Orphan Review

Rated R (Disturbing Violent Content, Some Sexuality and Language)

Running Time: 2 Hours & 3 Minutes

Cast-

Vera Farmiga-Kate Coleman

Peter Sarsgaard-John Coleman

Isabelle Fuhrman-Esther

Aryana Engineer-Max Coleman

Jimmy Bennett-Daniel Coleman

C.C.H. Pounder-Sister Abigail

Margo Martindale-Dr. Browning

Rosemary Dunsmore-Grandma Barbara

Karel Roden-Dr. Värava

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Don't you hate it when the little girl you adopted turns out to be a killer psycho?

Nothing is scarier than a little child. A few years ago I worked at a tutoring place for afterschool children and was assigned the most rowdy bunch to look after. Food was thrown at me and following endless requests to make them do their homework, I ended up quitting right then and there. At around five hours, it remains one of the shortest jobs I've ever held. Of course, those children are angels compared to the one in "Orphan," the latest film from Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment. "Orphan" is a back-to-basics 'killer kid' film that tends to give into standard horror conventions at times but Jaume Collet-Serra's picture makes up for it with an intriguing mystery, well-developed characters, and good performances—especially from Isabelle Fuhrman as the creepy Esther.

SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! After a disturbing scene which will give pregnant women everywhere nightmares, Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) wakes up in the middle of the night reminiscing about her third child, Jessica, who was still-born. Her marriage with John (Peter Sarsgaard) has been in a downward spiral ever since as she struggles to recover from a drinking problem that led to her daughter, Max (Aryana Engineer), becoming deaf. To regain a sense of normalcy in their lives, the couple decides to go the adoption route and immediately takes a liking to a nine-year-old Russian orphan named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). She's well-mannered, creates amazing artwork, and is incredibly mature for her age but tends to be shy around other children. 'I guess I'm just different,' she says and Kate, being the liberal parent she is, remarks, 'Well, there's nothing wrong with being different.' Esther immediately bonds with Max but Kate's older son, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) makes fun of her, particularly the way she dresses. Of course, good things never come without a price and soon, bad things start happening around Esther. A little girl gets pushed off the playground slide and breaks her leg. The nun from the adoption agency goes missing and later turns up dead with her skull bashed open. Through it all, Esther remains behind her 'cute girl' smile but beneath that façade is a disturbing serial killer. As Kate's world begins to fall apart, she desperately tries to convince her family that Esther is not what she seems…but it may be already too late.

"Orphan" uses the classic plot device where a main character knows the truth but everyone is convinced he or she is mad and won't have any of it. While it's definitely a familiar concept by this point, Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra handles it well enough by taking the time to develop his characters, a concept that has become all but foreign to the myriad PG-13 'horror' films that Hollywood studios seem fit to continuously dump on audiences. There are some problems, such as when Esther's secret is finally revealed. I'll admit that it surprised me since I was expecting some sort of supernatural angle or that she simply had an obsessive Electra complex but the twist, while novel, just didn't seem all that plausible if you looked at it from a scientific perspective. The ending also suffers from 'villain-who-won't-die' syndrome. When it comes to the actual horror, Collet-Serra demonstrates an overreliance on jump scares. You get a nice, quiet scene and then suddenly the sound blares but hey, it's only your dopey, smiling husband! None of these issues detract from the film too much and I generally enjoyed "Orphan" thanks to the intriguing premise that kept me on my toes until the very last minute.

The acting is solid, considering both Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard have been mainstays in numerous indie films. Farmiga is convincing as the mother who's haunted by her past and overcome with grief over the loss of her third child. We sympathize with everything she's been through and when she finally takes matters into her own hands, we cheer her on. Sarsgaard doesn't fare as well unfortunately, mainly because he seems to sleepwalk through his role. He plays the understanding, oblivious husband who doesn't find anything wrong until it's too late. Generally speaking, any capable actor can play this role without too much fuss. The best performance comes from twelve-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman as the creepy killer kid Esther. She transitions from the cute little girl with pigtails to sneering murderer effortlessly. Some of her scenes take on a whole new level of creepy, such as when she dresses up in a black gown, wearing mascara and lipstick in an attempt to seduce Kate's husband. I said to myself, 'All right, I hope this isn't going where I think its going!' Fuhrman also excels at dealing with the darker side of adult emotions, displaying such malice behind her eyes that'll unnerve you. When she is caught watching Kate and John make love on the kitchen table, Kate attempts to explain 'the birds and the bees' but Esther surprises her with two words: 'They f*ck.' It's delivered in such a nonchalant way with just a hint of menace and I can tell you, the audience was taken aback! I see great things in Fuhrman's future and hopefully she'll have a successful career. The rest of the cast includes Aryana Engineer and Jimmy Bennett as Kate and John's children, Max and Daniel. Aryana is forced to communicate using only her body language since she's playing a deaf character but she does a good job. One particularly memorable moment is when Max has this priceless look of shock upon seeing Esther dressed up like Little Bo-Peep for school.

