Tag Archives: #paulgiamatti

Jungle Cruise

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Release: Friday, July 30, 2021

👀 Theater

Written by: Michael Green; Glenn Ficarra; John Requa

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring: Dwayne Johnson; Emily Blunt; Jesse Plemons; Jack Whitehall; Paul Giamatti; Édgar Ramírez

 

 

***/*****

The long, predictable meanders of the river are more enjoyable when you’ve got a good crew to float with. Such is the case with Jungle Cruise, a family-friendly adventure deeply indebted to the charms of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, playing a mismatched pair on a dangerous mission deep into the heart of the Amazon circa the early 1900s.

Jungle Cruise remains rooted in classic adventure tropes even as the whole kit-and-caboodle swings wide of classic status and despite the expensive, flashy CGI ballast. There’s a map, a hidden treasure, cursed conquistadors (the film at its most unfortunate, casting a slew of Latinx actors, most notably Édgar Ramírez, and extras in thankless background roles smothered in digital Disneymagic), a bad guy after the same treasure, and even a wisp of romance, although this proves to be about the only thing Johnson and Blunt fail at as a team. Less trope-y is the characterization of the aforementioned competition, Jesse Plemons in fine bizarre form as a largely submarine-bound German memorably seen consulting a swarm of bees on navigational strategy.

On strategy, helming this old-school-feeling rig is director Jaume Collet-Serra, who sets aside his more violent filmmaking tendencies in favor of a breezy, good-natured bit of escapism where the exploration (and exploitation) of character foibles and differences outweigh more tangible narrative concerns. The plot finds Blunt’s danger-courting, pants-wearing Dr. Lily Houghton traveling to the Brazilian jungle in search of a riverboat captain willing to take her and her brother MacGregor (a third-wheeling but really fun Jack Whitehall) to the secret location of the Tears of the Moon, a mythical tree whose incandescent pink petals she believes could change the course of modern medicine and, thus, her status amongst her peers who all too happily laugh a lady out of any serious discussion. Meanwhile, Plemons’ Prince Joachim is hoping to get there first, thinking it could change Germany’s fortunes in the Great War.

Johnson’s Frank Wolff, a down-on-his-luck river guide with more puns in the bank than dollar bills, is motivated to journey down the Mighty Amazon due to his increasing debt to port manager Nilo (a haggard-looking Paul Giamatti). Naturally, personalities and philosophies clash immediately and about as comically as MacGregor’s wardrobe choices do with the climate. Along the way a mutual respect for one another is eventually gained. However, trust turns out to be more of an uphill battle for the Houghtons, who understandably tire of Frank’s penchant for pranking. As it turns out, there is more to Frank than deception and a pet jaguar.

Jungle Cruise is the latest in a line of movies “inspired by” real theme park rides. Like the actual Disney World attraction itself, for maximum enjoyment it helps to not get too curious about how the machinations work. Once you look over the sides and see the rails guiding the thing along a lot of the fun tends to get lost. Jungle Cruise is a cash grab but there are certainly more cynical ones out there.

So quiet you can’t even hear the critics chirping

Moral of the Story: I’m not sure I should be admitting this, but I actually got to experience this movie in an empty theater. Much to my surprise, it didn’t make much of a difference. Jungle Cruise, like many a Marvel movie, just seems like it would play better to a packed house. And it probably still does. Yet it speaks to the charisma of the two leads that I had a good time anyway. Plus the beer probably didn’t hurt (Señor Krunkles IPA — pretty sweet, hoppy and fruity. Made for a great pairing.)  

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 127 mins.

Quoted: “I had a girlfriend once, she was cross-eyed. Didn’t work out. We could never see eye to eye!”

Check out the creepy-crawly jungle-brawly trailer here!

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.actionra.com 

Paul G — #11

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Last time we were here, Paul was having to contend with an illusionist in Ed Norton’s brilliant(ly elusive) Eisenheim. Paul has certainly played a variety of interesting characters over his career. He has enjoyed perhaps a most unlikely of career trajectories, going from a relative unknown to a highly sought-after talent for both prominent supporting and notable leads in a span of time many (admittedly much better-looking) actors only wish they could find for themselves. And now, somehow, we find ourselves at the end of 2016 and the end of Paul G. It’s with a note of bittersweetness I get to send him off in style, featuring one last lead performance from the man, the myth, the legend — but mostly just him being the man. Fittingly, this is a role in a four-time Oscar-nominated film, a buddy-comedy adventure that took home the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2005. The two lead actors, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, appropriately received accolades of their own.

