Edward Norton’s new movie Motherless Brooklyn is a nice try that doesn’t quite hit the spot. It’s a decent film, just not the home run that Norton was shooting for.

Norton is the director, the writer and the star of the film.

It’s a suspense mystery that some have referred to as Chinatown: East. Yes, Motherless Brooklyn does share some elements with that 1974 classic: a power hungry municipal public works figure, secret family dynamics and a murder of somebody who knew too much.

MB, set in late 50’s New York City, also has some cool vintage cars—as does Chinatown—though the auto livery here seems a bit heavy on big tail fin cars of the era.

Lionel (Norton), nicknamed Brooklyn by his boss and mentor Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), is a private detective. Lionel has Tourette’s. He has a number of vocal and physical tics. He has great memory skills which he demonstrates throughout the film. He is fully functioning and has good awareness of his problem—not quite Rain Man.

When Minna is murdered by a group of thugs, Lionel follows clues that lead him to jazz musicians in Harlem, equal housing advocates and a ruthless power broker named Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin).

Randolph’s character resembles the real life mid-century New York development leader Robert Moses, the man who was sometimes blamed for the Dodgers relocation to Los Angeles. (Moses rejected the Dodgers’ plan for a new ballpark in Brooklyn.)

Lionel is fascinated by a mixed-race woman he meets at the housing office, Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). For two reasons: she gives him information and she’s gorgeous.

Also among the cast: Bobby Cannavale as a fellow detective and Willem Dafoe as an activist, who is another of Lionel’s key info sources.

A couple of questions to consider: Does Norton merit best actor Oscar consideration? Not a slam-dunk but he should be in the conversation. Norton takes the advice of Tropic Thunder‘s Kirk Lazarus and does not go full (that way). Norton has played damaged individuals before so he knows restraint. Also, does Baldwin’s ruthless character bring to mind a certain power hungry NYC developer who now occupies the White House? Yes, actually.

Motherless Brooklyn is an ambitious project that, to borrow a classic movie quote, could’ve been a contender. But it falls just a bit short.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Current War: The Director’s Cut is a brilliant movie. A complicated, nuanced story is boiled down to its vital plot points via a tight script by Michael Mitnick and the clever, often thrilling, quick cut direction of Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.

Character development is thrifty but, thanks to a strong cast, effective. The film clocks in at just under an hour and forty minutes. (This film has a real-life backstory which is noted below.)

The film features numerous stylish overhead shots, subjective shots and special computer effects (such as a panorama of Chicago in the 1890s). The soundtrack adds tension and tempo to actions and conversations and helps the narrative maintain its momentum.

The sequence that contrasts the bright lights of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago with the nation’s first capital punishment electrocution is contrived but makes an interesting point. And even if the film’s penultimate action set at Niagara Falls didn’t really happen, its irony is sharp.

The battle between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) over whose system of electricity generation/distribution would power the nation was fierce and nasty. Spoiler alert: the device you are reading this review on is powered by (or its battery is charged by) a version of the Westinghouse system, alternating current.

Edison stubbornly stuck with direct current which was soon revealed to have significant shortcomings.

Some online commenters have complained that the film does not give Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) enough credit for his role as a contributor to both Edison’s and Westinghouse’s efforts. That may be valid but the film is about the promoters of the competing technologies, not about the engineers and support personnel who did much of the dirty work.

A few imdb.com users gave the movie low scores simply because they felt Tesla got shortchanged. TCW: TDC’s version of Tesla is a highly intelligent young man who has more than a few quirks. His amazing life story has been told elsewhere and is worth checking out.

It’s good to see Michael Shannon portray a solid citizen, not a dark, evil wacko. Cumberbatch might not be the obvious choice to play Edison but he embodies the inventor’s huge ego and intensity admirably. The cast also includes Tom Holland as Edison’s assistant Samuel Insull.

The backstory: The Current War was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017 and was due to be released later that year. Then came the Harvey Weinstein scandal. His company controlled the film and delayed release. Eventually a new distributor obtained rights. Since 2017, the director trimmed the runtime and perked up the soundtrack. His cutting and pasting have resulted in the film being officially titled The Current War: The Director’s Cut, even though only a mere handful of people saw the original version. Got it?

 

 

 

The Addams Family is a blast! It’s fun and it’s funny. The laughs come not just from its dialogue but also from its visual humor.

It helps that most of us are familiar with the Addams characters and their, um, eccentricities. They’ve been depicted in magazine cartoons, a 60s TV series, 90s live action movies and an animated TV series. This newest movie, to be clear, is a computer-animated tale.

In most animated films that use famous actors in the voice roles, certain voices seem to dominate. That’s not the case here. The voice work is excellent and efficient but does not call special attention to particular cast members. (Okay, maybe Snoop Dogg’s brief work as Cousin It merits a slight nod.)

Though Tim Burton is not connected to this movie, his influence is present. Not just his work in The Nightmare Before Christmas (which Burton did not direct but shepherded through its production) but also Edward Scissorhands. Of course, it’s not hard to guess that earlier incarnations of The Addams Family influenced Burton’s work. (Burton was initially booked to do a stop-action Addams film in 2010.)

In The Addams Family, Gomez (Oscar Isaac), Morticia (Charlize Theron), Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moritz), Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard), Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll), and Lurch (Conrad Vernon) live in a dark mansion on a hilltop, not unlike the locale of Vincent Price’s place in Edward Scissorhands.

Just down the hill from the Addams home sits a planned cookie-cutter community called Assimilation. The town and its colors echo those of the subdivision in Edward Scissorhands.

Assimilation’s town leader/busybody and TV home design maven Margaux Needler (Allison Janney) views the Addams clan as a threat to her vision of Disney-like neatness and conformity. She panics when Wednesday Addams gives Margaux’s daughter a Goth makeover. As the extended Addams family comes to visit, a showdown in inevitable.

To be honest, I have been disappointed with many non-Pixar animated films in recent years. Bad ideas and perfunctory execution have generated lots of yawns and shrugs. But The Addams Family revels in cleverness and the film moves through its narrative with smiles and chuckles and nary a slowdown.

The Addams Family is rated PG and runs just under 90 minutes.