Released on July 24, 2009, "Orphan" has received largely mixed reviews with 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics felt that 'it has moments of dark humor and the requisite scares [but the film] fails to build on its interesting premise and degenerates into a formulaic, sleazy horror/thriller.' It will probably reach number three or four at the domestic box office, seeing as how it's competing with two other movies this weekend: Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler's battle-of-the-sexes comedy "The Ugly Truth" and the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced "G-Force," about guinea pig spies, of all things. There was also a small controversy from the adoption community that claimed the film promotes a negative stereotype about orphans and there's even a Facebook group calling for people to boycott the picture. Honestly, they're making a big fuss over nothing but people will always find something to be offended about. Although "Orphan" may stumble by relying on standard horror conventions a little too much, it remains an above-average film that most will enjoy thanks to a standout performance from Isabelle Fuhrman. It sure gives a new meaning to 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' or, in this case, little girl!

Final Rating: 3.5 out of 5

"I'm NOT your f*cking mommy!"

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The Hangover Review

Rated R (Pervasive Language, Sexual Content Including Nudity, and Some Drug Material)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 40 Minutes

Cast:

Bradley Cooper-Phil Wenneck

Ed Helms-Stu Price

Zach Galifianakis-Alan Garner

Justin Bartha-Doug Billings

Heather Graham-Jade

Ken Jeong-Leslie Chow

Rachael Harris-Melissa

Jeffrey Tambor-Sid Garner

Sasha Barrese-Tracy Garner

Mike Tyson-Himself

Jernard Burks-Leonard

Mike Epps-Black Doug

Bryan Callen-Eddie Palermo

Directed by Todd Phillips

'Crazy night' would be a massive understatement for these three friends in Todd Phillips' "The Hangover."

Can you handle Vegas? Well, some people obviously can’t in Todd Philips’ latest comedy “The Hangover,” released into theaters on June 5, 2009. As you’ve noticed, I’m rather late with this review and while raunchy comedies is usually not one of favorite genres, I decided to check out the film after hearing so much positive word-of-mouth. “The Hangover” takes a worn, predictable concept and turns it on its head, creating one of the funniest films I’ve seen thanks to the chemistry between the three leads but at times, the comedy may get too juvenile for some viewers. 

SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! Doug Billings (Justin Bartha) is getting married in two days so his friends, Phil Wenneck (Bradley Cooper), Stu Price (Ed Helms), and his soon to be brother-in-law Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis) take him to Las Vegas in an attempt to throw him the wildest bachelor party ever. The four friends decide to get the most expensive suite at Caesar’s Palace and after a rooftop toast, wake up the next morning with absolutely no recollection of what happened during the previous twelve hours. The entire suite has turned into a wreck, with a tiger in the bathroom, someone’s crying baby in the closet, Stu missing a tooth, and worst of all, Doug has gone completely missing! Phil gathers his remaining two friends in an attempt to retrace their steps and find Doug but learns that their wild night was beyond anything they could’ve imagined as they get into one ridiculous situation after the other. 

When I originally viewed the trailer, my first impression was that of another throwaway, clichéd R-rated comedy and while the film begins conventionally, Philips smartly jumps over the groups expected raucous activities, leaving it a mystery for both the audience and the characters. This is precisely what makes “The Hangover” so outrageously hilarious, with everyone trying to piece together what happened and finally coming full circle by the film’s end. The second half falters somewhat with the inclusion of a standard kidnapping plot, and you know that the three friends will eventually find Doug and make it to the wedding but these are minor quibbles compared to the payoff during the end credits. If there was any major flaw that I would point to is that the revelation of where Doug was all this time was a bit of a letdown and came too easily, almost as if the filmmakers were in a rush to wrap it up. 