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Paul Giamatti as Miles Raymond in Alexander Payne’s Sideways

Role Type: Lead

Genre: Comedy/drama/romance

Plot Synopsis: Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but disappointment embark on a week-long road trip through California’s wine country, just as one is about to take a trip down the aisle.

Character Profile: Miles Raymond, a depressed English teacher and unsuccessful writer, is shuffling through his forties with not much to show for it. He has been trying for what seems like forever to get his novel published but to no avail and has become slave to his own mental conditioning that life and everything about it kind of just sucks. Except wine. Crushed grapes are his collective savior and vintage vino his second language. As his college roommate Jack Cole is set to be married in a week’s time, the pair set off on a tour of the California wine country, with Miles intent on enjoying a week of golfing, wine-tasting, good food and relaxation. His TV-actor friend and former college roommate has different plans, and wants to get Miles laid. When they visit Miles’ favorite restaurant, they encounter Maya, an intelligent and attractive waitress that Miles has become acquainted with from his routine trips to Santa Ynez Valley but his self-loathing tendencies have always held him back from taking the next step. When he begins to take notice of the genuine bond he and Maya seem to share he starts to realize that there is never a better time to start enjoying the finer things in life.

Why he’s the man: I’m not sure if there is a better actor for the role of Miles Raymond than the man, the myth and the legend. Paul Giamatti utterly owns it in Alexander Payne’s beautiful but often painful exploration of searching for satisfaction in a world full of disappointments. Payne likes to work with troubled, fully fleshed-out characters and he has found a gem in Giamatti’s interpretation of a man nearing a catastrophic meltdown. The writing is excellent, but when it comes to demonstrating the pain a man who has suffered a series of personal setbacks is concerned, his star absolutely sells it. And while I could care less about wine snobs, I was fully buying into Miles’ obsession with the culture. So much so that I could picture the actor himself having an extensive knowledge of vintage Merlots . . . er, excuse me — pinots. Paul Giamatti’s face is riddled with hopelessness in this picture, and it’s his charisma buried deep underneath all the hurt that ultimately makes him a character that’s still worth rooting for. A class performance from a class actor.

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5-0

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Photo credits: http://www.psychologyoffilm.com  

Paul G — #10

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Last time we were here, Paul was drawing comics — dark and sort of depressing ones, but successful ones nonetheless. He was portraying Harvey Pekar, author of the underground comic series ‘American Splendor,’ autobiographical accounts of an ordinary and, yes, depressing life. (Hey, he was from Cleveland.) But now the plot thickens as we turn the page to a new role that’s both in itself complex and embroiled in an altogether more complicated and slightly more romantic story. Let’s play cops and illusionists in this month’s Paul G, shall we?

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Paul Giamatti as Chief Inspector Uhl in Neil Burger’s The Illusionist

Role Type: Supporting

Genre: Drama/mystery/romance

Plot Synopsis: In turn-of-the-century Vienna, a magician uses his abilities to secure the love of a woman far above his social standing.

Character Profile: Chief Inspector Uhl, loyal servant to the brutal Crown Prince Leopold of Austria and an intelligent man to boot, is due for a promotion. When Sophie, the Duchess von Teschen, is apparently murdered at the hands of the very man she was to marry the inspector is called upon to get to the bottom of it, a task that soon proves difficult when he must contend with the mystic powers of the infamous Eisenheim, with whom the Duchess shared a history. A first encounter with the performer proves tense though ultimately innocuous, with the inspector pressing to find out the secrets behind Eisenheim’s tricks. As the story plays out, Uhl proves to be quite the complex character, seemingly unable to avoid becoming seduced by the magician’s transcendent abilities, while trying to remain as ever simultaneously committed to Prince Leopold and to his duties as an officer of the law.

