Review: "Olympus Has Fallen"

NOTE: I chose to suspend the prelude as I would be spoiling too much of the review. Here's the full review, enjoy!

The latest film from Shooter director Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen chronicles a takeover of the White House by a group of North Korean terrorists. Starring Gerard Butler as an Army Ranger-turned Secret Service agent, he must retake the White House and rescue the recently widowed president, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), all while being guided by Speaker of the House Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). It may be one of the most patriotic films since last year's remake of Red Dawn, and director Fuqua takes a few cues from Michael Bay by adding such obvious symbolism as a torn American flag and awful character development not unlike that in Pearl Harbor, and he takes dialogue cues from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Two. Actually, a lot of it seems to be taken from Modern Warfare Two. From the White House storming (Several Missions in Act III of the game) to the fact that Gerard Butler's Secret Service is an ex-US Army Ranger (the American protagonists in Modern Warfare Two are Army Rangers), it seems hopelessly derivative. It also takes cues from Die Hard in the sense that Butler is trapped in a building with terrorists, Air Force One, and it is almost exactly like it, except Olympus Has Fallen takes place on land, and Superman due to the fact that Rick Yune's multinational terrorist villain, wanted across the world, was able to infiltrate the Prime Minister of South Korea's Security Detail by wearing a pair of glasses, not unlike Clark Kent (this was subtlety lampshaded by a minor character). The characters themselves fell flat: Gerard Butler has as much acting ability as a block of cold marble, uttering hammy lines ad nauseam and using guns in lieu of dialogue and character development: his biggest flaw is that he blames himself for the death of the First Lady (Ashley Judd), and it's resolved very poorly by the end of the film. Morgan Freeman seems to not be into the role, speaking in his normal, calming voice most of time and quietly yelling if the situation calls for it, like a calmer Al Powell, albeit in a higher position, and Eckhart suffered from a singular flaw and not being put into a very emotional role: his flaw is shared with Butler, and the character of the President seems like an objective in an arcade game. The President's son Connor fit the archetypal annoying spoiled movie child like a glove, sporting a mullet and showing surprisingly little emotion after his mother's death on an icy road from Camp David, summing it up with literally one sentence: "I hate Camp David." However, in my opinion, the worst character in the film was easily Rick Yune as Kang Yeonsak, multinational terrorist and proponent for Korean Reunification  While pleasantly timely, he also suffers from poorly-penned dialogue and derivative one-dimensionality. He essentially plays an Asian Hans Gruber who could only be more evil if he had a mustache to twirl: he roughs up Melissa Leo's Secretary of Defense and kills the Vice President on webcam, among other dastardly deeds. His master scheme is to cripple the United States by stealing the codes to disarm the nuclear weapons, as to destroy them in their silos, and you get the typical "I'm not going down without a fight" talk from the Americans, at which point we arrive at the "we'll hurt you if you don't" talk from the Korean terrorists. It's a lazy device worked in by the writers so they could minimize the amount of work they had to do. Another big issue were the special effects. I realize that the film could not be shot at Camp David or in Washington D.C., so there has to be some leeway given to them. However, the effects are simply painful. The drive on an icy road at the beginning looked hilariously fake, to the point where I thought I had seen better computer-generated graphics in a video game. The explosions were also very poorly done, looking as fake as the roads. The vehicles, such as the planes, could not even compare to the a great video game engine like Frostbite 2 or idTech 5. As far as computer screens and technology went, any depiction of it in this film can be used to conclusively prove that Hollywood doesn't get hacking. Now that I have thoroughly criticized the storyline, acting, and special effects, allow me to guide you through the absolute lunacy of this movie. There are a plethora of Greek references, mostly used as a handy way of code-naming objects, characters, and locations: the White House is Olympus, a large weapon is called Hydra, among many others. There are also questiones raised about the terrorists' tactic in invasion. We've already pointed out how ridiculous it was for a wanted terrorist to infiltrate a rival country's politics, but that is only the tip of the psychosis iceberg. They were able to infiltrate Washington airspace, already a difficult task, in a large AC-130 gunship, hijacked from a nearby air force base, judging by the markings on it. Not only does this behemoth enter the airspace, it is able to fire off shots and destroy several fighters before finally being taken down. After this, the inexplicably well-armed terrorists hold off the US Army before retreating into the White House. Keep in mind that the terrorists are armed with submachine guns and a few assault rifles, and are able to defeat trained and heavily armed soldiers in a short firefight. I can't believe they got as far as the plane. The most offensive moment is when Trumbull and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs decided to send in a Navy SEAL raid on the White House. This should work, and it would eliminate the terrorists quickly and effectively. Then the writers pull the ultimate deus ex machina: a minigun that looks like an eight-year old's math doodling appears and tears those Blackhawk helicopters to shreds, no "buts" about it. If they had this superweapon in the White House the entire movie, why only use it now and not during the initial assault? It's also never revealed why an experimental weapon was being kept in the White House, but this shows how crazy this movie is.

