10 December 2014

The Insurgents


CITIZENFOUR (A-minus) -  Laura Poitras presents one of the ultimate scoops: She wielded a camera in the Hong Kong hotel room of Edward Snowden as he was in the process of spilling government secrets to Glenn Greenwald. The result is a fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Snowden comes off as a regular guy who earnestly believes that he is doing the right thing in this clearly sympathetic portrait. He has a simple, almost goofy demeanor as he coolly explains the technology behind what he is doing and the reasons for his actions. We see him sit barefoot on the hotel room bed, fuss over his hair, pause before setting the proper gauge on his beard-trimmer. He is polite to his visitors, including a Socttish journalist who doesn't know a thing about him. That aw-shucks presentation doesn't make this any less compelling.

Poitras is slow out of the gates as she tries to set the table, spilling a lot of words on the screen and reading from Snowden's emails, sent under the code name Citizenfour. But throughout the film, she manages to present images that pierce the claustrophobia of the hotel room. She offers blank-eyed views of the construction site of another government warehouse for data collection.

The spy-game exchange of encrypted emails isn't what drives the movie, though it doesn't really drag it down. What jumps off the screen here is the old-fashioned journalism on display. It's not an exaggeration to say that this film has the whiff of "All the President's Men." Greenwald, working at the time for the Guardian, starts releasing drips and drabs of this epic leak. Poitras, herself already under government surveillance for her previous work, shows how Greenwald and Snowden can't hide a certain level of fear that strikes them on occasion, though it's hard to distinguish it from adrenaline or just the buzz from breaking such a big story as the feds close in.

This is history unfolding. It's expert filmmaking. With a little editing, it could be a masterpiece.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART I (C-minus) -  Easily the worst of the three movies released so far, this shoot-'em-up mostly sits on the screen, presumably pulling its punches in anticipation of Part II, the series grand finale.

With its constant war games (the revolution has begun), this loud mess comes off as a cheap "Batman" movie. That's a shame, because the previous installment -- the second half of the second film -- was a truly artful cross between fine storytelling and teen pop art. Jennifer Lawrence comes off as distracted in her portrayal of Katniss, our fearless heroine.

You can't help feeling bad for the adults, suffering through bad dialogue and slumming like this. Phillip Seymour Hoffman huffs and scowls; Julianne Moore (as the rebel leader) seems shocked that she's actually in such a movie; Donald Sutherland is a cartoon villain at this point; even Stanley Tucci is improbably wooden. (Those pathetic boys -- Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth -- we won't mention.) Only Woody Harrelson who shows up as a sober Haymitch (cursing the Nouveau Prohibition that has taken hold in the District) brings any energy to the proceedings. Elizabeth Banks provides sharp comic relief as a stripped-down, de-glamored Effie Trinket.

This mercifully ends within two hours. And even though the were splitting the final book in two parts, they couldn't come up with a decent cliffhanger. When Katniss's sister's cat steals half the scenes, you know you've got a dud on your hands.

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