Watchmen

Who will stay awake to watch the Watchmen? Clocking in at a staggering 2 hours and 43 minutes, Watchmen is about as long as last year's The Dark Knight . What made the time pass for The Dark Knight, however, was the quality of the work produced. Watching Watchmen will remind you of a different picture altogether: 9 1/2 Weeks. It's not all bad. You can definitely see the bones of a good story somewhere in the tangled mess served up by Director Zach Snyder. If you haven't read the book, you'll want to after seeing the movie. Even if it's just to see what the Hell the hype was really all about. And Jackie Earle Haley gives one hell of a performance as Rorschach. But beyond that, Watchman has serious problems. So, where to begin? This is the kind of movie where spoilers are unforgivable, so I'll be circumspect. Early on, we learn that Richard Nixon eliminated term limits, used some interesting tactics and weapons to win the Vietnam War, and is still President in 1985. Ten years earlier, he decreed all masked heroes be banned, putting out of work a whole network of Superfriends known as the Minutemen, and later, the Watchmen. These guys are still kicking around; some life in obscurity, others wrote books about their experiences, while others still use their former identities as platforms for greater projects. Only one guy, Rorschach, remains a masked vigilante. The film itself opens with the death of one of these characters, The Comedian. A mysterious figure breaks into his apartment and tosses him out a window. Who would do this? Is this a robbery gone awry, or a more menacing signal to the other Watchmen? Rorschach figures on the latter, and decides to recruit the others to find the killer. From there, the plot is best left discovered by the viewer. And if they can discover it, they deserve a prize. For a three-hour movie, things feel awfully rushed. The material Snyder tries to get through could take up a mini-series, which, in the end, probably would have been a better vehicle for this story. Instead, the picture groans from the sheer volume of plot lines and characters crammed into it like an overstuffed suitcase. We get a nice set-up to move things forward: Who killed the Comedian? But that early energy is wasted by an hour and a half of back story for each character. These vignettes and flashbacks go on for until just after the two-hour mark, when Snyder remembers that—oh yeah!—he's got about a thousand loose ends he needs to tie off. And he does so at about 85mph. Watching the final 45 minutes is liable to give you whiplash. There's nothig memorable about the final build-up, and the great reveal for the mystery that drove the story forward? It's given less than two minutes of screen time, explained by a character instead of flowing naturally from the script. The acting, as a whole, is forgettable. Malin Ackerman clocks in another wooden performance as Silk Spectre II. She hasn't shown signs of acting life since her stint as Juna in the highly underrated HBO comedy The Comeback. Billy Crudup is a fine actor, but has to portray Dr. Manhattan, a semi-corporeal being that is more in tune with the matter of the universe than he is humanity itself. So, how do you portray a guy with no emotions? Blankly. Crudup does bring some game to the flashbacks, but otherwise does his job by being as inert as possible. The entire story around Manhattan is confused, and his eventual interplanetary sulk, completely with an unexplained and slightly ridiculous watchworks house, is almost comical. Jefferey Dean Morgan is good as The Comedian, and this would have been a more interesting movie with more of him in it. As it is, however, he's given good but very small scenes to work in. It's time for Morgan to be rescued from the ongoing Hell that is his dead/not dead character on Grey's Anatomy. He clearly has the looks and chops for the big screen. Patrick Wilson is forgettable as Night Owl II. He serves as a nice-guy counterpoint to Rorschach and not much else. he does get to fly a bad-ass Owl-ship-thingamabob, so that's something. But, like with most of the rest of the cast, there's little for him to do, and what he does have to do, he does't do very well. Matthew Goode and Carla Gugino fall into that category as well. The real revelation is Haley, who has a recent Oscar nod for Little Children, but is best remembered as cool kid Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears. Haley infuses Rorschach with a little malice, a big dose of righteousness, and a snarling disposition. The movie was much more watchable any time he was on screen. It's almost as if he and Morgan were the only ones who really picked up on the larger themes of vigilantism, the tyranny of obedience, and fundamentally rotten core of humanity. The film looks great, which is what you'd expect from Snyder, who directed 300, another comic book movie that defied traditional filmmaking. But the spark and energy he brought to 300 are notably absent here. He instead chokes on the sheer size of the story he tries to tell. Critics of 300 often cited the lack of characterization and thinness of the film. Snyder's use of visuals made up the difference in 300, but no amount of gorgeous cinematography and shot framing can save the bad acting and a disjointed screenplay here. Maybe a fanboy can fill in the holes and see a coherent picture, but everyone else should wait to rent Watchmen, or skip it altogether.