Most of the success comes from the odd mix of characters gathered on-screen and while other films derive their comedy when they don’t work together, there are much more laughs when they do as the three friends are put through the gauntlet, getting hit by cars, beat up by thugs, tasered by children and mauled by a tiger. Phil is the former ‘cool guy’ who has settled into a rather mundane life with a wife and child, and he keeps the group together as the situations seem to grow more outlandish. Cooper is essentially playing the straight man role with a slight air of arrogance, a school teacher who seems to have no qualms about stealing from his students for a fake trip. He doesn’t seem too appreciative of the life he’s built, longing for the freedom from before he was married but predictably, changes his tune by the film’s end. Stu is much more memorable thanks to Ed Helm’s performance, a dentist that is so dominated by his controlling girlfriend, Melissa (Rachael Harris) that he can’t even make his own decisions and freaks out at everything. We learn that he’s planning to actually propose to Melissa but Doug reveals that she had cheated on him before with a bartender, to which Stu replies that ‘he didn't even come inside her’ and that it was ‘a good thing [because] she's afraid of semen.’ As he retraces his steps, Stu learns that he had inadvertently married a stripper named Jade (Heather Graham) but technically, she’s more of an escort! Worst of all, she’s wearing his grandmother’s Holocaust ring, the same ring that he was going to use to propose to Melissa. Of course, Alan, being the eccentric, possibly mentally-ill weirdo, says aloud, ‘I didn’t know they gave out rings at the Holocaust.’ 

Speaking of Alan, Zach Galifianakis steals every scene in the movie and no matter how crazy his behavior gets, everything he does is pure comedic gold. During the drive to Vegas, he says that counting cards is frowned upon similar to ‘masturbating on an airplane’ but it’s now illegal since 9/11 because ‘everybody got so sensitive.’ Later on when he finds the baby in the closet, he mimes the baby masturbating and exclaims, ‘He's jackin' his little weenus! Not at the table, Carlos!’ Some may find it in poor taste but I couldn’t help but laugh. There’s also a reference to “A Beautiful Mind” when Alan turns out be a mathematical savant and uses his ability at the blackjack table. What makes Galifianakis’ character stick out is his sincerity in playing a spaced-out simpleton who at times amazes us with his calmed logic, such as when a panicked Stu screams that Doug ‘is probably face down in a ditch right now with a meth head butt-f*cking his corpse,’ to which Alan replies, ‘That's highly unlikely.’ 

Most of the laughs come from the first half of the film as the group is arrested for stealing a police vehicle and to get out of jail time, Phil negotiates a deal where they ‘volunteer’ to be in a demonstration in the use of tasers. Sure, one of them gets hit in the nuts but it’s the fact that children are the ones tasering them that makes it funny. Later, they manage to retrieve Doug’s prized Mercedes, only to discover a naked Chinese man in the trunk, who promptly attacks them with a tire iron. The man is later revealed to be a mobster named Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong), but he soon wears out his welcome with his over-the-top, juvenile performance that stereotypes both Asians and homosexuals. Although the second half begins to lose steam as there are too many lulls between the laughs, “The Hangover” makes up for it with a hilarious appearance from Mike Tyson and a slideshow of pictures during the end credits that reveals what happened during the group’s wild night. Some of it even borders on NC-17 and will leave some viewers wondering if they saw what they really thought they saw! 

“The Hangover” is another film that took everyone by surprise, earning a solid 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, with professional critics citing a ‘clever script and hilarious interplay among the cast.’ Made on a relatively low budget of $35 million, the film opened #1 at the box office with $45 million, just edging out Pixar’s “Up” and stayed there for two weeks. Currently, it has grossed $194 million domestic and $224 million worldwide, making the film a rousing success for Warner Brothers. It was a full house at the theater when I saw the film last night (surprising, since it has been out for over a month now) and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. So far, the drops have been rather minimal, similar to “Star Trek,” thanks to positive word-of-mouth, while other more highly anticipated films have faced a 60% or more drop off in the second week of release. At first glance, “The Hangover” may look like another forgettable R-rated comedy with a trite concept but Todd Philips manages to take this concept and give it a twist, resulting in hilarious situations thanks to the chemistry between the three main characters that overshadows its weaker second half and some of its more juvenile/stereotypical humor. Guaranteed, this is the most fun you’ll have at the theater this summer!

Final Rating: 4 out of 5

"What do tigers dream of when they take their little tiger snooze? Do they dream of mauling zebras, or Halle Berry in her Catwoman suit? Don't you worry your pretty striped head, we're gonna get you back to Tyson and your cozy tiger bed. And then we're gonna find our best friend Doug, and then we're gonna give him a best friend hug. Doug, Doug, oh, Doug, Dougie, Dougie, Doug, Doug! But if he's been murdered by crystal meth tweakers, well then we're sh*t out of luck." 

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