Category Archives: Redemption

2007, Could Be Sad, Drama, Explicit sex, Not Feel Good, Nudity, Redemption, Revenge, Suspense, Violent

Crossing Over (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Boasting an all-star cast that includes Harrison Ford, director Wayne Kramer’s thoughtful drama weaves several stories together to create an emotionally charged examination of immigration in Los Angeles. Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta co-star in the powerful ensemble film, which provides a harrowing look at border crossing, document fraud, asylum seekers, naturalization, counterterrorism and the clash of cultures in America.

“Crossing Over” is one powerful, compelling tapestry of immigrant stories. Very few of the subplots end happily. Therein lies my only complaint: the film is very heavily slanted toward the viewpoint that the INS is unfair, uncaring, and in one case corrupt. Having said that, my heart was with the sad lives of the illegals. Most of the immigrants in the film are, in fact, illegals seeking desperately to become legal. I have met illegals in my neighborhood doing things like painting, mowing, etc. Their stories can be heart-rending as are the stories in this film.

As far as the craft of filmmaking is concerned, this is a very well made film. There are too many fine actors doing an excellent job to be able to credit any one in particular.

2008, Biographical, Could Be Sad, Drama, Imperfect, Not Feel Good, Redemption, Violent

What Doesn’t Kill You (2008)

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From NetFlix:

Partners in crime Paulie (Ethan Hawke) and Brian (Mark Ruffalo) find themselves at odds after years of pulling dangerous jobs, surviving turf wars and evading a determined detective (Donnie Wahlberg) in this gritty crime drama set in South Boston. The childhood buddies have gone through the wringer together, but when Brian’s relationship with his wife (Amanda Peet) begins to fall apart, their loyal friendship is tested.

I almost did not finish this film. It just seemed like any other film about South Boston hoodlums. However, the last part of the film contains the film’s message. Indeed that half belongs to Mark Ruffalo who beautifully portrays a discouraged former alcholic who desperately wants to be a good father to his sons. This story is based on the life of Brian Goodman who plays Pat Kelly in the movie. The film ends, as do many “true” films, with lines of text that explain what happened in Goodman’s life beyond the end of the film. Note also that the minor role of Detective Moran is played by the brother of Mark Wahlberg. This is only a B-film, but Ruffalo does a wonderful job.

2008, DO NOT MISS, Drama, Explicit sex, Not Feel Good, Nudity, Redemption, Suspense

The Reader (2008)

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From NetFlix:

Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) reflects on the formative sexual relationship he had with older woman Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet, in a Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning role) as a young teenager in this poignant drama set in post-World War II Germany. The passionate affair ended when Hanna disappeared. But years later, Michael learns she’s on trial for horrific Nazi war crimes. David Kross plays the teenage Michael in this film based on Bernhard Schlink’s best-seller.

I am still shaking after watching this powerful, superb, maddening film. I was and am still so angry at the male protagonist. Without giving anything away, he was such a “Hamlet” that he allows his female counterpart to suffer more than she need have. I refuse to accept that he was sparing her feelings. Hopefully one of you will have a different point of view and share it with us. Why on earth did he behave as he did ?

The acting is perfect. David Kross does so fine a job I could have strangled him.

Lots of sex, not for children.

2008, Could Be Sad, DO NOT MISS, French, Not Feel Good, Redemption

I’ve Loved You So Long (2008)

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From NetFlix:

After more than a decade apart, estranged sisters Juliette (Kristin Scott
Thomas) and Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) try to rebuild their fractured relationship.
But the task is hardly easy, considering Juliette’s past. She’s been in jail
for 15 years — for killing someone. As she settles into small-town life with
Lea’s family, the locals can’t help but talk. Philippe Claudel’s feature film
debut garnered him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Do not miss this beautiful, sad, perfectly acted French film (with subtitles). Kristin Scott Thomas’ French is excellent. (She left England at the age of 19 to work as an au pair in Paris. She was married to François Oliviennes, a French obstetrician. They live in a 19th century country house with their children, Hannah, Joseph, and George.)

Part of the NetFlix description is misleading. Don’t worry about nosy neighbors except at one tense moment at a dinner party. Gossip has nothing to do with the film. Rather, the film is a warm testimony to the enduring and determined love of a wonderfully sweet younger sister (played to perfection by Elsa Zylberstein) for an older sister who has suffered an enormous amount. It is about the sister’s husband and children (and husband’s father) growing to trust and love Juliette. Above all it is about coming to terms with a sorrow that can never go away. You will probably guess early on what happened in the past, but that is nowhere near as important as some amount of redemption in the present.

2002, Could Be Hard To Watch, Detective, Redemption, Revenge, Suspense, Violent

The Salton Sea (2002)

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From NetFlix:

Punk-rocking speed freak Danny Parker (Val Kilmer) freelances as an informant for brutal narcotics cops Al Garcetti (Anthony LaPaglia) and Gus Morgan (Doug Hutchison). But when he’s not assisting the cops on drug busts, Danny gets high and leads a double life as a talented, mild-mannered trumpeter named Tom Van Allen. One personality is in search of his wife’s killer, but reality is evasive in director D.J. Caruso’s neo-noir crime thriller.