A friend of mine said that everyone has to take a movie for its genre: and he said that Olympus Has Fallen was to be judged as terrorist attack movie, and he thought that it was a good example of the genre. This is very true, every movie has to be judged by classics of the genre; I can't compare Dr. Strangelove to Citizen Kane, or Goodfellas to Toy Story. And as a subgenre of action, there are some great terrorist attack pieces, and it is the opinion of my friend that this movie is one of them. In the case of Olympus Has Fallen, I can't help but disagree, as the genre has so many better examples: Die Hard, Die Hard With A Vengeance, Air Force One, most James Bond films, even video games like Call of Duty that do the genre much more justice than this film.

Consensus: Olympus Has Fallen is a hopelessly derivative action flick that is filled to the brim with clichés, poor special effects, incomprehensible logic, and hammy dialogue that director Antoine Fuqua fails to infuse with anything special.

Rating: 1/5

Analysis: "Kill Bill"

Note: this analysis will NOT be mere speculation on whether or not Kill Bill is actually a movie within the Tarantinoverse, a la From Dusk Till Dawn. You can fry your brain with fridge logic over at TV Tropes, Cracked.com, and r/FanTheories. 

In my analysis of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, I mentioned how he tends to gravitate towards tales of revenge, and how the type of revenge varies, from film to film. With Kill Bill, the revenge is two-tined, but both are a revenge of love. We'll begin chronologically, unlike Mr. Tarantino would do himself. The first is Bill's revenge on Beatrix herself, the Massacre at Two Pines. The second film reveals that she discovered she was pregnant while on a mission abroad for the DiVAS. She knew that the life of a super-assassin was not befitting of a mother, so she chose to go off-the-grid and start a new life underneath the not-so-subtle pseudonym of "Arlene Machiavelli." She moves to El Paso becomes engaged to a record store owner, Tommy Plympton and begins to work at the store, tricking him into thinking that her baby is, in fact, his, while it is truly Bill's child. As they plan their wedding, she meets Bill outside of the chapel, and he feigns happiness and wishes Beatrix good health in her new life with Tommy. This all conceals an elaborate lie; Bill has recruited the Deadly Vipers to come to EL Paso and kill each person in the chapel. They almost succeed, and Bill executes what is supposed to be Beatrix's death, accompanied by an evil monologue, and shoots her in the head, a move normally avoided by movie villains. In spite of the odds, Beatrix goes into a four-year coma and survives, and from here she goes and attempts to accomplish her eponymous goal. However, Bill's attempt to kill Beatrix is not unfounded. When Budd attempts to bury Beatrix alive, he describes it as revenge (there's that word again) for "breaking his brother's heart." Even when Bill talks to her, he reveals his deep seated frustration over the Bride leaving him. Despite his ties with fellow Deadly Viper Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), he never truly loved her, obviously he would have been more engaged after her disappearance. He loved Beatrix, and he thought that when she didn't return, she had been killed. He searched every corner of the globe for the person he thought killed her, and when he discovered she had been alive and well in El Paso, engaged to some bumpkin record store owner, he was infuriated. He wanted to kill her, and everyone else involved with her. While this is certainly evil, morally wrong, reprehensible, and overreaction at its crux, it's not entirely unsympathetic; if anything, it makes Bill much more interesting as villain. Who wants to see a villain who is nothing but evil? No one! The best villains are sympathetic, flawed, and, above all, human. Bill is like a modern Darth Vader: wronged by the death (or in his case, supposed death) of the woman they loved, so they became heartless men, or in Bill's case, more heartless. Now to the biggest revenge in the entire film: the Bride's quest to cull the DiVAS and put them all six feet in a hole. This is also a