Wannabe Prestige Film

Foxcatcher stars can't act their way out of lousy storytelling

Making a great movie is never easy. Multiple factors — from the acting to the directing to the editing to the soundtrack — have to come together to form a cohesive, memorable whole. Most films have figured out some of those elements, but only a precious few have put them all together.

Foxcatcher is an Oscar hopeful that connects well in certain areas but falls flat where it matters most. Channing Tatum plays Mark Schultz, a wrestler who won a gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Stifled in shadow of his older brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), he jumps at an offer from philanthropist John du Pont (Steve Carell) to head up a new training team.

Steve Carell may get an Oscar nomination for his role, but if he does, it will be in spite of the ho-hum film in which he does it.

Directed by Bennett Miller (Moneyball, Capote), the film tracks Mark’s progress leading up to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. The story portrays Mark as an antisocial, sullen and reclusive, someone who only finds momentary joy in winning at wrestling. This stands in direct opposition to his brother, who seems to live a happy and secure life with a wife and two children.

Du Pont, meanwhile, is a supremely odd character with family issues of his own. Living off his family’s fortune, he’s desperate to show his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) that he can be successful on his own. When challenges come his way, his only means of influence is his money, a situation he both relishes and detests.

Aside from the inbuilt countdown to the Olympics, the film has little forward momentum. Miller and writers E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman fail to provide a compelling argument why this story needed to be told on the big screen.

Mostly what we get are a succession of rote training sequences, interspersed with fleeting ominous feelings. Psychological troubles can be interesting, but they need to be accompanied by sequences that dramatize the situation way more than this film does.

The film relies heavily on the acting, especially that of Carell, who gives perhaps his darkest performance while buried underneath layers of prosthetics. Although Carell, Tatum and Ruffalo embody the personas of their respective characters well, it’s difficult to get too worked up about them when the story is so boring.

Carell may wind up nabbing an Oscar nomination for his role, but if he does, it will be in spite of the ho-hum film in which he does it. Foxcatcher wants to be a prestige film, but like its main characters, it can never quite prove its worth.

Steve Carell and Channing Tatum in Foxcatcher .

Steve Carell and Channing Tatum in Foxcatcher

Photo by Scott Garfield Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Steve Carell and Channing Tatum in Foxcatcher .

Movie Review

Safe cracking is a snap for White Lotus alum Leo Woodall in Tuner

Leo Woodall in Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties - not to mention the danger of the thefts - insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

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Tuner is now playing in theaters.

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