In the middle of “The Devil’s Own” (1997), Brad Pitt mentions that a story he just told doesn’t have a happy ending because it’s not an American story, it’s an Irish one. I’ll let you find out for yourself which kind of story this film is, but the ending disappointed me. An IRA commander (Pitt) goes undercover in the U.S., living with a cop (Harrison Ford) and his idyllic, Irish-American family while trying to conclude an arms deal. There’s plenty of great performances amidst the irony (wife Margaret Colin particularly shines), but the plot doesn’t go out with a bang.
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These days, it seems every fading Hollywood star is making a movie about a dog. Many are “family” films full of dopey hijinks. Harrison Ford went for old school, 1960s-Disney-style “family,” in that there’s all kinds of death and violence, but there’s also furry animals to make it OK. It’s been 40 years since I read the “The Call of the Wild” and I won’t quibble with using CG dogs to enliven Jack London’s literary vision. The film does capture the cold lonesomeness of Alaska and the book’s spirit of adventure while also being emotionally manipulative enough for modern audiences.
“Patriot Games” (1992) is one of the few contemporary novels that I read and then saw as a movie. I read it during a week of jury duty back in 1990. I thought Tom Clancy wrote one of the most compelling car chase scenes I had ever read, but I was highly unsatisfied with the ending (Jack Ryan might stand for justice, but not the poetic kind.). The movie comes across as rushed and too actiony for a spy thriller. It’s like a sports highlight reel with no context of how the game was actually played. The ending? Slightly better.
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