Ser_Stephen_Seaworth

Paul Verhoeven has always worn the mantle of provocateur with pride, from the alluringly pulp "Basic Instinct" to the scandalous stripper saga that was "Showgirls." Even when he dips his toe in genre fare, there's still nevertheless an undercurrent of erotic satire in them (remember the tri-boobed woman in "Total Recall"?). Even when Verhoeven plays it straight, like in the brilliant "Black Book", his films nevertheless drip with sensuality. His latest film, however, takes a more measured but by no means less lacerating tack.

At first glance, "Elle" is so cold-blooded it could almost be mistaken for a Michael Haneke film, especially as it features Haneke's muse, the glacially poised Isabelle Huppert, at its center. Certainly, "Elle" kicks right off in a suitably brutal manner one would typically see from Haneke: namely, the savage rape of its primary character in her own home by a masked intruder. Shades of "Funny Games" certainly are evident here, but Verhoeven nevertheless keeps his own brand of reptilian energy alive in the film. Huppert's Michèle immediately gets back into her daily routine: overseeing the newest release from her video-game company, dealing with the drama of her son's upcoming fatherhood with a girl Michèle cannot stand, and seeing her mother tentatively flirting with a new marriage while her father, a convicted murderer, languishes in prison. With everything on Michèle's plate, a little sexual assault is merely seasoning.

The shocking opening scene will certainly have audiences squirming, and indeed Verhoeven revisits it a couple of times throughout the film as Michèle mulls over the event, with variations here and there as she imagines how she could have defended herself—or provoked him further. And despite her desire to move on from the event, it continues to linger, especially as her assailant sends her threatening texts that he may not be done with her. But rather than go to the police, Michèle finds herself almost being an encouraging presence to her assailant, as though she craves the demeaning, degrading act to which she was subjected.

It is certainly a problematic viewpoint for any film to have: that of a rape victim desiring to return to the act itself. But Verhoeven's lurid sensibility strangely doesn't hit the exploitative level that he typically sets out to achieve. While the story does juggle its fair share of melodramatic subplots (swapping out an affair for a cuckolding here while touching on a dark childhood there), it mostly focuses on playing up the stalker cat-and- mouse theme. Michèle goes the "Brave One" route at first: buying (and using) mace, going to a gun range. But as all of her life's little foibles start to coalesce all at once, it's almost as though she seeks the grim simplicity of simply being a "victim."

I've always found Huppert to be a technically masterful but nevertheless somewhat clinical actress, one whose austerity can sometimes keep us at arm's length when she should instead be drawing us closer, deeper. I find that can be a bit of a detriment to some of her performances, but "Elle" relies on that puritanical presence, and her ascetic approach to her portrayal of Michèle is largely what makes the film work in the first place. She navigates the hectic labyrinth of her life like a ship cutting through thick fog, and even as Verhoeven puts his thumb on the tongue-in-cheek scales, she never once feels like she's in on the joke. Though Huppert was not Verhoeven's first choice (he shopped the script to the likes of Marion Cotillard and Carice van Houten beforehand), she nevertheless feels like the right one. Her flinty nature provides the dour center the film requires.

"Elle" does feel a bit bloated in his second half, and I honestly could've done with most of its tangential subplots being axed. Verhoeven's films generally outstay their welcome in terms of runtime, and Ellecomes dangerously close to that, but Huppert's compelling performance and Verhoeven's approach to the material will keep audiences in their seats, albeit forever squirming.

David Mackenzie's latest film, Hell or High Water, feels like one of those movies that could've been made at any point in cinema's existence. It is a simple meat-and-potatoes tale of bank heists and blood brothers, the sort of story that great directors from Kubrick and Altman to Arthur Penn and Tarantino have made their staple at one time or another. And though it's set against the woeful landscape of an America in the throes of the most recent economic downtown, you could easily see it taking place in the Dust Bowl era of Bonnie & Clyde.

Working from a screenplay by Taylor Sheridan (scribe of last year's superior Sicario), Mackenzie sets his film in the Texas midlands, the last frontier against "progress," as the few scattered denizens would call the encroaching destruction of their old-fashioned way of life. Gone are the desperadoes, the Gary Coopers and Jesse Jameses of old, and all that's left are a few dying embers of what had once been the great American dream.

Three such embers are at the heart of Hell or High Water, and it's these three that set the desert fields ablaze in a trail of blood and violence. Two of these three are a pair of brothers, Toby and Tanner Howard—rough country boys who are at once peas in a pod and yet polar opposites. Toby (a sufficiently grunged-up Chris Pine, playing a stoic Southern loner role that somehow bypassed Josh Brolin, who usually corners the market on such parts) is quiet but decent, eking out a hardscrabble existence in a desperate attempt to keep his family ranch from foreclosure. His big brother Tanner is far more erratic and intense, which makes the casting of Ben Foster a no-brainer. Tanner's antics seem downright Tremor Brother-esque; a hard-living ex-jailbird with no compunction against brutality if required.

The brothers have cooked up a scheme to save the family farm as well as get revenge on the faceless banks that have f_cked them over: by pulling a string of penny-ante heists at each branch, taking only cashiers' trays of loose bills (to prevent ink-pack bursts and access to traceable currency). It's a smart play, but also one that requires several jobs in rapid succession. And sooner or later, their luck will inevitably run out.

