Proof of Life (2000)

Film: Proof of Life (2000)

Stars: Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, David Morse, Pamela Reed, David Caruso

Director: Taylor Hackford 

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 (and now 2025) Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Meg Ryan: click here to learn more about Ms. Ryan (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By 2000, Meg Ryan had been a consistent box office presence for a decade, regularly making hits in a variety of genres (but usually romances), Ryan was about to commit the most unfortunate of sins-she was going to show that she was human, both by committing adultery (and perhaps more damning in Hollywood, by turning 40).  Ryan, coming off of the twin successes of City of Angels & You've Got Mail in 1998, had a lot of leeway, but on the set of today's film Proof of Life, she found out that leeway had limits.  Despite being in one of several marriages in Hollywood at the time that had dominated public fascination for "proving love works in Hollywood" (along with couples like Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins and Nicole Kidman & Tom Cruise, both of which would also soon end up on the cutting room floor), she began an affair with her costar Russell Crowe during the filming of Proof of Life, one that leaked to the press, and led to a rare circumstance where the public could very clearly "blame the wife" rather than the husband.  The public crucified Ryan for this, showing that the "girl next door" routine was (in their eyes) a facade, and acted in kind with her career.  And soon, the once teflon actress started to falter.  Hanging Up (a forgotten partnership with Nora Ephron) flopped, and Proof of Life, which had dominated the tabloids for months, soon followed.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Alice Bowman (Ryan) who has moved to a South American country (in this case a fictional one named Tecala) with her husband Peter (Morse).  They disagree on politics, with Alice an environmentalist who doesn't approve of the oil line her husband is trying to put in the jungle, and it's clear their marriage is on shaky grounds with frequent bickering.  But that changes when Peter is kidnapped, and held for ransom.  When it's revealed the company he works for has lapsed in their ransom insurance, Alice and Peter's sister Janis (Reed) have to hire a man to take care of it, Terry Thorne (Crowe).  Terry is experienced in this field, a battle-tested negotiator, and regularly tries to get "proof of life" to prove that Peter is still alive.  While he successfully negotiates Peter's release, it turns out the ransom is not all they want-they also want an end to the pipeline, which won't happen, so Terry (who has developed reciprocated romantic feelings for Alice) has to go in and free Peter on his own, which he does.  The film ends with Terry telling a crying Alice that she needs to go back to her husband on a soon-to-leave plane, and their romance was only meant to be while he was gone.

If that last scene reminds you of, oh, I don't know, the most famous movie ever made, you'd be correct-this film is attempting to touch the third rail of cinema: do not attempt to turn your movie into Casablanca.  The ending is so obviously cribbed from the classic movie, it borders on parody.  And the reason it does is that Proof of Life is a bad movie.  The film teeters on boredom for hours, regularly not knowing what to do with Alice's character (Ryan seems to be dazed the entire film), and also endlessly finding reasons for the two main characters not to have sex, for fear it'll make the lead character too unlikable (something that the publicists on this film would, admittedly, find out first hand).  David Morse gets the only good part, watching him take on the Victor Laszlo role with great relish, and honestly the movie would've been better just staying with him rather than two actors that were having sex in real life but had zilch chemistry onscreen.  Also, I couldn't quite tell if veteran character actress Pamela Reed was acting in a better movie or a worse movie than Proof of Life, but her performance was so out-of-place to what's happening onscreen she definitely wasn't acting in the same movie as the rest of these actors.

Proof of Life, and the scandal that would ensue, would ruin Meg Ryan's career.  While her husband Dennis Quaid briefly could do no wrong, starring in Best Picture nominee Traffic, the surprise Disney hit The Rookie, and then getting Oscar buzz for his best performance to date in Far from Heaven (say what you will about Quaid's unfortunate politics, an underrated topic about why their marriage may have failed given Ryan's pretty outspoken liberal beliefs, but he's brilliant in Far from Heaven, and as we've established, should've gotten that Oscar nod), Ryan remained forever punished for her infidelity.  Kate & Leopold did decently at the box office, but nowhere near the mammoth amounts she was grossing a few years earlier, and it was the only hit she had in her in the early 2000's, with In the Cut and Against the Ropes being critical & commercial disasters.  Ryan would rarely work after this, largely only making independent films, and only having one mild studio hit with 2008's The Women (which was unfortunately terrible).  By 2023, when she'd be directing herself in a much-discussed comeback bid What Happens Later, it'd flop.  Even in an era where Ryan can present Best Picture at the Oscars ot a standing ovation...audiences have never really warmed to her on their movie screens again.

And with that, we're going to finish up our America's Sweethearts season, right around the time when that title started to lose meaning.  While there were actresses after Roberts', Bullock's, Aniston's & Ryan's runs in the 1990's for the title (the most successful being Reese Witherspoon & Kate Hudson), the trope kind of died with the death of the romantic-comedy, and (like so many things) the rise of the internet.  One wonders if it's even possible in a deeply-divided nation to have an America's Sweetheart that appeals to both sides of the aisle (look at what happened in recent months with Sydney Sweeney, who in a different era would fit the trope perfectly), or if this is just something that Hollywood can't get back.  Tomorrow, we will take one last closing look at Season 6 of Saturdays with the Stars, recapping the best of our (long-gestating) America's Sweetheart years.

OVP: Actor (1999)

OVP: Best Actor (1999)

The Nominees Were...

Russell Crowe, The Insider

Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story

Sean Penn, Sweet & Lowdown

Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

Denzel Washington, The Hurricane

My Thoughts: The Oscars are an unusual beast.  There are years where a lineup is considered "indisputably great," and others where it's definitely one that AMPAS phoned in...and then there are years like 1999 Best Actor where I honestly feel like your mileage may vary.  The big thing about this lineup is that it features a lot of really good actors.  Four of these men would eventually win Best Actor, only one never getting the trophy (though he had gotten a now-forgotten Supporting Actor nod in 1978), so they're generally considered to be "good" actors, but with maybe 1-2 exceptions, I'd argue none of these actors are giving all-time great performances.

