CliveOwen Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For someone who made his name in Hollywood as a crackerjack screenwriter, Tony Gilroy seems, with Duplicity, far more adept with the camera than the written word. With his directorial follow-up to Michael Clayton, Gilroy returns to the world of corporate espionage, though this time he plays his spy-thriller material for fun, his characters' use of champagne corks to send secret signals proving apt for a film aimed at delivering fizzy thrills.

For all its intricate plot machinations, however, there's little here that hasn't been done before, and better, by the likes of David Mamet and even Steven Soderbergh, whose Ocean's Eleven capers are clearly an inspiration for Gilroy's jazzy-cool approach. Stylish to the hilt, it's a saga coated in sumptuously sleek hues that are in tune with the story's zippy verbal interplay. Yet for all its razzle-dazzle aesthetic flair, there's not much going on beneath the striking surface, as the writer/director's tale is an unnecessarily knotty one, masking its shallowness of theme and characterization with narrative loop-de-loops that, by the third act, are revealed to be insufficient window dressing for a rather pedestrian, hollow cat-and-mouse contest.

Movies can be very educational, especially if you look beyond the obvious marketing messages that are used to sell them. This past Friday, for example, James Gray's romantic drama Two Lovers was sold as "the movie where you can see what Joaquin Phoenix looks like without a bushy beard and a Grizzly Adams haircut" -- that's why he appeared on David Letterman, right? Tom Tykwer's The International was advertised as a "the movie where you can learn what the banks are really doing with your money." But both of these advertising campaigns obscured the educational possibilities of the films.

Two Lovers. This quiet character study follows the emotionally-wounded Joaquin Phoenix and his relationships with the beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow and the beautiful Vinessa Shaw. Single folks might be surprised at Phoenix's incredibly successful pickup technique. What I learned: He does nothing. Abso-frickin'-lutely nothing. His parents invite Shaw and her parents to dinner, and then she confesses to an interest in him. (Bear in mind that he attempted suicide, like, an hour before.) Shortly thereafter, he meets Paltrow, a new neighbor, in the hallway outside his parents' apartment. Whammo! He's juggling two relationships.

The International. The intended lesson to be learned from Tom Tykwer's tepid thriller is that bank debt is evil and makes CEOs do wicked things. (And here I thought it was simple greed and ignorance.) What I learned: Museums are dangerous. Stay out of the Guggenheim! That place is a shooting gallery. If you carry that thought through to its logical conclusion, then what the movie is really saying is that art and culture aren't good for you. Which ties in to its theme that corporations have taken over the world and there's nothing you can do about it. Unless you're Clive Owen with a three-day beard.

It never fails to impress me, the number of indie filmmakers who come around to crank out big-budget affairs within years of landing on the Hollywood scene. Striking while the iron's hot is one thing, but if you popped up after I pushed stop on a VHS copy of Swingers and told me that same director would also be responsible for not just one, but two high-gloss spy thrillers (The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith), I'd probably be more than a little skeptical (not to mention concerned as to who you were and what you were doing there). Similarly, if you stopped me immediately after viewing Following or Memento and insisted that this very same lot would soon reboot the Batman franchise to record-breaking success, I'd probably grin politely and begin to eye my exits.

My point is, it's been very close to a decade since director Tom Tykwer made a distinct impression with the fast life and loud sounds of his calling card, Run Lola Run, and to see him helming a Clive Owen-Naomi Watts espionage thriller like The International proves that much more unique when one considers how admirably straight-forward and strait-laced the end result is in comparison, to both his own work and that of others.

Playing himself -- or, rather, a kind-of version of himself who volunteers to have his soul removed -- in this year's Sundance Dramatic Competition entry Cold Souls (see our review here), Paul Giamatti faced some fairly unique challenges: "I kind of forgot that I was playing myself in this ... I kind of felt that (director Sophie Bart) captured, in a funny way, an archetypal type of neurotic New York self-involved actor ... I kinda forgot I was playing myself; and I don't mean that to sound disingenuous about it, but I really did. ..." Giamatti spoke with Cinematical about how much he enjoyed Shoot 'Em Up, tapping into Russian melancholy for Cold Souls through facial hair and headgear and which midnight zombie film he'd most like to catch while in Park City. ...

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So Erik-with-a-k covered the coming comedies of 2009, Scott was all over the horror picks (though his inclusion of Race to Witch Mountain still boggles my mind), Eric-with-a-c nabbed the family-friendly fare, and Elisabeth went over the geek fodder that awaits. But while I respect their calendar years and made-up math alike, I've opted to divide my list of 2009's action and adventure flicks into four categories: Action Flicks I Couldn't Care More About, Action Flicks I Couldn't Care Less About, Action Flicks That I Hope Surprise Me, and Those Which Fell In Between. Enjoy!

