The East

Without going into a lot of detail, this is the perfect movie for a summer day. And it just keeps on growing on you. The fact that there is another movie on this topic waiting to be made, well, that is often the case. The really exciting part of this is that Britt is not, drum roll, a star, but now she is. It can always be said that a film that is a stunning star vehicle for an actress, well, that only seems to come along every few years. And this ranks right at the top of those. Britt is not only beautiful and charismatic, but she obviously has a deep intelligence and creativity that is a perfect mix for this day and age. I say -rush out a see this, do not read about it, and try to remember one thing, great actresses are like great bottles of wine, they get better and better for a long time. Looking at what is coming for her, she is already very busy. And the fact that she hit this out of the park, is a great career lift off. Brit, this is your time.

Just saw this movie courtesy of the San Jose Camera Cinema Club. This is a well-acted, thought-provoking movie that asks many questions about the balance between the excesses of corporate America and the excesses of violent anarchist groups fighting against them. (Think Weather Underground and the SLA.) The protagonist is a young woman working for a top private security company in the Washington DC beltway on behalf of those corporations. She's assigned to infiltrate an anarchist group called "The East" to prevent damage to her company's corporate clients. The ensuing exposition of the anarchist group's actions ("jams") makes for a very suspenseful and credible movie with many plot twists and turns including the ending of the movie, which is diffused with the credits. Nothing is as it seems, just like a good spy movie ought to be. So go see the movie and don't leave until the credits finish rolling.

The East is the kind of movie that makes you want to join the fight, raise your voice and be heard.

The good. Extremely immersive. A incredible story with lots of emotions, conflicts, opposing moralities, and a stupefying journey. It is gripping and you will not be left unmoved.

The actors. Brit Marling and Ellen Page both give us a great performance. I was disappointed by Alexander Skarsgård, I thought that he was the weak player of the cast. The rest of the cell was pretty solid: Toby Kebbell, Shiloh Fernandez, Aldis Hodge, and Danielle Macdonald. And I should mention the nice work done by Patricia Clarkson as the director of the private security firm.

The bad. The ending is rushed. It feels like there was missing material at the end of filming and they couldn't go back to get what they needed and had to edit it with what they had.

The ugly. Nothing.

The result. A must see for anyone.

Truth is stranger than fiction so it's hard for a two-hour fictional film to compete with real examples of immorality, greed, and corruption that are rife within corporate America. Documentaries such as Enron, Who Killed the Electric Car, and Food, Inc. are more powerful because they're real. However, The East is solidly produced and acted as it dishes up fictional corporate misdeeds and misinformation perpetrated in the name of power and profit. The East humanizes its activist characters by giving insight into their varied and often mainstream pasts and into what fuels their battles against the system. Activists can be people too. At two hours, The East is limited in the number of corporate transgressions its activists can pursue and attempt to undermine, but it is an entertaining reminder of the type of malfeasance that goes on as it builds to a suspenseful and thought-provoking end. Good movie, not great, but worth watching.

Certainly a good subject and a touchy one. We have several movies treating this subject, the environment, the corruption. When I left the cine I asked me the question : Could this be true and yes, certainly. And that its all about, if you leave the cine and keep on thinking about the subject and discuss it with others. I didn't knew that much about Brit Marling and this film awakened my interest. Good acting and she has many opportunities to go as actress, writer or director. The movie is a must see, but ... it is not that much of a thriller, the action scenes are rather short and don't ask that much of attention and that is what it is meant to be, because the movie target is to show us how Brit Marling integrates in the East, her feelings, her changes in ideas. But also in the emotional part I find this movie rather general. It seems that they don't want to go a bit in depth on the subject, keep it simple for the spectator, the client. Keep it mainstream. So, it is not an action movie, but either enters in difficult matters. The subject is although unique and a must see. The end of the movie. Seems that it was time to finish and so they did, a bit in a rush.