Case in point, we have Denzel Washington, who was nearing the end of his "Denzel Washington should really have an Oscar" years with The Hurricane.  The movie is not good, in my opinion.  This is a paint-by-numbers biopic, a type that has gone out of fashion (now it's more the subject, not the movie star at the center, that is the big focus).  Washington is good (when is he not?), but it's not easy to elevate a movie this hokey, and I don't know that I can give him much credit beyond being good, as the movie isn't capable of a great performance, and is really just trying to acclimate to the cheesy plot and score.

Richard Farnsworth's nomination is so lovable it's hard to begrudge him his first nomination in 20 years, but I'll be real-like The Hurricane, The Straight Story is not a good movie.  It has some Lynchian touches (there's a cameo near the end of the picture by a Lynch staple), but it's generally just a nice Iowa senior citizen driving around in a tractor.  There's not enough beyond Farnsworth's expressive eyes here for me to grade.  Farnsworth is capable of solid acting (look at him in the Anne of Green Gables miniseries a few years before this), but this is just kind of blasé.

Sean Penn is hardly blasé (and a weird anomaly...Allen's films almost always got supporting nominations-other than Woody himself in Annie Hall, this is the only Lead Actor nomination he ever directed), but he might be a bit too committed to the bit in Sweet & Lowdown.  He's acting with ticks, at this point both trying desperately not to care about winning an Oscar, as well as clearly needing it to cement his legacy.  He'd thankfully win for a much better performance four years later...this is honestly one of those performances that end up nominated for a famous actor in the heat of their fame that no one remembers getting into the field after that moment has passed.

The same cannot be said for Russell Crowe's first nomination for The Insider.  Crowe was, like Penn a few years earlier, such an electric new screen presence that every performance felt like an event at this time.  He crafts maybe my favorite piece-of-work from him as an actor here.  He's transformational (this is not the sexy movie star Crowe would be in Gladiator), but his depth doesn't disappear behind the makeup.  There's a haunted quality to this man who keeps getting gutted as he tries to share the truth, and I think Crowe adds that well-the blend of honor, fear, and exhaustion you need to be this type of a whistleblower.

Which brings us to Kevin Spacey.  Spacey's performance in American Beauty is not the best of his career (that would be The Usual Suspects), but it's mesmerizing, and because of his offscreen troubles, undoubtedly the role he'll be most-remembered for at the movies.  I think what he brings to Lester that's really smart is an adolescent attitude.  Look at the fights he picks with his wife, the ones that feel so petty-he wants her to be his girlfriend again, or his mother...he doesn't care that she's become her own woman.  I think Mendes' film would've aged a little bit better if it was clear that Bening wasn't supposed to be the villain, but Spacey's performance is channeling that.  We understand that he is perpetually going to fail, that even in his final moments he's clinging to things that aren't real.  It's one of his better pieces-of-work, and one that makes American Beauty a great picture.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split between Comedy/Musical and Drama for their nominations, so we had 10 nominees to mention from the HFPA.  Drama went to Washington, besting Crowe, Farnsworth, Spacey, and Matt Damon (The Talented Mr. Ripley), while Comedy/Musical went to Jim Carrey (Man on the Moon) beating Oscar nominee Sean Penn, as well as Robert de Niro (Analyze This), Rupert Everett (An Ideal Husband), & Hugh Grant (Notting Hill).  SAG kind of got creative, giving the statue to Spacey against Crowe, Carrey, Washington, & Philip Seymour Hoffman (Flawless), while BAFTA also went with Spacey, besting Crowe, Jim Broadbent (Topsy-Turvy), Om Puri (East is East...which I've never seen-is it good?), and Ralph Fiennes (The End of the Affair).  In sixth place, I think you've got three options.  First is Damon, and my theory for sixth because it's that sweet spot of "out of character" and "prestige drama" (plus Oscar loves a killer).  I would also entertain Carrey, but if he wasn't going to get in for The Truman Show, do we really think this was happening?  And third is the precursor-less Tom Hanks for The Green Mile, who was largely counted out at the time because he'd been so well-rewarded, but the Best Picture nomination makes me think it was closer than you'd guess.  Hanks does have a weird history of being in films nominated for Best Supporting Actor where he missed; it's happened eight times (Apollo 13, The Green Mile, Catch Me If You Can, Road to Perdition, Charlie Wilson's War, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Captain Phillips, & Bridge of Spies) while only one of his Best Actor nominations (Forrest Gump) got a supporting player in-it's one or the other with Hanks.  The trend has continued in reverse in his supporting actor years (Hanks lands but Matthew Rhys doesn't for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Hanks misses but Austin Butler scores for Elvis).  A bit of Oscar trivia for you there.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Damon for sure-this is the best performance of his career, it's silly that he didn't get a nomination for his hypnotic Tom Ripley.

Oscar’s Choice: The Academy went with Spacey, probably more so over Crowe than over Washington despite what some will protest given Oscar doesn't like giving films Best Actor on their sole nomination.

My Choice: This is a good reminder that we always pick OVP winners in a vacuum.  Usually when I say that, I am referring to we're just picking based on the five performances in front of us (not the actor's larger body of work or considering they might already have a statue), but in this case we don't consider their off-screen behavior.  Given what we now know about Kevin Spacey, I morally couldn't have voted for him in a real world example, and would've instead picked my second place choice Crowe, but for the record I think Spacey is the best performance of the five, and we're giving him the OVP title.  Washington, Farnsworth, and then Penn follow them (in order).

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does everyone think (based solely on performance) that the finest of these five is Kevin Spacey, and if not-who is?  Is Denzel Washington the last time we'll see a real push for "they have to have a win in lead" working as an Oscar momentum situation?  And was it Hanks, Carrey, or Damon in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 1999: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously, in 1999

Past Best Actor Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

OVP: Actor (2000)

OVP: Best Actor (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls

Russell Crowe, Gladiator

Tom Hanks, Cast Away

Ed Harris, Pollock

Geoffrey Rush, Quills

My Thoughts: All right, let's move into the lead actors, and a reminder of how I miss the era of the 5-wide Best Picture nominees sometimes.  In 2000, if you can believe it, only one of the Best Actor nominees (usually the category with the most correlation with Best Picture) was from one of the top films of the night.  This isn't to say that there weren't films that would've made it in a ten-wide field.  In a ten-wide field Cast Away for sure and maybe Quills is going to get into the top race, making this feel more generic than it seems, but in 2000 it was only one man, getting his second of three back-to-back nominations from the Academy (his only three nominations to date, bizarrely enough).

