Big Hollywood films opening this week are WHEN IN ROME and EDGE OF DARKNESS.

Also opening is the newfie family drama GROWN UP MOVIE STAR which also premieres at Sundance.

LA DONATION (Canada 2009) **
Directed by Bernard Emond

The last of film auteur Bernard Emond’s trilogy on humanist work, LA DONATION (THE LEGACY), slow moving as it is – is actually the fastest moving of all three films.

Following LA NEUVAINE and CONTRE TOUTE ESPERANCE, LA DONATION’s continues the theme of faith, fate and healing as the story follows a naïve young doctor, Jeanne Dion (Elise Guilbault) as she wrestles the decision to settle a practice in a small Quebec town. She is supposedly taking over from Dr. Yves Rainville (Jacques Godin) who has served the once thriving mining town of Normetal for over 40 years.

Emond’s film is a pretty film, capturing the essence of life in a small rural town. The landscape has its simple beauty and Emond enhances the mood with a haunting score by Robert Marcel Lepage. Emond draws a sympathetic performance from Elise Guilbault though she broods more than a mother hen laying eggs.

The problem of the film is that Emond’s film has an atmosphere of emptiness. He does not offer any background (family or otherwise) of Dr. Dion. From the way the film goes, the audience is sure she will change her mind and remain in the rural town to continue the work of Dr. Rainville’s medical practice. The script is predictable from the unruly patients at the film’s start to the patients that eventually move Dr. Dion’s heart.

Emond is fond of leaving his camera stationary and having his actors move in and out of the frame. Tracking is minimal. The effect is the feel of a slow-moving film though quite a few incidents occur during the short time frame.

Predictable, shallow and simple, LA DONATION fails to engage the audience to the plight of the young doctor with her decision to stay or leave Normetal.

EDGE OF DARKNESS (UK/USA 2009) **
Directed by Martin Campbell

The ads for EDGE OF DARKNESS with the tagline ‘some secrets take us to the edge’ indicate an action packed revenge movie like the recent TAKEN in which a father goes all out to save his daughter.

The film begins soon enough with Thomas Craven’s (Mel Gibson) 24-year old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) blown away by a shotgun outside the house. As Thomas was standing beside her at the killing and since he a veteran homicide detective, the investigators assume Thomas to be the target. But Thomas knows better. Using his own detective skills and the help of a government operative, Hedburgh (Ray Winstone), Thomas discovers Emma involvement in some conspiracy cover-up.

But once 15 minutes into the movie, it becomes clear that the script by Andrew Bovell (LANTANA) and William Monahan (THE DEPARTED) has the film lead in other directions. Director Campbell (CASINO ROYALE) juggles three separate narrative ideas. Though the main point is the vengeance story, EDGE OF DARKNESS also plays the other plot strands of the existing father/daughter relationship, past and present, as well the nasty corporate/government involvement of clandestine activities.

Unfortunately, none of these are handled satisfactorily. Campbell’s film alternates between action, dull segments and tediously long banter with the protagonist’s musings of regret thrown in at various parts of the film. Campbell is fond of jolting the audience out of their seats ever so often with an abrupt shock sequence (like the shooting of Emma).

Comparing TAKEN with EDGE OF DARKNESS, TAKEN works because the film is focused with the audience bang on with Liam Neeson’s goal of vengeance and seeking out his daughter’s whereabouts. In TAKEN the daughter was still alive and finding her was urgent and time sensitive. In EDGE OF DARKNESS, Emma is already dead and the fact that she might be involved in an activist movement also reduces the audience’s sympathy for her. The audience feels more for a helpless victim.

On the acting level, Gibson is all over the place. One is never sure if his Thomas Craven character is going to burst out in anger (like his psycho LETHAL WEAPON cop) at any time. But Gibson is mostly pouting or just walking around. Winstone fares better as Hedburgh. The ambiguity of this role (whether good or evil) plays well in the film’s suspense.

