Yes, I did get a weird kick out of grouping an Oscar-frontrunner for best foreign film (The Hunt) and a nominee for Best Documentary (The Square) with a Paul Walker car chase movie.
The Hunt…This drama stars Mads Mikkelson as an honest small-town teacher whose life is destroyed by a completely-fabricated claim of molesting a very young female student. It is a contender to win this year’s Best Foreign Film prize (competition isn’t so strong), but I had mixed feelings about it. There’s something so emotionally turned-off at the core of this film—-the emotional sadism heaped on Mikkelson by the townsfolk is beyond over the top—-that I had a hard time connecting with it. Still, the scenario of false sex-abuse claims destroying a good teacher is a realistic one, and Mikkelson (so humane here vs. his usually creepy work as villains, most notably on NBC’s superb Hannibal) shows us a beleaguered decency that we’ve never quite seen on him before. Grade: C+
The Square…This documentary follows some key players of the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt. For me, the film really begins after Mubarak is ousted and the rival groups of revolutionaries (secular revolutionaries wanting true freedom vs. Muslim Brotherhood goons just wanting to be on the other side of the torture chamber) begin jockeying for power. We’ve seen all this play out in the news, but it’s still a worthwhile examination of exactly why truly good guys usually fail when there’s a power vacuum: the educated revolutionaries (including a preposterously naive actor who starred in The Kite Runner) can barely agree on what to have for lunch, let alone agree on what political compromises to make. Grade: B-
Vehicle 19…Why am I even calling this a foreign film when it so clearly isn’t? Because it’s set in South Africa…that’s literally the only reason. Anyway, this Paul Walker car-chase indie (in which he plays an innocent guy sucked into a police corruption sex trafficking scandal when a kidnapped journalist is in his rental car) is like Fast and Furious if it had a soul and a very limited budget. I can’t quite recommend it because it’s very bad, but I would gladly recommend it over any F&F movie since the first one. Grade: C-