The Imitation Game Review

When I reviewed Gangs of New York back in 2012, I asked readers what obscure bit of history they would like to see made into a movie. I said I'd love to see a biopic of Alan Turing. He was a pioneering scientist and mathematician who is considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. He was a remarkable historical figure whose life tragically ended early. I knew about some aspects of his life before The Imitation Game (2014) was released, but I didn't realize just how influential he had been and how many lives he saved during World War II. I'm delighted his life was depicted in film this way, and that it was an outstanding film besides.

During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of 'gross indecency', an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality - little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. Under orders of Commander Denniston (Charles Dance), Turing had famously lead a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, including Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard), and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). Together, the team sets out to crack the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany's World War II Enigma machine's algorithm so that future coded messages could be deciphered. Under nail-biting pressure, these geniuses helped to shorten the war and, in turn, save thousands of lives.

The story spans Turing's unhappy teenage years, focuses on his wartime work, and his post-war decline. It was far more interesting than one would suppose it should be. The bulk of the story revolves around Britain's greatest minds in the World War II era in a secret military base scrambling to crack a code. That doesn't really lend itself to thrilling scenes. Yet this is by no means a dull story. There is a sense of urgency throughout the movie as they literally race against the clock, trying to solve the code before midnight when the code's key is reset and they have to start over from scratch. Each time they fail hundreds, even thousands, of lives of the allied forces are lost. On top of that, Turing isn't well liked thanks to his social awkwardness and obliviousness to normal social cues. Often he did not have the support of his colleagues, and was often under threat of being fired for wasting Government money on a gigantic thinking machine that didn't seem to do anything but use valuable resources. There is a lot of tension, lies and secrets, character development, excellent plot twists, and, unexpectedly, a fair number of laughs.

The acting was superb! Admittedly, I'm not the biggest Cumberbatch fan, but you can't deny how amazing his voice sounds. This is the first time I've seen him in a starring role and he nails it. Much of the movie's humor comes from Turing's obliviousness to social cues. His literal mindedness tended to drive people around him crazy, and Cumberbatch portrayed Turing's aloofness perfectly. There's a scene when Turing is taking Joan Clarke's advice to try to endear himself to his team. He buys them all apples, shuffles around their work area awkwardly distributing them, and proceeds to fail at telling them a very lame joke, and then leaving. Scenes like this are where Cumberbatch's acting skills are most impressive. Acting out a character who's trying to be funny, but isn't, and isn't even aware how bad he looks and clearly doesn't get the nuances of humor can't be easy to portray. Moments when Turing is torn between revealing secrets in the name of national security and keeping secrets in order to keep working in the interest of ending the war are also well acted.  Cumberbatch skillfully plays a character that is so oblivious to normal social cues that he doesn't always realize he's been invited to lunch. Within this awkward character, he shows us the inner conflict of a man who isn't sure when to keep valuable information quiet and the sense of uncertainty it causes him. Cumberbatch portrays this character of superior intelligence and social obliviousness brilliantly. Cumberbatch doesn't play Turing so much as he inhabits him; bravely and sympathetically, but without mediation.

I can't imagine how difficult it is to visually portray a historical setting in film on a large scale, but some movies depict these periods with such efficacy that we feel transported to another time for the duration of the movie. The Imitation Game is one such movie. The costumes, hair styles, cars, buildings, technology, everything seems taken out of history books to illustrate the past for us. The movie isn't trying to showcase these props to us or convince us of how difficult it was to depict World War II era England, they were subtly incorporated with nonchalance.  And that sold us on the time period better than anything else. The sets were gorgeous, the props were perfect, costumes were spot on.

The Imitation Game showed us one of the most important stories of the last century and is one of the greatest movies of 2014. This is one of the year's finest pieces of screen acting, the characters were outstanding, and the story was fascinating and pertinent to us today. This was an outstanding piece of screenwriting as well. It's emotionally complex, tailored to perfection, while being delicately nuanced and tragic. While the main character is gay, there are no sex scenes. Regardless of your views on homosexuality, there isn't anything in The Imitation Game that I think anyone could find offensive. The movie isn't trying to sell you on a biased agenda or tell you what to think about homosexuality; that's not what the movie is about. It's about trying to end a war, and how sometimes people who think outside the box are important to overcome seemingly impossible problems, and that their sexual orientation is immaterial to the question at hand. I loved The Imitation Game, and I highly recommend seeing it. It's been nominated for Academy Awards in eight categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. This is worth seeing, and if you're a fan of dramas, it's worth owning a copy  as well.