Handicapping the Oscars: Final pass

I've spent the better part of the month catching up on the nominated films, and re-watching one or two more to get a better bearing on tomorrow night's show. Here is my revised list, with each category ranked in my order of preference:

Best picture

1. “Milk”
   
2. “Slumdog Millionaire”
   
3. “Frost/Nixon”
   
4. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
   
5. “The Reader”
   

I finally got to see Benjamin Button on Valentine's Day, and was completely underwhelmed. It wasn't a bad movie, but there was no life to this story about a individual's life. It just lay there on the screen. It will win a slew of technical awards, and some artistic awards, like Cinmatography, but I list it fourth of five in the category.

Milk still gets my nod, because it was the best made picture, the story was so compelling, and the overall acting job by the cast was superb. It is also Gus Van Sant's best movie in years, combining his ability to tell a story with his more avante garde tendencies as a filmmaker. Slumdog is the favorite heading in, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a Best Picture/Best Director split.

Best Actor

1. Sean Penn in “Milk”
   
2. Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”
   
3. Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon”
   
4. Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor”
   
5. Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
   

I've seen The Wrestler and the Visitor since my past pass at the Oscars. Rourke really does give an excellent performance as Randy The Ram, and Richard Jenkins' first leading role turned out to be spectacular. This category is studded with four performances worthy of the award. So who wins? I think it actually falls the way if should.

Pitt is out. His work in Benjamin Button is good but not nearly at the level of the other four performances. So we'll slot him fifth.

This was Jenkins' first time out of the box, and despite his excellent performance, he's outshined by actors with a better pedigree in the category. He could be a dark horse, but that's only if there's a split among voters between Pitt and Rourke.

Langella turned Nixon into a Napoleon on Elba in Frost/Nixon, breathing complexity and ambition into the disgraced politician. Any other year, he's a shoo-in favorite. This year, though, he's out of luck. Chris Connelly noted in a recent Bill Simmons podcast that Langella won a Tony for the role, which may make voters view this as a role and perforamnce already rewarded.

So Rourke vs. Penn. Either way is no travesty. I think Penn actually wins or delivering an excellent performance outside of his comfort zone. Rourke's also gone out of his way to say he doesn't care either way, which can be a turnoff to the ever-vain Oscar voters.

Best Actress 

No rankings
Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married” (Did Not See)
Angelina Jolie in “Changeling”(Did Not See)
Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”(Did Not See)
Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
Kate Winslet in “The Reader”

I can't rank my choices here because I haven't seen the Hathaway, Jolie or Leo films. It's too bad.  Of the two I've seen, I still will back Winslet.

Best Supporting Actor

1. Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
   
2. Josh Brolin in “Milk”
   
3. Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”
   
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt”
   
5. Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road” (Did Not See)
   

I re-watched The Dark Knight, and I'm changing my call: Ledger wins, and not just because of his circumstances. He created one of the all-time great movie villains with His Joker. Brolin is deserving, but he'll have another shot soon. I still haven't seen Revolutionary Road, so no comment on Shannon's work.

Best Supporting Actress

1. Viola Davis in “Doubt”
   
2. Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”
   
3. Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
   
4. Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
   
5. Amy Adams in “Doubt”
   

I've now seen all five performances. I'm going to stick with Viola Davis, even though there's so much buzz around Penelope Cruz. Davis wrung more emotion, complexity and depth in her short screen time than any of the other four performances nominated.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a bad film with a few good moments. When will the Boomer critics of the world finally admit that Wody Allen has lost his fastball, and it's never coming back?
And Penelope Cruz did good work with an utterly stereotyped role, but Rebecca Hall did more with her understated role as Vicky.

Marissa Tomei was good in The Wrestler, as was Henson in Benjamin Button, but neither was good enough to catch Davis.

Best Director

1. “Milk”, Gus Van Sant
   
2. “Slumdog Millionaire”, Danny Boyle
   
3. “Frost/Nixon”, Ron Howard
   
4. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, David Fincher
   
5. “The Reader”, Stephen Daldry
   

Seeing Button didn't change my feelings. Van Sant deserves the award, but could very well lose to Boyle without it being robbery. I'll repeat, watch for a split between these movies in the dirctor and best picture categories.

