Al's Omniflick: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

**Spoiler Alert**

Dirs. Anthony Russo, Joe Russo and Josh Wheedon. Starring Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Redford.

Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America (Chris Evans), returns to the screen to take on the villainous Winter Soldier; a product of the post WWII Soviet government and a worthy, lethal adversary. Working with S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret government agency with an agenda to protect America at home and abroad, the Captain and the agency's leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) find they have suddenly become the targets of Hydra, a shadowy organization who have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and are bent on world domination. Hydra agents, acting in the capacity of S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives, murder Fury and are hot on Captain America and The Black Widow's (Scarlett Johansson) heels. The Winter Soldier also joins the hunt and demonstrates his murderous potential with his super-strength and a solid, metallic appendage where his left arm used to be.

Rogers and The Black Widow enlist the help of a former american soldier, fresh from Iraq, named Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) who has access to a super, high-tech suit with wings which allows him to fly like a bird, or, in keeping more to his nickname: a falcon. The three elude the faux-S.H.I.E.L.D agents while also fending off the furious predations of the Winter Soldier in an attempt to thwart a Hydra attack on legions of individuals world-wide they feel are a threat to the organization. To accomplish this formidable task, they will employ military crafts with frightening, destructive force.

All the Marvel comics adaptations risk becoming what befell the Harry Potter series; where the individual films distinctness is erased by bland sameness. In recalling the Potter series, it's difficult to remember each film as anything but a regurgitation of what came before it. The same fate awaits the superhero movies Marvel churns out every year and now Captain America, which is still in its franchise infancy. The same computer-generated military crafts and mayhem that menace earth and mankind seem to be lifted from every other movie of its ilk and resemble much of what we see in previews for the forthcoming, cretinous dung Transformers.

I like elements of the movie: a new side-kick, Robert Redford as the duplicitous government official in the employ of Hydra, and the elevator fight scene where Rogers single-handedly gives S.H.I.E.L.D. agents a beat-down but overall, it all feels like I had eaten a bucket of chocolate bars and was feeling queasy from the after effects. It satisfies briefly but that feeling of contentment evaporates quickly en route to the exit.

What made the first Iron Man fun was Robert Downey Jr.'s flippant regard for authority and the humor in Tony Stark's approach to his superhero role. Unfortunately that film's charms are running low and every Marvel adaptation seems to be suffering from the same. In my estimation, Christopher Nolan's Batman series is the only complete and satisfying superhero franchise, with its freakishly frightening villains and its call for societal self-empowerment rather than law enforcement concentrated in the hands of one individual.

Though I'm a fan of Nolan's trilogy, my favorite superhero film of the 21st century (and man, are there gobs!) is Josh Trank's Chronicle. Eschewing the CGI-heavy, costumed-superhero-opera approach, Trank's film is understated, engaging and emotionally compelling. It accomplishes on a modest $12 million budget what Captain America: The Winter Soldier can't with its brobdingnagian $170 million expenditures. It's a film that violates Hollywood's spend more, think less ethos and deserves more than its cult status. I waited through Captain America's lengthy credits to see the teaser that always accompanies the Marvel adaptations and it's truly breathtaking how many personnel are involved in one superhero movie production. The credits alone could be franchise.

So again you might ask, why bother paying to see a whale like Captain America: Winter Soldier? Because sometimes I'm foolish enough to want a bucket of chocolate bars.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.