Action Flicks I Couldn't Care More About: First and foremost -- Watchmen (March 6th). It's one hell of a graphic novel and looks to be one hell of an adaptation (with or without the Giant Blank), but the only problem is it may not hit theaters on time if 20th Century Fox has anything to say about it. Both Fox and Warner Brothers are fighting over who actually owns the rights, and if a judge favors Fox comes January 20th (when the court date is set), we're looking at a delayed release and a whole ton of angry fans. Then there's Public Enemies (July 1st), which has me sold on not the subject matter, but sheer pedigree: Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp and Christian Bale as '30s gangsters. (It doesn't hurt that the earliest word ranges from damn good to great.) On the skimpier side, I can only hope that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 17th) streamlines its source material as the previous one had, and I can only hope that Crank 2: High Voltage (April 17th) lives up/down to the depravity of its predecessor. There's one last action movie that I couldn't care more about because, well, I've already seen a version of it. The international cut of Taken (January 30th, though reportedly opening with some R-dodging trims) is about as brisk and butt-kicking as one might hope out of a man-on-a-mission kidnapping thriller, and if you disagree, I'll send Liam Neeson to change your mind.

Gallery: Watchmen

Colombia's dangerous drug cartels are skeee-rewed! The Hollywood Reporter posts that Clive Owen is teaming up with Mark Cuban and heading to Colombia to take on drug cartels in Cartagena.

Turistas scribe Michael Ross is attached to write the screenplay, which focuses on an undercover agent who is embroiled in "a complex plot and must elude drug dealers and international agents if he hopes to survive." Okay, so maybe the cartels aren't screwed if Owen is running from them, but I don't think Clive will have any problem surviving these guys. If he does, they just have to give him a bunch of carrots and a baby to watch out for.

I'm sure this will be entertaining, but it's about time that Mr. Owen got that epic role -- the Indy/McClane/etc sort of blockbuster that gives him an iconic figure that's all his. He's certainly earned it by now. And no, I don't count Sin City. He's a great Dwight, he's only one of many black and white guys and gals in that one.

Reuniting after 2004's Closer, it appears that stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, along with Bourne writer Tony Gilroy, are all out to have a bit more fun with Duplicity; the trailer just went up over at Apple.

If anything, it comes off as more of a zippy heist film of sorts than the thriller I took it to be from the earliest synopsis on, even though corporate espionage remains the name of the game. Then again, maybe we're overdue for another Thomas Crown Affair-like outing, and between the cast (which also includes Tom Wilkinson, who was in Gilroy's Michael Clayton, and Paul Giamatti, who shared the screen with Clive in Shoot 'Em Up) and the crew, I'm pretty much sold.

(If Billy Bob Thornton is still in this, though, as Monika reported last January, he sure isn't showing up here, and IMDb remains mum.)

Duplicity opens on March 20th of next year -- about a month after Clive's bang-ier espionage efforts in The International.

It's amazing what a little Run Lola Run flavor can do for a trailer. Back in September, William Goss shared the first trailer for Clive Owen's The International. It was your typical uber dramatic sort of trailer -- what-if text, overtly dramatic music, gunshots -- way too familiar to really stick out and differentiate itself from every other action thriller out there. As a fan of the Clive, it did nothing for me.

But now the international trailer is out (go see it over at First Showing) and it looks like The International has hit its stride and made itself stand out. Ironically, they did it by going back to the familiar, the film that made director Tom Tykwer recognizable -- Run Lola Run. The trailer starts off typically, but then the beats slip in as "From Columbia Pictures" slips on the screen. Soon Owen is walking along a roof and it seems like Lola is going to rush by him at any second. While this might make the whole thing seem typical, it's still easy to see that this is nothing like Tykwer's run fest, even if the trailer has its share of running set to the beat. The music merely does its job at piquing interest and excitement.

I think I know what I'm doing on Valentine's Day. How about you? (The film hits theaters on February 13, 2009.)

Remember how Clive Owen showed up in The Bourne Identity as a fellow/rival assassin to Matt Damon's butt-kicking amnesiac? After watching the trailer for his new film, The International, I feel like director Tom Tykwer decided that he wanted to make something like that guy's own movie.

Okay, so maybe it's a bit more generic than that, with Owen playing an Interpol agent teaming up with a partner/potential love interest/possible traitor* (Naomi Watts) to take on some big bad bank with ties to all sorts of global espionage, and probably some ridiculous withdrawal fees to boot.

I'm not so hot on the prospect of the February "dumping ground" release date (see: Jumper, Vantage Point), but it'll be nice to have a more testosterone-fueled offering to counter-program all that other Valentine's Day fare. Besides, if Tykwer (Run Lola Run) decides that a big-budget thriller is worth his while, maybe it'll show past the paycheck -- I mean, if the director of Swingers can show us...

*Come on, he's even fed that adage of "Everyone is involved." Think about it...