The Wrestler

Yeah, he's that good.

Mickey Rourke gives the performance of a lifetime in The Wrestler. Whether that's enough to rescue the movie from an hour and a half's worth of 10-year-old indie pic conventions is entirely up to the viewer.

Everyone's heard about the performance, but for anyone still uninitiated: Rouke plays Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a broken-down wrestling star working the weekend community center circuit for cash. Clearly past his prime, Randy nonetheless is treated like royalty by the dozens of fans and handful of other performers. It's when he leaves the locker room and returns to the real world that his true, tattered existence comes into focus. This former superstar of the 80's has been locked our of his trailer, so he has to sleep in his van. He doesn't own a phone, so he has to track down the last working pay phone in New Jersey to confirm gigs. He cries to his nebbish, mean-spirited boss for more hours at the supermarket. And he spends his night pining for the love of a stripper (Cassidy, in another strong performance by Marisa Tomei) in a third-rate club. 

Even this tenuous hold on life is wrecked when Randy suffers a heart attack after a particularly brutal hardcore wresting match. Now facing the real prospoect of losing a career he rightfully lost 20 years ago, Randy reaches out to Cassidy, who in turn encourages him to reach out to his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). 

From that set-up, Writer-Director Darren Aronofsky cobbles together a plot based loosely on every indie movie you watched in the 1990's. There's the tearful initial confrontation between Randy and his daughter Stephanie, followed by an inexplicable second meeting, which leads to a tearful reconciliation, followed by a promise and a betrayal, which leads to a tearful falling out. He woos Cassidy, the stripper with a heart of gold, who's trying hard to save up money and get out of the business. They have a meaningful conversation in a bar, which is capped with laments of better times and dancing to a song inappropriate to the mood of the movie, but conveys a happier past for both of them. There's also the steeling of resolve as displayed by Randy's decision to get back in the ring one last time, even though his doctors say it'll kill him. All the old tropes are there, and Aronofsky does nothing to freshen things up.

What works are the performances. Rourke was born to play this part. A victim of his own bad decisions and some tough luck, Rourke brings a real sense of grief for lost opportunity, lost relationships, and lost pride, and is completely open and vulnerable in his scenes with Tomei and Wood. He's probably a shoo-in for the Oscar. Sean Penn and Frank Langella both had excellent performances in Milk and Frost/Nixon, respectively, but they don't have the backstory that Rourke has. That shouldn't be a consideration, but we all know that it is.

Tomei rises to the occasion, creating a parallel to Rourke's wrestler with her aging stripper. Both characters know their time in the flesh market is about up, and both aren't sure how to proceed. Tomei has quietly put together a number of strong performances over the years, and her nomination isn't entirely unfounded, although I don't think she has a real shot at the supporting actress award this year (Viola Davis was just that good in her limited screen time in Doubt). Still, she has the look and sensibility for the role, and does enough against Rourke's animal performance to make her a credible pick.

Evan Rachel Wood, however, is completely overmatched. Playing a disaffected college kid isn't the hardest thing in the world, since disaffected college kids are overdramatic and full of shit. But Wood can't manage even this, and displays either full-on rage or total submission with Rourke. The world is still waiting for the kid in Thirteen to show up again.

Aronofsky does give the wrestling scenes love, too. The shots of Randy's matches and backstage banter have a distinct documentary feel to them, reminiscent of Beyond The Mat. The Ram doesn't seem to be a direct derrivative of any former wrestling great, though he comes across as Macho Man Randy Savage with a little lucha libre style added for effect. Aronofsky captures the backstage and in-ring action well. The few embellishments, like a steroids dealer working so openly in the back room, feel a bit forced, however.

The soundtrack in this movie is great for anyone who was alive and loved hair metal in the 1980's. It's another 90's indie trick to fill the soundtrack with "Hey, I remember that!" music, but there are still a few people out there who are suckers for a good Ratt song. Whether Round and Round and Rourke's stunning work is enough to save the movie from Aronofsky's lack of imagination is unclear. See it in the theater if you are an Oscar completionist or if you love performance above all other film elements. Wait to rent it if story is your bigger concern.