This is where the third ember comes into play: Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton. Played as a prickly amalgamation of Rooster Cogburn and Columbo, Jeff Bridges's soon-to-retire lawman decides to pursue the bank job investigation as one final hurrah before he turns in his star. Paired with Gil Birmingham's stalwart, snarky Alberto (who also bears the brunt of his partner's deliberately un- P.C. ribbing), Marcus shrewdly assesses that the thieves are working towards a goal and accurately calculates the locations they'd need to hit in order to meet their quota. But as with every single heist film since the days of old, something goes wrong.

There is a grim edge to Hell or High Water, but it refuses to wallow in it. Instead, it is bleakly funny, fraught with little character foibles sure to get a chuckle or two out of any audience. Even in the tensest moments (and there are more than a few, be forewarned), there is a nevertheless a laid- back undercurrent. In large part, it's due to how easy the three leads slip into their characters and convey decades' worth of life and experience in their performances. Bridges impresses the most, at least for me—there are several moments in the film where he is as good as he ever has been, even as the Dude—and you could almost see yearly spin-offs built around the character on cable TV. Pine, who usually sings best playing zany sorts like in his Carnahan collaborations, nevertheless is very striking as a low-key working joe who nevertheless has a depth of insight far exceeding his rough-hewn appearance. And then there's Foster, who is never anything but riveting when he's on-screen and whose mercurial talents continue to cement him as one of the peak actors around.

Hell or High Water also cements Sheridan as a writer to watch out for. His last two scripts have been perfectly methodical, like a chemist's precise formula, almost perfectly calibrated. He has an ear for dialogue, both ruminating (at one point, a cowpoke laments that the way the country's going, no wonder his kids don't want to raise cattle for a living) and snappy ("Only assh_les drink Mr. Pibb." "Drink up."). Aided by a plaintive score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis—as if there could be any better pick—Sheridan's voice is powerful enough that it almost seems like Mackenzie hardly has to do any heavy lifting at all. And though he doesn't set up high-octane thrills like Denis Villeneuve did with Sicario, he instead presents a sober, soulful threnody to the dying myth of the American outlaw.

(On a final note, I agree with Tanner: only assh_les drink Mr. Pibb.)

When we first meet John Link, Mel Gibson's grizzled ex-con anti-hero in his latest thriller Blood Father, he's in the midst of an impassioned soliloquy at an AA meeting. A self-proclaimed "real success story," Link is a recovering alky two years out of the slammer, whose wife left him and whose daughter is in the wind, leaving him with no one in his corner and with no one to blame but himself. It's a fitting noir-esque introduction to Link, but also—perhaps more appropriately, especially as he's talking straight at the camera when he says it—it seems to be coming from Gibson himself.

Directed by Jean-François Richet, who helmed 2008's gripping gangster diptych Mesrine, Blood Father seems at first glance to be another addition to the tried-and-true Gibson formula: a brutal guy on the wrong side of the tracks takes on those who wronged him, often in typically gruesome fashion. Certainly, John Link could be blood brothers with Porter and Driver, Gibson's violent protagonists from Payback and Get the Gringo. Living on the fringe of society while scratching out a living as a tattoo artist from his grungy desert trailer, Link is as blunt and terse as his monosyllabic name would suggest. The difference is that Blood Father feels like Gibson confronting the demons that put him and his career on the skids over the last decade. His performance feels like penance, and not in a negative way. Gibson's mainstay has always been passion—in both definitions of the word—and here he bares himself to the bone.

Link's efforts to stay on the straight and narrow are complicated by the cataclysmic arrival of his wayward daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty). Strung-out and on the run from a bunch of bad customers, Lydia's presence puts her father on an inexorable course towards violence—which, of course, he excels at dishing out. And true to form for a Mel Gibson joint, there is no shortage of it: once the blood starts flowing and the bullets start flying, it's hard to stop.

Gibson's trademark wild-man intensity is in full froth here, and it's always a welcome sight to behold, even if it's been in otherwise subpar productions or against lesser actors. For the most part, fortunately, Blood Father isn't pigeonholed in either category. While some of the dialogue sounds more than a little ponderous (Lydia spends much of the film spitting out sheaves of insight with such precision that you'd think she were a Sorkinian heroine instead of, well, someone who snorts heroin), the rest of it is balanced in taut, punchy lines that would make Hemingway proud. And unlike Get the Gringo, which featured Gibson at the top of his game making his co-stars look downright amateurish, he's bolstered by some reliable names this go-around: among them, William H. Macy as Link's good-natured AA sponsor and Michael Parks as a seedy old contact from his past. In fact, the only real weak link of the cast is Moriarty, whose erratic performance is far too self-conscious and unconvincing for us to really care about her plight. It's only through Gibson that we care (and to his credit, he does and we do).

Much of Blood Father is a foregone conclusion, all the way up to its bullet-riddled finale. And while the film rarely evinces an inspired note, it's still a good potboiler, and there's nothing wrong with a well-worn story if it's well-told. But with an actor like Gibson at the fore, it becomes something more personal. Blood Father's about a man facing old sins and the grim reckoning that comes with them. And every single one of Mad Mel's is on full display here.