Welcome to the first of a two-film festival featuring Vincent D’Onofrio who has been called an “actor’s actor”. In this violentissimo!!!!! film, D’Onofrio steals the show as the incredibly psychotic Pooh-Bear. Tell me, did this character lose his nose due to sniffing entertaining substances ?

In theory this is Val Kilmer’s film and he broods well throughout. But low and behold there are small parts for the young Anthony LaPaglia and even younger B.D. Wong. For me, however, the best and most moving supporting actor was Peter Saarsgard as a slow-witted but faithful friend.

We cannot fail to note that “Law and Order” counts D’Onofrio, B.D. Wong, and Saarsgard among its cast. LaPaglia instead appears in “CSI” and of course “Without a Trace”.

Warning: This is an especially brutal film with some disturbing sequences.

1989, Detective, Not Feel Good, Redemption, Revenge, Violent

Johnny Handsome (1989)

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From NetFlix:

When a heist goes wrong, gangster John Sedley’s (Mickey Rourke) best friend is killed, leaving him alone to take the blame for the crime. But the disfigured crook gets a second chance at life after receiving a brand-new face from a prison surgeon. Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Forest Whitaker and Morgan Freeman co-star in this gritty action drama about one man’s hunger for revenge against those who wronged him.

“The Wrestler” has generated so much noise that I wanted to see a film with Mickey Rourke. First I tried “Rumble Fish (1983)” but did not even want to finish watching it. Rourke seemed to be one of those actors who act by not acting (i.e. he keeps his face still and you credit him, rightly or wrongly, with feeling certain emotions). But I tried again with “Johnny Handsome (1989)” and this 20-year old movie shows the actor in a better light. It’s one of those movies that you want to end in a certain way but you just have to ride it out to see what really happens. No more hints. So far for me Rourke is not a great actor.

Violent, not for children.

2007, DO NOT MISS, Redemption, Violent

Eastern Promises (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Viggo Mortensen (in an Oscar-nominated role) reteams with director David Cronenberg in this intense thriller, starring as Nikolai Luzhin, a notorious London gangster. When Luzhin learns that a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts) has discovered incriminating evidence against his “family,” he finds his normally steely resolve compromised. Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Sinéad Cusack co-star.

Naomi Watts is the midwife trying to find relatives for an infant orphan whose mother was a white slave of the Russian mob. Viggo Mortensen is a Russion mobster. Wonderful plot twists, excellent character development. It is also a redemption movie (often the case with violent movies). If you can stand the violence, this is Viggo Mortensen in one of his many amazing movies.

2006, DO NOT MISS, Not Feel Good, Redemption, Violent

Steel Toes (2006)

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From NetFlix:

This intense crime drama stars Oscar nominee David Strathairn as liberal Jewish attorney Danny Dunckelman, who’s appointed by the court to defend Mike Downey (Andrew W. Walker), a neo-Nazi skinhead on trial for the murder of an East Indian man. Confronting religious and racial intolerance, Mike and Danny struggle to form an alliance despite their divergent beliefs and sensibilities in this provocative exploration of hatred and forgiveness.

“Steel Toes” is violent because Andrew Walker as a Nazi skinhead in Montreal kicks a defenceless East Indian to death. As a result liberal Jewish lawyer David Strathairn (CIA Deputy Directory in “The Bourne Ultimatum”) decides to defend the skinhead. What follows is some very tight ensemble acting and I found myself riveted to their give and take. My appreciation of Strathairn has, as a result, grown immensely.

1001BeforeDie, 2007, Could Be Hard To Watch, Could Be Sad, Feel Good Not For Children, German, Redemption, Revenge

The Lives of Others (2007)

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From NetFlix:

Set in 1980s East Berlin, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film) provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the state police as a high-profile couple is bugged. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi’s secret surveillance program, their friends, family and even those doing the watching find their lives changed too.

For me this compelling film (recommended in “1001 Films To See Before You Die”) was a “feel good” because it has the most memorable and wonderful ending. In between there is a lot of sadness. Also the film is somewhat illustrative of the phrase “the banality of evil”. Not that those times were easy: the Stasi blackmailed ordinary people into spying on their neighbors.

The banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal. This concept has it critics. See The Banality Of Evil

1001BeforeDie, 2006, Redemption

Tsotsi (2006)

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From NetFlix:

This Oscar-winning Best Foreign Language film shows that no soul is too far gone from being reformed. After shooting a woman and driving off in her car, Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae), a ruthless thug, is surprised to discover he isn’t alone, kept company by a crying infant in the backseat. He grudgingly takes the child home, and through his efforts to care for the tyke, Tsotsi slowly rediscovers his compassion, self-respect and capacity to love.

I resisted seeing this film (recommended in “1001 Films To See Before You Die”) for a long time thinking it would be really dreary. But once I started the film I was hooked. Actually I was rooting for Tsotsi. Maybe I’m just a sucker for redemption films. At the very least I am grateful I live in the U.S.A. because life is a bit difficult in South Africa. Not for children.