Trucker (2008)
Director: James Mottern
With: Michelle Monaghan, Jimmy Bennett, Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt
The “indie” film may be identified by any of several characteristics: low budget; quirky characters; big stars working for peanuts; lame stories. Very often an indie will exceed its own expectations, and ours. Occasionally, the performances, or a better-than-average script, will lift the indie flick above the rest. Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Memento. You get the idea.
Alas, not this time. A loner and emotionally closed-off trucker (Monaghan), who abandoned her child (Bennett) to his father (Bratt) years before, is forced to take her son for a while because the father is fighting colon cancer.
He dislikes her, she considers him inconvenient, and he cramps her style. Hey, she’s got a schedule to meet. Can you see this one coming? Of course you can.
The needy kid and the needy-but-guarded adult. This plot was old before movies learned to talk. Lots of yelling and long, silent stares. Emotional ups and downs. Love triumphs. The end.
Good acting, though, from the principals. Have to mention Fillion, as a nice-guy neighbor who is friends with the trucker because he is married, but wishes it could be different. See this one coming? Yup.
Sorry to be so negative, but doesn’t anyone actually see other indie flicks? If they do, does it occur to them that it would be a good idea to make another one just like the other ones?
Discuss amongst yourselves, and save the money you would pay for this movie for a beer.
C-
Amelia
Director: Mira Nair
With: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston
Amelia Earhart was an American icon, a hero to women and girls, and a commercial commodity. She is the most famous missing person in US history. (Never heard of Judge Crater, right?) Her life was not dull. This movie is.
Swank (Earhart) looks spookily like her, and she plays the part well. In fact, all the acting is at least competent, and often good. But, you see, we kind of know how it comes out, so there is not much suspense. The segment in which she and her navigator disappear into the vast Pacific is the best in the movie. There is also a nifty plane crash earlier on.
The rest, alas, is a dreary, standard-issue bio-pic, filled with cranked-up drama, a love triangle with Earhart, her husband (Gere) and Gene Vidal (McGregor). The most fun revelation of the movie is that Earhart might have been Gore Vidal’s step-mom.
Good to look at, clunkily paced and ultimately a yawn. Wait for the DVD.
C+