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Ryan Reynolds hits his sweet spot with FREE GUY

13 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by cinepam in Reviews

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Free Guy, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Ren Howery, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy, Taika Waititi, Utkarsh Ambudkar

Years ago, putting on sunglasses tipped the hero off to what was really going on in the world in They Live. Something similar happens to Guy (Ryan Reynolds) in Shawn Levy’s Free Guy. There is a difference: Roddy Piper’s Nada was made privy to the reality of human existence in John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi classic. Guy is an NPC (non-player character) in a video game, clued in by the glasses to the fact that he lives in a video game, which goes so far in explaining why every day of his existence is exactly the same. But that is far from all in this fast-paced, action-packed movie that is both a fresh and funny existential comedy and a delightful rom-com.

In Free City, Guy lives a strictly regulated life, dressed daily in identical blue button-down shirts and khaki pants, drinking the same coffee order, greeting people with the same catch phrase (“Don’t have a good day – have a great day!”), and destined to be robbed every single day at his job as a bank teller. Such is the life of an NPC, who exists only as background with predetermined actions and behaviors.

Unaware that he is nothing but a string of binary code, he is a cheerful, happy sort. But one day, he tries to order a cappuccino – most definitely not his regular order and not on the café’s menu – and it is the beginning of Guy’s emancipation from the dreary existence of an NPC. The glasses add fuel to the fire and so does the appearance of Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer, Killing Eve), a comely British bad-ass on a personal mission. The twin revelations spur guy to become one of the “sunglasses people” he’s always admired: a man of action, and in his case, a hero.

Guy’s activities do not go unnoticed in the world outside the game. For Keys (Joe Keery, Stranger Things) and Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar, Brittany Runs a Marathon), low-level techies at the gaming company, he is a problem to solve. For Millie (Comer again), locked in a battle with crass CEO Antoine (an exuberantly evil Taika Waititi) over code she is certain he stole from a game she and Keys designed that he repurposed for Free City, Guy might hold the key to proving her case. The gaming world falls in love with the character. Antoine, about to release Free City 2, feels threatened by the outlier and just wants him gone. And while Guy is all-in on his crush on Molotov Girl, Keys remains in oblivious denial of his feelings for his old gaming partner.

The screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, from an idea of Lieberman’s, keeps all of its balls in the air. The action is satisfying and blends well with the comedy, particularly in scenes where Keys and Mouser adopt characters to go into the game to track down Guy and in a confrontation that Guy has with rough-and-tumble character Avatar (Channing Tatum). At the same time, there is a sweetness that permeates even the most action-packed scenes, reflecting the personality of Free Guy‘s bubbly hero. Whether throwing down with bad guys, mooning over Molotov Girl, or earnestly trying to convince his best pal, bank security guard Buddy (Lil Rel Howery, Get Out) that there is a life to be had outside their rote existence, Guy’s warmth and good intentions shine through.

Guy is a role tailor-made for its star, capturing both his humor and bonhomie. Reynolds shines as this accidental hero and a man reaching beyond his seeming capabilities. As an NPC, Guy’s is a circumscribed role, but he has somehow slipped his programming and developed as artificial intelligence, capable of thought and feeling and of earning the admiration and empathy of humans. We’ve been trained to imagine an AI world as one of The Terminator, where we will live in fear of what we created. But what if AI is something else? What if AI looks a lot like Guy? Imagine the possibilities. Free Guy does and it’s glorious. –Pam Grady

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MISSISSIPPI GRIND: A winning gamble

02 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by cinepam in Reviews

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Anna Boden, Ben Mendelsohn, California Split, Mississippi Grind, Robert Altman, Ryan Fleck, Ryan Reynolds

MSG_D11_0045_rgbMississippi Grind, the latest from Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (Half Nelson, Sugar), is getting a lot of props for the way it evokes the rhythms and naturalism of the best films of the storied ‘70s. And it does—and should, since it borrows so liberally from Robert Altman’s 1974 drama California Split, another tale of degenerate gamblers meeting over cards and forming a fast friendship. That doesn’t take anything away from Mississippi Grind, which is a sharp character study and a gift to stars Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds, but let’s give credit where credit is due.

The characters played by George Segal and Elliott Gould in Altman’s film were more up-market and could afford their addictions—at least, up to a point. The same cannot be said for Gerry (Mendelsohn), a down-at-the-heels real estate agent, and Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), a well-heeled drifter whose habit of ordering top-shelf bourbon masks a threadbare life. When they meet over a poker game in a Dubuque, Iowa bar—Gerry lives in the town, Curtis is just passing through—it seems like fate. Gerry, who is as addicted to a CD lecture on the subject of “tells” as he is to gambling, sees it as a sign that both of them are the only ones at the table who noticed a rainbow the day before. Subsequent events only confirm a cosmic connection between them in his mind and he begins to see handsome, strapping Curtis—who towers over his own diminutive self—as his personal lucky leprechaun. The pot of gold at the end of their personal rainbow is a card game in New Orleans with a $25,000 buy-in. Not that they have the money, but they figure they can earn it gambling their way down south in a road trip built on sheer bravado.

There is nothing that happens on Gerry and Curtis’s journey that could not be predicted. They are, after all, compulsive gamblers. Their greatest skill is in in self-delusion, but they are no slouches when it comes to lying or stealing to further their agendas. Gerry is the needier of the two, desperate to get out from under the mess he’s made of his life and buying into Curtis’s elaborate stories. These guys don’t just have a lot of baggage. They have great big steamer trunks of past mistakes, present disasters, and future cataclysms strapped to their backs, but despite that—or maybe because of it—genuine feelings form between them. One of the great joys of Mississippi Grind is watching that relationship unfold even in moments when one or the other seems intent on screwing the other over. Aussie actor Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, The Place Beyond the Pines) and Reynolds, in his meatiest role since 2007’s The Nines, are terrific as two beautiful losers who’ve always been willing to wager on anything, now betting—for a while, at least—on each other.

As they demonstrated with Half Nelson and Sugar, Fleck and Boden have an unerring feel for mood and place and that does not fail them here. Bars, card rooms, racetracks, casinos, and the meandering Mississippi are Gerry and Curtis’s natural habitat. That milieu, exquisitely photographed by the directors’ frequent collaborator, cinematographer Andrij Parekh, itself speaks volumes about these men. The filmmakers may have started with an idea cadged from Robert Altman, but as they layer on detail after detail, they eventually transform the story into a tawdry yet somehow gorgeous portrait of these two men’s lives. Like Gerry and Curtis, they aren’t above a little larceny, but like their protagonists, their hearts are in the right place. The payoff is a movie as transcendent as Mississippi Grind. And that’s huge.—Pam Grady

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