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Scott Eastwood

Wrath of Man: Grief, Rage and Justice

May 25, 2021 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

Jason Statham stars as H in director Guy Ritchie’s WRATH OF MAN, A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Photo credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved

When Guy Ritchie teams with Jason Statham, it’s usually something special.

Known for their unique mix of fun and high-paced dialogue, the duo have made some classic mob films together such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. With Wrath of Man, however, Ritchie and Statham know what you’re expecting from them and then subvert their own traditions.

Written and directed by Ritchie, Wrath of Man follows ‘H’ (Jason Statham), a mysterious new cash truck security guard who barely scrapes by his entrance exam. But when their truck is held up at gunpoint, H leaves his co-workers stunned by killing their attackers with precision and gravity. As H’s motives become clear, so too does he begin take steps to get his ultimate revenge on those who have wronged him.

Broken into three overlapping chapters, Wrath gives Ritchie the chance to play with time and styles. Beginning with that wild (and often hilarious) style that made them famous, the opening chapter of Wrath is an absolute blast and even hilarious at times. Statham plays ‘H’ with such seriousness and severity that one cannot help but laugh as his co-workers attempt to wrestle with the brutality that they’ve just witnessed first-hand. However, as the film moves on, so too does its seriousness. Gone are the trademark quips and energetic cuts from Ritchie’s repertoire as he allows Statham to increasingly embrace his dark side. As a result, by the film’s end, the tone has shifted drastically from more comedic exploits to vengeful action. Admittedly, the sectioned approach doesn’t always work as it can create a bit of a confusing narrative. However, Ritchie and Statham remain so committed to the film that one can’t help but find it compelling.

Scott Eastwood stars as Jan in director Guy Ritchie’s WRATH OF MAN, A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Photo credit: Scott Garfield © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved

Though he’s stayed in his action/comedy lane over the years, Statham is well-suited to handle such dramatic shifts in tone. Playing H with intensity throughout the film, Statham has a charisma that keeps him likeable, even when leaning into the more violent aspects of his character. At the same time however, his severity of expression also manages to bring the laughs when playing straight man to more comedic characters. As a result, H feels like yet another character that only he can bring to life with his unique gifts as an actor and he keeps the film moving. 

What’s always interesting in Ritchie’s films is the moral compass that his worlds live by. Since many of his protagonists are involved with organized crime, we are most often met with sympathetic characters who are just trying to go about their business. With Wrath though, H’s primary motivation is nothing short of revenge. Without giving away any spoilers, H’s arrival at the security depot is rooted in his desire to hand out justice for the pain that he’s experienced. (In fact, it even appears that some people are willing to get out of the way in order to allow him to do so.)

Whereas some of Statham’s characters often maintain their humanity amidst the carnage, H remains slightly unique. Although the film reveals the heart behind his acts of violence, H is no hero. He cares little about his co-workers and even less about the money that he’s sworn to protect. Instead, he is a man who feels that the only way to make things right is by killing those responsible for his pain.

Jason Statham stars as H and Holt McCallany stars as Bullet in director Guy Ritchie’s WRATH OF MAN, A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Photo credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2021 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved

In this world, wrath is equated with justice.

Dark, violent and funny (at the beginning at least), Wrath is quite a ride. While fans of their trademark energy may be surprised at its tonal shifts, Wrath of Man is an excellent entry in the Richie/Statham partnership. After 25 years, the two men simply understand how to best make use of one another and the story benefits from their experience together. 

Wrath of Man is available on VOD on Tuesday, May 24th, 2021.

Filed Under: Featured, Film, Reviews, VOD Tagged With: Andy Garcia, Guy Ritchie, Jason Statham, Scott Eastwood, Wrath of Man

Sacrifice in the Sand: 1on1 with Rod Lurie (THE OUTPOST)

July 21, 2020 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

War is hell.

Though that may sound cliché in, there’s no question that any war requires incredible sacrifice that can be difficult to understand for those who have never been involved in the military. Still, over the years, this has not stopped filmmakers from attempting to bring the intensity and tragedy of war to life on screen. 

With his latest film, The Outpost, director Rod Lurie (The Contender) may have come closer than others to depicting reality with his incredible and intense look at the famed Battle of Kamdesh, the bloodiest engagement in the Afghanistan War. When he was first offered the script, Lurie says that he found this particular project too enticing to pass up, especially considering his own military background.

