Fences (2016) - Short Theatrical Review

Director: Denzel Washington
Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson, Russell Hornsby
Country: United States
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 139 min

Note: This review for originally written for an internship at a website that I was to partake in. However, I never ended up truly starting the internship in the first place. Therefore, it never got posted, but I didn't want it to go to waste, so I figured that I'd post it here.

After several years of action vehicles, actor Denzel Washington finally returns to fully dramatic affair with Fences, his third directorial effort after 2002’s Antwone Fisher and 2007’s The Great Debaters. However, Fences differentiates itself from the rest of Washington’s oveure in that he previously performed the material on Broadway in 2010 and in a different medium nonetheless. Therefore, Fences finds Washington revisiting material that he tackled once before, but now upon the big screen and in control both in front of and behind the camera. While it’s nice to see Washington return in full dramatic force, his latest is nothing more than a literal cinematic translation of a dialog centric play, failing to take advantage of the possibilities or perks offered up by the medium.

Since Fences is based upon a play, the name of the game is character and dialog. Therefore, a discussion of plot would be meaningless, as Washington and the play itself have no interest in the matter. Washington plays Troy Maxson, a trash collector in 1950s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, whom lives a simple life day in and day out. The film chronicles the interactions Troy has with his friends and family members, ranging from his best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen McKinley Henderson), to his wife Rose (Viola Davis), typically on the front porch of his house or in the back yard. Over the course of the cinematic play, Maxon’s temperance and loyalty to his family is tested as dramatic revelations unravel and themes of death, fatherhood, coming of age, and regret are tackled.

It’s clear that Fences’ strongest points is its excellent character work and truly stunning performances. Washington’s performance as a vulnerable and flawed father as well as Davis’ turn as his dependable wife make for two of the year’s finest displays of screen acting. Both actors are positively on fire, conveying charisma, warmth, humor, and dramatic tension all through their juicy roles. There’s no doubt about it that each will score an Academy Award nomination come Oscar season, let alone give all other frontrunners a run for their money and potentially sweep up the award depending on how voters swing.

Washington’s Troy Maxson makes for one of the most complex cinematic characters of 2016, as he’s not your typical father figure. He’s a flawed care taker whose made mistakes in his life and continues to each and every day. He’s a respectable man, and one of the hardest workers whom was probably ever born, but all the more relatable due to his glaring and possibly familiar flaws to some. To Kill a Mockingbird this is not, as Troy Maxson is a far cry from the perfect and stalwart Atticus Finch. But not every father can be Atticus Finch, and sometimes Troy Maxson is about as much as a man can achieve, flaws and all. Washington imbues real respect and admiration within such a flawed man, and is to be commended for giving such a complex man a harsh but truthful examination.

Unfortunately, dynamite performances and ripe dialog aren’t enough to carry a play over to the big screen, as Washington stagnantly translates Fences without taking advantage of the potential of the cinematic medium. Cinematic elements and opportunities such as musical score, engaging cinematography, and strong editing are not in Washington’s interest here, as the film is presented particularly straightforward, almost exactly as one would see in a stage play. However, when an onslaught of nearly two and a half hours of dialog is all you get, and with no second act break as one would find in a stage play, it becomes quite exhausting to endure when it’s simply presented as is.

Compare last year’s Steve Jobs and The Hateful Eight for example, two very dialog and performance focused features that are also cinematic plays. Each placed a strong focus on character interaction, but also benefited greatly from their dynamic musical compositions, daring camera placement, and affective editing. They were so much more than just their words or performances. They were technically on fire and the exact definition of cinema. It’s one thing to watch people stand in one location or walk around and talk to one another, but it’s a whole other experience when those actions are peppered with distinct visual cues and moody music to fit them, i.e. the advantages of cinema. While Fences only has its dialog and performances going for it, those kind of things can also be experienced through a stage play, the exact medium that Washington chose to adapt over to the big screen so simply.

Fences is only a few notches from being one of the best films of the year. Its performances, dialog, and themes are fully realized, thanks primarily to a bevy of great performers and an actor/director who has lived the material time and time again. Washington and Davis fully cement themselves as two of the greatest actors of their generation with Fences, which will probably stand as a classic within the two’s breadth of work. And yet, Fences feels like it could have been so much more were it adapted differently. Maybe a television mini-series, say on H.B.O., would have offered up a stronger platform in order to fully break apart the material for maximum effect. It’s also possible that a different director, other than Washington, with a stronger cinematic eye should have handled the material and worked alongside Washington to greater affect. All in all, Fences is a flawed film, but only from a technical or presentation stand point. It’s as active a watch as any other film this year, thanks to its non-stop dialog and essential performances. At the end of the day, it’s one of the year’s best dramas, and potentially the purest Denzel vehicle ever made. You’d be fooling yourself if you skipped over it, but don’t rush out or expect the very best.

Old Guys Kick Ass - Analyzing a Decade Long Trend in Action Cinema

Note: I originally started to write this article at the beginning of the year but never got around to finishing it. It could honestly go on forever, drifting away from movies and focusing on society and what not too. However, I didn't want all of my writing to go to waste, so I have decided to post it anyways. It doesn't feel entirely finished, but it does track the downfall of the action star up to their aged return, and offers a solution as well. Maybe it'll be a chapter in a future book I write one day or something like that. I don't know. Anyways, Merry Christmas and enjoy!