That man is Russell Crowe, who gets to be one of the final vessels for me to complain about Ridley Scott's Gladiator.  It's not that Crowe is necessarily bad here.  He gives, for my money, the best performance in Gladiator, and finds some humanity in a characterization that easily could've been a bland, Mel Gibson-style performance.  There's just not enough of it.  I needed more swagger...it might've helped if Crowe had had a little more chemistry with Nielsen (or hell, Phoenix), but for someone who was billed as a sex symbol at the time, the film is not interested in capitalizing on that.  It's also just not written to be a great performance-Crowe would need more swagger as an actor to make this jump off-the-screen in a bigger way, and that's not how he's playing it.

Quills is a film that is very much written to be sexy, but it's not, and not because Rush is not generally considered a sex symbol in the way that Crowe is (though Rush does have more sexual chemistry with Joaquin Phoenix than Crowe does in his movie!).  This is the least of Rush's Oscar-nominated work, and it's a performance that indulges many of his worst traits as an actor.  Rush is not a subtle performer, and pretending he is always gets you into trouble (his best performance is in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, which uses that overacting to its advantage).  That's a problem in the messy back-half of Quills, where he takes an already "too much" character and turns him up to eleven, which is a bad counter to some of the more grounded work Kate Winslet is doing here.

Ed Harris is also at-odds with his work in Pollock, though it's not always his fault as an actor.  Harris (as director) is pulling double duty, and in the process he feels like he's pulling away from the character onscreen.  Pollock writes Jackson as being full of misery, and only focuses on that misery.  This makes the film feel like half a picture, and the characterization as half a performance-we're meant to understand that Jackson has at least some draw beyond just his art (that people are fascinated by him), but it doesn't come across in Harris's work (in many ways, this is how I felt about Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, another actor, like Harris, I generally enjoy but was in the minority on one of their most lauded performances).

Speaking of actors I run hot-and-cold on, let's get to Javier Bardem.  I do not generally enjoy the films of Julian Schnabel, whose films feel like they're stuck in a kaleidoscope (and not in as pleasant of a way as that sounds, as generally that'd be my thing).  Bardem's work here is surprisingly nuanced.  Like Rush, he's someone that frequently overacts, but as a dying gay poet, a role filled with indulgences, he is far more naturalistic than you'd expect.  I just wish the movie was able to anchor around that work a bit more, finding a way to steady itself so they felt more in sync.

Tom Hanks in 2000 was at the top of his game, and it would be so weird to think that he'd soon be entering his "Oscar wilderness phase."  This is particularly true because Oscar would pick such a fine piece-of-work to go out on until he became Mr. Rogers.  Cast Away has been parodied quite a bit in the years since Hanks made it a genuine blockbuster (the film is, after all, a movie about a man obsessed with a volleyball), but that doesn't take away from his achievement here.  The work he does, oftentimes having to have chemistry with an inanimate object, and giving us a hopeful, human story is really splendid work.  For an actor that I think is thought of more as a "movie star" than a thespian, there are scenes here that number amongst the best of his career (particularly the "Wilson goodbye").

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  The Drama statue went to Hanks, atop Bardem, Crowe, Rush, & Michael Douglas (Wonder Boys) while Comedy/Musical went to George Clooney (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), besting Jim Carrey (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), John Cusack (High Fidelity), Robert de Niro (Meet the Parents), & Mel Gibson (What Women Want)...side note, but don't you miss the era where they would only have proper comedies in this category & we'd get five names that weren't in contention at the Oscars?  SAG gave their statue to Benicio del Toro for Traffic (I believe this was a mistake in filing for the wrong category that showed just how unstoppable del Toro was for Supporting Actor), against Crowe, Hanks, Rush, & Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), while BAFTA favored Bell against Rush, Douglas, Crowe, & Hanks.  At the time, most assumed Michael Douglas would get in for the spot that went to Harris, and that's probably the case even if Bell makes more sense based on how we think about the Oscars as a game of math today (an article for another day, but I do think that that over-prognostication of awards season may have inadvertently ruined awards season), given that the Academy has never been kind to nominating young male actors for lead acting roles.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I don't generally nominate young actors either (I do think there's something to be said for them being a product of strong direction), but there's no way I'd miss Bell here, particularly knowing what a fine actor he'd grow up to be.  His work in Billy Elliot is aces, and adds so much to a film that could've been an otherwise disposable coming-of-age picture.

Oscar’s Choice: Crowe's win at the time was something of a surprise (Hanks was expected to win his third statue even with Crowe's name in the game, and a lot of heat for Ed Harris), and would unknowingly make Denzel Washington's win the following year possible.

My Choice: It's easily Hanks, who is the only person in this lineup giving a truly Oscar-worthy performance.  I debated between Bardem & Harris for second, and while I had Harris in that position when I started this article, I've talked myself into giving it to Bardem, whose work is subtler and better for his picture.  Crowe is in fourth, and I'll leave Rush in last place.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Do you think Oscar got it right with the Gladiator, or will you be stuck at sea with Tom & I?  What do you think Ed Harris's, a four-times nominated actor who likely will never win, best performance is?  And was it Jamie Bell or Michael Douglas in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2000: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

Past Best Actor Contests: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actor (2001)

OVP: Best Actor (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind

Sean Penn, I Am Sam

Will Smith, Ali

Denzel Washington, Training Day

Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom

My Thoughts: Outside factors oftentimes come into play when you talk about the Oscars.  As much as it shouldn't be, it is rarely just about the performance; instead, it is oftentimes about the politics.  For those who didn't live through it, Russell Crowe in 2001 was a whirlwind of a celebrity.  After Gladiator, he was an incredibly bankable name in Hollywood, and A Beautiful Mind clearing $300 million at the worldwide box office cemented that.  He was also persona non grata in the tabloids.  He had broken up the marriage of America's Sweetheart Meg Ryan on the set of Proof of Life, and was known as something of a bad boy offscreen, including getting into a fight at that year's BAFTA Awards, with producer Malcolm Gerrie after Gerrie cut off Crowe's speech.  All of this is to say-in 2001, the only thing that people were focusing on talking about this category was the personal life of Crowe, then one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and whether that would hurt him in getting a second consecutive Oscar.