revenge of love, but of a different sort: paternal love. The first thing she did when she woke from her coma was feel her stomach for her daughter, and presumes her dead (much like Bill did when Beatrix went missing). She was horrified and cried heavily, stopping only when a truck driver tried to rape her, only for him to become deprived of tongue and life. When she kills him, she waits for the orderly pimp, the chill-inducing Buck, to return. She suspects him of being in cahoots with Bill, and, out of motherly vengeance, slams his head into a steel doorframe multiple times, killing him via hemorrhaging. She's like a fierce Mama Grizzly, as she'll do absolutely anything to avenge the death of her daughter; throughout the film, she scalps a Yakuza overlord, slices through a small army of bodyguards, kills Gogo Yubari by sticking a piece of wood with nails in it into the back of her head; plucks out eyeballs, (accidentally) kills Vernita Green in front of her own daughter (fuel for specualtion of Kill Bill: Volume III), among other techniques to get to Bill and avenge her daughter's death. When she discovers that her daughter is, in fact, alive and well, she is overjoyed, and shows reservations about killing Bill. She eventually does (Surprise!) with a special technique taught to her by the late Kung Fu yogi Pai Mei. In many ways, it's very similar to Bill's: she traveled the globe to find him, discovers he's leading a new life off the grid, and reacts with violence, albeit much calmer than Bill's violence. Don't let me be misunderstood, the two are very similar, both committing violent and deadly acts of revenge to avenge supposed losses, after trotting the globe, and are shocked to see the news lives each other are leading. It is, for lack of a better phrase, yin and yang, fire and ice, sugar and spice, Batman and the Joker. Above all, however, it is the story of people fighting and killing out of love. Really, there is another major revenge subplot: the yarn of O-Ren Ishii. I'm tempted to make that a separate article, as O-Ren is one of the most interesting characters and villains in modern cinema. Like Bill she is sympathetic, cunning, smart, and not afraid to get her hands bloody.

NOTE: Soon, hopefully within the next week, I will have written and finished my analysis of Goodfellas. Just so you remember that I write about non-Tarantino films too.

Analysis: "Pulp Fiction"

Musical Bonus
Well, it appears that I've been doing a Tarantino smorgasbord of sorts the past few weeks, with another on the way. Regardless, I have a real treat planned for this analysis. Today I'll be breaking down the last segment of Pulp Fiction, called "The Bonnie Situation." For those of you who don't know or remember this part of the film, allow me to summarize. It begins where the prologue with Vincent and Jules left off, with the death of Brett. But, instead of doing it form our intrepid henchmen's perspective, it begins in a bathroom, with a nervous man inside, holding what appears to be a sort of hand cannon. After Brett is turned into human Swiss cheese, the man bursts out and empties his hand cannon towards Vincent and Jules, but somehow misses every time. The two hitmen make quick work of him and take their contact, Marvin (Phil LaMarr) with them to their car. As Jules and Vincent argue about whether or not the fact they were saved from the hail of bullets was divine intervention (evoking Jules's Bible Passage) or just coincidence. To settle this argument, Vincent, in his eternal wisdom, turns around to ask Marvin for his opinion, and shoots him in the face. Naturally, this angers Jules, as Vincent has been shown in the film to be somewhat incompetent. In order to make sure they aren't caught the police, they arrive at Jimmie's (Quentin Tarantino) home. You can tell who Jimmie is as he is very angry about what his house is not, and he is very angry about what is currently in his garage. Marsellus then sends Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel) to solve the problem, as Wolf knows how to solve problems. They get the blood and guts cleaned out of their vehicle and clean the windows, and change out of their suave suits into some less-than-flattering attire.