Gangs of New York Movie Review

Historical films can be really interesting when they show you an obscure bit of history that typically isn’t covered in the usual history class. These films are especially interesting when the historical events are still affecting modern society. Gangs of New York (2002) showed us how gang warfare was prevalent even in mid-1800 and how even in those days Americans were leery and unwelcoming of immigrants.

In 1846, as waves of Irish immigrants poured into the New York neighborhood of Five Points, a number of citizens of British and Dutch heritage who were born in the United States began making an open display of their resentment toward the new arrivals. William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), better known as “Bill the Butcher” for his deadly skill with a knife, bands his fellow “Native Americans” into a gang to take on the Irish immigrants. The immigrants in turn form a gang of their own, “The Dead Rabbits,” organized by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). After an especially bloody clash between the Natives and the Rabbits which leaves Vallon dead, his son goes missing; the boy ends up in a brutal reform school before returning to the Five Points in 1862 by the name Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio). Now a strapping adult who has learned how to fight, Amsterdam has come to seek vengeance against Bill the Butcher, whose underworld control of the Five Points through violence and intimidation has merged with the open corruption of New York politician William “Boss” Tweed (Jim Broadbent). Amsterdam gradually penetrates Bill the Butcher’s inner circle, and soon becomes his trusted assistant. Amsterdam also finds himself falling for Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a beautiful street-smart thief who was once involved with Bill. Amsterdam learns a great deal from Bill, but before he can turn the tables on the man who killed his father, his true identity is exposed even though he has concealed it from nearly everyone, including Jenny. With more Irish immigrants pouring in by the day, Amsterdam soon has an army to overthrow the rival gang. Before long, an all out turf war breaks out in all areas of New York City.

Honestly, I didn’t realize that gangs and street warfare were around in the mid-1800’s. I guess I (and presumably others) have this idea of relatively quaint and peaceful times until the Civil War broke out. That’s probably because history classes talk about politics and wars and less about social issues, culture, and other interesting things. No wonder these true events tend to fall through the cracks in our history books.

Gangs of New York is an interesting crime drama. Usually crime dramas are reserved for gangsters of the prohibition era of the 1920’s or modern underworld dealings. The fact that Gangs of New York challenges our notion of a crime drama makes it all the more interesting. It still has all the basic components that a crime story would have; gangs fighting, backstabbing one another, gaining power through intimidation and murder, and loose women as part of their spoils after victory. It will still remind you of modern underworld dealings that you see in contemporary movies or even in the news.

As a film, I wasn’t all that impressed with it. The movie makes some great political statements and commentary on the culture of its day that is still applicable to our day, such as how we treat immigrants. We might welcome them to our country but only give them the worst that our country has to offer; Irish immigrants were promised citizenship on the condition that they sign up to fight in the Civil War on the front lines.

One of the better parts of Gangs of New York was the colorful characters, which included a hired club named Monk (Brendan Gleeson) and a shopkeeper named Happy Jack (John C. Reilly). But easily the best character was Bill the Butcher, one of the best villains in modern film. He has strangely elaborate diction, a choked accent, and a tendency to combine ruthlessness with philosophy. He is disturbing with this uncanny use of blades and meat cleavers. While the cast was impressive, Daniel Day-Lewis really stole the show and made the movie worth seeing.

Gangs of New York is not one of Martin Scorsese’s greatest films, but even so it’s a good movie. There are a couple of scenes that are truly impressive and the tension is palpable. There’s amazing camera work with long moving camera shots. The sets and costumes are amazingly convincing. The movie seems longer than what I thought was necessary; there were a few times I was starting to get bored, but you will not be disappointed if you stick with the film. I recommend seeing it, but I personally wasn’t so taken with the movie as to go out and get my own copy to watch again and again. It’s an above average renter that I think should be watched at least once.