Crowe's performance, it should be noted, is definitely worthy of an Oscar (or at least a nomination).  Of all of the elements of A Beautiful Mind, he's the best (after the score), and delivers as John Nash.  This is not a Forrest Gump situation, where he is playing a man with mental health issues as comedic or a punchline.  Instead, he's played as someone wrestling with his own personal demons.  Most actors would've felt the need to skip some of the charisma & sexuality of the leading man (Crowe at this point of his career was, indeed, quite sexy & charming when he wanted to be), but that isn't stolen from Nash-instead it serves as a cover for why so many people struggled to see what he was compensating for underneath.  Crowe was on a role in 2001, and this is fine stuff.

His chief competition for the Oscar was Denzel Washington, who at this point it'd become something of a common refrain of "when is he going to win Best Actor?" (Julia Roberts spent months personally campaigning for him in a way that apparently is only a problem if you're cheering on Andrea Riseborough).  Washington is sensational in Training Day, giving us a charismatic villain that you almost find yourself rooting for despite him being increasingly violent the further you get into the movie.  Training Day isn't a great movie, but it's a good movie with a great performance, which used to be called a "star vehicle" and that's what happens here-Washington nails the lived-in pathology of a unique character, and definitely came to play against Crowe.

None of the other actors were really in the hunt for a nomination in 2001.  Will Smith was just starting what would be his own quest for a statue with Ali.  Smith, like Crowe, was a new A-list star in 2001 after a bunch of action blockbusters, and his nomination for Ali was a "welcome to the club" moment.  Unfortunately, it's not very good acting.  Smith looks the part (he is, as Ali might say "so pretty"), but doesn't give the role enough depth.  Ali was still alive in 2001, which is always a dangerous place to come from with a biopic, and that might be why we aren't seeing some of the downsides of Ali's personal journey, just the road blocks in his way.  This means Smith doesn't get to play with the most compelling aspects of the role, and we get a limited performance.

If Smith was being welcomed to the club, in 2001 Sean Penn was getting another down payment on his inevitable Oscar.  Unlike Crowe's Nash, Penn's role in I Am Sam is played for laughs, and is insensitive (to the point it would become a running joke in the movie Tropic Thunder seven years later).  It was criticized at the time (though not crucified the way Penn would be today), but even putting aside the inappropriateness of how Penn handles this role, it also isn't a good performance.  It's over-the-top, poorly-modulated, and inconsistent.  I wish Oscar had just skipped this entirely...it wasn't like we weren't aware Sean Penn needed an Oscar by 2001 without them nominating him for I Am Sam.

Our final nominee is Tom Wilkinson, getting the one "he's a character actor we'll nominate once" citation (though Wilkinson would go on to a second nomination six years later for Michael Clayton, proving that adage wrong).  Wilkinson is so good here though.  Sissy Spacek gets to play maternal grief, but he gets an even more difficult role-playing the father who encouraged his son, wanting to live vicariously through him as he pursued a woman that would've been out of his league.  The ending, where he has to come to terms with his own actions, and what it will be like after (spoiler alert!) his son has died & he will forever feel the pull of how his encouragement might've led to it is heartbreaking, and gives us a fulfilling, ambiguous close to the movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes break out their nominees between Drama and Comedy/Musical, so we have ten names from their ceremony.  The Drama statue went to Crowe, beating Smith, Washington, Kevin Spacey (The Shipping News), & Billy Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasn't There), while Comedy/Musical went to Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums) against Hugh Jackman (Kate & Leopold), Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), & Billy Bob Thornton (Bandits).  SAG went to Crowe as well, beating Penn, Washington, Wilkinson, & Kevin Kline (Life as a House), and BAFTA (as already mentioned) went with Crowe as well, here atop Wilkinson, Spacey, and two actors who were cited for supporting with Oscar: Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring).  In sixth place, I think it was probably Gene Hackman.  I want to say there was some slight confusion over category placement for him at the time (I can't find evidence of this online, but it is in my head which means I don't think it's entirely made up), which may have hurt him, but this was considered a bit of a comeback for the actor and could've been the spot Penn got.  Kevin Spacey or Kevin Kline both had heat as well headed into the Oscars, but their films got totally ignored by AMPAS so I'll guess Hackman.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Sexy men and male leads in musicals both struggle when it comes to the Oscars, but given he was the lead in a Best Picture nominee and also given he has never been close to a nomination in the years since, Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge! was such a missed opportunity to come in instead of Sean Penn.

Oscar’s Choice: Had it not been for the Meg Ryan affair or the fight at the BAFTA Awards, I think Russell Crowe takes this-it was that close, and it was that big of a deal at the time.  But with those in place, Washington barely won his Best Actor Oscar.  It's worth noting Washington would be cited four more times to date after this, while Crowe has never been invited back to the Oscars.

My Choice: I'm going to split the difference and go with Tom Wilkinson, who gives the most well-paced performance of the three, and also gets the biggest payoff in the end.  Behind him (in order) would be Washington, Crowe, Smith, & Penn.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does King Kong have nothing on you & Denzel, or do you want to go for a car ride with Tom Wilkinson & I?  Do you also think that Russell Crowe's offscreen behavior cost him a second Oscar?  And was it Hackman, Spacey, or Kline that nearly knocked out Sean Penn?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2001: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Actor Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Cinderella Man (2005)

