Tommy Lee Jones Page 3

It's been nine years since Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass collaborated on The Bourne Ultimatum, and now they're back. The plot feels like it was agreed by a committee, as thin as the non-title of this film. Honestly, this franchise offers endless options for titles, and they just decided not to bother this time. So even though the story has a whisper of soap-opera silliness about it (yet another blurred memory comes to light), the film is relentlessly entertaining, building momentum as it surges from dark drama to intense action.

Since finally figuring out who he is, Jason (Damon) has been earning a living as a bare-knuckle boxer on the Greek-Albania border. Then his former cohort Nicky (Julia Stiles) uncovers a new piece in his life puzzle, which allows the CIA's Director Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) to track them down. As he sends in a ruthless assassin (Vincent Cassel) to get rid of them once and for all, plucky CIA analyst Heather (Alicia Vikander) takes a different approach, determined to bring Jason back into the firm. But he's not coming in without a fight, and as the stakes rise, the chase shifts from Athens to Berlin, London and finally Las Vegas.

As all of this is happening, Dewey is also trying to strong-arm the billionaire founder (Riz Ahmed) of a hot social media platform to allow the CIA to have access to its customers. And he's heading to Vegas as well. This sideplot integrates cleverly with the main narrative, although its message about government overreach is a bit heavy-handed ("Privacy is freedom!"). Still, it adds some kick to the whizzy computer gadgetry that fills this franchise, from tracking devices and tiny earpieces to miraculous hacks.

Continue reading: Jason Bourne Review

Almost criminally entertaining, this preposterous thriller mixes buckets of humour and emotion into the violent, twisty action. And Kevin Costner gets his best role in years, a remarkably complex character who's unpredictable and thoroughly engaging. So even as the story grows increasingly ridiculous, the film remains both gripping and a lot of fun.

It's set in London, where hot CIA operative Bill (Ryan Reynolds) is on the trail of an evil anarchist (Jordi Molla) when he's captured, tortured and killed. To stop an imminent attack, the CIA chief Wells (Gary Oldman) needs to know what Bill was working on. So he calls in scientist Franks (Tommy Lee Jones), who has been experimenting with transferring memories from brain to brain in animals. For his first human trial, he copies Bill's dying memories into the only suitable brain available on such short notice: psycho killer Jericho (Kevin Costner), who's serving a death sentence in prison. And now Jericho is desperate to sort out the chaos in his head.

Director Ariel Vromen (The Iceman) keeps everything moving so briskly that there isn't time to stop and think about how silly the premise is. All of these characters act on their basest impulses, never thinking through anything before they charge into the next situation. Viewers who try to make sense of the plot, or of London's geography, will find their brains aching like Jericho's. So it's better to just hang on and enjoy the ride. The film's edgy, urgent tone adds the illusion of depth amid the mindlessly brutal violence, while the formidable cast adds weight to a variety of rather thinly drawn characters, from Oldman's bluster to Jones' wry wit. Only Costner gets some real depth to play with, and Jericho is constantly surprising, mixing a killer instinct with brainy invention and some properly dark emotions. His scenes with Gal Gadot (as Bill's wife) are unnervingly tense and moving.

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An attempt to spice up a true story with fictional characters and events leaves this film feeling artificial. And it doesn't help that the two likeable lead actors never quite crack the surface. But this is still a fascinating moment in history, and the film captures a strong sense of the setting as well as the importance of this urgent meeting of two cultures.

It takes place in August 1945, just after Japan surrenders to the Americans. General MacArthur (Jones) is now charged with determining whether Emperor Hirohito (Kataoka) should be tried for war crimes. So he assigns General Fellers (Fox) to define Hirohito's role. Fellers has experience with Japanese culture: he lived there before the war and fell in love with university student Aya (Hatsune). But he never knew what happened to her, so in addition to working with his translator Takahashi (Haneda) to meet with various wartime officials, he also looks for news about Aya.

There's something fishy about this whole Aya business right from the start, as we doubt that such a high-ranking military officer, charged with such a vitally important task, would spend so much time on his own personal search. We also never really care about Fellers' feelings for Aya, so nothing about this plot-thread and its gauzy flashbacks feels realistic. And sure enough, a bit of research reveals that it's complete fiction. The far more interesting relationship here is between Fellers and Takahashi, which is played with intriguing texture by Fox and especially Haneda but is never properly explored on-screen.

Continue reading: Emperor Review

Bobby Walker (Affleck) is a high-flying shipping executive stunned when he's fired after 12 years on the job. Company founder Gene (Jones) is furious at the CEO (Nelson) for sacrificing thousands of employees to guarantee bigger profits for stockholders and executives. And his 30-year-veteran colleague Phil (Cooper) is worried that he might get the chop in the next wave of cuts. While Bobby struggles to accept his unemployment, his wife (DeWitt) is more realistic, suggesting that Bobby take a job with her builder brother (Costner) to tide them over.

Continue reading: The Company Men Review

Dave (Jones) is a detective looking into the violent murder of a prostitute when movie star Elrod (Sarsgaard), filming nearby in a swamp, stumbles across the decades-old skeleton of a chained-up black man. In Dave's mind, the murders are linked, and as he questions a local mobster (Goodman), a partying investor (Beatty) and the film's director (Sayles), both cases get increasingly haunting. Dave also imagines that he sees a Confederate general (Helm) roaming the bayou around his house. And within this swirling mist, things start to make sense.

Continue reading: In The Electric Mist Review

Co-stars Anne Heche and Tommy Lee Jones prove more than able at evading not only the encroaching magma, but also the horde of bad actors that follow them throughout the movie. And while the film is full of creeping cheese, complete with death-defying leaps to safety, slow motion shots, and kitschy one-liners, I shock myself even by saying that, for the most part, it feels real. They even thought to include Dennis Woodruff's infamous car, the cheesiest of Hollywood landmarks, floating along in a river of fire. Where else would they think of that!? I really do love L.A...

Continue reading: Volcano Review

Getting knocked up might just be the best thing to ever happen to Jodie Foster's career. Without a pregnancy to get her off the hook, it would have been Foster running from rampant, rabid loopholes in the laughable, pathetic, incoherent thriller "Double Jeopardy."

Poor Ashley Judd got the call to replace Foster in this picture -- about the fantasy revenge of a woman whose shady businessman hubby fakes his own murder and frames her for it -- and the actress barely survives it with her dignity intact.

Built upon the wildly inaccurate legal postulate that if you're convicted of murder and the victim turns up alive, you can kill them for real and the law can't touch you, this movie couldn't be more riddled with holes if the script spent an afternoon at the business end of a artillery range.

Continue reading: Double Jeopardy Review