Ed Harris Page 3

Remember that TV show Heroes, where something happens maybe every 15 episodes to advance the storyline? Cleaner is kind of like that but condensed into a movie. The movie beats around the bush for about half an hour before it actually introduces a conflict; the rest of the 90 minutes is filled with Samuel L. Jackson yelling at various people until we finally encounter a twist at the very end. The "surprise" ending is so contrived and underwhelming you'll want to take a nap after sitting through this film to recover your soul from horrendous boredom by dreaming up something more interesting.

Continue reading: Cleaner Review

Since their last adventure, things have changed rather significantly for Team Ben Gates (a null set Nicolas Cage). Our hero is continuing his treasure-hunting ways, but he's broken up with gal pal Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger). Papa Gates (a lost Jon Voight) has been helping sonny boy over his rough relationship patch, while tech wiz sidekick Riley Poole (a far too-wisecracking Justin Bartha) has published a book and is deep in debt to the IRS. When a mysterious figure named Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) shows up, carrying a page out of John Wilkes Booth's diary implicating Gates' forefather in the assassination of Lincoln, the ancestors vow to clear his name. Turns out the long dead relative could have been trying to hide the location of the lost City of Gold -- Cibola -- from conspiring Confederate rebels. It's up to Gates to find the truth, and the vast wealth at the end of said quest.

Continue reading: National Treasure: Book Of Secrets Review

His best decision comes early. By adapting novelist Dennis Lehane's Boston-based thriller, Affleck commits to material that fits him like a glove. Affleck adores his hometown -- warts and all -- and Gone becomes as much an ode to the city as Lehane intended.

Continue reading: Gone Baby Gone Review

Cuba Gooding Jr. deserves similar congratulations for his courage, not just for "playing retarded" in the titular role in Radio, but for most of what he's done since he won his own Oscar as jawboning jock Rod Tidwell in 1996's Jerry Maguire, a role in which his only devastating handicap was playing for the Arizona Cardinals. If not true fearlessness, it's hard to imagine what else can explain some of Gooding's recent script-picking decisions - Chill Factor, Instinct, Rat Race, Snow Dogs, and the execrable Boat Trip come to mind. Maybe he can't read.

Continue reading: Radio Review

What it does have is some of the best actors working in film today (Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris), seasoned producers Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson (Top Gun, for starters), Bad Boys director Michael Bay, and some relatively unknown screenwriters (David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook, and Mark Rosner), who all pull together to tell one hell of a story -- and hands-down the best action flick of the year-to-date.

Continue reading: The Rock Review

A dark comedy on par with Pulp Fiction, Aussie director Gregor Jordan (in his second film) transports us to Germany in 1989, on an American Army base during the waning days of the Cold War. These enlisted troops aren't your Officer and a Gentleman go-getters. They're criminals, offered the option to serve their country in lieu of staying in jail. But since there's no war on, getting in to trouble is the only thing to do. As our protagonist says, "There was nothing to kill but time."

Continue reading: Buffalo Soldiers Review

The result of this combination is an overly ambitious film that's as muddled and cryptic as a mumble-filled Dylan vocal. Dylan stars as the symbolically named Jack Fate, an apparent musical legend, jailed in the midst of a brutally downtrodden America where the government has taken over, war is rampant, and even the counter-revolutionaries have counter-revolutionaries.

Continue reading: Masked & Anonymous Review

Based on Tom Wolfe's novel (though heavily inspired by the truth), The Right Stuff follows the formative years of the space race, from 1947 to 1963, when it was us vs. the Russians. The film begins as we first punch through Mach 1 in experimental aircraft and ends with seventh and final Mercury astronaut blasting off.

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Seldom do movies contain enough power to influence or change our convictions. Through enormously convincing performances, a masterful screenplay, and aggressive direction, this movie takes us on an extraordinary journey into the mind of a fascinating character, providing insight on its unique subject. Move over Good Will Hunting, here comes the ultimate movie about a math wiz!

Continue reading: A Beautiful Mind Review

A good example: Pollock was suicidal, maniacal and violent throughout his 44-year life. The first sentence of Naifeh's and Smith's book -- the very first sentence -- is this quote from Pollock: "I'm going to kill myself." Explains a lot, but for some odd reason, Harris only hints at Pollock's suicidal tendencies in his long-anticipated film.

Continue reading: Pollock Review

As an actor portraying the inner turmoil of Jackson Pollock -- the revolutionary abstractionist known for his splatter-and-drip painting style -- Ed Harris gives a commanding, potent performance in "Pollock" that is a torrential mix of the artist's chaotic talent and his more chaotic psyche.

As a director depicting Jackson Pollock's world, Ed Harris (yes, he did double-duty on this film) captures with vivid, lively authenticity both the astute yet pretentious buzz of the 1940s Manhattan art scene and his subject's tumultuous personal life, marked by hard drinking and a stormy long-term affair with fellow painter Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden).

Together Ed Harris the actor and Ed Harris the director create an imposing, invigorating cinematic biography fueled by its subject's stubborn, manic energy and his strangely uncommunicative charisma.

Continue reading: Pollock Review

"The Hours" is an Oscar voter's nightmare. An adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel about three women in three different time periods whose lives are profoundly affected by Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," the film features equally magnificent performances of nearly equal screen time from three of the best actresses working in film today.

Meryl Streep submerges herself in the self-sacrificing soul of Clarissa Vaughan, a modern Manhattan book editor whose longtime dear friend -- and volatile ex-lover -- Richard (Ed Harris) likes to ruffle her feathers by comparing her to the heroine of Woolf's book. Both women are externally serene, perfectionist party-throwers hiding deep reservoirs of regret over missed opportunities while living lives as mother-hen caretakers to others.

Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, a fragile, pregnant 1950s housewife in the midst of reading "Mrs. Dalloway," whose deep depression (like Woolf's) and suicidal musings (like Dalloway's) go all but unnoticed by everyone except her young son (Jack Rovello), who clings to her apron strings with worry.

Continue reading: The Hours Review

Ed Harris is an amazingly honest actor. Whether he's playing a megamaniacal military rogue (like in "The Rock"), an egomaniacal TV producer ("The Truman Show") or an everyday dad ("Stepmom"), he so fully understands his characters' foibles and drives that he taps right into the cores of their beings.

It's not so much that he's a chameleon who disappears into his parts, as it is that he visibly enjoys becoming the people he plays. There is a rapture in the way he performs that is just a joy to watch.

In the complex, compelling and intimate "The Third Miracle," Harris plays Father Frank Moore, a disillusioned Catholic priest who debunks miracle claims for the church -- a man whose psyche has become scarred with hesitancy and regret after years of shooting holes in people's beliefs.

Continue reading: The Third Miracle Review