True Detective S2E1

I'm going to open my review with a blunt opinion: True Detective Season 1 is one of the finest, most perfectly crafted pieces of art in television history and I will fight you over that.
Now that we've got that out of the way, I think it goes without saying that beginning this review with some kind of brief overview of season 1 would take a lifetime too long and send me on a thousand different tangents, none of which are relevant to the subject at hand.

Almost 18 months have passed since we were first introduced to Marty Hart, Rustin Cohle, and a satanic cult with murderous tendencies in the murky bayous of Louisiana. That universe is gone now, as the anthology continues in an entirely new world with a casting bill twice as long as the last and a story that will certainly prove to be a complex web of serendipidously connected stories. We've got a lot to explore, so let's get to it!

[SPOILERS AHOY!]

Let's begin with a quick breakdown of every major character we come across in the Season 2 premiere, 'The Western Book of the Dead'
Ray Velcoro (Colin Ferrell): A burnt out, emotionally traumatized, "seen-way-too-much-shit" detective working for the city of Vinci, a fictional suburb of L.A. who serves as the inside-man/muscle for...
Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn): A former mobster-turned-legit businessman, currently running Vinci's casino scene and working to transition into big time real estate investment through a major California railway, who's primary benefactor (city manager Ben Caspere) has mysteriously disappeared.
Paul Woodrough (Taylor Kitsch): A California Highway Patrol officer with an obviously shady past who finds sole release through his job and the sensation of flirting with death.
Ani Bezzarides (Rachel McAdams): A roughened LAPD officer in pursuit of a missing person as she battles with a host of unknown personal demons stemming from her family which includes a pornstar sister and a father who oversees a Hare Krishna enclave.

See all that info? That's all covered in the one episode. Every character's story is introduced and briefly tapped into in the span of one hour, and that's not even including some of the more important supporting cast! Herein lies the gamble that Pizzolatto has wagered with Season 2 of True Detective. By doubling the major cast size, the new season walks a fine line between crafting a Game of Thrones-esque mural of interconnected stories and a potentially clumsy, convoluted mess; a police drama equivalent of 'Love Actually'.

I say this fully aware that the season is only one episode deep and there is plenty of time for everything to eventually make sense. Then again, I'm forced to compare 'The Western Book of the Dead' to its Season 1 counterpart 'The Long Bright Dark' and the focused, irresistible chemistry between Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. Right off the bat, we are introduced to a fascinating and relentlessly back-and-forth dynamic between Marty's tough-as-nails but folksy down-home persona and Rust's nihilistic, hopelessly bleak outlook of the future and life itself. It was fun from the very beginning to see Marty incredulously endure Rust's endless barrage of twisted personal philosophies stemming from a past of dangerous self-destruction, always retorting with the sort of sarcasm and frustration you'd expect from a classic buddy-cop flick.

This duality of personalities maintaining a perfect balance and providing a rich flavor to its character development is part of what made Season 1 such a thrill to experience. Here, Pizzolatto may be risking not only biting off far more than he can chew, but sacrificing that very sort of chemistry between characters for the sake of adding complexity.

There is, of course, plenty to admire in this new chapter of the modern noir universe we've come to love. The acting is characteristically on point, with Colin Ferrell's Velcoro and Vince Vaughn's Semyon leading the pack. Their dynamic seems to be what will drive the bulk of this season's story, though there is plenty of potential for Kitsch and McAdams to grow in equally intriguing fashion. On their own, each story develops at a good pace, and I think it's fair to say we can expect the full range of arcs to flesh out in a meaningful way. It's only a matter of whether or not we as a viewing audience can retain the barrage of information we're subjecting ourselves to.

