Posts tagged Hanna
“Hanna” Bad Premise, Worse Execution
May 12th
(“Bad Premise, Worse Execution”)
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Hanna is one of those movies whose filmmakers believe they are being clever by making the movie come full circle from beginning to end, just as they must have believed they could make the story more interesting by omitting important details.
And the premise is so simple that the one-sentence pitch to studio executives could easily have been “Sixteen-year-old girl as James Bond.”
Then just to turn the story on its head even more, the Bad Guys in this movie are usually the Good Guys in a James Bond film.
Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, who received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of the “evil sister” in the 2007 Atonement.
When we first see Hanna, she is living with her father, played by Eric Bana, in a cabin in the wilds of northern Finland, where they have been living for 15 years and he is training her for some sort of life-or-death mission.
In fact, he tells her, “She won’t stop until you’re dead. Or she is.”
“She” is Marissa Wiebling, played by Cate Blanchett using a Texas accent that is so phony it is laughable, and Hanna’s father and Marissa have a history that we get only a glimpse of in one flashback.
We eventually learn that Hanna’s father used to be a CIA agent until something went wrong, and that is why he and Hanna are hiding out in northern Finland, because Marissa and her fellow CIA agents are still searching for them.
However, when Hanna believes she is ready, she activates a signal that identifies her location to Marissa, and Hanna’s father then takes off after confirming with Hanna where they will meet in Berlin.
So, Hanna is captured, and then the movie gets even more ridiculous.
Hanna escapes from Marissa in a gruesome and unbelievable scene, but she discovers that she is in Morocco, and she must somehow get to Berlin without any money.
In other words, the movie becomes an absurd chase movie.
As a matter of fact, the movie goes from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous and then to be so ridiculous that it is laughable and finally forgettable.
The premise is bad, and the execution is worse.
Hanna is a quite elaborate rendition of a simple story made more complicated by the omission of significant details.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Hanna – Movie Trailer
May 12th
Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is 16 years old. She is bright, inquisitive, and a devoted daughter. Uniquely, she has the strength, the stamina, and the smarts of a soldier; these come from being raised by her widowed father Erik (Eric Bana), an ex-CIA man, in the wilds of North Finland. Erik has taught Hanna to hunt, put her through extreme self-defense workouts, and home-schooled her with only an encyclopedia and a book of fairy tales. Hanna has been living a life unlike any other teenager; her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. But out in the world there is unfinished business for Hanna’s family, and it is with a combination of pride and apprehension that Erik realizes his daughter can no longer be held back.
“The Reader” Dealing with Guilt
Jan 7th
Dealing with Guilt
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE READER is a searing examination of guilt and not as straightforward as you might think it is from reading about it.
Starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, the film questions how one’s life can be tragically affected by keeping a secret or by not revealing all of the truth.
In other words, how does one deal with guilt and shame?
The film begins in 1995 Berlin, but then it uses flashbacks to jump back and forth between 1995 and 1958, when the story begins.
We meet 15-year-old Michael Berg, who becomes sick and throws up in the entryway to an apartment building. A young woman in her thirties named Hanna Schmitz lives there, and she stops to help him.
Michael ends up with scarlet fever, and when he is able to leave his room, his parents tell him that he must go back and thank Hanna, which he does, as well as taking her some flowers.
However, before they know it, they wind up in bed together, which prompts Hanna to say, “So, that’s why you came back.”
Michael becomes a regular visitor, and when Hanna learns what he is studying in school, she asks him to read to her, eventually making their routine that first he reads to her and then they make love.
It takes three such visits before Michael even learns Hanna’s name, and she usually refers to him as “Kid.”
This goes on for quite some time, but one day when Michael arrives at Hanna’s apartment, she is gone and has moved out without having told him.
Then we jump to 1966, and Michael is in Heidelberg Law School. The class attends the trial of six female guards of a Nazi concentration camp in World War II, and Michael is shocked to see that Hanna is one of the former guards on trial.
Watching the trial and hearing the testimony, Michael comes to a realization about Hanna that he had never suspected during all the time that they had been together that wonderful summer eight years before.
And as the trial progresses, Michael watches Hanna withhold information that could have helped her defense, and then he struggles with himself over whether he should provide that important information that could help her.
THE READER is much more than just a story about lost love and dealing with guilt.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