Step aside youngins, the old guys are taking over.

I have noticed two major trends in today's day and age of action cinema. Traditional action films featuring guns and fist fights have become dominated by older actors while CG heavy superhero blockbusters have become dominated by younger actors. Slam bam action films with explosions, high body counts, and lots of bullets are no longer the box office hits they used to be. International audiences, as well as domestic audiences, want superheroes and Transformers, plain and simple. And while that reality breaks my heart, I find it interesting that no young or upcoming action stars in true action films have broken out with mainstream success.

It seems that younger action stars like Scott Adkins (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Undisputed III: Redemption) and Iko Uwais (The Raid films) only achieve popularity amongst die hard fans of the genre who make the effort to check out foreign cinema or the DTV market (the most criminally underrated niche in all of cinema). However, no action stars tackling old fashioned action material under age 40 have broken out in any way, shape, or form amongst the main stream consciousness. Instead, it seems that action stars under age 40 make their name with tame superhero material; this is why Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth are so well known within the public consciousness while Scott Adkins and Iko Uwais sit in obscurity kicking more ass than anyone else in contemporary cinema.

I'm here to give you the action you want people! You just have to buy it on DVD first.

So back to the main topic. As no new or young action stars have become mainstream successes, all of the aged action stars continue to appear in action films and prove that old guys can kick ass. However, non-action stars have now started to fill in action roles too and become stars of their own. Academy Award nominated actors like Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington have become action stars in their own right even though they did not begin their careers that way. A Taken here, an Equalizer there, and bam, you're apparently an action star that easy. Mainstream action entertainment that relies upon fist fights and old fashioned explosions has split into two categories nowadays: 1) action movies featuring aged action icons, and 2) action movies featuring non-action stars.

I believe that this trend of old men kicking ass started all the way back in the late 2000s thanks to none other than Sylvester Stallone. Stallone gave audiences the one-two punch in 2006 and 2008 as he revived two of his most iconic characters in Rocky Balboa and Rambo. Both of these films revived two dead franchises and operated as the proper conclusions that each series deserved. Both films told stories about old men who used to kick ass when they were young and were now back to show a younger generation that they know a thing or two about knocking their enemies down. In a sense, Rockby Balboa and Rambo jumpstarted the contemporary movement of old guys kicking ass in action cinema. It also brought Stallone's career back from the dead and sort of made him the figure head of said movement.

Before I continue forward from 2006, I believe it is important to look at two other time periods before 2006 that played an essential role in predicting how elder actors would take over the genre. The first is the 1990s, or more specifically, Clint Eastwood. In 1992, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in Unforgiven, a Twilight Western that served as Clint's swan song to the genre that made him a star. The film was a mature and reflexive work of Clint's in which he addressed his elder age and body of work. Clint took on the topic of the aged ass kicker and turned him into a vulnerable and human character with regrets and disabilities. The film was such a success that it won Clint his first Best Director and Best Picture Oscars at the Academy Awards that year. Unforgiven is widely considered to be one of the last great American Westerns too (although I could see Tarantino's Django Unchained becoming a classic).

Films like The Rookie may be Unforgive-able but Clint has more than made up for it.

Eastwood followed up Unforgiven with two mature genre films of his in which he played aged characters who combated evil and struggled with their disabilities. Those films, In the Line of Fire and Blood Work, showcased a trend in Eastwood's films where he would make himself sound older than he truly sounded. Both films featured an older actor kicking ass while also addressing the issue of their age. Even though Clint continued to star in non-action films that addressed his age, he had one more genre picture of his in his back pocket that served as the end all be all for the mature ass kicker film. That film was Gran Torino, and it was released in 2008, amidst Stallone's revival. Therefore, Eastwood not only foretold the aged ass kicker genre, but even made one himself as the contemporary movement was starting to take off. And while Gran Torino doesn't feature a character who goes around killing people, it does feature a bad ass veteran who stands up for what is right and teaches some punks a thing or two without ever having to kill them.

Okay, so the importance of Clint is out of the way. Well, what comes next? To be specific, the next era I am focusing on is the late 1990s and the early 2000s. In this time period, many of the action icons from the 80s either churned out some of their worst films or simply started to drift away from the genre that established them as stars. Arnold started to moved towards increasingly family friendly material and made some of his biggest flops (Jingle All the Way, Batman and Robin, Collateral Damage), Stallone struggled with his identity as an actor as he tackled character driven films and made lackluster action films (Cop Land, Driven, Get Carter), Van Damme, Dolph, and Seagal shifted towards the DTV realm, and Harrison Ford stopped starring in action films altogether. But most importantly, the quality of action output by these once great action icons was worse than ever. In these icons weakest moments, the superhero genre slowly but surely snuck into prominence as the likes of Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man swept into theaters and announced a new sub-genre's arrival. Just as the superhero wheel started spinning, Stallone came back with Rocky Balboa and Rambo in the mid to late 2000s to prove that the old action icons could still kick ass. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.

