Calvary

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Michael McDonagh/Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly and M. Emmet Walsh

John Michael McDonagh follows up his irresistable The Guard with a darker, more dramatic film that is provocative and ultimately tragic. The exploration of morality and the Catholic church's struggle to stay relevant are the film's more salient concerns. It is a film that leaves you breathless and silently reflective with its power and its willingness to portray the church critically. It is also brave enough to examine the contradictions and incomprehensibilities of God and the Church and how both often fail to address both mundane and deeper issues that trouble those seeking psychic or spiritual succor.

The film wastes little time thrusting us into the story. Father James Lavelle (a superb Brendan Gleeson) is a priest in a small, Irish seaside town who receives a death threat during a confession. The confessor first reveals how he had been orally and anally raped repeatedly by a priest in his youth; a shocking confession which Father Lavelle is ill-prepared to hear. The confessor asks that the Father meet him on a beach in a week, at which time he will kill him. Father Lavelle doesn't panic or become hysterical but receives the threat calmly.

Lavelle eventually seeks advice from his superior; Bishop Montgomery, whose casual reaction is almost funny. The Bishop essentially leaves the matter to Lavelle's discretion. Though Lavelle tells the chief of police he is aware of the confessor's identity, it remains a mystery to us.

We meet the townsfolk who see Lavelle on a regular basis; some seeking advice or counsel while others seek absolution for crimes or thoughts of suicide.

Among those Lavelle hears out or dispenses advice to in his daily encounters are an aging American writer (M. Emmet Walsh), a young man with a feeble romantic life, a promiscuous woman named Veronica (Orla O'Rourke) who was recently abused by either her husband Jack (Chris O' Dowd) or by her lover Simon (Isaach De Bankole). Another is a wealthy, cynical, amoral man whose wife and kids have left him, a doctor who has little patience or tolerance for Lavelle's faith or the church, a foreign woman whose husband is killed in a local traffic accident, and an incarcerated serial killer whose insincere pleas for absolution anger Lavelle. Lavelle also contends with a young hustler who offers his services indiscriminately, a fellow priest whose lack of passion and integrity elicits an angry rebuke from Lavelle and his daughter Fiona, who has just recently attempted suicide.

It is important to itemize the characters, because each has a unique relationship with Father Lavelle, with varying degrees of suspicion, contempt, cynicism, or trust. It is fascinating to see how low the Catholic church has sunk in most people's estimation and how little respect is accorded priests. Lavelle's committment to his faith is undeniable. His love and concern for those who seek his help is also without question but he is constantly the target of derision by most of the town.

As the days are counted off--with subtitles--to the fateful meeting, we see that almost any of the townspeople, save the women, could conceivably be the Confessor.

It would be reductive to interpret the film as anti-catholic. The film doesn't condemn the church but it doesn't spare it scorn and biting criticism (all justified) either. It also doesn't withhold bewilderment of how God can forsake his creations in horrific ways. In one scene where Lavelle sits in the local pub, the local doctor (Aidan Gillen) approaches his table to tell the Father about a three-year old boy who was once improperly anesthetized, which rendered the child deaf, dumb and paralyzed. The doctor asks Father Lavelle to imagine how frightening it must have been for the child to wake in a prison where he felt abandoned. Why the doctor would share such a horrific story perplexes the Father but it underscores how religion and the church ineffectively explain why a loving and merciful God could permit such a tragedy.

As the day approaches, Father Lavelle becomes the target of harrassment and violence. Someone burns the church to the ground though the townsfolk seem to be blithely unconcerned. Another grisly act is committed during the week; with culpability pointing to the Confessor but the film effectively blurs the distinction between those with a solid motive and those without.

We see that Father Lavelle's spiritual ministrations have a profound effect on some while others remain disdainful or suspicious. Every character's story is moving in its own way and how Father Lavelle contends with each not only demonstrates his versatility for dealing with an array of problems, but his capacity to suffer scorn and ridicule. He is a Christ-figure, to be sure; and his imminent meeting with the Confessor is his Calvary. The murder threat and the town's hostility are spiritual tests of sorts; trials that challenge his capacity to be compassionate and loving. That he has had his own troubled past with drink and neglecting his daughter makes his spiritual resolve all the more compelling.

McDonagh's camera work is striking. Stunning landscapes, captured in long shot and in slow moving aerial shots, coupled with subtle interior compositions, make for startling visual contrasts.

The numerous shots of the surrounding landscape, all visually arresting, present a kind of Biblical Eden where the storm and stresses of the character's lives play out. I liked the way McDonagh composed the actors; sometimes slightly off-center, near the frames periphery, which lent backgrounds and colors accentuation. We also see the same with outdoor cinematography, where faces and people share screen-space with the sea or a landscape.

Though the supporting cast is outstanding, it is Gleeson's exceptional presence around which everything and everyone seems to orbit. He wears his flaws and virtues and his unshakeable morality and integrity as he does his black, priestly vestments. The performance is astounding, one that will no doubt remain prominent when the year-end critical encomiums are lavishly showered on award nominees.