These costumes are still better than the ones chosen for Travolta's Battlefield Earth

Meanwhile, they decide to rustle up some grub at a nearby diner. Coincidentally enough, it is the same bank that is about to be robbed by Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer). As the pair of thieves go around the diner collecting wallets, Jules decided to take Pumpkin aside and give him a stern talking-to, in a way that can only be done by Samuel L. Jackson. He speaks of his Bible passage, and even takes out the fabled briefcase when Pumpkin tries to steal it. This results in a Mexican Standoff between Vincent (he was in the facilities while all of this occurred), Honey Bunny, and Jules. No one dies, and Jules leaves Pumpkin with some resonant messages as he and Vincent leave. Now, here's where things get analytical. As Vincent and Jules ride in their car, Jules discusses how after the recent events of the day, he wishes to get out of the hitman business, considering the attempted murder in the apartment to be a sign from God himself. Post-Marvin killing, at the diner, as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny begin to mug the customers, Jules has his "heel realization." Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are the archetypal criminals, whose entire discussion in the prologue to the film is about why they should rob the diner they were in and why it was a better choice then robbing a bank or a liquor store. Only in the third act do we return, after Jules has had his realization. When Pumpkin attempts to steal his wallet, Jules forces him to sit down with the threat of shooting him. He recites his Bible passage, and he discovers that he is the tool of evil men, and he's "trying real hard to be the shepherd (through the valley of darkness)." By doing this, he hopes to save these two from a similar fate. Naturally, we can never tell if they followed his advice, but we do know Jules followed through, as he is not visible in the second act, which, chronologically, occurs after the third act. It also shows the contrast between Vincent and Jules. Vincent, despite being related to the sadistic Vic Vega (better known as Mr. Blonde [Michael Madsen] of Reservoir Dogs), sort of relies on Jules in the gangster business. He forces Jules into an awkward position when he killed Marvin by accident, and dies foolishly at the hands of Butch when he leaves his weapon outside of the bathroom, hoist by his own petard. It could even be said he uses Vic as a way to promote himself; obviously he was a respected criminal during his life, and maybe that carried over when Vincent joined Marsellus's entourage. Jules, on the other hand, has connections (Jimmie being an example) and has obviously been in "business" long enough with Marsellus that he can demand immediate help, and be granted such high caliber help as The Wolf. It's an Odd Couple-esque scenario: the fledgling fool, and the veteran. Realistically, Vince would still be much lower on the hierarchy had it not been for these two. However, he makes up for his lack of intelligence with loyalty, though to an almost rabid extent. His one-sided thinking and loyalty to his boss make him ignore the obvious miracle of their survival against the hand-cannon armed gentleman in the bathroom. However, this can alternatively be explained by the two's level on the scale of anti-heroes. Vincent is a Type V: a hero in name only. He all but exemplifies the stereotypical criminal by doing drugs, killing people for a living, and perhaps most offensively, wears his hair to his shoulders. Jules appears as a Type V at first, but is truly a Type III, a pragmatic anti-hero. He actually has some semblance of good in his soul, and this is only corroborated in the final act. In conclusion, if we use Pulp Fiction as an example of Tarantino's filmography as a whole, we can see how much time he invests in his screenplays and in making unique, multilayered characters that may appear one-dimensional, but only further their complexity, stories rife with symbolism and suspense, and of course the punchy, sharply-penned dialogue that we've grown so used to. 

Analysis: "Inglourious Basterds"

