Thoughts on Some Recent Movies . . .

'Spotlight':

We saw 'Spotlight' on November 9th at the AMC Lincoln Square.  The film directed by Thomas McCarthy from a script written by McCarthy and Josh Singer tells the story of the investigation by The Boston Globe's 'Spotlight' team of the decades-long cover-up of pedophilia in the Archdiocese of Boston under Cardinal Bernard Law (played in the film by Len Cariou).  The Globe's investigative reporting on the Church's sexual predation scandal won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and led to Cardinal Law's stepping down from leadership of the Boston Archdiocese.

Banner for the movie 'Spotlight'.

The Spotlight team lead by Walter 'Robby' Robinson (played by Michael Keaton) includes Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Brian d'Arcy James (Matt Carroll) and their managing editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber).  The Globe's assistant managing editor, Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery) comes from a well-known publishing family.  They identify 87 pedophile priests who were shuffled around the Boston archdiocese over several decades.

Despite its well-known story, 'Spotlight' is incredibly suspenseful  The cast -- which also includes Stanley Tucci, Jamey Sheridan, Billy Crudup and several others -- is uniformly wonderful.  In the summary statements at the end of the film it's appalling that Cardinal Law was 'reassigned' to be the archpriest of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the four major basilicas of Rome.

'Brooklyn':

On November 14th we saw 'Brooklyn' at the AMC Lincoln Square.  It was about 80% sold out -- lots of walkers and canes in the audience.  'Brooklyn', directed by John Crowley from a screenplay by Nick Hornby based on the novel of the same name by Colm Toibin, stars Saorise Ronan as Eilis Lacey, an Irish immigrant arriving in Brooklyn in the early 1950's.

Banner for 'Brooklyn'.

Through an Irish priest (Jim Broadbent) who's a friend of her sister, Rose (Fiona Glascott), arrangements have been made for Eilis to live in a Brooklyn boarding house run by Madge Kehoe (Julie Walters) and to work as a clerk in a Brooklyn department store.  Initially, Eilis is a little too tall, a little too plain, and much too introverted.

At a church dance she meets Tony (Emory Cohen) a second-generation Italian plumber.  Tony is smitten and begins courting Eilis -- showing up to walk her home from night school and inviting her to come to dinner to meet his family.  With Tony's love, Eilis blooms into a lovely and confident woman.  Their idyll is interrupted by news from Ireland that Rose has died unexpectedly.  Eilis returns to Ireland for a short visit to comfort her mother.

Back in her small Irish village, Eilis is caught up in a web of circumstance -- her best friend's wedding delays her return to Brooklyn, Rose's former employer urgently needs Eilis to cover Rose's job, the golf club wants Eilis to present a trophy in Rose's honor, and Jim Farrell (Domnall Gleeson) a member of the local soccer club starts courting her.  But after a nasty confrontation with her former employer, Eilis realizes that she can no longer be happy in the small-minded Irish village and arranges to return to Brooklyn on the next ship.

'Brooklyn' is a slow, thoughtful film.  It is really about the transforming power of love.  Ms. Ronan is wonderful as the naive, confused Eilis transformed by love into a confident, radiant woman.  Mr. Cohen is especially fine as Tony.  My one major complaint is that the conversation at Mrs. Kehoe's boarding house is unintelligible.

'Sicario':

On Halloween we went to see 'Sicario' at the AMC Lincoln Square.  'Sicario' is directed by Denis Villeneuve from a script by Taylor Sheridan and stars Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin.

Official Banner for 'Sicario'.

Kate Macer (played by Emily Blunt) is an idealistic FBI agent.  After two members of her team are killed in a raid on a drug house in Chandler, AZ, Kate volunteers to join a task force to find the killers.  The task force is lead by Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), an unscrupulous CIA operative, and includes his 'adviser', Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) plus additional FBI, CIA, DEA and military special forces personnel.

The director chooses to put the audience in the same bewildering position as Kate -- gradually realizing that Matt and Alejandro are not entirely honest about their motives and that she is being used on the task force as more than just an aggressive FBI agent.  

Emily Blunt is excellent at conveying Kate's confusion and bringing the audience with her as she gradually discovers the real purpose of the task force.  Josh Brolin is perfectly macho and enigmatic; Benicio Del Toro is brutally efficient in what turns out to be the title role; and they are surrounded by a uniformly skillful cast on both sides of the border.

'Sicario' is a brilliant -- if brutal and gore-filled -- look at America's drug wars and the lives it destroys.