About halfway through Taking Chance I tried to throw my cat at the TV. My feline evaded me so instead I flung a pen and a handful of popcorn.
It was the only reasonable response to a scene so annoyingly cheesy and cloyingly pro-America that the only other image that could have rivalled it would be Captain American beating up Osama Bin Laden with Babe Ruth’s baseball bat, saving some kittens and eating a whole apple pie.
But then, Taking Chance is very pro-America. The offending incident sees a bunch of motorists flash their lights at Lt Col Michael Strobl (Kevin Bacon) as they pass him on the highway. The lieutenant colonel is escorting the body of a young marine back from Iraq to his family for burial.
The impromptu convoy of the willing is one of many small shows of solidarity and respect for the fallen soldier that Strobl encounters along his journey and the only one that comes across as unbelievable, mawkish even.
Based on the true story of the journey Lt Col Strobl made with the body of a young marine, PFC Chance Phelps who died in combat in Iraq, Taking Chance is unusual in that it is almost entirely lacking in a politial message – the only lingering one being that war is bad and young people die in it. It’s a film that seems to be pro-military but ambivilent towards the actual war.
In a study of grief and respect, loss and frustration, Bacon is almost painful to watch as the guilt – or is it grief – wracked officer who makes his journey across America saying little, flinching from the kindness and expressions of gratitude from the people he meets as if ashamed that he is alive and the young man he accompanies is not.
With every aspect of the body’s preparation and the processes that are required to get it “squared away” for transport minutely and patiently detailed, it is a film of a thousand tiny moments. Bacon’s reluctance to fully engage with the well wishes of the many well wishers off-sets any of the potential tackiness that such a barrage of almost unfettered approval might occasion and the characters and dialogue are all natural and intensly human.
Except for the bit with the cars. Which might play better on US soil but to some eyes could only legitimately be followed with a chorus of America F*** Yeah!
That moment of annoyance passes quickly though and, as Phelps reaches his final resting place, the nature of Strobl’s reticence is revealed and the great weight that the death of a child imposes on a family and a community is portrayed with candour and an admirable lack of drama.
The result is heartbreaking and impossible to look away from.
Bacon won both Golden Globe and SAG awards for his acting masterclass and deservedly so as the weight of the film falls almost entirely on his shoulders.
Not a feelgood movie by any stretch, Taking Chance is still a curiously enriching, if saddening, film made all the more poignant by its real-life origins. It is not the jingoistic mess it could have been and, like its central character, distinguishes itself through its reserve and self-control.
If Taking Chance is a study in understatement, then Blood and Bone is a triumph of brainless spectacle.
“It is what it is” is the fairest thing to be said about this ghetto martial arts opus from Ben Ramsey. And what it is is a surprisingly well-acted film where a mysterious stranger rolls into town, proves himself to be tougher than a gorilla with a flick knife and proceeds to beat up increasingly intimidating bad guys until he gets his chance at “the big boss”.
So far, so boring, yes? Actually, no. Because the story has more twists than your average idiot beat-em-up, and the cast, Michael Jai White as the hero, Bone, and former OZ star Eamonn Walker as a weird crimelord, are almost over qualified for this sort of detail.
Jai White is a fantastic martial artist and, if films like Ong Bak, Chocolate or even Red Belt are your thing, then his chop socky shennanigans will be the star of the show.
For anyone else… Look, if you don’t like watching elaborate fight scenes then this is NOT the film for you. While the acting is better than you’d expect for a straight to DVD flick, it still won’t be winning any award. Likewise the story is clever, but not that clever.
After all, it is what it is.