EDGE OF DARKNESS does contain a neat ending which involves the exposure of hidden secrets and a suspenseful shoot-out. Too bad, this is marred by a following scene stressing the father and daughter relationship illustrating once again that Campbell should have stuck to one idea and worked it better. At almost 2 hours, EDGE OF DARKNESS misses its mark way early in its running time.

GROWN UP MOVIE STAR (Canada 2009) ***1/2

Directed by Adriana Maggs

In the movie THE LION IN WINTER, as King Henry II’s three sons fight for the throne plotting with his embittered Queen imprisoned in the tower but just let out, Peter O’Toole as King Henry II remarks: “Every family has its ups and downs.”

In the modern Newfoundland family drama, the father Ray (Shawn Doyle) has his own share of family problems spiraling out of control. As the film opens, his wife (Sherry White) takes off for what she deems is Hollywood stardom, leaving him to tend for their two rebellious daughters, the elder Ruby (Tatiana Maslany) and younger Ruby (Julia Kennedy). But Ray is no saint having just had his NHL hockey career cut short by a drug conviction. Worst still as he tries to control Ruby’s tramping around, she catches him getting a blow-job from the local hockey coach. Writer/director Maggs piles the credible problems on leading to an emotional climax in which father and daughter finally have to make final decisions on their future.

Maggs, Toronto-based but born in Newfoundland captures the mood, spirit and atmosphere of the eastern Canadian fishing town of St John’s. Shot mainly in grey and light blue (by Jason Tan) during the heart of winter, blowing snow and ice are in every outdoor scene. But the beauty of the sea is seen occasionally in the background. Here, the locals drink, smoke pot, carry on and bother each other if not get themselves into trouble.

The characters are well portrayed and well written. Each has their own faults, problems but also redeeming qualities that surface if the opportunity arises. The film works primarily for the fact that Maggs lets the characterizations unfold allowing the viewer to connect with the emotions as well as the reality of the events.

Though most of the actors are unknown, well-known Newfie actors Andy Jones and Mary Walsh have cameos adding more life to the proceedings. The alternative country music by Elliot Brood is the type that is the favorite of many locals.

GROWN UP MOVIE STAR has been selected to compete at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This is one of the best films to emerge from that Atlantic province.

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD (France/UK/USA 2009) ***1/2

Directed by the Yes Men

Imagine Sacha Baron Cohen (BORAT) with a heart of gold, fooling the world and doing right. THE YES MEN are hoaxsters with the mostest, mainly for the reason that they want to fix the world.

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD is an uplifting entertaining documentary centering on two men who call themselves the Yes Men (Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, in real life Jacques Servin & Igor Vamos). They conceive several pranks on major corporations and governmental agencies and prey the most despicable ruthless companies. They pretend to be their key representatives, create a fictitious website, wait to be invited to conferences then offer solutions to fix the problems the companies had created.

In the film they pose (respectively) as executives from Exxon, Dow Chemical, Halliburton and the H.U.D. They give faux corporate interviews pretending to be DOW executives in which they supposedly announce setting up a $12 billion fund for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster that killed 1,773 people. The BBC fell for this prank and aired the faux interview. This caused DOW's stock plummet. The mindless though winning heroes celebrate their power, but fail to realize that most of DOW's stock is held by pension funds; in other words, regular working class retirees. The dynamic duo conveniently found a few such victims who claimed to enjoy the hoax and its impact on DOW's stock.

The film illustrates the amount of effort the duo undergoes to stage any one particular hoax. Their presentations are professionally done and impressive. This film flows so smoothly that the audience is unaware of the hard work gone into making it – from the multiple shooting locations, to the music, narration and continuity.

But Andy and Mike, as they prefer to be called in the film, admit their limitations in their ploy. Their film works more as informative entertainment than anything else. Still, their projects, just as this film will, bring the attention of the world to the knowledge of the disasters and how little responsibility companies or government agencies are willing to take. Ironically, as this film publicizes the Yes Men, their future exploits will be minimalized by the fact that the world will be more aware of them.