The Boy in The Striped Pajamas (4 stars)
Directed by Mark Herman. Written by Mark Herman, based on the novel by John Boyne. With Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Zac Mattoon O'Brien, and Domonkos Nemeth. (PG-13)
The Boy in The Striped Pajamas is a small-scale story of one family's experience during the horror of the Holocaust. What makes it different from many films that explore that terrible time is that the family at the heart of the tragedy isn't Jewish. Not only that, but the patriarch is a Nazi official.
His son is eight-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield), a boy whose head is filled with stories of adventure and exploration. He doesn't really know much of his father's work, only that it affords them a magnificent mansion in Berlin where he and his friends play at being soldiers. The news that a promotion means moving the family to a country estate is met with dejection. "It's a farm," Bruno's parents tell him, assuring him he'll make new friends.
And indeed, when they arrive, Bruno can see the "farmers" from his bedroom window; strangely, they all wear the same striped pajamas. And they work behind barbed wire. Bruno's parents board up his window and forbid him from visiting the farm, especially on those days when dark clouds of smoke drift across the landscape.
We know what this place is, of course, but Bruno does not, and when he gets bored with the enforced solitude of his new life—not only are there none of the promised local children, but the estate is guarded by a canine patrol—he slips away to explore the farm, where he meets another lonely boy, Shmuel, who is dressed in those enigmatic pajamas. Strangely, there appears to be more security at the house than—let's call it what it is—the camp, and Bruno begins making regular visits to his new friend, bringing him food and playing games of checkers through the electrified wire.
Life in the house, meanwhile, has become uneasy. Bruno's sister Gretel has grown into a young Hitlerite, at first in hopes of impressing a handsome officer but soon of her own volition, relegating her doll collection to a basement corner while she plasters her bedroom with propaganda. Their mother (Vera Farmiga), awakened to the true purpose of the camp, has become an empty husk of a woman, aghast at her husband but powerless to stop him.
Where all this leads is tragic—there can be no Holocaust stories that aren't—but it's undercut at times by some loose storytelling. The fact that Bruno understands nothing of what's happening to the country's Jewish population seems inconceivable, and even more so after he meets Shmuel. Does he really not recognize a prison when he sees one, especially when, after the vile lessons he receives in current affairs from a tutor, that prison is filled only with Jews? And did it really only take an eight-year-old boy with a stick to tunnel into Auschwitz?
There's also the question of language. All the Germans here speak with upper-crust British accents. If you can't reconcile that oddity it may ruin the film, but in one way, it does make the story more chilling: it makes it seem less a story about a particular place and time, and more like one that could happen anywhere.
Despite the film's child's-eye view, it's the performances of David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga that give it its muscle. Thewlis finds a ferocity in his newly fleshed-out form that conveys both the smug entitlement of a manor lord and the dangerously efficient coldness of Hannibal Lecter. Farmiga, who has often gone overlooked despite doing some good work, may finally garner wider acclaim as the wife undone by her husband's immorality. It's not a perfect film, but (despite a withering and condescending review in the New York Times), it packs an emotional punch.
Transporter 3 (1 star)
Directed by Olivier Megaton. Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. With Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova, Francois Berleand, and Robert Knepper. (PG-13)
Americans love their cars. Status symbols and metaphors for virility, the sleek and the souped-up have long been seen—as much as the home—as the ultimate manifestation of the American Dream, offering the freedom to traverse the country at a moment's notice. That few of us take them farther than the grocery store or day care hasn't done much to diminish their siren call.
It's a fetish that has been fed by movies since the earliest days of cinema, but it reached its likely apotheosis in the '60s and '70s, when films like Bullitt and The French Connection turned the extended car chase sequence into a must-have set piece for action films that followed in their exhaust. Here, the car was as iconic as the Palomino of the Hollywood Western—a mighty steed that good men used to bring bad men to ground.