Calvary is something to see. It is a powerful, sometimes disturbing but achingly beautiful film that renders one thoughtfully silent but also exhilarated. It isn't often one gets to feel that way after a film.

Edge of Tomorrow

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Doug Liman Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton and Brendan Gleeson

Tom Cruise, a sci-fi story, Summer movie season...sound familiar? Given his track record the last few years, it would be reasonable to expect one more tiresome Cruise movie but I was surprised to find he disappointed me--in the most pleasing way. Edge of Tomorrow isn't an assault on the ears and eyes with techno-mayhem straining movie-screen borders, but an exciting, edgy thriller with brains and heart. Sure, it has its moments of destruction and violence but with a terrific script by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John Henry Butterworth; based on the novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, it is all a part of the story-fabric rather than an end.

Tom Cruise plays Major Cage, a PR military officer of sorts whose sole responsibility is luring recruits for a war with an alien race called Mimics who have occupied most of Europe though they are contained for the moment. Cage travels to London to meet with General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), who commands the British/American forces in the war. Brigham orders Cage to join the D-Day-like invasion of the beaches of France to film the combat for recruitment purposes. Cage balks at the idea; demonstrating an appalling lack of spine. Before he can leave the building, Brigham has him tasered and arrested for desertion. Cage wakes to find himself being ordered about by a tough Master-Sargeant named Farell (played amusingly by Bill Paxton) on a military base (formerly Heathrow Airport). Cage is treated as a deserter and stripped of his rank while forced to join a shabby unit who are scheduled to join the invasion force the next day.

His brothers-in-arms have little respect or patience for his un-trained, ill-prepared condition and let him know it; mocking him at every turn. Cage continues to resist the deployment but it proceeds as planned as the aircraft transporting the unit takes enemy fire, forcing the soldiers to leap willy-nilly from the craft's interior.
On the beach, destruction and chaos reign as soldiers are crushed by flying craft shot down from the sky and riddled with enemy rounds. Cage wanders about, afraid and tentative until he comes face to face with the alien enemy: a kind of octopus/spider hybrid; all tentacles and spinning, lethal aggression. While the tentacled creatures batter the humans about, including Cage, he manages to kill a nastier, bigger Mimic known as an Alpha, which drenches him in blood. Cage is also killed in the process. Or is he?

In time Cage learns that Mimic blood has given him the ability to re-live the day from the moment he arrives at the Heathrow base and in doing so, he learns the invasion will fail regardless of military intervention. He tries to convince the soldiers in his unit of his ability and what it means for them but it all has little effect.

While reliving the invasion, Cage meets a soldier who has become the face of the resistance; a no-nonsense woman named Rita (Emily Blunt), who can be seen in recruitment posters with the nickname "Full Metal Bitch."
After several loops where Cage saves Rita from a Mimic attack, she says to him "come and see me when you wake-up." Cage manages to find Rita during her rigorous training with Mimic-facsimiles. She is wary of him at first but understands his predicament. We learn thereafter that she too had his ability once but a blood transfusion dispelled the alien hemoglobin, rendering her unable to loop. Rita explains to Cage that the Mimics are controlled by a centralized mind called an Omega and because his blood has mingled with the aliens, they can attach a transponder--designed by Rita's tech go-to guy Dr. Carter (Noah Taylor)--to Cage that will allow them to locate the Omega. Rita also explains that if the Omega isn't destroyed, the Mimics will win the war because an enemy that knows the future can anticipate any attack. The Omega sends them on a wild-goose chase to a false location but after more looping and Cage's Mimic-ispired visions, they locate the alien mind, which rests underwater inside the subterranean chambers of the Louvre. In a clever twist, Cage also loses his ability to loop, which adds a tense, exciting wrinkle to their final mission.

The film is well-paced, very well-acted and exceptionally plotted. Because Cage relives one particular day, a la Groundhog Day, opportunities for humor abound and pervade what is mostly a dramatic, sci-fi story. It is amusing to see Cage anticipate Master-Sargent Farell's commands and befuddle his hostile unit with facts about their lives.

Blunt and Cruise share some glowing onscreen chemistry. It is refreshing to see Blunt's character as decisive and proactive while Cruise's Cage often follows her lead. Cage and Rita eventually establish an egalitarian bond that runs contrary to the male-always-leads default setting common in most Hollywood action films.

The skein the film creates with its wonderful plot is kept tangle-free though it also keeps one alert. I really liked the ending, which returns the story to something more human after the intensity of the climax. I also had to chuckle, seeing Paris and the Louvre reduced to stone detritus and the Eiffel Tower woefully toppled onto its side. Why Paris seems to always be the whipping boy in many sci-fi action movies is a mystery. I guess Hollywood filmmakers feel American audiences would rather the French suffer the devastation of an alien invasion than New Yorkers or Angelenos.

Doug Liman has given us Go with it's multiple threaded storyline and the hyper-kinetic Bourne Identity and here he gives us a little of both. One can only hope the rest of the Summer offerings will be as entertaining and intelligent. I left the theater feeling the current movie season at the multiplex might not be a bummer after-all. But it's only June.