Why he’s the man: Chief Inspector Uhl is yet another great example of Giamatti’s ability to walk a fine line between being a guy we’d like to hate or see fail for some of his actions or the way he seems to sympathize with terrible people, and being someone who manages to convince us he’s ultimately out for the greater good. Uhl is on more than one occasion left between a rock and a hard place, having to demonstrate his loyalty to the Crown by tracking down and arresting Eisenheim for his spirit-summoning performances — the most egregious offense is when he seems to reincarnate Sophie who says she was indeed murdered but there has been a fall guy involved — all while abiding by a strict moral code of conduct. As an officer of the law he can leave no stone unturned, and Giamatti is fantastic in convincing us of the dilemma he finds himself in. An intriguing role made all the more so by the ever-dependable Paul G.

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Photo credits: http://www.dogomovies.com 

Paul G — #9

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Last time we were here, Paul was brought in as a psychological consultant on a top-secret government project involving an artificially intelligent being named Morgan. All two of us who saw that movie know how that turned out. Now this month we’re going to find out what happens when you take Paul and shove him into a movie about comic books, and no, we’re not going to be talking his contribution to the spectacle of disappointment that was The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This month we’re going to be discussing a role with a little bit more substance and nuance than his admittedly terrible Aleksei Sytsevich.

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Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar in Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s American Splendor.

Role Type: Lead

Genre: Biopic/comedy/drama

Plot Synopsis: An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

Character Profile: Harvey Pekar was an underground comic book writer who developed a unique style and voice by creating the ‘American Splendor’ comics, stories that were autobiographical in nature and that seemed to elevate his everyman status to that of a quasi-hero as he set about dealing with his mundane struggles in a harsh, unforgiving world.  But if you asked him, Harvey was just another guy, another depressed fellow living in a depressing city working a depressing job. Naturally his work reflected a rather dim outlook on life. Born of Polish immigrants, Harvey was one of the few white kids to grow up on his block in a Cleveland suburb and as a result, found himself often being beaten up and without friends. An unhappy childhood seemed to bleed into adulthood. He attended college for a year before dropping out, enlisted in the armed forces but was soon discharged — allegedly for personal hygiene-related reasons. After shuffling through a series of miserable jobs he finally became a file clerk at Cleveland’s Veteran’s Administration Hospital. His friends circle was limited to those with whom he worked, and his romantic life was defined by a series of hastily made decisions that ended in two divorces, though in 1984 he met Joyce Brabner, a writer and comic book shop owner from Delaware. She had written a letter to him seeking a way to obtain a single copy of his latest comic since her store had already sold out. The 2003 film American Splendor divulges much of this, as well as the time the two spent collaborating on ‘Our Cancer Year,’ a graphic novel based upon Harvey’s diagnosis and survival of lymphoma, employing a thoroughly unique format — a hybrid of documentary and dramatic/comedic elements — to bring his personal tales to life. And Harvey may have staked a reputation through his ability to convey mundane struggles in comic form but he never quit his job as a file clerk until he retired. He was also a prolific record collector and dabbled in music and literary critiques. He passed away in Cleveland Heights in 2010 at the age of 73 after an accidental overdose on anti-depression medication having been diagnosed a third time with cancer.

Why he’s the man: Paul Giamatti very well could be at a career-best with this fascinating character, one who teeters on the edge of being sympathetic due to his relentless pessimism and iconoclastic tendencies. There’s something that Giamatti does that seems very small but that which very nearly ultimately defines the creator of American Splendor as a person. Apparently Harvey had a tendency to yell whenever he became frustrated or upset, and Giamatti milks it for all its worth, sounding in some early scenes as though he’s just rubbed his vocal chords against sandpaper for an hour. A memorable (read: hilarious) scene in a diner when he receives the good news that a fellow comic would be willing to illustrate his creations finds the actor shouting out with glee, causing a scene. His voice cracks like a high schooler going through The Puberty. His vocal issues come into play a couple of other times, and while they’re certainly not the only thing to take away from this performance, these moments are excellent touches. The tenor of his voice, when not breaking, is mildly saddening,  Giamatti powerfully channeling a sense of hopelessness and fatigue. Rest assured, though, the actor manages to effect a spectrum of emotions on his journey from a nobody to a relatively obscure somebody. In spite of himself, Harvey remains a compelling presence, a certifiable Average Joe with an unusual gift for creating. This is outstanding work from the actor and quite possibly my favorite role of his.