In my analysis of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, I touched on the fact that war, while an unfortunate fact of the human existence, is indeed hell, and how it will force either side to brutality and grey morality, no matter how honorable they are perceived to be. This has been a persistent topic in literature, such as in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, and films like Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket, along with countless others, many based around the Vietnam War. However, such films focus almost entirely on the epigram "war is hell," but I feel that not enough cinema focuses on another, less glorified statement about war: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," a line attributed to Union Army General William T. Sherman. 2009's Inglourious Basterds, though, does analyze this quote, and does it quite well. Set against the backdrop of a very fictionalized World War II, it shows the story of two separate plots to assassinate the Nazi high command, including Adolf Hitler, by two Jewish entities: the American Special forces known as the "Basterds," led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), and including Sgt. Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz (Eli Roth) and German rogue Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, well-known for assassinating thirteen Gestapo officers and being freed from prison by the Basterds, and another plot formulated by French cinema proprietor Emmanuelle Mimieux, really Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), a Jew whose family was massacred by the SS, under the orders of Colonel Hans Landa, "the Jew Hunter" (Christoph Waltz in his first Oscar-winning role). Shosanna's theater was chosen as the premiere for a German propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride in German), starring sniper Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). She plans to burn her cinema to the ground, whereas the Basterds plan to rendezvous with their mole, German film starlet Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), and kill the High Command with dynamite. Things become even tenser for Shosanna when she realizes Col. Landa will be managing security for the premiere, making her absolutely furious. In a sense, it is also a story of revenge, one of Tarantino's favorite subjects, which he has explored many times, most notably in Kill Bill and Django Unchained. However, this movie involves the revenge of a woman who is angry about the death of her family, avenging loved ones, much like Django, where the main character enacts revenge on his wife's captors by killing them in one of the most stylized ways possible. The stylization cake, however, is taken by Kill Bill, which focuses on the Bride avenging the supposed death of her daughter, who was revealed to be alive at the end of Volume I, and Bill's revenge on the Bride for breaking his heart, both tragedies of love. Really, I could go on about this, but I'll save this material for future articles; I have to keep you readers entertained somehow. Back to the main subject: the cruelty of war, on both sides. The Germans have been ruthlessly massacring Jews simply out of prejudice and xenophobia, forcing millions to die by execution or other horrific methods in the death camps. In the opening, Landa himself interrogates a French dairy farmer and threatens his life and livelihood, forcing him to give up the location of the Dreyfus family, resulting in their death. However, in the context of the film and the film only, could it be said that the Allies are fighting fire with fire to an excessive extent? Watch the above videos again, and notice the cruel pleasure the Basterds take in murdering the Germans. Also, Lt. Raine states in the beginning of the film that each of his eight soldiers owe him 100 Nazi Scalps, and he wants his scalps. He carves swastikas into the heads of captured Germans to brand them forever as Nazis (possibly a reference to a moment in the Robert Rodriguez short film, Bedhead), and sends one survivor back each time to tell the tale. Also, towards the end of the film, Donowitz and fellow Basterd Omar (Omar Doom) go inside Shosanna's theater, as it burns to the ground, and into an opera box. They procede to pump Hitler full of lead with submachine guns, the film's crowning moment of awesome and the catalyst for Tarantino's alternate universe he sets all of his movies in. It, awesome and justifiable as it was for a group of Jewish soldiers (Roth's parents cried tears of joy when they fist saw it), was still cruel and brutal, no matter what. It is not a comment on World War II itself as much as war in general. Each side, regardless of their alignment, fights for a cause, oftentimes passionately. They are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of their country, and that is their duty as soldiers; it is patriotism in the most literal sense. However, occasionally, when a side fights dirty, like the Germans or Japanese did during World War II, the opponents must occasionally do the same. Does it go to far at times? Yes, certainly. It  is a mistake that happens to many countries, ranging from US waterboarding of detainees to the sickening massacre of innocent Vietnamese at the My Lai Massacre. In works of fiction, we see it in The Dirty Dozen and Inglourious Basterds. They fight cruelty with cruelty, out of their own rage. No fighter in war is immune to this; it's called bloodlust, and while some escape it, it cannot be completely escaped. Sometimes we don't hear these stories of poor men losing their sanity because of their situation; in the case of the Basterds, they fought out of defense for their Jewish heritage, and the Germans oftentimes deserved such retribution, even though in real life, not every German was a Nazi (for a cinematic example, watch a German film about "die Weisse Rose," or the White Rose, released in 2005. It's called Sophie Scholl: Die Ietzten Tage). In the case of other, real-life examples, men killed and committed other despicable acts, such as in My Lai, without reason or logic, only out of irrational thinking. Yes, war is truly cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

NOTE: After I wrote this article, I perused the TV Tropes page on Inglourious Basterds and found some interesting tropes relevant to this article. Read here for more.