“As a military guy, I’m living every day on military websites and [I have] my military friends on Facebook and on Twitter, [so] I was aware of the story,” Lurie begins. “Certainly, I was aware of The Battle of Kamdesh. It’s absolutely within military folklore at this point. So, when it was brought to me, there was just no doubt I was going to do this. It was, by the way, brought to me by the first director of it, Sam Raimi. Sam had decided to drop out as director and was not going to produce it. Although he didn’t ultimately end up producing it, I first heard about it as a film project in his office with his head of development—a guy named Paul Merryman—and the film’s two writers, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. I knew there was just no way [that] I wasn’t going to do this film.”

The Outpost tells the story of Bravo Troop 3-61 CAV, a small unit of U.S. soldiers left alone at the remote Combat Outpost Keating, who are tasked with helping maintain the peace and build relationships with the locals. Trapped at the bottom of a deep valley between three mountains in Afghanistan, the division sits exposed and faces daily attacks from insurgents. Then, when an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters attacks them, the unit finds themselves faced with the impossible task of defending their station and staying alive. 

Relentless and unyielding, The Outpost is a visceral experience that makes the viewer feel as though they’re in the middle of the firefight. While he may have never been directly involved in combat himself, Lurie also argues his passion for this project extends from his desire to honour his brothers-in-arms.

“If I’m really being honest, it’s my lack of experience that made me want to make this film,” he confesses. “I graduated in 1984 from West Point, the United States military Academy. [It was a] tough four years. I graduated into a peace time and served in Germany. I was with an air defense unit. I was never on a battlefield and never had a bullet pass my head. I never fired a bullet at an enemy. My life was never in danger in any real way but that’s not true of my classmates. Many of my classmates have decorations that they wear on their chest from their valorous actions and from being in the field of battle. When I go back to my reunions at West point, I’m one of the guys who wasn’t in battle. It’s not a great feeling, to be honest with you. I always knew I wanted to make a war film, but not just any war film. It had to be about the war that my brothers were fighting in. So, if I couldn’t be on a battlefield with him, then I was going to honor them and this was the best way to do it… [It’s] the only way that I can do it right now, I think.”

Of course, with any film of this nature, preparing for the role would be an intense process. Though some of the cast were military veterans, Lurie notes that the actors who were experiencing basic training for the first time found themselves pushed much harder than they had expected.

“I really had to put these guys through the ringer,” Lurie recalls. “A lot of the guys were already vets. They were soldiers and they knew how to hold an M4. They knew how to fire a weapon. They knew how to move. But a lot of these guys, they’re like trained at Carnegie Mellon University. They are not soldiers. So, I sent them to basic training with our military guys…. This was not easy for a lot of these guys. I mean, there are many times at lunch where they would come and they would sit with me and there would be a tear rolling down their eye, going ‘I didn’t expect this humiliation. I didn’t expect this physical toughness.’ I had to train them properly, so that was very, very, very difficult for them.” 

“Now, [then there’s] somebody like Caleb Landry Jones, who plays Ty Carter, the medal of honor recipient, in the film,” he continues. “I’ve never seen a guy more dedicated than this kid. It’s just incredible. When I first met Caleb, he was exactly what I thought I was going to be, which is like this hippie type. He’s as Olive Oyl (from the Popeye series) and he’s hairy down to his [butt]. It’s like the opposite of the sort of buff, tough bald-headed [guy] who was Ty Carter… But I knew that Caleb was a great actor and, from speaking to people about him, I knew that he was dedicated and he would somehow transform himself into this guy. In fact, I sent him to meet Ty Carter. Ty called me and he said, ‘Rod, this guy is going to work out’. He was really nervous, but… Caleb transformed himself. That also meant militarily. So, he took it very, very seriously when the military guys trained them. In fact, Caleb’s brother, a guy named John Jones – is a Marine who lost both his legs in battle and he came to Bulgaria and trained with his brother. So, there was lots and lots of an attempt at authenticity in this film. I think we nailed it, in the end.”

Asked about the response he’s gotten from those involved that have seen the film, Lurie is grateful for the overwhelming support that he has received from the veterans and their families. However, that should not be surprising. To his credit, The Outpost works hard to depict The Battle of Kamdesh as realistically as possible. In fact, one of the most amazing aspects of the film is the fact that some of the survivors themselves are in the film, in some cases playing themselves. 