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Photo credits: http://www.imdb.com

Paul G — #8

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Last time we were here, Paul had turned to the dark side in the animated wonder The Little Prince, playing the part of a harsh(ly shaped) Academy instructor who enjoyed scaring children into becoming workaholic machines. This month let’s turn our attention to . . . well, another role in which he’s playing a rather confronting individual. This time, much more so. In keeping with last month’s theme of talking about stuff he’s recently been in, I’m going to be diving into a role that’s hot off the press, his turn as a psychiatrist brought in to help a corporate risk manager decide whether or not a scientific experiment is still worth pursuing or must be shut down.

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Paul Giamatti as Dr. Alan Shapiro in Luke Scott’s Morgan.

Role Type: Supporting

Genre: Sci-fi drama/horror/mystery

Plot Synopsis: A corporate risk-management consultant must decide whether or not to terminate an artificially created humanoid being.

Character Profile: Arrogant psychologist Alan Shapiro has an important job to do: he’s charged with evaluating the mental state of Morgan, the brilliant but potentially dangerous end product of an advanced scientific project that has created a human-like being out of synthetic DNA. After a violent outburst revealed Morgan’s capacity for anger, the corporation responsible funding the project orders a psych evaluation. In walks Shapiro, initially taken aback by the fact the scientists at the lab would ever have him try to communicate with Morgan behind a glass wall. At his insistence, they allow him to have a face-to-face in the same room as a potential killer. Shapiro opens a line of communication fairly casually but before long he is diving headlong into an intense interrogation, wanting to know what Morgan actually thinks about her “life” and her living conditions, about being stuck in a holding cell. He challenges her further, asking what she would do if he recommended that she “be terminated.” Still believing he has things under control, the doctor begins to scream at Morgan, borderline threatening her. What will Morgan do?

Why he’s the man: In a film that generally fails to mine the best out of its talented cast, Paul Giamatti shines the brightest here as a rather confronting (borderline chilling) psychologist who manifests as a major catalyst in determining the kind of fate Morgan and her “captors” await. He may not have much time on the screen, and yet it is stunning how quickly his character is able to get under your skin and chill your blood. Morgan isn’t a film with many happy or pleasant characters, and Dr. Alan Shapiro is a particular stand-out, lighting the screen up with incredible intensity, a seething disdain for the government project that sits before him. It’s really strong work from one of the most reliable character actors we have right now.

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Photo credits: http://www.foxmovies.com 

Morgan

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'Morgan' movie poster

Release: Friday, September 2, 2016

[Theater]

Written by: Seth W. Owen

Directed by: Luke Scott

No movie, especially one dabbling in the science fiction genre, has an obligation to make the viewer feel all warm and cuddly inside. You can be both the coldhearted bastard and The Year’s Best Movie, but if you plan on being as brutally dispassionate as this year’s attempt at Ex Machina-ing the AI subgenre back to life, you better have something interesting to say.

Morgan‘s got nothing. What it does have though are 90 of the most unpleasant, uninteresting minutes I’ve spent at the movies this year.

There were only four of us in my 3:45 screening and the film played out as though it were anticipating as much. You might attribute the film’s disinterest in engaging the viewer to Scott W. Owen’s thoroughly unoriginal screenplay, a story about the dark side of cutting-edge science so bland you sit there realizing that you’re thinking about how bland it is. Annoyingly that meta thought begets another. And then another, and soon enough, twenty minutes have gone by and still nothing’s happened. Oh, look. Time to refill the coke and popcorn. (Spoiler alert: do it in the first 45 minutes because you won’t miss a thing.)

Unfortunately though it’s a real team effort, as the son of the great Ridley Scott doesn’t steer the project in any meaningful direction with an uninspired vision that substitutes substantive scientific and/or philosophical questioning for grisly and pretty cruel action sequences. There are so many questions. What makes Morgan special? Why should we believe she’s the AI creation of the cinematic year? What is her true potential, what is her purpose? Can she really be controlled? Should she be? And the million dollar one: why should we care, about her or this world she inhabits?

