A fishing expedition in Georgia takes a life-threatening turn after he finds himself on the other side of the cross-hairs, first by a special ops team, then by a young man with familiar moves. (How fast? Try a bullet train.) But that ease with which he'd move from one assignment to the next has begun to dwindle, prompting him to put his assassin days in the rearview mirror. The film stars Will Smith as government hit man Henry Brogan, a crack shot who can take out a moving target from a far distance. The Paramount Pictures release is being marketed as an action extravaganza from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, but even though this tale of ethics and government corruption has its fair share of pulse-pounding moments, it actually feels closer in spirit to the character-driven pieces one comes to expect from Lee. It lays bare the virtues and limitations of the newfangled technology I like to call Squeegee Vision. The "Life of Pi" helmer's latest effort is a cloning tale that, like "Pain and Glory," involves a recently retired longtime pro. "Gemini Man": Whereas Almodóvar is looking to the past and present for storytelling material, Lee continues playing in the futuristic high frame rate sandbox, with decidedly mixed results. In so doing, he has crafted one of his very best films. Almodóvar uses the template of the Felliniesque confessional, not as an end, but as a jumping off point to chart a path forward. The nostalgia here is predominantly of the self-critical kind, and that makes a world of difference. A more conventional production would have focused on the character's late-in-life substance intake, but here it's depicted as a temporary reprieve, merely one more component in a rich tapestry of memory and regret. Salvador also begins dabbling in heroin use. He also crosses paths with old flame Federico Delgado (Argentinean star Leonardo Sbaraglia) in a scene that is as exquisitely bittersweet as anything Almodóvar has staged. But Almodóvar resists calling attention to his structural gallivanting this time around, the better to follow Salvador's journey as he reconnects with his estranged muse, stage and screen actor Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia). Yes, the film glides backwards and forward in time, as Salvador reflects on his childhood and the tireless efforts from his mother Jacinta (Penélope Cruz, always at her best when directed by Pedro) to ensure her precocious boy (Asier Flores, a natural) moves up in the world. Leonardo Sbaraglia, Antonio Banderas in "Pain and Glory" (Soul searching hardly applies here, since Salvador is a self-avowed atheist.) This is a character study where the filmmaker's penchant for nonlinear and Chinese box structures takes a back seat to his protagonist's self-appraisal. It's an invigorating stylistic flourish from a director unafraid to lead with his shiny, often colorful surfaces.īut what sets "Pain and Glory" apart from much of the "Talk to Her" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" director's previous efforts, especially those made in the past 20 years, is a pervasive reining in of those impulses. In a sequence best described as a science convention slideshow created by Saul Bass, Almodóvar lists the many ailments his thinly veiled surrogate suffers from. The new retiree is dealing with chronic pain more recently, he starts choking with alarming frequency. For Salvador, played by a pitch-perfect Antonio Banderas, this is mostly meant literally. When asked what he's going to do with so much free time marked by a conspicuous absence of moviemaking, Salvador Mallo, the grizzled auteur at the center of Pedro Almodóvar's nakedly autobiographical gem, simply replies, "Live, I guess."Īh, but living entails grappling with your demons, carefully examining the scars we collect along the way. "Pain and Glory": The question is inevitable for anyone who decides to hang up their hat and call it a day on a long career: What are you going to do now? It's no different if said career was an internationally renowned movie director. Asier Etxeandia, Antonio Banderas in "Pain and Glory."
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