The cinematography is downright gorgeous, which is once again something we've come to expect from True Detective. We're treated to some fantastic shots of the interchanges on the outskirts of L.A., and the final shot panning back from a seaside ledge where our heroes finally meet upon the curiously displayed corpse of city manager Ben Caspere is certainly the winner of the episode. There is a particularly effective scene towards the end, where Semyon and Velcoro are seated at opposite ends of a long booth in a seedy dive-bar. It's a moment of teasing emotion. There is a lot we have yet to learn about the relationship between Velcoro and Semyon, and a single dimly lit image tells us more than dialogue alone can explain.

Finally, some credence is obviously owed to the writing. At the end of the day, True Detective is and always will be Pizzolatto's brainchild. The fact that he can tap into the deepest, darkest psychological fears of his viewers with utter ease remains abundantly clear. He's instilled that haunted apprehension in every major character, the kind that was on full display with Matthew McConaughey's performance in Season 1. But again, this brings us back to the greatest potential pitfall of this season: We have four major story lines, each driven by a deeply disturbed character that displays a different part of Rust, yet there is not a Marty in sight. Of course whether or not one will develop later on this season has yet to be seen, and we all know that Pizzolatto has done more than enough to prove that we the viewers are in capable hands.

Final Verdict: 70/100 (WRAP)

Season 2 premieres with an incredible amount of ambition. Dense and complex to a fault, but displaying the acting talent and razor-sharp dialogue we've come to know and love from True Detective. Although it risks suffocating beneath the mountain of story arcs it has developed, 'The Western Book of the Dead' serves as a fine prologue for what will no doubt be an entertaining thrill ride of a second season.

-Ben Krein

Gone Girl

I went into this film with an enormous amount of respect for David Fincher for his directing in both Fight Club and Se7en (Panic Room and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were also well done but nothing special). Gone Girl was quite a disappointment. There was very little to this movie other than Pike's performance that stood out as anything above mediocre. Fincher was certainly not at his best and neither was Affleck. 

Acting

Ben Affleck:

I should preface my analysis of Affleck’s performance in this film by mentioning that I consider him to be a middle of the road actor. He’s come a long way since Good Will Hunting in which he helped write a unique and good screenplay but acting-wise he did little more than ride the coattails of Matt Damon’s success as his talentless, childhood friend.  Since then he’s played the painfully annoying Captain Rafe McCawley in Pearl Harbor, Daredevil (a film so bad the audience wishes they had been blind after seeing it), Doug MacRay in The Town in which he came off forced and overly dramatic. Argo, however, was a pleasant surprise and Affleck seemed much more natural in his role as Tony Mendez.

His performance in Gone Girl was somewhere between MacRay and Mendez. At times Affleck seemed very believable as the frustrated victim of a crazy and manipulated wife. The scenes in which he comes off as untrustworthy and indifferent towards his wife, such as the speech he gives to his neighbors at the awareness event, are well done and more dynamic than what we are used to seeing from Affleck. There are other moments, however, where he comes off as painfully forced and regresses to the point where we are reminded that it's Ben Affleck we are watching, rather than Nick Dunne. The scenes at the end of the film after Pike has returned and we are supposed to feel for Nick's uncomfortable and downright scary situation are not compelling at all. Part of this was a failure of the story to provide a practical ending, but Affleck's uninspiring performance should shoulder some of the blame.

Rosamund Pike’s performance in this film was, mostly, phenomenal. She played the loving wife, the scared victim and the crazy psychopath all so convincingly that it was difficult at times to tell which role was real. The only downside to her performance was that for the first half she was in very little of the film and was limited to reading from the diary. This restriction on her character was a necessity for the author Gillian Flynn (personally I think it would have been better to have just told us from the beginning that she kidnapped herself and to show her more since there was only about 30 minutes in which there existed any real doubt for the audience as to Nick's innocence) but I still would have liked to have seen more of Pike. Keeping the disappointment I felt for the story's end aside, I thought Pike's performance was a roller coaster that sloped upward and built with the film's heightening plot until it abruptly careened down a hill as the film's plot reached its conclusion. As Pike's juggling act of playing the victim and the wife gave way to one insane psychopath it reduced the significance of her range and confined her to the limitations of the story's hopelessly implausible ending.

