Recliner Reviews | Check out Wahlberg’s latest and indulge in a guilty pleasure with Joaquin Phoenix
“The Gambler”
Mark Wahlberg takes the lead role in this update of a 1974 film about a man trying to balance his career as an English professor and a high-stakes gambler. He’s not doing either one particularly well, and he spirals down as his student/girlfriend Brie Larson and mother/enabler Jessica Lange watch him plummet.
John Goodman and Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar from “The Wire”) both have rousing roles as respective bookies. The revised script of William Monahan (“The Departed”) takes some interesting turns, and director Rupert Wyatt (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”) keeps dialogue crisp and the pace swift.
Wahlberg feels at home, carrying himself with a certain rogue’s panache. This one isn’t much of a gamble. It’s just simply worth a watch.
“Inherent Vice”
Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson has had quite the career. It blasted off when he fictionalized the rise and fall of the porn industry in “Boogie Nights.” He made an epic opus out of love and forgiveness in “Magnolia.” He made madness of the turn-of-the-century oil business with “There Will Be Blood.” In “The Master,” he tackled the birth of Scientology.
And here, Anderson uses Thomas Pynchon’s iconic novel to investigate the drug culture of 1970 Los Angeles. The eccentric Joaquin Phoenix returns to work with Anderson again with equally positive results. As in all the previous films mentioned, Anderson pulls the most from his actors – Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston, Joanna Newsom and Owen Wilson throw down on supporting roles – especially Brolin, who nails his creepy cop performance.
The film drifts along in spots and pings in others. It isn’t Anderson’s best, but it will be a guilty pleasure and worth a watch.
“Felony”
In the fear of stereotyping Australian films, it must be said that most Australian thrillers have a slow burn in comparison to American films. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means it’s a little different approach.
The plot builds and knots around itself until the characters are so tightly wound that something has to break. In this cop drama/thriller, the slow burn turns into a simmer before going full blaze. Australian actor Joel Edgerton (“Zero Dark Thirty”) wrote and starred in the co-lead. Up-and-coming Australian actor Jai Courtney (“Divergent”) plays a young gangbuster cop. And the great British actor Tom Wilkinson fills out the leading cast as these actors represent three generations of men at varying degrees of jadedness.
It creeps along at times. Sometimes the plot is too easy, but the performances are enough to make this not a crime and barely worth a watch.
This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Recliner Reviews | Check out Wahlberg’s latest and indulge in a guilty pleasure with Joaquin Phoenix."