Loose change

Here are some films that I’ve watched lately but can’t recommend, so I mention them in a cautionary way, in the interest of complete coverage at year’s end, from best to worst of a so-so lot. Each has elements that might lead you to expect something good, but in the end proves disappointing.

I’m not sure what led Michael Mann to think that the story of John Dillinger needed to be retold, but his Public Enemies (2009, dvd, MC-70) did not convince me on the merits. Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard are definitely worth watching, and jailbreaks, bank robberies, and tommy-gun shootouts are filmed in luscious HD with balletic as well as ballistic grace. But the story is told in a breakneck and inconsequential manner, with intriguing cameos but little genuine character development. Billy Crupup is amusing and surprisingly convincing as J. Edgar Hoover, and Christian Bale is steely and enigmatic as the G-Man charged with bringing in Dillinger “dead or dead.” But a number of well-known faces come and go in a flash. This latter-day gangster film looks good and goes down easy, but lacks point.

The same goes twice for another Depression-era true story, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling (2009, dvd, MC-63). The production values are smooth, but the point is elusive. Is it grief porn? We watch Angelina Jolie’s face in extreme close-up as it is tortured through all the emotions of a devastated mother, after her young son goes missing, and then the police return a different boy whom they insist is her son. Her denial of his identity is written off as hysteria and she is sent to an asylum to admit her obstinacy. So Angelina is back in the snake pit, where she first made her mark in Girl, Interrupted. But then there is the parallel story of an honest investigator who uncovers a serial killer of boys, and then the protracted, painful wait to confirm that her son was one of the victims. And then an equally protracted execution scene. All of which scenes go off in different directions, making for an aimless film, which exploits suffering rather explaining or exploring it.

Julianne Moore is another mother in panic and pain over a missing child in Freedomland (2005, dvd, MC-43). Since the investigating cop is Samuel L. Jackson, along with other welcome performers such as Edie Falco and Clarke Peters, and the script is by Richard Price, adapted from his own novel (not his best but better than this), most of the blame for the failure of this film to move or enlighten, or even make much sense, must be laid to director Joe Roth.

As of fan of Buffy and Entourage, I had reason to hope that James Toback’s Harvard Man (2001, dvd, MC-49) -- with Adrian Grenier as the student-athlete of the title and Sarah Michelle Geller as his mobster-bred girlfriend -- was not as bad as they say. It is. And is only made worse by the ridiculousness of Joey Lauren Adams as a hot, hot philosophy professor with whom Toback’s autobiographical hero is having an affair. There was some amusement to be had watching this film with my Harvard man son, but I would warn anyone else away. The style is as annoying as the story, with the exception of some fun with distorting lenses that gives a pretty good representation of a bad LSD trip. The rest of the movie is a bad trip in itself.