Film: Cinderella Man (2005)
Stars: Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Bruce McGill, Craig Bierko
Director: Ron Howard
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Paul Giamatti, Makeup, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Boxing has long been Oscar's favorite sport.  In many ways, it might be the only sport that Oscar really cares about.  After all, while AMPAS occasionally has dalliances with baseball, track, or basketball, it's boxing that they return to most frequently, and is the only genre that would normally be considered "Oscar-bait."  It's not hard to see why this is; the Academy loves stories about one person overcoming obstacles and achieving some sort of personal & professional triumph.  The boxing motif has been tried-and-true, used countless times from Rocky to Raging Bull to Million Dollar Baby with consistent success, but it also means that it's predictable, and frequently a snooze unless the filmmakers can find some way to spice up the action on screen with some artistry or compelling performances.  Sadly, Ron Howard is not a director who is good at letting artistic license best conformity & an old-school Hollywood story, and as a result Cinderella Man is what happens when you put some talented actors in a room and give them nothing unique to say or do.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is the true story of boxer James J. Braddock (Crowe), a man who was once considered an up-and-coming contender, who has fallen on hard times.  We're at the height of the depression, and he breaks his hand in the ring, depriving him of a chance to make a living, and in many ways nearly ruining his chances of even being a dockworker.  His wife Mae (Zellweger), seems relatively happy he's out of the sport even though she knows they need the money, as she's spent most of their marriage worried he'll kill himself in the ring.  They struggle, and have to move their kids out of their house because they can't afford to pay the bills or rent, but one day a random opportunity has Braddock taking on World Number 2 Corn Griffin (who needs practice before a big fight), and Braddock beats him, as the breaking of his right hand has made his left much stronger.  Soon Braddock has become a major contender in the ring again, and has a chance to take on the reigning heavyweight champion Max Baer (Bierko), but Mae is worried that Baer (who has supposedly killed two men in the ring) will do the same to her husband.  They fight, but ultimately he ends up in the bout against Baer, and in an upset wins the title away from Baer, getting to live happily-ever-after with Mae and their kids in a house he buys from the winnings.

The film is uplifting, and it's kind of fun to see Crowe & Zellweger, who have in the years since seen their stars completely disappear (despite being a modest hit, this feels like sort of the end of their short reigns as two of the biggest names in Tinseltown) be proper movie stars once more, but it's not very good.  The movie is too conventional and too long.  The lead actors are fine, but they don't rise above this material, and after both had won three Oscar nominations a piece in the six years prior to this movie, we know they can do better than just sturdy.  Howard crafts a handsome tale, but he doesn't have much heart, and neither of these actors distinguish their characters enough for us to care about them more than a middling movie.

The film won three Oscar nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor Paul Giamatti.  If you re-watch George Clooney's Golden Globes acceptance speech from that year, he started it out with "I thought Paul Giamatti was gonna win."  Indeed, at the time it looked like it'd be a race between Giamatti & Clooney for this trophy (Giamatti would win the SAG), thanks in large part to the belief that Giamatti had been robbed the year before of an expected Oscar nomination for Sideways.  Watching this performance, though, Giamatti's work here feels a bit ancillary, and much the same schtick that he's been doing for the past fifteen years-a bombastic, larger-than-life guy infused with a masculine energy that feels like it's over-compensating to compete with his more famous male lead.  Giamatti's work here is easily forgettable, if pretty loud, and I'm thankful he didn't pick up a trophy for it.  We'll eventually get to the Oscar Viewing Project of 2005 (we'll be back into 2016's races in a few days), so I won't go too far in on Giamatti's work here, but I will say this is fine if they wanted to give a long-time character actor a random nomination (that happens with the supporting categories on occasion), but it's not groundbreaking or really rising above an already limited film.

Boy Erased (2018)

Film: Boy Erased (2018)
Stars: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton, Joe Alwyn
Director: Joel Edgerton
Oscar History: Hedges scored with the Globes (as did Troye Sivan's song "Revelation," but neither could sneak in with AMPAS)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Yesterday we took a look at Disobedience, a film about faith & sexuality, but one that took place in the Orthodox Jewish communities of North London.  Today we examine a different film that is a world away from Disobedience, here in the Baptist churches of Memphis, Tennessee, but also takes an examination at faith & sexuality in a careful, measured way.  Based on the memoirs by Gerrard Conley, the movie focuses on a young man's journey to discover his sexuality in the most trying of environments-at a gay conversion camp he was sent to by his parents in hopes of turning him straight.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place initially in a series of flashbacks, as we see Jared Eamons (Hedges-all of the characters from real life were renamed for the film), at a gay conversion camp trying his best to heed his parents' wishes of becoming straight, examining what led him to be at this camp in the first place.  Through flashbacks, we understand he is the "all-American boy" who has a girlfriend that he had recently broken up with, and at college he befriended a young man named Henry (Alwyn), who, also confused by his sexuality, rapes Jared and then outs him to his parents Marshall (Crowe) and Nancy (Kidman) in hopes of keeping Jared's silence about his own sexuality.  Jared then comes out to his parents, who send him to a conversion camp, with Nancy more reluctant to do so than Marshall.  The camp is run by a therapist named Victor Sykes (Edgerton), who employs violence, shame, and psychological warfare (at one point a boy is forced to attend a fake funeral for himself to insinuate that he'll be essentially dead if he doesn't become straight).  The men attending the camp alternate between some who simply are trying to pretend to be straight long enough to get back to their real lives and those who are truly devoted to becoming straight, enamored with Sykes claims that they are evil but can be forgiven for their sins.  Jared starts as a true believer, but becomes disillusioned as the film goes by, and eventually is saved from the camp by his mother.  The film's ending has him writing an article about the time he spent in camp, and after initially rebuffing him, finding a way to reconcile with his father.

The movie is heavy, and should be.  This is based on real-life, and even if they haven't always ended in conversion camps, the belief systems of real-life Marshall Eamons and Victor Sykes have had a profound effect on young LGBT men and women for decades, making them learn that something is "wrong with them" before having to eventually realize that that's simply not the case, and the bigotry of people older than them and in positions of authority have created systems that allows young LGBT people to be demonized from a very young age.  Jared Eamons is not just a real person, but he also represents thousands of other real people who never had the chance to eventually have their voices heard.  It's a testament to Edgerton's seriousness about this subject that he casts not only Hedges, who came out as sexually fluid after the film, but in supporting roles openly queer actors like Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones, and Xavier Dolan in key parts in the film.