Is there an obscure bit of history that you would love to see made into a movie? I think a movie about the story of Alan Turing would be fascinating, but tragic. Comment below and tell me what kind of obscure historical event or figure you'd like to see a movie made about.

Lincoln Movie Review

A good biopic must be hard to make. You would have to summarize an entire life into a couple of hours, show the most dramatic highlights of someone life, and make sure the movie does it justice.  If you don’t do an absolutely amazing job, people who love and respect the individual the biopic is about will have a conniption fit. That’s probably why there hasn’t been many movies about Abraham Lincoln before Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).

In 1865, as the American Civil War winds unavoidably towards its conclusion, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) seeks to pass a landmark constitutional amendment which will forever ban slavery from the United States. This task is a race against time, for peace may come at any moment and if it comes before the amendment is passed, the returning southern states will stop it before it can become law. Lincoln must, by any means possible, obtain enough votes from the unruly Congress before peace arrives and it becomes too late. Yet the president is torn, as an early peace would save thousands of lives. While the nation confronts its conscience over the freedom of an entire population, Lincoln faces his own crisis of conscience; end slavery or end the war.

If you’re familiar with Daniel Day-Lewis and his movie roles such as The Last of the Mohicans, Gangs of New York, and There Will Be Blood you’ll likely assume, just as I did, that he doesn’t look like the 16^th President of the United States. However, the makeup job which was done for Day-Lewis was astonishing to say the least. Compounded by his stellar acting, you almost believe that the man on screen actually is President Lincoln. He’s a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of the Midwestern US who exhibits a lack of social grace but has a great intelligence and knowledge of human nature. Lincoln is constantly telling seemingly unrelated stories, but when he gets started he’s almost like this affable grandpa, and you just want to go sit on his lap while he tells you a story. Day-Lewis is calm, self-confident, and powerful in this role and really brings this revered president to life.

Lincoln has a very large cast that includes Sally Field as Mrs. Lincoln, David Strathairn as Secretary of State William H. Seward, Tommy Lee Jones as Radical Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln, and Jackie Earle Haley as Confederate States Vice President Alexander H. Stephens. There was not a single actor who didn’t do an amazing job with their role. Alongside Day-Lewis, it really helped portray a remarkably vivid story about passing the 13^th Amendment.

The script they were given was also extraordinary. The dialogue wasn’t just good and well written, it was powerful! Lincoln is mostly calm and genteel, but there are times he speaks so powerfully and with such conviction that he’s almost intimidating; you can’t help but want to follow such a strong leader whose words are so profound and insightful. No wonder Lincoln was so well loved by the people. Famous historical words are beautifully woven into the script without making it sound like a stuffy, obligatory history lesson. The words of The Gettysburg Address are spoken with the greatest possible impact, but not by Lincoln himself. Since this movie is about an historical event, we all know how it will end before the first scene even starts. And yet the script is so powerfully written and draws you into the political suspense such that you can’t help but be on the edge of your seat while congress votes on the amendment.

It’s been nearly 150 years since the 13^th Amendment was passed, but the political situation is still applicable today. We still see the results of this Amendment. The accurate portrayal of politics is remarkable. Seeing the two political parties nearly at each other’s throats over a proposed law isn’t unlike contemporary politics. The elected officials jeer and insult one another in a remarkably articulate way while still getting their point across to Congress. This is especially true of Thaddeus Stevens, who provided some comic relief to the movie; there are a lot of jeers from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party whom opposes the 13^th Amendment. Still, the elected delegates that met to “discuss” politics yell, scream, and insult one another, which is also not unlike contemporary politics.

Lincoln wasn’t just a good movie, it was powerful. It’s a long movie at two and a half hours, but it’s so captivating and impressive that the time flies by. It’s a political drama, so viewers who don’t enjoy politics or drama films in general may not appreciate it as much. Personally, I don’t enjoy politics at all, and I enjoyed Lincoln a great deal. I strongly urge you to see this film; it’s powerful, dramatic, compelling, and still pertinent to today. It’s worth owning a copy of as both a beautiful piece of cinematic art and as a gripping tale about a significant land mark in the history of The United States of America.

Do you have a favorite political drama movie? What is it and why do you enjoy it so much? Comment below and tell me why!