Is there a limit to what kids can - or, more to the point, should - do in movies? That question may pop up when "Hanna" opens on Friday, April 8. Director Joe Wright's film is tremendously entertaining, in large part because of his star, Saoirse Ronan, who is brilliant as a 16-year-old girl who, well, kills people. Lots of them, without hesitation or remorse.
Part of the conceit of the film is, of course, that she is indeed a kid who is doing this. We are meant to be shocked, and we are. But Ronan is a gifted-enough actress that we feel far more than surprise watching her break necks and fire guns.
Ronan is 16 in real life; she'll turn 17 a few days after the film opens. Certainly the violence she commits in the film makes us uncomfortable, but it's meant to. It would make us uncomfortable if a 35-year-old man was committing it. The effect is just more pronounced when it's a kid.
In this respect it takes us back to "Kick-Ass," in which 13-year-old Chloe Moretz played Hit-Girl, who sliced and diced bad guys in graphic ways while cursing like the proverbial sailor, only more so. This was, to some extent, played for laughs, which maybe makes it a little different, but the question was still asked: Should a kid this age be doing this, even in a fictional movie?
It's a question that people asked in 1976, when Jodie Foster, then 13, appeared in "Taxi Driver" playing a 12-year-old prostitute. (She got a best-supporting-actress Oscar nomination for her troubles.)
It's a tough spot. For realism, certainly, it helps not to have a 22-year-old pretending to be 10 years younger. But does it affect the young women playing the roles? I've spoken to Ronan and Moretz, and both seem like almost scarily well-adjusted kids. So if they - and their parents - are up to the task, sure. Let 'em act.
Speaking of movie violence, the folks at Complex.com have compiled a list of the 50 Most Memorable Movie Assassinations, just in time for the release of "Hanna" (while complaining that, as good as the movie is, Ronan's character kills people but doesn't technically assassinate them).
No. 1 on the list? A surprise, actually: The killing of Tony Montana in "Scarface." He goes down, of course, in a hail of bullets. From the write-up: "The lesson learned here: Don't do drugs. And always keep an M-16 grenade launcher handy."
Noted. It's kind of an odd idea for a list, but it's actually pretty cool once you dig in and start reading; there are some really powerful scenes here. Among the assassinations that make the top 10 are killings in "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now" and "Malcolm X," among others. Without giving anything else away, I'd vote for their No. 2 as my No. 1; the scene didn't invent operatic violence, but it did perfect it. If you've been missing Arnold Schwarzenegger since he left office as governor of California, you're in luck.
If you haven't been missing him, he's going to be much harder to avoid. In addition to the already-announced "Governator" comic book and TV show he's creating with comic legend Stan Lee, Schwarzenegger is going to make an animated movie about the character, as well, that's scheduled to be released in 2013.
The character, the Governator of the title, is Schwarzenegger himself, fighting evil-doers as a superhero after leaving office. Insert your own budget-cutting jokes here. And then watch the trailer and decide whether you're excited to see Schwarzenegger back onscreen.
0 comments:
Post a Comment