Minority Report, The Coen Brothers and David Cronenberg (twice!) make my list.

Posted by Jason Ihle | No Comments

In this third edition of my favorite films of the decade I take a look at 5 crime films.

A History of Violence (2005) dir. David Cronenberg – The first of Cronenberg’s one-two punch in the second half of the decade. Always an interesting director, he never made what I considered a great movie. With this seemingly simple story about a small-town family man with a secret past Cronenberg established himself as a force to be reckoned with as a filmmaker. Viggo Mortensen, who had already demonstrated good acting chops in The Lord of the Rings, gives a truly breakout performance as the man swept back into the life he left behind many years before. William Hurt and Maria Bellow give standout performances.

The Departed (2006) dir. Martin Scorsese – Scorsese makes a blistering return to a genre that he has done so well throughout the years. Anyone who doubted he still had what it takes had to shut their mouths after this, a complex story of infiltration into both the Boston Police and the Irish mafia. Leonardo DiCaprio was tragically left off the Oscar ballot in favor of his performance in Blood Diamond. Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin help make the film thoroughly entertaining. Matt Damon is great, as usual.

No Country for Old Men (2007) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen – Cormac McCarthy is an author so incredibly difficult to adapt to the screen because the beauty of his novels is in the prose and his great dialogue. Billy Bob Thornton’s adaptation of All The Pretty Horses was unfortunate, to say the least. Perhaps this particular novel, about a remorseless psychotic killer tracking down stolen drug money, is already quite cinematic, lending itself to the marvelous adaptation undertaken by the Coen brothers and earning them their first Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. Javier Bardem wears the role of Anton Chigurh so comfortably. Josh Brolin is great as the man on the run. Tommy Lee Jones makes you feel like he’s been that sheriff his whole life. The film is iconically Coen while at the same time retaining what McCarthy infused the original story with.

Eastern Promises (2007) dir. David Cronenberg – Given his track record, I imagined Cronenberg had reached his pinnacle with A History of Violence. But he surprised everyone with this even better film about a British spy in deep cover with a Russian mafia family in England. Viggo Mortensen reached full maturity as an actor with his incredible performance. Vincent Cassel as his partner in crime, the latent homosexual and unwanted son of the mafia head, is fantastic. This film contains a scene which will likely be remembered for decades – the nude bath house melee is a tour-de-force of directing.

Minority Report (2002) dir. Steven Spielberg – I’ve always been troubled by the dichotomy between Spielberg the Director and Spielberg the Entertainer. His films too often veer off into schmaltz or take the easy way out when his subject matter demands much more nuanced attention. While I do think he could have explored the territory of this Philip K. Dick story a bit deeper, I have to say it’s a slickly directed piece of crime cinema. This is one of the few future-set films that has really taken the time to put intelligent minds to work in thinking about technological possibilities in the next century. These include the interactive computers used by the homicide detectives and the way automobile traffic moves around the city center by centralized computer command. These kinds of ideas stand in stark contrast to the “Jetsons” future we too often see in films. This is also the film that put Colin Farrell on my radar as a new actor with great talent. After seeing his remarkable, albeit small, role in this film I was very excited to see what the future would bring him. He hasn’t quite lived up to the promise, but he’s still young.

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