Analysis: "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

Musical Bonus
As you may have noticed in my series of Oscar Reaction articles, in each of the entry's titles I referenced Italian director Sergio Leone's famed Dollars trilogy, which includes A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More (spoofed by NBC's Community in the episodes "A Fistful of Paintballs" and "For a Few Paintballs More"), and the final "prequel" film, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. The movie's title has entered the public lexicon, and has given birth to some truly awful offspring sayings, predating the internet meme by at least twenty-seven years. Despite the fact it is such a well-known saying, I have found in my own experience that not a great deal of people know the plot of this excellent film, and it's pretty straightforward. Three men, "Blondie" or "The Man with No Name" (Clint Eastwood)- the good, "Angel Eyes" (Lee Van Cleef)- the bad, and "Tuco" (Eli Wallach)- the ugly. Set during the American Civil War, it follows each man as they attempt to find a fortune in Confederate gold. The film is also known for being incredibly long, clocking in at nearly three hours, and influencing a variety of future directors, including Eastwood as he became a director and one of my personal favorites, Quentin Tarantino, who hails the film as being "one of cinema's greatest achievements." Even though it looks like some sort of dime-store exploitation flick, it actually goes significantly deeper than it appears. Leone was an avid history buff and a perfectionist- all important qualities to a filmmaker. It even goes deeper than some modern day films, by analyzing basic human tendencies. Most so-called Spaghetti Westerns are actually revenge flicks, such as Leone's earlier work, specifically For A Few Dollars More, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and homages like Kill Bill, Vol II, Django Unchained, and Unforgiven all deal in revenge of some sort. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, however, focuses on human greed and deceit. Each one of these men are not particularly "good" men; the closest is Blondie, and he just shoots bad guys, when you get right down to it. Each of them is willing to result to trickery, torture, murder, and backstabbing just so they can get their hands on some gold. Angel Eyes kills a poor farmer just so he can gather some intel on the location of the gold, and Tuco tortures Blondie in the desert by starving him and drinking water in front of Blondie, tantalizing him. Angel Eyes even disguises himself as a Union officer during a battle, all so he can, yet again, get intel on the gold's location. The three participate in Civil War battles, switching sides at their convenience, and engage in gunfights, so they can get closer to the gold. And who can forget the final Mexican standoff in the graveyard where the gold is located, leading to the death of Angel Eyes and Blondie's escape with a share of the loot, leaving Tuco restrained and tantalized by the gold. I believe Leone had two goals in mind here: he wanted to satirize the popular, American view of the Old West, and to show the lengths man will go to for material possession, culminating in crime and greed. The Old West has been romanticized in American culture to the point where the actual plight of the settler has been so diluted that we seem to care only for the widespread tales of heroic gunslingers and cattlemen that we ignore the disease that afflicted travelers and the widespread crime in the region, primarily robbery, gambling, and other unsavory deeds. We also tend to forget that the Union side during the American Civil War was not the perfect defender of liberty we picture it as. They also ran horrific prison camps and committed just as many atrocities as the Confederated States of America, it's just that the winner writes the history books. War fosters brutality on both sides (Inglourious Basterds deconstructs this trope surprisingly well), and we tend to ignore that. But I'm getting off-track, back to the film at hand. Leone decides to take the common American Western, take out the false heroic elements, and show what conniving rats these assorted bounty hunters and criminals were. They were greedy, like the California settlers who were looking for gold, who sparked the era of the West in America (perhaps an unintentional allegory), and took advantage of others and their situation so they could get rich and live out the rest of their lives without a care. Here is where Community becomes important. In the episode "A Fistful of Paintballs," the students are competing for $100,000 dollars in a paintball tournament sponsored by Pistol Patty's Cowboy Creamery, tapping into their innate greed. Of course, it turns out to be a plot by City College to destroy Greendale Community College, the show's main setting. Though it transitions from a Western to Star Wars scenario, it still shows a human's innate desire for material possessions and success at all costs, be it through a real or paintball shootout. Of course, I might be overanalyzing this. Either way, be sure to check out next week's column on why Smokey and the Bandit is secretly about chauvinism and the male ego.