Edgerton's acting occasionally succumbs to bombast as written (I've stated here a few times I'm not a big fan of his work as I find it too indulgent and surface-level), but I quite like his work as a director here, considerably more than I did a few years back with The Gift.  There's a confidence that we only need to see a small portion of Jared's life to know that his father will eventually come around, and that his mother was basically already there when she brought him to the conversion therapy camp.  The film is aided by strong work from the three leads.  Hedges, who has made a niche for himself by playing sensitive young men who are trying to find their identity in the world, gives great care to Jared, forging a teenager raised in a conservative household who inwardly tried to fight who he was while outwardly showing a veneer of calm so that his parents would be proud of him.  Kidman is also great in some confessional scenes about things she clearly had known for years about her son, but was afraid to say out loud out of fear/respect for her husband.  And Crowe, who hasn't been in a movie of this nature in a long while, finds his inner star with a (smaller-than-you'd-think) role as Jared's father, someone who cannot compromise his own belief system, even though it's slowly eating away at him because he loves his son too much.  That none of these actors ended up with Oscar nominations is a shame, and quite frankly a bit of a surprise considering the pedigree of the picture & the Academy's love for them in the past.  The movie performed poorly at the box office, but like Disobedience is worth an investigation even without the awards love, as it's moving and an acting showcase.

The Nice Guys (2016)

Film: The Nice Guys (2016)
Stars: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Kim Basinger
Director: Shane Black
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Can we all just be thankful to have Ryan Gosling back at the movies?  That brief period where his fame had hit peak mode and suddenly everyone was all over the "Hey Girl" train and he was threatening to quit, and largely did until the press around him died down?  It was devastating for fans of his, particularly after he'd given two Oscar worthy performances in a row in Blue Valentine and Drive.  Thankfully he's back, and seems to be more at home in the world of comedy with both The Big Short last year and this year's The Nice Guys, where he's taking on the buddy cop routine with Russell Crowe, who has been equally as elusive in recent years, though he didn't drop off the face of the earth when we missed him most so the longing isn't quite there.  The film has done all right at the Box Office (though it's nowhere near recouping its losses yet), and so I wanted to show my support for the Gos and check it out.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, from Shane Black (the man behind the okay Iron Man 3), is not entirely what I expected from the trailers.  The previews for the film had insinuated that I'd be in for something of a laugh riot, with a constant tete-a-tete between both Crowe and Gosling, but the actual film itself is not short on drama, and intersperses the comedy only in jaunts.  The story follows two detectives of sorts (Gosling's March is a detective, Crowe's Healy is an enforcer who meets Gosling while beating him up for a client).  The movie follows them as they work through the case, which manages to cover all of the 1970's cliches of pornography, sit-ins, and of course ridiculously over-the-top fashion choices (though god bless the costume designer who put Gosling into knit-tight leisure suits), and we see a number of different random, beautiful character actors show up as various bad guys, including Yaya DaCosta, Matt Bomer, and in an LA Confidential reunion, Kim Basinger (was I the only person who spent that first scene praying she'd say "you're the first man in five years who didn't tell me I looked like Veronica Lake inside of a minute,"...man that's a great movie).

Unfortunately The Nice Guys is not a great movie, and doesn't have the dialogue to be able to back up what is a similar amount of plot twists, oddly enough, to LA Confidential.  The film is aided quite frequently by the superb comic timing of Gosling, and the fact that somehow Crowe manages to remember what subtlety is (sadly Basinger's only in two scenes and they're both severely underwritten, so I can't say thumbs up or down in that department), but the plot itself is rather forced and cumbersome.  The actual mystery is easily solved in about two minutes, which hurts as not knowing what's about to happen is integral to the actual meandering the film takes in getting to the solution, and the movie's ending is weirdly disconnected from the film.  We end with March and Healy solving the crime, but everyone getting off and us talking about how Detroit is the future of America, which is bizarre because Detroit would be doomed in the decades that followed and we'd still have deep issues with pollution in Los Angeles and around the country anyway-it's bizarre trying to figure out if they're ragging on the auto industry or condemning it.

This is a larger problem though, as the film can't decide if it's a comedy or not, and doesn't really find the grace that you need to be a dramedy.  We have to watch, for example, March deal with his alcoholism and abjectly bad parenting skills, but there's no real indication that this changes and feels like a large hanging chad in the movie, as is the random morality-driven center of Holly (Rice as March's daughter), who is somehow both Harriet the Spy and the most annoying black-and-white worldview character we've seen onscreen in eons.  She's frequently seen with a gun in her face, but trying to do the most good for the world, and yet we get little indication as to why this is happening-if they were waiting for the sequel to give us this information, considering the box office they'll be waiting a long time.

Overall, really this movie is only worth seeing if you're a big fan of Gosling's (which I am, so I'm glad i caught it).  What were your thoughts on the picture?  Do you think we'll ever see another chance-to-shine from Kim Basinger, or will she always be paying for that divorce?  Anyone wish that Gosling would, now that he's back, pick a movie that was as good as what he was giving out?  And why can't we get another noir film as good as LA Confidential?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Film: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Stars: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Logan Lerman, Ben Foster, Peter Fonda
Director: James Mangold
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Original Score, Sound Mixing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

When I make a list of my favorite filmic genres for people, the western is not usually on the top of the list, if I'm being honest.  Detective films, noir, romantic epics-these are what I usually gravitate toward, but there's always a caveat I throw on to this question, that if the genre is done well, I'll like pretty much any genre (even sports films, though that's admittedly a harder pill to swallow), and this is particularly true of the western.  Modern westerns, so rare compared to their heyday when they seemed to abound with an intense ease on the screen, are almost always made by a director who handles them with care, mostly because they had to beg to get them made, and films like Brokeback Mountain, No Country for Old Men, and The Assassination of Jesse James (my Holy Trinity of this century's westerns) are three of the greatest films of the past decade.  While 3:10 to Yuma never quite enters that territory, it is handled with immense care, bringing forth some really wonderful acting and action moments that sing onscreen, and reminds me why, at one point, we were so enamored with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Dan Evans (Bale), a man in need of money or he will lose his farm (the opening scene is of Evans' barn being destroyed by the men to whom he owes money, and there's an implication that next time it will be his family who is destroyed as a result).  He has a fractured relationship with his son William (Lerman), who sees him as a failure and someone to be ashamed of because he lives in shambles and cannot provide for his wife and children. While they are out on horseback, they happen upon a stagecoach robbery, where notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe) and his gang, including Charlie Prince (Foster) are amongst the bandits.  This results in a series of events where Evans is hired to take a captured Wade to a 3:10 train to the Yuma Territorial Prison, in exchange for which he'll have enough money to pay his debtors.

