biopic, but McKay looks beneath the surface and highlights how Cheney’s actions changed the course of the country. There’s a telling scene early in the film where Cheney asks Rumsfeld, “What do we believe?” Rumsfeld’s response is to laugh uproariously at his aide’s naivete. Cheney soon learns his way to personal power in Washington, working with people like Antonin Scalia, lawyer David Addington (Don McManus), and John Yoo to put into practice the theory that the president, as the chief executive, can do no crime. Cheney’s tight-knit family life is also examined, including the moment his daughter Mary (Allison Pill) comes out to her parents – something that causes a riff when their older daughter Liz (Lily Rabe) runs for the Senate in Wyoming.

McKay’s style is sharp and quick, with narration provided by a regular joe (played by Jesse Plemons) who has a close relationship to Cheney that’s revealed later. You don’t have the bizarre but brilliant set pieces McKay used in The Big Short, like Margot Robbie in a bath explaining sub-prime mortgages, but he manages to give a basic primer of GOP politics over the past 40 years, and brings back to the fore items that were forgotten in the crush of ongoing history, such as the millions of emails “lost” by the Bush 43 Administration because of using a Republican National Committee server to circumvent archiving laws.

Central to the movie is Christian Bale sliding into the skin of Cheney so he becomes the heavy-set gray man from Wyoming rather than a svelte, dark-haired lad from Wales. McKay would often have his actors ad-lib scenes, requiring Bale to dig deeper and deeper into Cheney’s history and character to be ready on the set. It is a brilliant performance, and one that puts him ahead in the Best Actor Oscar race thanks to his win in the Golden Globes. Just as powerful is Amy Adams’ performance as Lynne. Carell shines as Rumsfeld, and Sam Rockwell notches another memorable performance as George W. Bush.

Filmmakers will sometimes begin their movies with a quote, using a device that authors often employ. Rather than find a quote, McKay created his own: “Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest…he strikes.” I doubt he could have found a quote that better sums up the man he reveals on the screen.

There is a tag after the initial credits, that essentially brings us up to the present day. Don’t miss it.