Fast-forward to 2008 and the release of Transporter 3, and you'll long for the days of Popeye Doyle. Here is a movie where the car is the star to such a degree that the writers have introduced a ridiculous twist which ensures that its human co-star remains within 75 feet of the driver's seat at all times.
The supposed hero is Frank Martin, played for a third time by a wry Jason Statham, who finds himself abducted after a car comes crashing through his living room wall at dinner time. When he comes to, he finds a chunky metallic bracelet on his wrist, a gift from the villainous Johnson (Robert Knepper), who makes him an offer he can't refuse: deliver the kidnapped daughter of a Ukrainian environmental minister to a secret rendezvous, or be killed. Stray too far from the car, and the explosive bracelet will detonate.
As damsel in distress Valentina, Natalya Rudakova is a wonder—as in, one wonders how she ever made it onto the screen. Her acting is so awful that, despite her own Russian heritage, she makes it impossible to believe she's ever been outside of suburban America. In a bid to make her seem believably Ukrainian, the writers mangle her grammar a la Borat, but without the humor. To be fair, this is her first role; she was "discovered" while working as a hairstylist, and her hair, at least, shows promise.
But, some will say, the Transporter movies are all about action. And it's true that they offer up some bravura examples, notably in one scene where Frank is separated from his car and has to give chase on a bicycle. Yet, too often, the scenes seem cribbed from other films—half the fights are straight out of a Bruce Lee picture, with a dozen thugs circling Frank, patiently waiting to be taken out by his kung-fu fighting.
With some better writing and more careful casting, the Transporter series could at least be an enjoyable diversion for a rainy weekend—a poor man's James Bond tarted up with some Eurotrash detailing. And it shows flashes of inspiration, mostly in the casting of Knepper, better known as the oily "T-Bag" of television's Prison Break, as the villain. But for as long as Audi remains the star, the series will be running on fumes.
Bolt (3 1/2 stars)
Directed by Byron Howard and Chris Williams. Written by Dan Fogelman and Chris Williams. With John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, and James Lipton. (PG)
The pleasant surprise of Bolt, a new animated movie from the Disney studio, is that the musical number that marks its midway point isn't by Miley Cyrus, the teen sensation who also happens to give voice to Penny, the animated teen sensation. Instead, it's by country singer Jenny Lewis, and in direct defiance of today's animation laws, it's not only not sung by one of the characters, but actually adds something to the movie. Imagine that.
The interlude occurs as Mittens, a streetwise cat, is teaching Bolt, a TV-star dog from Hollywood, how to behave like a normal hound. The pair is on a cross-country trip to reunite Bolt with his beloved Penny, the child actress he grew up with. Until this moment, Bolt has never been off the set of his eponymous show, and it's never occurred to him that his special powers—heat vision, supersonic bark, etc.—might be the result of special effects. Now, separated from Penny, he needs to learn the basics: how tilting your head just so makes humans give you food, or that hanging your head out of the window of a moving car may just be the best thing in the world.
Along for the ride is Rhino, a couch-potato hamster who lives in a clear plastic exercise ball and believes everything he sees on "the magic box." Together, the trio hop trains and dodge animal-control officers as they make their way to Penny. One of the film's charming touches is the way it uses pigeons to mark their progress; the East Coast birds are from spaghetti-and-meatballs, while their L.A. brethren argue about the difference between whole grain and whole wheat.
Disney has drawn together a great voice cast, with John Travolta's soft, round voice a particularly good match for the title dog. Even better is Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm) as Mittens, giving the cat the acid tongue of her comedy. Cyrus was almost certainly cast as much for her name as her talent, but she doesn't do badly, and gets support in her scenes from Greg Germann as her agent and James Lipton (yes, that James Lipton), perfectly cast as the show's director.
Bolt will probably be overshadowed by this summer's slew of animated releases; it's not as flashy as some, and not as well animated as others. Still, its story is one that will likely last longer than most, and that alone is something to cheer.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