Defiance

What to make of Daniel Craig? He's helmed the successful reboot of the movie industry's most venerated franchise. He's starred in an indie darling. He's done fine supporting work in an Oscar-caliber film . So do we have Steve McQueen 2.0? Or is he just another square-jawed tough that never seems to rise above the material at hand? His movies make money, but it isn't yet clear whether he's smart about the projects he picks or if he's a face that can pack a theater all on its own. 

Craig is good in Defiance, the third of the World War II-tinged movies this Oscar season. He carries a little flame of humanity and conflict behind his eyes, which is all you can ask of a guy with Craig's face. If he does succeed as a star with drawing power, it'll be because he can do more than look rugged and handsome, which he does here.

Beyond Craig, however, there's not so much going on for Defiance. The film's direction and editing turns an incredible true story of hardship and survival into a sloppy action flick that at times has a little soul. There's barely time to register the character's names before they are already taking on the homeless and infirmed in the woods. In the first reel, two brothers, Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael Bielski (Jamie Bell is Billy Elliot fame) come home to find their parents killed by the Germans, discover a third, younger brother, Aron, (George MacKay)  hiding under the floorboards of the house, and head out into the woods, where a fourth , long-lost brother (Craig's Tuvia) tracks them down. The third brother goes wandering off and comes back with a small dentist office's worth of sick and scared Jews who have also fled from the Nazi slaughter in the villages. A decision is made then and there to keep and feed these stragglers.

In short, it's a mess. Tuvia's return is completely unexplained until much later in the film, and even then there's no confirmation; just hints at a tragic separation. The leadership of Tuvia and Zus is just assumed by everyone else in the forest. The entire first act is rushed and the film suffers for it. Tuvia's return to town to kill his parents' killers carries no emotional heft. His immediate disapproval of Zus' demands to form raiding parties comes immediately after the killings. Had the previous scene been given room to breathe, Tuvia's disapproval at more violence would have made more sense.

The raids do nothing but lead to camp members dying, and to increased attention by the Germans. The camp is forced to uproot and move deeper into the forest. Now come the Belarusian resistance fighters, who are none to pleased to find milk thieves and hungry, sick folk as their new neighbors in the metropolis-like forest. An uneasy peace is made.

As time passes, the hot-headed Zus becomes more and more disenchanted with the passive existence of the camp and the heavy-handed rule of his brother. He and other able-bodied men walk off and join the resistance fighters. The schism, some hour into the movie, finally gives a narrative drive to the project. Is it cowardice to hide in the forest? Is it worth fighting with allies who still hate you and your people? Is survival, in and of itself, the best revenge? To his credit, director Edward Zwick asks difficult questions and does not provide easy answers. The brothers' checkered past is not hidden, and their autocratic tendencies are uncomfortable to watch, even in the service of such great good. If only Zwick had done a better job of presenting the questions.

Schreiber does what he usually does: Lend structure and support with strong character work. He delivers Zus as a ill-tempered man who strives to meet his noble goals with less-than-noble tactics. His scenes with Craig and Ball carry the distinct flavor of a brother who wants, but doesn't always get, his way.

The film does not hide the Jewishness of the characters. Beaten down, starving and forced to live in makeshift cabins in the woods, the camp members still retain their cultural integrity. There's a wedding, complete with Chuppah and Horah . Camp elder Shamon Haretz (Allan Corduner) teaches the Talmud to the children. The scenes give the camp a sense of place and camaraderie, so the inevitable fissions and splintering takes on the weight of true separation. 

It also justifies a lot of the symbolism in the camp's second and final flight. After losing a few too many soldiers to the forest dwellers, the Germans send a full company to find and eradicate the camp. Tuvia leads the camp's feeling members to the edge of the forest, where they are confronted with miles of bog and a river. Tuvia has become Moses leading his people out of bondage and toward freedom. Shamon, now too sick, is carried at shoulder-height on a stretcher like the bones of Joseph coming out of Egypt.

This being Hollywood, of course, it isn't the promised land on the other side of the water. In the end, there's a bit too much Hollywood in the film, which drowns out the Bielski Brothers' story. Maybe Zwick was worried about the film's length, which was already over two hours, but a little more patience at the beginning would have made the film worthy of the story it tells. Instead, wait to rent Defiance.

Doubt

Doubt is a movie that succeeds despite a number of problems. Strong performances, smart pacing and strong tone help move the film past it's initial shortcomings and delivers a smart, taught drama.