All movies have themes, even bad movies like Plan Nine from Outer Space, and while they may not necessarily be good themes, they, the themes, are there. While my tastes are very eclectic, most of my favorite films dig into the darker side of the human mind, be it The Dark Knight, Death Proof, or Vertigo. The best ones out of this bunch are the ones that actually appear shallow but dig deep regardless. This is what makes The Good, The Bad and The Ugly so fantastic. It appears to be nothing but a shoot 'em up, but really analyzes deeper issues regarding man's own basic desires and satirizes the cultural foolishness of the West.

Analysis: "The Departed" versus "Reservoir Dogs"

The Departed, Martin Scorcese's 2006 Irish Mafia opus, is the story of two moles planted in the Massachusetts State Police, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), and Frank Costello's (Jack Nicholson) crime ring, informant Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). As they existence of the moles becomes clear, each man must discover each other's identity before their own cover is blown. Also featuring Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Sheen, the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture and best director for Scorcese, along with the award for Best Adapted Screenplay (it was adapted from the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, which was also acclaimed) and Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Reservoir Dogs, on the other hand, tells the story of eight gangsters, Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino in one of his famous creator cameos), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), and mob boss Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and his son "Nice Guy" Eddie (Chris Penn). The eight of them have planned a jewelry store heist, headed by Eddie. When the heist goes haywire, when the police show up, killing Mr. Brown and Mr. Blue and injuring Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink suggests that there is a rat in the group. It's up to the survivors to figure out who the rat is before the police show up.  The film marks Tarantino's directorial debut, and marks the first appearance of some of his trademarks: profanity, violence, pop culture references, and a nonlinear narrative. It was actually renowned for its brutality; there is a scene in which Mr. Blonde, an ax-crazy psychopath, disfigures a captured police officer and cuts his ear off with a strait razor, all set to the least-appropriate music for such a scene. It was a classic of 1990s independent cinema and achieved higher popularity after the success of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Each film is a classic in their own rights; each was highly acclaimed, though The Departed received more awards while Reservoir Dogs received none. However, the similarities go beyond the superficial. Each has a theme having to do with a police officer, or criminal, in the case of The Departed, going undercover and the effect it has on them. The Departed takes a much more thriller-type stance, as both Sullivan and Costigan try to discover each other's identities. The movie has a theme of identity and association, and what it does to the individual. In the case of police mole Sullivan, it works out nicely. He gets a nice apartment in Boston, is a respected "cop," and begins dating a psychologist, despite being a wicked criminal. He reveals his true colors as such when he shoots down Costello after discovering he was an FBI informant, and receives commendation, and when he withholds details about his true career from his girlfriend. Costigan, on the other hand, draws the short straw as an undercover cop. He is forced to live in a filthy South Boston neighborhood, cut off all familial contact, and lives in constant fear of being discovered by Costello's crime ring and being brutally reprimanded. It is at this point where he realizes he is in too deep and begs his superiors, Cpt. Queenan (Sheen) and Sgt. Dignam (Wahlberg) to be let out. It is in this vein I would compare him to the rat of Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Orange. Both are police officers, highly trained and prepared for their no doubt dangerous missions. As both films progress, the begin to realize the desperation of their situations and realize where they went wrong. Reservoir Dogs differs in the details, however. Since Orange was only inserted for this one job, he was in a different situation than Costigan. He also was accidentally shot in the chest, one of many accidents in the film's plot, such as the actual police ambush. He formed a bond with Mr. White that stuck throughout the entire film, even to the point where White killed lifelong friend Cabot and Eddie in a Mexican Standoff (not the last Mexican Standoff Tim Roth would appear in). Orange clearly feels retribution for causing Mr. White to turn on his friends for his own sake, acknowledging the fact that he is a rat. This is the theme in a modern-day heist caper gone wrong that is, to an extent, the cautionary tale of a rat who got too deep into his own cover.