Neil Patrick Harris plays Desi: a millionaire and Pike’s crazed former lover turned stalker. That's about all I can say of this rather limited and barely necessary appearance by Patrick-Harris. A waste of a decent actor to not have involved him more in the story and makes me wonder, having not read the book Gone Girl, if the film wouldn't have been better off had not been written by Flynn as well in order to allow a different writer to adapt the story to fit the talent within this film. Affleck is not strong enough to play the lead, Pike was brilliant but her screen-time was unwisely limited, and Patrick-Harris's role was so pointless it could have been played by a mailman. 

Story

After Nick's wife Amy goes missing, his relationship with the police is created and immediately strained to indicate they are suspicious he might be involved, a suspicion that is easily transferred to the audience. In fact from the police, Pike’s diary, the news’ portrayal of Affleck, and Affleck’s own actions, this audience is strongly made to believe that he is guilty, which quickly turns this film into a “who done it.” That is, until writer Gillian Flynn breaks away from this murder mystery cliché and convinces the audience of his innocence (performing the same 180 in character perception that defense attorney Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) says he and Affleck must pull off to convince the public of his innocence.)

While normally I would applaud a writer and director for taking a risk and going against a cliche for the sake of innovation, I can't help feeling that this film might have been better had it stuck to the format of a conventional murder mystery. Once the plot evolved from a "who done it" to a clear establishment of Affleck's innocence, much of the tension that had been building in the audience's mind fizzled out. It seems that Flynn intended to replace the audience's suspense over whether or not he was guilty with concern for whether or not she would get away with her frame-up. This transition was poorly executed because it required the audience to suddenly build up feelings of sympathy for a character (Affleck) they had just spent half the movie learning to distrust. The failure to connect with or care about what happens to Affleck's character proved to be a major hindrance to the film's story.  

Another brief criticism I had of the movie was the unnecessary and uncomfortable amount of sex. I am not against showing sex in film but I prefer it to have a purpose, otherwise it becomes a cheap ploy to keep an audience entertained. I understand that the scenes of their memory in which we saw Affleck and Pike having sex was meant to show us how in love they once were but there are other ways of achieving this end. The same is true of the scene with Amy and Desi which seemed nothing more than a cheap excuse to see Rosamund Pike having sex. 

The greatest criticism I have of this film was its ending. After watching Affleck accused of murder by his neighbor, denounced by his in-laws, interrogated by the police, and almost imprisoned all on the account of a woman he now realizes has a history of falsely accusing another man of raping her, the audience is somehow expected to believe that he not only doesn't turn her in but decides to stay with her?? This resolution is so ridiculously improbable and unsatisfying that it actually undermines what good this film had to offer. What had at least been an interesting story, despite some weaknesses, loses all credibility with this preposterous conclusion. Not having read the book on which this film is based, I am forced to assume that this ending is the product of Flynn as it in no way resembles the brilliance of Fight Club or Se7en.

Directing

On a positive note, Fincher’s decision to show passages from Amy’s diary to convey her thoughts to the reader and then to transition to having her do voice-overs was a unique and helpful addition to just flashbacks which are much more typical of Hollywood. We see not just how their relationship developed but are given a window into her mind. These clever insights into Amy's mind were a subtle and clever way of introducing the audience to her insane methods that effectively supplemented those actions actually presented on screen. 

What marks the failure of this film's directing is not that it was poorly directed, but that it was nothing out of the ordinary. It lacked the signature twist ending audiences have come to expect from a Fincher film and the reason for this, like most of the film's drawbacks, lies with the film's story.


Conclusion:

Grade: Crap 49%

This film teeters on the edge of being good and had a lot of potential to be a solid film, but a terrible ending and limited storyline prevent it from realizing its potential. The directing was also rather ordinary which is a disappointment for a Fincher film and Affleck seemed to digress back to his former uninspiring acting performances. Rosmund Pike is the clear star of this film but even her performance is not enough to save it.