The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Directed by Don Scardino
Starring: Steve Carrell, Olivia Wilde, Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey, Alan Arkin
Grade: C+

“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is far more thoughtful than it ever needs to be, given that it's specifically cast for an audience drawn to broad physical comedy. Inevitably there are some moronic attempts at humour, but the script at least attempts to chart an (admittedly schmaltzy) arc for Carrell's washed-up magician, who has to rediscover his passion for his profession to appreciate what he has. There's an accurate commentary on the transition of the industry from wholesome illusion to stunty feats of endurance, whereby supposed street entertainers and bodyshock merchants are popularising non-traditional forms of magic. 'Burt Wonderstone' actually spends so much time on building relationships between its characters that – when it comes to the final third – it can't really resolve all of their issues properly, having to drop Alan Arkin's retired magician like an old toy and reduce Jim Carrey's David Blaine clone to a deranged clown. Nevertheless, there's enough rapport generated to ensure that a soft finale can't really spoil a perfectly amiable experience, the film semi-delivering on the promise of laughs and surprisingly adding some soul, to boot.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Directed by Robert Ellis Miller
Starring: Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, Biff McGuire, Laurinda Barrett, Stacy Keach
Grade: C

A film about a deaf mute, the most striking feature of ‘Hunter’ is its constant reinforcement of disability as an ennobling fate to befall a person; the loving patriarch of the family Arkin’s John lodges with is confined to a wheelchair, while the humble husband of a middle-class black woman has to have one of his legs chopped off. Social and racial pressures were a big concern in this period (lest we forget the Best Picture win for “In the Heat of the Night” the year before this) but the dramatic beats in ‘Hunter’ feel like soapy elements unrelated to the inner troubles of our central protagonist. It’s almost as if somebody thought it too bold to spend an entire film focussing on a man unable to talk, the film eventually justifying how unconcerned it is with John by asserting that nobody really knows him at all, which reads as a pretty huge copout to me. Still, there is at least the lovely presence of wallflower Sondra Locke to usher some real truths out of the script, animating her character’s arc from spirited small-town wallflower to crushed adolescent with a depth of feeling the film probably doesn’t deserve.

Argo (2012)

Argo

Directed by Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Scoot McNairy

Grade: C+ [55] 

For a film situated in the midst of a complex era for American-middle Eastern relations Affleck’s “Argo” bathes in simplicity, spurning insight into the period for a by-the-numbers rescue mission narrative. A ‘thriller’ without the thrills, it’s a sort of bedraggled descendant of Spielberg’s “Munich,” with less of the genuine peril or interesting character work which that film – for all of its faults – had in spades. Gleefully aware of its lack of earnestness and celebratory of Hollywood’s mysticism as a weapon against uniformity and protocol, the film-insider knowledge in the opening act works best in gaining a rapport for this lovingly novel conceit. It's less successful when becoming a primarily dramatic text, somehow underwhelming despite its sensationalist approach to a logistical, suspense-geared culmination, underserving both its audience and its intriguing real-life source material.