If foreshadowing doesn’t destroy Morgan‘s shot at profundity, then it’s a lack of depth and substance. There’s no extrapolation as to what this says about where we are in society, only easy answers — solutions tailor-made for this specific narrative. All the bloody hand-to-hand combat reserved for the ending is an overt solution to the problems introduced in this dreary, monochromatic world. What makes Morgan special? This karate chop! That crazy look in her eyes. (It sure isn’t that fucking boring hoodie.) Why should we believe she’s the year’s coolest AI creation? Because she’s a murderer, with a lust for blood not seen since Ted Bundy. What is her true potential? To be more Ted Bundy than Ted Bundy. Why should we care? Um . . .

The story takes a more political/business approach to the world of scientific endeavors, one of its few distinctive features. Morgan focuses on the tension between a corporate entity seeking total control and the idealistic virtues of those working directly on the company-funded Morgan Project. It pits Kate Mara‘s supremely unfriendly risk manager Lee Weathers against the strangely more sociable project overseers, a group that includes doctors Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones), husband-and-wife duo Darren and Brenda Finch (Chris Sullivan and Vinette Robinson), Amy Menser (Rose Leslie), and Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh). After an incident in which Morgan attacked another scientist, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh in the second role this year that has required her to cover her face in physical-abuse make-up, Lee is called in to assess whether the project is one still worth pursuing or if it needs to be terminated.

Mara may not look the part, but she kind of does feel like The Terminator, and Leigh’s bedridden scientist even calls her “a goddamn assassin.” She’s here on business and won’t leave until that’s finished. From the moment she appears Mara delivers each of her lines in the same monotone, several inflections away from sounding like a real person. It’s actually a pretty terrible performance from a reliable thesp. (But not as terrible as the ending.) Corporate red tape wears out its welcome quickly with Ziegler and his colleagues. Perpetually on the defensive, the team continues trying to justify Morgan’s sudden outburst as anomalous. Morgan describes it as “an error.” Nonetheless, a psychiatrist is brought in for an evaluation. It’s Paul Giamatti, so at least you know what you’re going to get out of him. And he surely delivers, pushing Morgan to the limits as he questions why she thinks she is alive. Why she thinks the people around her are her friends.

Judged through a tedious first section and an even slower second act, Morgan isn’t very eventful but it’s well-crafted. A reasonable amount of tension is generated from our ignorance to what Morgan is capable of doing or what she is actually going to do to her captors once she gets loose. (An event we await with bated breaths.) Mara is a constant bummer but the rest of the characters are fairly likable in their restricted capacities. Anya Taylor-Joy (the break-out star from this year’s The Witch) is for some time empathetic and her distinctive features make for a suitable alien-like presence. Boyd Holbrook plays a hunk with serious culinary skills. Because we needed that for levity, I guess, but I’ll take it if everyone else is just going to be a misery to be around.

But when we’re exposed to what the filmmakers have in store for us having waded through a lot of nothingness, the wheels fall right off the wagon, spectacularly. Who had M. Night Shyamalan on speed dial for that big reveal? It has his fingerprints all over it. In fact his sense of atmosphere and ability to maintain tension makes it feel like Morgan doesn’t have any Scott blood running in its veins at all. Slavishly adhering to structure and with no personality of its own, this Ex Machina wannabe has been conditioned to not think for itself.

Recommendation: Slow, unoriginal and featuring an uneasy mix of cerebral meditation and shocking violence, Morgan gives me too many reasons to call this just a total freaking mess. As I personally wasn’t hugely anticipating it, calling it a disappointment might be a stretch but it certainly is disappointING that good actors and a reliable premise, granted a thoroughly worn out one at this point, aren’t enough to bring it around. Film also finishes on one of the lamest notes I have seen since Now You See Me, so unless you’re willing to risk leaving a movie wondering why you even bothered, I’d have to say keep a respectable distance from this one.

Rated: R

Running Time: 92 mins.

Quoted: “There was joy in her heart, before we shoved her back into that box.”

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Photo credits: http://www.screenrant.com; http://www.foxmovies.com 

Paul G — #7

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Last time we were here, Paul helped inspire and orchestrate one of the most exciting and memorable comebacks in American boxing history as his once-upon-a-time prized fighter, Jimmy ‘The Irish Hope’ Braddock, fought his way out of a desperate situation amidst the chaos of The Great Depression to win it all. Now Paul turns from inspiration to oppressor in an animated tale from Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne.

