REVIEW: Contagion

Contagion (2011): Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Written by: Scott Z. Burns. Starring: Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet. Rated PG-13 (Language and gruesome symptoms). Running time: 106 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

During a quiet scene in Contagion, the new film from director Steven Soderbergh, I became acutely aware of every sound in the theater – every crinkle of a wrapper, every clearing of a throat – and realized the film was doing what it was intended to do.

Early on in Contagion there is a reference to Jaws that reveals the film’s aim. Similar to how that Spielberg classic played on our fear of the open ocean and made audiences think twice before the next time they went for a dip, Contagion takes a common fear – a worldwide virus outbreak – and crafts an effective thriller around it. We learn in the film that we touch our faces hundreds of times per day, (a point reinforced by frequent close-ups of hands), an unconscious habit that allows for the rapid spread of disease. With that information planted in our minds, each cough and sniffle in the film (deliberately foregrounded in the audio mix) become Contagion’s fin in the water – a sign of impending danger.

The film builds its queasy energy by assembling several storylines with characters that are connected by the mysterious disease. There is the American (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose business trip to Hong Kong may be responsible for the initial spread of the disease. Her husband (Matt Damon) and daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron) provide the emotional arc of the film as they grapple with day-to-day life while the virus takes hold of the country.

On the bureaucratic end of things are Dr. Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and his protégé Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who investigate the disease in pursuit of a cure. Assisting in that goal are researchers Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould) and Dr. Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) as well as French correspondent Dr. Orantes (Marion Cotillard) whose investigation of the outbreak’s source in Hong Kong takes an unexpected turn.

Meanwhile, a vicious blogger named Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) scrutinizes the CDC’s every move and makes allegations of a partnership between the government and pharmaceutical companies. He is a political revolutionary of the modern age whose shocking online posts bring new meaning to the phrase ‘viral videos.’

Krumwiede is one of the film’s many insistent (bordering on incessant) reminders that the film takes place in the present day. Information is obtained and spread through video surveillance, texting, Twitter and other technological advancements familiar to most Millennials. These contemporary details are pervasive to the point of being overwhelming, though perhaps that’s the point. Much of the film’s dialogue blows by in a flurry of acronyms and multisyllabic mouthfuls, a fair dramatization of information overload in the Internet Age.

Soderbergh handles this material well, though. His frenetic style makes sense of the chaos unfurling onscreen and pulls the film’s many characters together into a cogent whole. He balances tense scenes of frayed nerves and frantic phone calls with more sober moments of investigative reporting that plunge into the murky realm of geopolitics without getting didactic.

Emphasis on international affairs does lead to an inherent lack in human empathy. The film is more interested in presenting the inner workings (and subsequent failings) of government agencies than telling a story about individuals. Soderbergh explores the ways in which these agencies communicate with one another to find a balance between law and moral order when catastrophe strikes. Contagion is critical of the layers of red tape that prevent decisive action but never villainizes any of its characters.

On further reflection, the earlier comparison to Jaws is not a perfect one. In 1975, that film created – or at least propagated – a fear of shark attacks. The terror lurking behind every scene of Contagion, however, does not originate with the film but rather is one that has already attained a level of omnipresence in our lives. Whether the threat of a pandemic is just media noise or indeed the fate of mankind remains to be seen. Either way, Contagion thoroughly documents that fear for future generations and offers a chilling apocalyptic tale in the meantime.

- Steve Avigliano, 9/13/11

REVIEW: Predators

Predators (2010): Dir. Nimród Antal. Written by Michael Finch and Alex Litvak, based on characters created by Jim Thomas and John Thomas. Starring: Adrian Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga and Danny Trejo. Rated R (strong creature violence and gore, and pervasive language). Running time: 107 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

I’ve never seen Predator or Predator 2. I’m not sure how these pop culture gems slipped past me all these years – perhaps I spent too much time watching the Alien and Terminator movies instead – but I think I can infer enough from their titles and trailers to know everything I need to approach this film, which thankfully ignores the embarrassing Alien vs. Predator crossover movies in hopes to breathe new life into the franchise.