Doubt starts with an 0-2 count. The film, of course, is based on a play by John Patrick Shanley, and it does not seem that there was a lot of work done to smooth out the emotions for the larger presentation. Also, the subject matter seems slightly dated; This was a movie that feels like it should have been made in 2003. It must have been extremely timely as a play, but it's right up against it's expiration date in late 2008.

Second, the characters are something out of every Catholic memoir. The twist, though, is that the easy-going priest, tough-as-nails nun, and idealistic new apprentice (here, Amy Adam's Sister James) are usually played for laughs. That was a winning formula for pictures like Heaven Help Us. Shanley plays it for drama.

Despite all these initial dings, Doubt is an engrossing film. Shanley welcomes us into a 1964 Catholic School. The turmoil of in the country is secondary to the turmoil within the Catholic Church itself. This is the time of Vatican II, and the reforms and liberalization of that council are brought alive by Father Brendan Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a young priest who views the stern, scolding manner of the church as hopelessly outdated. Father Flynn likes to talk with the boys of the school, play basketball, and try to present an authority figure who can also be viewed as a friend.

Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) will have none of that; She is the school's principal, and runs the place with an iron Habit. Discipline comes fast and severe in the school. Talking in class is worthy of a trip to her office. She advises the nuns to hang glossy framed pictures of the pope to act as mirrors. That gives the nun the ability to see the students misbehave while writing on the board.

Just how opposed is Sister Aloysius to any type of reform? She hangs pictures of Pope Pius XII, not the then-current Pope Paul VI or predecessor Pope John XXIII, both of whom presided over Vatican II. It's a subtle jab that most non-Catholics (and most Catholics, really) would miss, but it speaks volumes to just the kind of person we're dealing with with Sister Aloysius. That kind of subtlety permeates the script: Witness Father Flynn entering Sister's office and taking her chair behind the desk; a comment on the pervasive sexism of the time. The tables turn as the scene progresses and the sister's initial obsequience is replaced with moral outrage, and she dominates the room. Shanley's gift is in these details, even if the actors on screen slowly eat him alive as a director.

The national flux is also present at the school. Kennedy is dead and the civil rights movement is in full gear. Young Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) is the school's first and only black student. Everyone at the school tries to integrate Donald with the rest of the class, in their own ways. But Donald presents challenges beyond the race issues. There is polite talk about the biy's nature. That leads to some friction, and none of it serves Donald well. Father Flynn takes an intense interest in Donald.

Given this context, it's easy to see that Sister Aloysius does not like the new Priest at her parish. A simple gesture caught in the first frames of the film, combined with a crying Donald sent back to class after a meeting with Father Flynn, is all the evidence she needs to try and have him removed. An accusation is made, and Flynn and Beauvier spend the next hour battling over its implications. Sister James, new to the school, and new to being a nun, tries to broker a peace between her two mentors, and ultimately becomes a pawn in their game.

Doubt winds itself tighter and tighter as the story develops, leading to explosive outbursts as accusations and threats come to a head. Hoffman delivers a fine performance, presenting a priest struggling hard to loosen the reins of the church on its members. Flynn very well may have secrets, however, and Hoffman is careful to show a little deviousness in the corner of the priest's eye.

Streep meanwhile, is given a tighter box in which to work. What results is a new formula of The Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestly: Take out the urbanism, add in another cup of reserve and sneering condescension, and what results is a character tougher and more resolute than her remarkable work in that earlier film. It's hard to tell whether it's Streep playing too large or the character written that way. She does have one shining moment, when speaking with Donald's mother (Viola Davis in a small but powerful performance), where a flicker of humanity tries to peek out from the opressive nun-ness of the Sister.

There's too much Actor with a capital A on the screen in two critical passes. The two major clashes between Hoffman and Streep both descend into screaming matches, which is fine, and was warranted by the script, but it left no room for the two master performers to modulate their emotion, or create any hint of, well, doubt within themselves. Hoffman comes off better in the exchange, purely because his character has more flexibility within himself. Amy Adams's optimism and befuddlement at all things unpleasant whips a little air into the stifling debate and rancor Hoffman and Streep conjure up. Shanley would have done well to pull these two titans back just a little, to provide a little more range, and an opportunity to defend the odd twist at the end of the picture.