All-in-all this may be the most western of western plotlines, and it's worth noting that this film is a remake of a classic 1957 film starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin.  However, the film never relies on its most rudimentary of plots for its strength, and instead does what great westerns do and rises above the expectations with flare.  Russell Crowe, at the time not quite the assured presence of a boring figure who used to be a movie star, was just about to end his reign as a major motion picture star, but you can see here why he became one in the first place.  Gone is the semi-seriousness of Les Miserables, but instead a wry sense of humor and a sheen of menace that makes his actions truly unpredictable-just when you think he's going soft he's willing to sacrifice someone to save his own skin, and only takes risks with himself in mind first.  Christian Bale's Evans, conversely, relies less on his later penchant for over-acting or overtly method style, and we see here simply a man trying to regain honor and his own family's fortune.  His son, played by Lerman who has always been a favorite of mine, is also distinctive enough that you can see why Lerman rose above the hundreds of random child actors who litter movies and instead actually became a film star in his own right.

Best of all is Ben Foster's Charlie Prince, it has to be said, someone who gained something of a cult following after this movie.  Ruthless to his core, he's also clearly a creature that we haven't seen in the western canon-a nasty, cruel man, but one who clearly likes the company of other fellas.  It's quite obvious that he's in-lust with Wade (not love, because I don't think Charlie Prince knows how to love, at least in a conventional way), but the way that he only is willing to take a gamble for someone is if it's for Wade spells out pretty clearly where Charlie Prince (or "Charlie Princess," as one man calls him before he dies) and his loyalties lie.  Overall, the cast is actually quite wholly outstanding, and though I didn't realize it while watching, it was actually nominated for the SAG Best Cast of a Motion Picture category, one of those rare times where they didn't just predict a Best Picture nominee and instead actually went for a film that deserves it.  After all, 3:10 to Yuma is a spry ride, and a very good movie.

Those are my thoughts on 3:10 to Yuma, a film I didn't expect to enjoy nearly as much as I did.  What about yours?  Are you as into the cast as I am?  Are you a supporter of its two Oscar nominations?  And what are some of your favorite modern westerns?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

OVP: American Gangster (2007)

Film: American Gangster (2007)
Stars: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding Jr., Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, John Hawkes, Lymari Nadal, Ruby Dee
Director: Ridley Scott
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actress-Ruby Dee, Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Movie stars are a rare thing.  There are a lot of great actors out there, but very few movie stars, so when two bonafide, indisputable ones team up for the first time, it's noteworthy.  There's a reason that Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe managed to score a Box Office bonanza in 2007-both have been major draws on cinemas for decades now, and the two of them teaming up in that surest of film genres (the crime drama) meant Box Office gold.  It also meant, unfortunately, a batch of tepidity from both of the actors who seem to be a bit lazy in this movie which drags and while very occasionally it's exciting, it generally just sits there without any energy.  This is disappointing for multiple reasons, not least of which is because this is a 158-minute movie, which is already stretching my patience even if we're talking a quality picture.  But principally it's sad because these men can be electric onscreen-these are two true movie stars, men who can basically make any picture fascinating, and yet they at best coast and at worst seem to be just reading dialogue, waiting for a latte.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Denzel as a crime boss in Harlem moving heroin from war-addled Vietnam while Crowe is an impossibly good cop/aspiring attorney that never bends the rules, and sees himself punished for his actions.  The film is based on a true story, but you know how it goes by heart even if you weren't already aware of that fact.  The film rarely goes off the beaten path of the cliched bad guy who turns good, the good cop who is eventually validated, and the countless bodies both amass in the process of getting to the top, all-the-while both being vindicated in the end because they're the ones cashing the $20 million checks.  Honestly, the film is so tired that I almost don't want to even get into some of the worst aspects of it, but this is a review so I shall.

For starters, what's the deal with Denzel's girlfriend?  Did we really need the 24-year age gap between he and his onscreen girlfriend Lymari Nadal?  Was that really necessary?  Honestly, there's a point where perviness sets in, and I think it's when someone could comfortably be their love interest's father.  That really felt like something that needed to be commented on, quite frankly.  Crowe and his love interest had an 11-year age gap which feels a little eyebrow-raising, but at least that doesn't border on the paternal.

The characters themselves are deeply problematic, as we know very little about what motivates Crowe's Richie.  The detective is straight-laced in a world of corrupt cops, but why?  Where does this morality come from, particularly considering that it would be easier to be a little more corrupt (he likely would have kept his wife and son if this were the case)?  I don't buy "he's just a good guy" as an answer, quite frankly-no one is as ambitious as him and sacrifices as much as him and still ends up a "good guy" without a purpose.  Without it, he enters that unrealistic saint trope, which I find unappealing in films-no one is all good, and even if they are, they need a reason presented onscreen to be so.

I also feel the same way about Washington's Frank Lucas.  Frank is not all good, in fact he's ruthless and daring.  In one of only two scenes in the film that actually sent a jolt into the movie that I wasn't expecting, Frank shoots his enemy of the first half hour of the film, a seemingly low-grade competitor played by Idris Elba, straight in the forehead in the middle of a crowded street.  It recalls in many ways Sonny Corleone beating up his brother-in-law in its brutality, but unlike Sonny who has been established as an impetuous hothead, we don't see Frank make risks and mistakes like this very often, so what drove this?  His mentorship with a dead man at the beginning of the film is a cheap writing crutch-we have to assume that a lot of his personality has been formed offscreen, but that's still no excuse for these sorts of inconsistencies in the plot and character development.