“Not only have they seen the film, some of them are in the film,” he asserts. “Daniel Rodriguez, who fought in the mortar pit, plays himself in the movie. Not only that, but he had to relive for us the death of his best friend. He actually staged it for us. He told us exactly how it happened, which was obviously a hugely traumatic experience for him, but he was a good soldier and he fell apart after he did that for us. We had a screening for many of the survivors of the battle and for the families of the fallen last October in Washington DC. That had to have been among the most emotional nights of my life. Certainly, that’s pretty remarkable. It was really something. What these families realized was that their loved ones, their names, will live on now. They don’t just disappear into the ether. Their names matter.”

Though Lurie recognizes the value of every man who served in Kamdesh, he chooses to frame the narrative in segments that focus on the unit’s rotating (and brief) commanders. Given their dramatic differences in approach, Lurie felt that this would be a good way to highlight them and how their varying styles to leadership affected the unit.

DSC03783.ARW

“The commanders were targeted by the Taliban, so I thought that was one way to sort of honour them. One after another, they either die or have to leave the outpost. They also have different styles of command, which I thought was very interesting. So, the story sort of changes as we go along, based on the leadership styles of the commanders. I just thought that it would be a very effective form of storytelling.”

One interesting aspect of the film is the fact that, though they live and serve together, there are no guarantees that the troops will come together until they’re on the field of battle. Popularized over the years as the ‘band of brothers’ mindset, Lurie believes that, while may be willing to sacrifice themselves for one another, the truth about the relationships between men off the field may have become overstated. 

“I think you’ve latched onto something really, really interesting. You’re right. They are not friends,” he points out. “In fact, sometimes they’re actually like almost enemies. They will fight in the barracks, but they do learn that, in the field of battle, they’re all brothers. They are absolutely brothers. The real Ty Carter will tell you how unpopular he was among the other soldiers. Nobody liked him. He didn’t like anybody, but he saved a lot of lives. He put his life on the line in a very dramatic way for at least for one soldier and probably for several more. That is what it boils down to. These guys that are in Afghanistan right now, I’m talking about troops for all nations, they’re there to survive more than to do anything else. That means being there for your brother. It’s really simple.” 

“That’s not a good enough reason to have troops over there, in my opinion. It’s not a good enough reason. During the Second World War, you ask every soldier why they’re there, [and] they’d all have the same answer. You’re going to stop Hitler. I don’t know that if you asked any soldier at any war after that why are they are there that they would have the answer. The closest common denominator [as an] answer would be ‘to keep my brother alive’. That’s the reason that they’re there. It’s not good enough, but it is what it is.”

In addition, while other famed war films such as Saving Private Ryan and 1917 choose to emphasize the gravity of their specific mission at hand, The Outpost opts to instead focus on survival as the mission itself. For Lurie, this level of sacrifice was one of the most inspirational aspects of the project.

According to Lurie, “Scott Eastwood, who plays Sergeant Clint Romesha says [in the film that], ‘Our mission is what it’s always been.’ Then he says, ‘To survive’. That is indeed what all but eight of them did. They survived. But there’s something also very inspirational about that. This movie is not a morose thing at all. You will likely come out of this very moved, but also very inspired by the human spirit and what the human calculus is capable of. When I was at West point, what I was told was once you think you have exhausted everything, you’re only 10% of the way there. That’s something you see in The Outpost.

DSC01757.ARW

For full audio of our interview with Rod Lurie, click here.

The Outpost is currently streaming on iTunes, Google Play and other VOD sites.

Filed Under: Featured, Film, Interviews, Podcast Tagged With: Afghanistan, Caleb Landry Jones, Orlando Bloom, Rod Lurie, Sam Raimi, Scott Eastwood, The Battle of Kamdesh, The Outpost

The Outpost: ‘If We Survive, We Win.’

July 20, 2020 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

Directed by Rod Lurie (The Contender), The Outpost tells the story of Bravo Troop 3-61 CAV, a small unit of U.S. soldiers left alone at the remote Combat Outpost Keating, who are tasked with helping maintain the peace and build relationships with the locals. Trapped at the bottom of a deep valley between three mountains in Afghanistan, the division sits exposed and faces daily attacks from insurgents. Then, when an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters attacks them, the unit finds themselves faced with the impossible task of defending their station and staying alive. 