Even though several aged icons came back to the big screen, non action-stars became stars, and the DTV market experienced an increase in quality, it wasn't enough to stop the superhero's dominance of the action genre. In the action icon's weakest moment, a new hero, literally superheroes, arose and took over the box office for what seems to be no end in sight. However, that wouldn't stop the old guys from coming back and kicking ass.

After Stallone got the old guy ball rolling, others followed suit. In 2007 and 2008, Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis reprised their two most iconic characters with Live Free or Die Hard and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, both the fourth entries in their respective franchises that both had lengthy hiatuses of over 10 years each. Both films were big box office hits because their lead characters were titans in the action genre and it was pretty great to see both Indiana Jones and John McClane kick ass again after so long. Although Indy 4 proved to be the end of Ford's journey, Die Hard 4 rejuvenated its franchise and heralded the return of the series with an eventual 5th sequel in 2013. It was also here in 2008 where Clint Eastwood released Gran Torino, a fantastic drama that took the topic of the aged ass kicker seriously. Although not an action film, Gran Torino played an essential part in the old guys kick ass movement because the film was a box office success and showed that Eastwood was still a bad ass even if he couldn't jump over a fence or crash a car for thrills.

Still cracking wise after all of these years.

As Stallone and friends laid the seeds for what would call all of the aged action icons back to the big screen, Luc Besson and Pierre Morel made a tiny action film called Taken in 2008 that proved to be a landmark action picture that made a lasting impact on the genre. Taken took an Academy Award nominated actor, Liam Neeson, and plunged him into a Steven Seagal-esque film that became a huge commercial success. Neeson set a new precedence for action stardom with Taken because he proved that a non-action star could become an action star overnight. Neeson also currently ranks as the highest grossing action star in mainstream cinema even though he is 62 years old.

After starring in and directing both Rocky Balboa and Rambo, Stallone followed up with the ultimate old guys kick ass film in 2010: The Expendables. The Expendables is the film that all but cemented the aged action icons' return to the big screen. What started out as a simple men on a mission film quickly turned into a franchise that gave icons a chance to return to the big screen to kick ass along side Stallone. Actors like Dolph Lundgren, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Chuck Norris returned to the big screen for the first time in over a decade with The Expendables films. Two sequels eventually followed in 2012 and 2014 to box office success. The Expendables series is also important because it gave Arnold Schwarzenegger his chance to return to action cinema after his long stint as the Governor of California. Schwarzenegger quickly followed up with numerous films (The Last Stand, Sabotage, Terminator: Genisys) that set out to prove that an aged ass kicker like himself could still be awesome despite his age. Even though Stallone called all of the old guys back to the big screen, Schwarzenegger cemented their return.

Several other aged actors followed suit and began devoting their careers to action cinema too. Aged character actor Danny Trejo eventually found big screen stardom in Machete, which also saw the big screen return of icon Steven Seagal for the first time since 2001's Exit Wounds. Denzel Washington (age 60) also started to commit his career to action films in the early 2000s. It's important to note that four of his last five films since 2010 have all been action films: The Book of Eli, Safe House, 2 Guns, and The Equalizer. Although this analysis is mainly of American cinema, international action icons like Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Chow Yun Fat continued to star in action films despite nearing elder age. Therefore, it seems that even the international icons have stuck around to kick ass. However, action cinema is a whole other story in foreign countries because new talent consistently pops up and breaks out in a big way (i.e. Tony Jaa, Donnie Yen, Wu Jing, Byung Hun Lee, etc).

Keanu Reeves (age 50) also returned to action in a big way with action films like The Man of Tai Chi and John Wick despite abandoning the genre for a good portion of his career after failures like Constantine and Street Kings. Kevin Costner also returned to action with films like 3 Days to Kill in which he played an aged secret agent who was stricken with cancer, another sign of old age. Even Academy Award winning actors Sean Penn and Collin Firth got into the action game with leading action performances in The Gunman and Kingsman: The Secret Service.

Expendables 4? Let's do it!

As much as I enjoy several of these actors and their films, I think that they all need to take a hint from Eastwood in order to survive. Let me explain. Eastwood understood that he had reached the end of his physical ass kicking days. Therefore, his films addressed his age and humanized the mythic and iconic ass kicker. Instead of trying to be hip and cool to the times, Eastwood structured his action films around his age, thereby earning the respect of critics and audiences alike. Why do you think Clint Eastwood is still remembered as an immortal action icon yet actors like Stallone and Schwarzenegger are remembered as being once great action icons? It's because Eastwood has never been afraid to address his age. Stallone on the other hand tries to make himself as hip, funny, and cool as possible by injecting his Expendables films with lots of self aware humor. He has since devolved into lazy action filmmaking despite showcasing an Eastwood-esque level of maturity in Rocky Balboa, Rambo, and some of the first Expendables film.

This article could go on forever. I could possibly engage in a conversation about why modern audiences don't care about these aged action icons as much as they do superheroes, but that's more of a conversation about blockbuster cinema in general. Therefore, I hope that this article helped you realize that the aged ass kicker is back and not going anywhere. That is, until they die...