Peter Berg

Superhero Film ‘Hancock’ With No Superhero Ancestry Proves Bold But Deadly Decision

HollywoodChicago.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:19:27 -0700

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – With superhero films as hot in 2008 as psychedelics were in the 1960s, the new blockbuster superhero film “Hancock” fits in with the label but without any of the ancestry.

While 2008 superhero films such as “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Dark Knight,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” and “Punisher: War Zone” (along with “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” coming in 2009) are all based on previous stories with a previously ravenous fan base, “Hancock” with an alcoholic and listless Will Smith and Charlize Theron – who hides a surprise bombshell – literally comes from nowhereland.

Charlize Theron (left) and Will Smith in “Hancock”.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment

In fact, “Hancock” is the only 2008 superhero film not derived from a previously established comic book.

Will Smith in “Hancock”.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment

The original script for “Hancock,” which was inked by Vincent Ngo in 1996 and called “Tonight, He Comes,” was shuffled through the Hollywood director’s circuit until director Peter Berg (“The Kingdom,” “Friday Night Lights,” “The Rundown”) finally ate it up in Oct. 2006. Filming began in July 2007.

Its truly original origin could have either been its golden savior or its deadly assassin. The decision ultimately proved treacherous as everything it tried to do to be different just made it the same.

Its originality actually might not seem so novel, too, once you consider the 1983 film “The Return of Captain Invincible”. In that film, Alan Arkin plays Captain Invincible and Christopher Lee plays his nemesis (Mr. Midnight).

Captain Invincible is asked to return from retirement to the superhero battlefields, but this time around, he’s a raging alcoholic. Sound familiar? Uh huh.

Upon closer scrutiny, the principal downfall of “Hancock” isn’t even in the question of its origins but more in the forcefulness of its script. “Hancock” felt entirely too written. A good film, of course, is written eloquently well – so well, in fact, that you forget it’s written. A hackneyed story feels forcefully written.

Will Smith (center) “Hancock”.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment

After writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan launched off on their journey to script a man who can demolish the street beneath him at the mere jetting away into the sky, they added Superman-like strength. As for where to go next, you can actually feel them pondering the decision. They then inked something cliché because they were already committed to the process and the big Hollywood dollars would be on the line.

Now Smith’s cliché costuming to look the superhero part was actually the least cliché part of the entire script. Smith’s character despised it, appeared awkward in it and actually successfully sold you on more authentically being that inebriated chap. Sporting a costume that looked like it could have been purchased at Walgreen’s on a man who felt more comfortable being naked was refreshingly witty.

Will Smith (second from left), Jason Bateman (second from right) and Charlize Theron in “Hancock”.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment

All in all, we can’t be satisfied with all the “Hancock” plot twists and turns because we didn’t get to the heart of what actually makes a superhero a superhero. Will Smith himself doesn’t know and couldn’t tell you if you asked him – even after he has been jailed, rehabilitated and PR spun by Jason Bateman who’s trying to change the world.

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While it is a bit of a twist to make your “good” superhero hated and then needed and then loved once he learns to love himself, focusing on that internal exploration of the superhero felt like the self-discovery process should have happened privately with Dr. Phil rather than as a central plotline in a major Hollywood film.

Now Charlize Theron’s character had teeth. Will Smith as an anonymous “John Hancock” who can’t remember his genesis is branded by the film as a Bruce Willis-like “Unbreakable” character, but who the heck is Charlize Theron? Is she just the scorching wife of PR man Jason Bateman or does she have something incredible up her sleeve, too?

“Hancock” director Peter Berg would have been better served directing this script with a focus on her as the central character – a character who veils who she really is under the guise of humanity rather than the bumbling, stumbling Will Smith who merely cloaks his superhero depression with a bottle. Any takers for “The Incredible Housewife”?

“Hancock,” which features Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman and director Michael Mann in a small acting role, opened everywhere on July 2, 2008.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

‘The Kingdom’ a Prescient Portrayal of Relentless Ghost in the Terrorist Machine

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:37:09 -0700

CHICAGO – In 1967, author Arthur Koestler wrote the non-fiction book “The Ghost in the Machine”.

The title has come full circle with Friday’s release of “The Kingdom” whereby the ghost – an Osama bin Laden-like extremist – must be extricated from his clandestine machine of terrorists.

From left to right, Jason Bateman, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer
Garner, Ashraf Barhom and Chris Cooper in “The Kingdom”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Even if you could smoke out the ghost in the machine, the most disquieting concept of such a search-and-destroy mission is much like what happens with the mythical Hydra creature. When Heracles decapitated one of the monster’s heads, another grew right back in its place.

Such can be said about today’s terrorist leaders. Even when offing a big fish, the mere action itself fanatically rouses another to rise in his place.

In “The Kingdom,” which can be thought of as the anti-“Syriana,” wild-man director Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights,” “The Rundown”) touches with grave timeliness on modern-day fears through excellently evocative histrionics and relatively accurate portrayals of the abomination that is life and war in Saudi Arabia.

Jennifer Garner in “The Kingdom”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Following blood-splattering carnage in broad daylight, FBI agents Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman are surreptitiously dispatched from the U.S. to the scene in Riyadh to recreate the chaos and punish the executioners.

Life there – with several American families dangerously trying to live in local harmony – is a perplexing and ferocious wake-up call for many of us who lead relatively normal American lives.

The film was actually shot in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates along with at Arizona State University; in Phoenix; in Mesa, Ariz.; and in Washington, D.C.
As you could imagine, diplomats are hamstrung with slow debates of territorialism. The FBI agents quickly learn that Saudi authorities are leery and unwelcoming of American interlopers into what they consider a local matter.

Jamie Foxx in “The Kingdom”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
They nonetheless permit them local access, impart as much safe passage as possible and work as a team to bridge two innately dissimilar cultures.

Foxx gets the decoration for this film’s best acting, Cooper loves to get down and dirty and makes you appreciate him for it, Garner feels fragile for her surroundings until Berg grants her one hardcore whoop-ass scene and Bateman is unfortunately cast as an attempted funny man who the film seriously could have done without.

Richard Jenkins, who plays the FBI’s director, felt exactly where he should be and likely equaled the performance that would have been handed over by Robert De Niro before he decided not to accept the role. Chicago’s Jeremy Piven was purely obnoxious and should have sported the dunce hat along with Bateman.

Jennifer Garner in “The Kingdom”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Don’t be fooled by Danny Elfman’s beautiful score. For Berg’s cast and crew – much like in “A Mighty Heart” about the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan – filming with intense sequences of brutal violence often wasn’t safe overseas and even in the U.S.
During filming on Aug. 12, 2006, assistant property master Nick Papac was killed in Mesa, Ariz. after the all-terrain vehicle he was driving crashed into Berg’s SUV. On set in Phoenix, Garner collapsed twice due to the sweltering, 115-degree heat.

While some films launch us into fictitious fantasy worlds, we also escape reality into film to glimpse an even truer reality that’s deep within chasms we could never reach.

The geopolitical thriller that is “The Kingdom” makes an important statement about our political relations with that country while vitally illuminating how and why terrorists become who they are.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com