New hope means new blood and Predators begins by introducing a not-so-merry band of murderers and trained killers, led by an American mercenary (Adrian Brody) and an Israeli military woman (Alice Braga), who the camera sometimes catches looking at Brody long enough to suggest attraction, but there’s no time for romance when there are aliens to be killed, and these few shots are all we get of that subplot. The rest of the crew is filled out by a checklist of requisite minorities including a big Russian, a bigger Mexican, a samurai-slinging Asian, and an African who has a habit of starting his sentences with, “In my culture.” I won’t spoil who dies first.

The movie categorizes these characters by race and killing specialty, keeping them one-dimensional because ethnicities are more fun in action movies when a personality doesn’t get in the way of delivering cool lines in broken English. When Topher Grace shows up too in the jungle, they ask him who he is. He responds, “I’m a doctor.” Of course, the funny doctor. Yeah, we could use him too.

There’s a lot of grunting and threatening each other with guns, but the humans eventually realize their commonality: they’re all killers. But why were they dropped into the middle of a jungle? After cycling through a few seasons’-worth of LOST theories in under minute (This is an experiment! This is a dream! This is Hell!), they arrive at the conclusion that they have been brought here for the purpose of being hunted by the More Dangerous Game – those dreadlocked aliens known only as the Predators.

Everything up to this point is pretty tedious and carried out with dialogue that consists of either clichés or inane questions (“Who are you?” “Where are we?” or my personal favorite, “Wanna see something fucked up?”), but it’s just obligatory exposition before the action kicks in. Unfortunately, even the action feels as if it’s going through the motions. We get a lot faux-tension from gun reloading drama – don’t characters realize that when a spiky alien dog is running at them, they’ll always have enough time to reload before shooting it mid-jump? – followed by some post-battle pondering about whether it’d be better to find cover or search for high ground.

While these are hardly transgressions in an action movie, they become too much to bear without a single relatable character in the bunch. The aforementioned killers all have their cool moments, but they’re too flat to generate anything in the way of audience sympathy. When one dies, we shrug it off and get excited for the next action sequence the survivors will find themselves in. Worst of all is Brody’s character, the supposed protagonist who dismisses each death with such callousness we soon despise him when we should be cheering for him. The film seems to expect that we’ll champion his cold heart simply because he’s the first character we meet, but when a character is this morally devoid, I’d just as soon root for the Predators.

There is a glimmer of hope with the introduction of Laurence Fishburne as a military man who, after holding out on the planet for “ten hunting seasons,” has developed some clever survival tactics as well a split personality. His performance is a reminder of the actor’s charisma and in his limited screen time he brings some much-needed humor and intrigue to the movie.

Predators isn’t terribly interested in either, however, preferring to stack the movie with aimless action sequences. The characters are trying to survive and maybe even make it back to Earth, but we never get any idea of how many Predators they’re fighting against, so there’s no sense of their progress. With great difficulty, a few Predators get killed, but the death toll for humans is twice that and the aliens are barely trying. Finally, after all the shooting and stabbing and exploding, the film doesn’t even have the courtesy to end its narrative with a satisfying conclusion. Yes, the ending is a sequel set-up, but judging by who’s left at the end, I can’t say I’m all that interested in investing more time in their struggle for survival.

Somewhere in this film there’s an interesting parable about the inhumanity of violence, and you wouldn’t have to lose any of the action to turn it into one. When Adrian Brody solemnly decides to sacrifice the weaker men in the pack, director Nimród Antal expects us to nod in agreement. He’s just telling it like it is. But when our lead man has no discernible humanity, maybe we are better off rooting for the aliens. If in the mind of Predators, the last mud-slathered man standing is right and all his preceding decisions are irrelevant, then what the hell was the point?

- Steve Avigliano, 7/11/10