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Paul Giamatti as The Academy Teacher in Mark Osborne’s The Little Prince

Role Type: Supporting

Genre: Animation/adventure/drama

Plot Synopsis: A little girl lives in a very grown-up world with her mother, who tries to prepare her for it. Her neighbor, the Aviator, introduces the girl to an extraordinary world where anything is possible, the world of the Little Prince.

Character Profile: The Little Prince‘s primary antagonist. The Academy is a prestigious school into which all young boys and girls aspire to be accepted if they have any hope of maturing into an “essential,” contributing member of adult society. Outfitted with classic traits of cartoon villainy — he’s tall, perpetually scowling and pencil-thin — The Teacher rules with an iron fist, insistent that every student have a purpose for being in his Academy. When The Little Girl crosses paths with him after setting out on her journey to find The Little Prince, he attempts to forcibly convert her into yet another submissive, workaholic adult by strapping her into a very dangerous machine that, if used incorrectly, could kill someone.

Why he’s the man: While I would like to say Giamatti leaves his insignia on this dazzling animated adventure his limited screen time and virtually unrecognizable voice makes it tough for me to call this a memorable one. I actually recently watched The Little Prince specifically for a chance to talk about his contributions to an animated film (the first in this series) and in recognizing the way the story was trending, I was left disappointed he didn’t have a larger role. He does what he can though, injecting some life into a pretty stock antagonist. But it’s just not anything anyone will remember.

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Photo credits: http://www.antagonist.wikia.com 

Paul G — #6

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Last time we were here, Paul was being held hostage by Samuel L. Jackson in a tense dramatic thriller F. Gary Gray made back in the late ’90s. Let’s negotiate our way past that and look at a more substantial supporting role he’s had as part of one of Ron Howard’s many prestige pictures. Here is a character that somewhat flies in the face of a career built upon playing untrustworthy, shady types and you know what? The nice guy act really suits him.

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Paul Giamatti as Joe Gould in Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man.

Role Type: Supporting

Genre: Drama/sport/biopic

Plot Synopsis: The story of James Braddock, a supposedly washed-up boxer who came back to become a champion and an inspiration in the 1930s.

Character Profile: Boxing manager Joe Gould met a then-20-year-old James “Cinderella Man” Braddock at a crumbling gym in Hoboken, New Jersey. Gould immediately liked what he saw: a tough, durable competitor, a well-spoken, decent man with one hell of a right hand. The two struck up a friendship that very soon developed into a mutually beneficial professional relationship, and under Gould’s management Braddock turned pro in 1926 as a light-heavyweight contender. Ron Howard’s 2005 biographical drama, set against the backdrop of The Great Depression, focuses on a tumultuous but ultimately miraculous period in both men’s careers, capped off by Braddock’s historic upset of current World Heavyweight Champion Max Baer in 1935. This was the unlikely result of a series of victories Braddock claimed after Gould begged for him to be re-instated as a boxer following the infamously embarrassing, one-sided loss to light-heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran six years earlier. It was Gould’s pitch that became instrumental in setting the “Pride of New Jersey” back on a course to stardom, necessarily establishing Braddock as one of the few rays of light amidst one of the darkest periods in American history.

Why he’s the man: In an Oscar-nominated supporting turn, Giamatti embraces a much less shifty character than he has in the past, though Joe Gould wasn’t exactly a man without foibles. (In 1942 he enlisted in the Army and earned the rank of First Lieutenant, but was later sentenced to three years’ hard labor for conspiring to accept bribes; and Cinderella Man tends to cast a less favorable light on his decision to pitch Braddock’s comeback as a major profiteering venture for fight promotor James Johnston.) Giamatti, despite a sense of two-facedness, remains a thoroughly likable guy throughout, his closeness to Braddock and the respect he has for Braddock’s love for his family readily apparent. He plays such an excitable, emotional fella, the kind that’s easy to root for, so it was a shame Giamatti lost that year to Morgan Freeman for his work in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby. A shame, but also understandable.

