Enemy (2013) Review and Interpretation

Copyright: E1 Films

For me, Enemy has two major advantages for a movie that isn’t meant to be labeled. It is completely uninterested in helping the audience understand its story verbally, while it at the same time it presents a very clear emotional overtone. Denis Villeneuve made the very good Prisoners last year, and in his new creation, he once again uses the talented Jake Gyllenhaal. He plays Adam, a college professor who accidentally finds his identical double in the form of a small time actor by the name of Anthony. 

This film is based on a work by Jose Saramago, but isn’t one more of those stories about doppelgangers. Recently Jesse Eisenberg, an actor who is slowly becoming the new version of Jeff Goldblum in his post-Fly career, made a film called The Double which seems similar to Enemy. Villeneuve decided to focus on feelings, mainly those that seem to slowly suffocate the characters. As the film progresses, so does the feeling that something very dark will happen. The damped lights and the excellent photography use the Toronto landscape to underline this, putting the film in a universe of its own.

Hannibal - Season 2 Review

Copyright: NBC

I usually write about movies, but this doesn’t mean that I don’t watch TV shows. Currently, there are several that I enjoy and follow regularly, and one of them is Hannibal.

NBC TV show Hannibal had a giant task. It was supposed to bring the character of Hannibal Lector to the small screens and a regular TV show format, which seemed almost impossible. Sir Antony Hopkins, who is most famous for playing Lector, a brilliant psychiatrist and a serial killer, made the role iconic. But, Bryan Fuller and other people from NBC decided to give it a try. 

The resulting TV show is a stunning masterpiece of television drama. Now the series is in its second season. The storyline follows a Special Agent Will Graham, an FBI crime scene specialist, who has a very complex and troubling relationship with Hannibal Lector, in that time a free man and an FBI consultant.

Film Review: Homefront

Copyright: Millennium Films

This movie is at its weakest when the most important things in it happen, at the beginning and at the end. The middle part, ironically conceived as the buildup section of the story, is a lot more interesting and engaging.

Jason Statham plays a former undercover DEA agent, Phil Broker who moves to the American south with his litter daughter after his cover is blown and he is forced to retire. In the swampy outback, Broker tries to live a normal life, but a small altercation between his daughter and a local boy begins a process that will result in all out violence, or the thing that usually happens in movies where Statham plays the leading role.

In this film, his enemy is Gator, local meth producer and head jerk, played by James Franco. Franco can pull off many roles, so he didn’t have any problem with presenting Gator as a mildly sadistic, impulsive criminal, but who is ultimately a scavenger in the underworld, and not the main predator. The most dynamic parts involve Broker trying to defuse situations where he is, totally unjustly, targeted by one or several local thugs sent by Gator. These scenes are extremely realistic, brutal and fun to watch. Here the director Gary Fleder gave his best, so all unarmed fight scenes are very entertaining.

Film Review: Snowpiercer

Copyright: CJ Entertainment

So, you have a train carrying the last survivors of the human race. It’s powered by an infallible Perpetuum mobile-like engine, and it transports humanity across the continents, now frozen solid after a botched attempt at resolving the increasing global temperature.

The train began its journey years ago, and now it houses a complete society. The last compartments hold the underclass, while the front is reserved for the new nobility, headed by the industrialist Wilford who invented the engine. In the back, people are crowded, underfed and terrorized by the upper class.  Old and wise Gilliam, and his right-handed man Curtis, intend to change that by violent means. A planned revolt is in its last stages when we join the passengers on the train. It just needs a prisoner who can open every door in this gigantic vehicle.