Based on the true story of The Battle of Kamdesh, The Outpost is a visceral and intense experience that feels like an authentic look at the brutality and senselessness of war. A master of the handicam shot, veteran cinematographer Lorenzo Senatore has created battle sequences so intense and lifelike that they refuse to allow you to look away from the screen. Long takes that follow soldiers as carry their wounded across the seemingly endless showers of gunfire that surround them feel endlessly stressful, despite their actual brevity. Featuring solid performances, especially standout Scott Eastwood, Lurie’s film gives time to every member of the throughout the film. Although the film offers little in the way of backstory for its characters, the decision to do so is deliberate as The Outpost focuses its narrative on this particular moment in their lives.

In a unique structural choice, The Outpost is split between two narrative pieces. While the first half feels like a series of narrative ‘events’ over a period of months and years, Lurie’s final battle extends over the rest of the film. In doing so, Lurie builds the tension in a way that recognizes the importance of each moment within military altercations. Though battle scenes in other films can feel simply too long or over-choreographed, Outpost uses its time to remind the viewer that death stands above them at any moment. (This idea is also emphasized through high overhead shots that highlight the unit’s increasingly feeble hopes for survival.)

The interesting thing about Outpost is that, even though every character is named, eventually they begin to blur together. Almost all of them similar age and ethnicity, you could be forgiven if identifying them becomes murkier, especially when they’re covered in gear in the midst of a firefight. In this way, Outpost has a ‘next man up’ mentality in their approach that emphasizes the need to make use of whomever may be available. (In fact, the narrative is even framed through the lens of an endless parade of commanding officers that come through the unit for various reasons.) However, this is not to suggest that anyone’s life is unimportant in any way. Rather, Outpost serves as a reminder that, in the most dangerous of scenarios, everyone must work as one seamless unit in order to survive.

And survival is the only goal.

While many other war films focus on the overall ‘mission’, Outpost states on several occasions that their sole objective is to survive their assignment. Sent to watch over an impossible location, the soldiers of Outpost Keating have lost any sense of their mission and are simply trying to live until their assignment is over. Though the film absolutely highlights the bravery of the men who sacrifice their lives on the front lines, these soldiers also understand that their assignment is a battle that can never be won. Instead, for these men, if they ‘all stay alive…, [they] win’. 

DSC01757.ARW

It’s this level of futility that drives the unit and speaks to the overall senselessness of the mission itself. One example of the film’s point of view comes when one soldier questions his commanding officer on the fact that neither the Qur’an nor the Bible should be used to validate military action. When is commander argues that both sides ‘can’t be right’, his responds that ‘but we can both be wrong.’ In moments such as these, Outpost recognizes that these aspects of war are misguided and cause unnecessary sacrifices of human life in the end. 

Ferocious and unrelenting, The Outpost is not for the faint of heart. Known as the bloodiest American engagement of the Afghanistan War, the film’s portrayal of The Battle of Kamdesh wants the viewer to feel as though they’ve lived through the moment themselves. However, the value of Lurie’s film lies not in its graphic violence but in its message. At The Outpost, the sacrifice of these men is great but seems unnecessary overall. Though the characters are many, each life matters in The Outpost. 

For Lurie, it’s the mission that remains in question.

For audio of our interview with director Rod Lurie, click here.

The Outpost makes its stand on VOD on July 21st, 2020.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews, VOD Tagged With: military, Milo Gibson, Orlando Bloom, Rod Lurie, Scott Eastwood, The Outpost, war, war film

3.17 Fighting the FATE OF THE FURIOUS

April 23, 2017 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/6.17-Fate-of-the-Furious.mp3

Breaking box office records, FATE OF THE FURIOUS filled theatres because of it’s (many) big booms and stunts… but is there more to the film?  What keeps us coming back to this franchise, despite the fact that they get more outlandish with each entry.  In a relaxed episode, Steve welcomes back Greg Banik and ScreenFish newbie Julie Levac to explore the world of the FURIOUS franchise.

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

3.17 Fate of the Furious

Thanks Greg and Julie for coming on the show!

Filed Under: Film, Podcast Tagged With: action films, box office records, Charlize Theron, Dwayne Johnson, F. Gary Gray, Fast and the Furious, Fate of the Furious, Helen Mirren, Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, Ludacris, Michelle Rodriguez, Scott Eastwood, The Rock, Tyrese Gibson, Vin Diesel

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