Still, Doubt does an admirable job overcoming it's original sins to deliver a taught and suspenseful movie. Shanley's script may still read as a play, but it reads as a good one, and the complexities leech themselves out around the block-like characterization. And if inflexibility and it's degradation of the soul is a central theme here, the twist in the last few frames of the movie undercut that message. No spoilers here, but the 180-degree change is not justified by previous events. It doesn't quite ruin the movie, but it's jarring to see.

That said, Doubt is well-worth an in-theater experience.

Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood is the last in the line of Hollywood tough guys. The vast majority of today's manly stars are more studly than anything else. They are descendants of the House of Newman, where your manliness is defined by sexiness and virility. Eastwood is the last great King of the House of Wayne. And while John Wayne defined macho, Lee Marvin defined tough, and Steve McQueen defined cool, Eastwood's lasting legacy to film may be in defining ornery. Dirty Harry Callahan, Blondie, Gunny Highway, Josey Wales. The man has made a career of not suffering fools gladly.

At 78, it's a thin line between tough-guy ornery and old-man crotchety. Eastwood walks that line with ease in Gran Torino. He plays Walt Kowalski, the last of the old factory workers in his Michigan neighborhood. Slowly but surely the remaining Polish working-class families have left, and in their place is America's new working class; a mix of ethnicities and races, none of which please Walt.

Don't hold it against him, though, because there isn't much left in this life that does please him. We meet Walt at his wife's funeral. We watch him seethe as his grand kids walk in, late, wearing football jerseys, mid-riff shirts and belly-button rings. He snarls at his sons, who spend the entirety of the post-funeral gathering counting the minutes and arguing with their wives about the etiquette of an early departure. He growls racist epithets at his new neighbors, a Hmong family, threatening them with his comparison to the Koreans he killed some 50-plus years ago. He forcibly removes his son from a birthday celebration for suggesting he move into a retirement community.

So it comes as a surprise to everyone, then, when Walt takes decisive action to defend the next door neighbor from a Hmong gang. The youngest son, Thao (Bee Vang in his debut film), is a dork. Dogged by his sister, mother, and grandmother, bullied by his cousins, and ignored by everyone else, Thao tries to fit in by joining the gang. His initiation? Steal Walt's 1972 Gran Torino. The boy fails, and finds facing the business end of Walt's army-issue M1 rifle. Just one night later, a carload of gang members come to take Thao away. The struggle spills onto Walt's lawn, and the M1 makes it's second of many more appearances in the film, this time to defend Thao.

Now a neighborhood hero, Walt bristles at the attention his foreign neighbors give him. Deliveries of flowers and food from a grateful Hmong community are met with racist derision. Overtures at friendship by Thao's sister Sue (Ahney Hur, also her debut) are parried. But the young woman is relentless in her outreach, and Walt soon warms to the family's hospitality.

Seeing his neighbors as people for the first time, Walt perches himself on the porch like a rooster overseeing the business of the coop. Any signs of danger are met with aggressive defense. Walt has found new meaning in late life. The young toughs of the neighborhood have found a new and challenging target.

If there is a hint of crotchety in Eastwood's performance, it's played for laughs, and any hint of doddering evaporates quickly when the going gets tough. Crotchety people complain about hoodlums. Ornery people threaten them with rifles and handguns. Eastwood knows he's 78, and knows viewers will wonder whether his fraying body can hang on to the bridle of his rage. It can, of course, and he toys with our doubt. Never has the prototypical old man demand of "Get off my lawn" carried such fearsome authority and malice. If Walt Kowaksi is indeed Eastwood's last on-screen performance, then he leaves the stage with his reputation intact, and in the process gives us one more great anti-hero to fear and admire.

While Eastwood shines, the remaining cast of unknowns struggle to keep up. Vang and Her get the most screen time with the legend. While Her has her moments, both show their inexperience. It's enough to take you out of critical scenes; Her's feigned nonchalance at a potential sexual assault feels a little too forward and defiant; Vang's screams of betrayal and frustration with Walt a the end of the film come off as too childish and outraged. Christopher Carley's Father Janovich, the young and determined priest set to save Walt's soul is another nuisance to Walt for his naivete, and to viewers for his grating performance.

The dialogue is also a bit too on the nose and uneven, which, when combined with shaky supporting performances, sometimes gave the movie a slightly amateurish feel. At those moments when the movie loses focus, it becomes a slightly-better better version of Falling Down. Overall, however, Eastwood's Oscar-caliber performance saves the film from Rental Hell and makes it worthy of an in-theater experience.