The film received a pair of Oscar nominations, one quite memorably and one I'd frankly forgotten about until I started viewing the DVD.  The first was for longtime character actress Ruby Dee, who passed away last year and who played Washington's mother in the film.  Dee is a legend of the cinema, one who has won pretty much every acting award imaginable outside of the Oscar, so it's hard to begrudge the Academy wanting to correct a lapse that probably should have been addressed decades ago, but this is a pretty routine performance.  Dee gets one truly great scene, surely the one that cemented the nomination where she slaps her son while scolding him, but the rest of the film is completely forgettable.  I will say, in Dee's defense, that that scene is miles away the best scene of the movie, and the desperation in her voice speaks to a lot of character-development by the actress, enough that I wished her character had a bigger part, but it's just a 3-minute scene.  That's hardly worth an Oscar nomination.  I was a little bit more surprised at the adeptness of the Art Direction, which was also nominated-the scenes are brimming with tiny details, and we cover a groundswell of 1960's New York apartments.  This isn't showy work and certainly isn't glamorous, but it's very accurate and so I'm quite impressed that the Academy nominated it, as it's surely the best part of the  movie.

I'm not giving up much more time for this tedious little film (I am almost inclined to give it 1-star, but it never crosses that line into awful so I shall resist), and so I'll turn it over to you.  This film was wildly popular, so I'm sure it has its fans-are you one of them?  Does anyone think that Dee deserved an Oscar nod (or even a win), or was this entirely about honoring a cinematic legend late in her career?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Noah (2014)

Film: Noah (2014)

Stars: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Darren Aronofsky was always in a bit of a pickle tackling the Bible, as is any artist trying to take a stab at the best-selling book of all-time.  That’s because you toe the line when you try to tackle a religious subject-do you make carbon copies of the biblical stories, creating saints and pious men, or do you try and humanize the characters with flaws and sins?  It’s a tough conundrum, as the former lends to boring stories (and competing with the epic grandeur of Cecil B. DeMille and William Wyler) and the latter to religious backlash.

Unfortunately, for a man who has tried to make this film for as long as I can remember (I love when great director’s spend an eternity on their pet projects), he seems to have tried to do both of these things, neither with much success.  It’s one of the most famous stories of all-time, so spoilers shouldn’t be necessary, but here’s the alert anyway.  Noah is a story of a man who builds an ark based on blind faith, but the film never quite has the gall to question his motives or to find any insanity in the story.  It instead wants its cake and attempts to eat it too, but what we get is bloated and rotten.

The biggest problems with the film are the treatment of the central character.  Noah’s story has always been one of the more far-fetched in the Bible, just behind Jonah.  How could a senior citizen build a giant boat that saw the entire world covered in water, and then survive with just two of every animal?  I mean, it’s a tough one to grasp, and so to literally tell the story would be too easy.  Aronofsky tries to make Noah an extremely pious man, sometimes too anchored in his own beliefs to be able to see the grey in life, but he cannot quite get to the point where he is a “bad man.”  He keeps Noah very much on the verge of going into the darkness, of being the villain in this parable, without actually taking the plunge.

The better question would have been if he had subtracted some of the heavenly confirmations in the film.  How much more spectacular would the film have been (and less mixed message) if we saw no literal signs from God that the world was coming to an end?  If there were no stone angels (initially a neat effect, but quite ancillary and probably not worth the trouble) and no specific lights from God, we would have to completely base these decisions on Noah’s faith alone, which makes the film at once more complicated and far more interesting.  Faith is a hard thing to see when you don’t have literal confirmation of it-how different does the Noah story become if we don’t know for sure that his turning his back on the innocent is God’s purpose?

I mean, Aronofsky goes there with a couple of other scenes-considering the big budget, I'm surprised that, say, incest manages to make it into the plot of the film (it's pretty well-implied that Noah's two younger sons will eventually bed their nieces), though they do leave out the most famous incestuous moment (the interpretation that, Ham, here played by Logan Lerman, rapes his father after his father is found drunk).  The movie is not shy on biblical allusions or about showing a man-of-faith in the film, something that actually does ring of a bit of a game-changer (I hate to side with the right-wingers here, but you do rarely see outspoken people of faith in large budget cinema...then again, you rarely see women over fifty, people of color, or gay people in large budget cinema, so my sympathies only extend so far).

I guess my big problem, though, is that for a director who has had this vision for so long, why is there not more artistic license with the story?  The telling of the film becomes very literal, and with the major exception of Ray Winstone's story, follows the Bible in a pretty consistent way.  We get only one good person who we know dies as a result of the flood-the rest of the world is left in a sea of violence, rape, and murder.  It's a whole lot easier to let Noah's conscience off the hook if he's killing a hoard of pillagers and half-humans.  From a director as daring as Aronofsky, I'm surprised that he spent so much of his budget on rocky angels and less on a more cohesive, daring plot.  And the special effects are so damn spotty (was the scene of the family walking supposed to look like a de Mille special effect, because it did and if you're going to go there do it more than once so you don't just look cheap), it all falls apart behind-the-scenes and in the writer's room.  About the only thing that does ring true is the environmental and vegetarian message (both brought about quite well in contrast with the horrifying Ray Winstone character), but that's not a lot to lend itself to a film.

While the acting is for-the-most part the saving grace of the movie, it also doesn't have a great level of consistency.  Crowe, a movie star that has basically disappeared, still has the gravitas he had in films like Gladiator to lend himself to the screen, but Connelly as his wife only gets one truly great moment (an Oscar-y speech...if this film had any chance at the Oscars) but otherwise is just window dressing.  Emma Watson, who is on a roll creatively right now, makes the most of an underwritten character (the same cannot be said for Anthony Hopkins, who has been on autopilot for fifteen years or so).  And I actually genuinely liked the wide-eyed naivete of Logan Lerman, though some others I've found disagreed.  Worst of the bunch is Ray Winstone's unrealistically evil Tubal-Cain, who chews scenery like a random snake that he finds while stowing away on the ark.  Winstone is so bad but so omnipresent my thoughts keep coming back to him instead of the sturdy Crowe, Watson, and Lerman, which is never a good sign for a director like Aronofsky, who specializes in making you remember his best performances.

All-in-all, with only a few performances to lend itself, Noah can most generously be described as an ambitious failure-the signs of a director who learned his limitations.  Aronofsky has enough skills to pick himself up and find a new story to tell, but hopefully he'll leave the Good Book alone.