‘Master’ is masterpiece; ‘Gothika’ fails

JOHN DEPKO

Crowe is commanding

in Oscar-worthy flick

Director Peter Weir has made many noteworthy movies including

“Dead Poets Society” “Witness” and “The Year of Living Dangerously.”

In “Master And Commander: The Far Side of the World” he has created a

true seafaring masterpiece that is sure to receive Oscar nominations

on several levels. He brings to life outstanding characters from the

best selling historical novels of Patrick O’Brien that capture the

harsh reality of life on the high seas in an English warship at the

turn of the 19th Century.

Russell Crowe was born to play the swashbuckling hero Capt. Jack

Aubrey. He commands the English ship as it pursues a larger and more

dangerous French Privateer into the South Pacific. He brings power

and depth to a role that requires life and death decisions on a

moment’s notice. His intellectual counterpoint is the ship’s surgeon,

played with verve by Paul Brettany, who presents educated discourse

on the current history, science and moral state of affairs that

conflict with Captain Aubrey’s mission.

For a film with such intelligent dialogue, it never fails to

present first-rate action adventure scenes that catapult the viewer

into the heart of its breathtaking battles. Frigid seas and 50-foot

high waves near the Antarctic Circle provide even more harrowing

threats to the hardy crew. For all its sweeping scope, this film

still provides thoughtful insight into the daily lives of even the

lowest ranking sailors on board the fateful vessel. A modern classic,

“Master and Commander” sets a standard that rivals the best historic

war dramas Hollywood has ever made. It’s the real deal. Don’t miss

it.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.

Schlock therapy to be had in gloomy movie

If you want to see a stylishly scary movie, then I suggest you

rent “The Ring.” If you want to see an incoherent but stylish

B-movie, then go right ahead and plunk your $9 down for “Gothika.”

In this mess of a movie, Halle Berry plays Miranda Grey, a

beautiful psychiatrist (is there any other kind?) in an appropriately

gloomy prison hospital where the lights are always flickering. As the

film opens we see her listening to the ravings of the beautiful but

criminally cuckoo patient Chloe (played by Penelope Cruz).

With all these good looking people, it’s rather jolting to see the

portly, middle-aged Charles S. Dutton plant a big wet one on Miranda;

a vague feeling of creepiness ensues -- shades of things to come? We

then learn he is her husband, Doug, and also her boss. Miranda’s

colleague is the twitchy Dr. Peter Graham (Robert Downey, Jr.) who

seems to have a thing for Miranda as well.

On a dark and stormy night, Miranda leaves for home but has an

accident when she swerves to avoid a ghastly young girl in the road.

As it turns out, Miranda now has the power to see dead people. The

shock of it all makes her lose consciousness; she awakens only to

discover she is under Peter’s care as a patient and prisoner in her

own hospital. It seems Doug was brutally hacked to death at their

home, and she is the prime suspect.

Miranda is noticing strange sounds and lighting effects in her

chicly gray prison cell, all nicely calculated to make us jump in our

seats. Who is causing all this? Could it be ... Satan? Or perhaps

just a muddled screenplay and over-the top direction by Mathieu

Kassovitz (you may remember him as Audrey Tatou’s boyfriend in

“Amelie.”)

I like a good mystery, but this story line is so implausible and

the dialogue isn’t even funny enough to be considered camp -- it’s

just plain dull. Example: Miranda to her doctor -- “I’m not deluded,

Pete, I’m obsessed!” All-right then.

The mystery is what possessed Halle Berry to take this role. She

is quite believable as a woman crazed with grief and torment who also

looks good in wet clothing. But she’s been there, done that in a much

better movie that earned her the Oscar (“Monster’s Ball”).

The big finish to the film defies credibility as well. The sudden

disrobing of the bad guy is more disturbing for the sight of his

beached-whale body than for what he is about to do to Miranda. In

this movie it seems that good is skinny, fat is bad.

Dr. Graham shows up for a laughably last-minute rescue of Miranda

-- it seems he was able to solve the entire mystery by checking

things out on the Web (it’s always the last place you look). As

Miranda says, “Logic is highly overrated.”

* SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant

for a financial services company.