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Photo credits: http://www.realtimewriteups.com

Paul G — #5

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Last time we were here, Paul was rocking a sweet silver hairdo, the trademark of famed music producer Jerry Heller whom he portrayed in his second collaboration with director F. Gary Gray. Let’s actually take a look at his first experience working with him in the excellent crime/hostage thriller The Negotiator, where Paul takes on the role of a sniveling man caught up in the crisis as one of the hostages. I believe this was the first exposure I had to the actor, so there are two great reasons to check out this dramatic outing.

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Paul Giamatti as Rudy Timmons in F. Gary Gray’s The Negotiator

Role Type: Supporting

Genre: Crime thriller/action/drama

Plot Synopsis: In a desperate attempt to prove his innocence, a skilled police negotiator accused of corruption and murder takes hostages in a government office to gain the time he needs to find the truth.

Character Profile: A two-bit con-man with a penchant for confrontation, Rudy Timmons finds himself amidst a tense stand-off between hostage negotiator Danny Roman (an excellent Samuel L. Jackson) who has been set-up by members within the Chicago Police Department, possibly within his own team, to look like a murder suspect. Rudy, a sniveling little dweeb, establishes himself quickly as among the more vocal of Roman’s hostages, insistent he be let free and get as far away from this  situation as possible. Roman, unable to trust anyone, counter-insists that he stay right where he is. And in spite of rising tensions between him and the armed man whose credentials remain dubious throughout, Rudy finds himself playing a crucial role in getting to the bottom of this conspiracy.

Why he’s the man: While Paul may not factor into proceedings physically as much as the likes of his talented costars in Jackson, Kevin Spacey and David Morse, he nevertheless makes his presence felt. Ever good at playing that “sniveling little dweeb” type, Rudy’s transition from thorn-in-the-side to quasi-sidekick is exhilarating and that largely comes down to Paul G’s fairly solid grasp on the situation at hand here.

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Photo credits: http://www.watchesinmovies.info 

Paul G — #4

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Last time we were here, Paul had plunged himself into a truly despicable role as a slave trader in Louisiana who played a fundamental role in the fate of Solomon Northup, a free man abducted in Washington D.C. to be sold into slavery in the south, where he’d remain for 12 years. Given that we’ve had two fairly nasty roles in succession, let’s move the discussion to a character who is a little easier to get along with, even if ultimately he, too, isn’t without a few tricks up his sleeve — a record producer who finds himself doing whatever’s necessary to keep riding the wave of success off the back of newly signed rap group N.W.A.

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Paul Giamatti as Jerry Heller in F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton

Role Type: Supporting

Genre: Drama/biopic

Plot Synopsis: The group N.W.A. emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California in the mid-1980s and revolutionizes hip-hop culture with their music and tales about life in the ‘hood.

Character Profile: A successful American businessman, record producer and the co-founder of Ruthless Records along with rapper Eazy-E, Jerry Heller’s most notable for his discovery and development of rap group N.W.A., something that led to him becoming inextricably linked to the emergence of west coast rap, including the birth of groups such as The Black Eyed Peas, Above the Law, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Heller came to prominence in the 1960s and ’70s with his support behind bands like Journey, Pink Floyd, Van Morrison, Crosby Stills & Nash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, REO Speedwagon, and Styx, among others, placing him at the top of a very tall pillar of successful American producers. While his business acumen spoke for itself, Heller was also never short of a few self-serving schemes. The eventual fall-out between Eazy-E and the producer spoke to the level of frustration that members of the group had started to feel towards Heller’s exploitation of their popularity. Parting ways with N.W.A. proved to be a painful, bitter and somewhat protracted process, and it got ugly enough to inspire Ice Cube to lay down a few raps specifically calling out Heller and the way he mistreated the others.

Why he’s the man: While I can’t say this is a character that no other actor could make suitably smarmy, Jerry Heller is brought to life entirely effortlessly by Paul Giamatti’s natural gravitation towards playing untrustworthy types. Here is a man we start off on the right foot with immediately and it takes so long for cracks in the façade to appear. But, unfortunately, they eventually do and Giamatti reminds us once again why he’s so good at playing these types of people. He makes it far too easy to buy into the tricks Heller shows a group of up-and-coming talented rappers, but soon enough he’s taking a bigger cut of the royalties than what he initially said he would take and he’s having clandestine meetings with Eazy-E and making moves to try and manipulate the direction of the group. Never trust Giamatti, especially when you can’t even trust his hair color.

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