8 Mile (2002)

I was about eight when I first heard of Eminem and fell in love with his music. I didn't understand the lyrics as I didn't speak English at the time, but I loved them nevertheless. So I was pretty excited when 8 Mile aired on TV a year later —no way my parents would bring me to see this. Also, I doubt my tiny town showed this— and I loved it. I rewatched it many times over the years, I rewatched it now and I still love it. 

Set in 1995 Detroit, the story follows Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith Jr. (Eminem), a young, unhappy white blue-collar worker who, after breaking up with his girlfriend (Taryn Manning), returns to his mother's (Kim Basinger) trailer park home and her young boyfriend (Michael Shannon). While struggling in every single aspect of his life, he tries to make a name for himself in the African-American dominated underworld hip-hop world. 

There's no secret that this is a loose adaptation of Eminem's rise from the ghetto of Detroit as there are many parallels between the rapper's roots and aspirations and that of Jimmy. That said, it's still a fictional story, an interesting, compelling and rather inspirational one about dreams and hard work and not settling for what you can have because it's easier but fight for what you want. It still has its flaws as it's pretty formulaic and predictable and the romantic subplot involving Brittany Murphy doesn't really go anywhere, but overall it's gripping and enjoyable. 

The characters, on the other hand, are a bit of a letdown. In fact, while Jimmy is decently written and comes across as a decent, regular guy who is trying to survive and make his dream come true, and his alcoholic, miserable and abusive mother, Stephanie, has more humanity and likeability than expected and their crumbling relationship is quite compelling, the rest of the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes with no development whatsoever —the member of the rival gang led by Anthony Mackie's Papa Doc are completely devoid of personality. Brittany Murphy's Alex does have a bit more dimension and depth but the way they developed the character is awful. Also, it makes no sense for Jimmy's ex-girlfriend, Janeane, to be in the film.

Universal Pictures

As for the performances, Kim Basinger gives a solid performance as the white trash mother, and Michael Shannon kind of steals the show as Stephenie's lazy boyfriend, but the standout, believe it or not, is Eminem. While it's not an Oscar-worthy performance as he's basically playing a fictionalized version of himself, he gives the character depth and complexity and makes him likeable.

L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson does a nice job as he infuses the film with a gritty, dark atmosphere and the cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto enhances it and gives the film more authenticity. The soundtrack, which includes Oscar-winning "Lose Yourself", is fantastic —but of course, you have to like the genre to enjoy it.

12 Strong (2018)

I'm not the biggest fan of war movies and I usually avoid them, especially when I haven't heard much about them, whether it's good or bad things. 12 Strong stars Chris Hemsworth though and there's also Michael Shannon in it so I gave it a chance. 

The film tells the true story of a US Special Forces team, led by Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth), who, weeks after 9/11, was sent into Afghanistan to retaliate. There they form an alliance with an Afgan warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban), in order to fight a common enemy, the Taliban, and secure the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif. And they have to face off tanks and rockets on horseback.

And that's basically the reason 12 Strong was made, to bring to the screen a heroic and inspiring true story which to me, someone who is not American, looks like yet another propaganda against the Middle East and Islam in general that highlights how Americans saved another country and civilians from terrorists. 

If I were to leave that out, 12 Strong still wouldn't be nothing but a barely average war movie. The story isn't consistently engaging. It's interesting at first but it eventually becomes quite boring, and if it wasn't for Hemsworth's charisma, I would have probably stopped watching. Also, the story isn't even that moving. 

The characters are pretty basic and by that I mean that we learn pretty much nothing about them, with the three main characters being three strangers to us. We learn that they all have a family, period. They have no depth whatsoever and it's kind of hard to care about for them.

In spite of the lacklustre screenplay, the actors do a pretty good job overall. As I mentioned above, Hemsworth is charismatic and makes for a pretty good lead; Michael Shannon is a bit underused but he's great as always and Michael Peña brings some comic relief. 

Warner Bros. Pictures, Lionsgate

The action, on the other hand, is pretty good. If you are expecting 2 hours of pure action, you'll be disappointed. If you are expecting some intense and realistic action sequences, you won't be disappointed. It's a little confusing to watch at times because of the shaky camera you can't always tell who is who, but the sequences are pretty good.

Overall, 12 Strong isn't a terrible movie but it's definitely too long and quite boring. If you want to see something more compelling, watch Michael Bay's 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.

 

Fahrenheit 451 (2018)

I read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 last year and to say that I loved it is a little reductive. I'm not the only one who feels that way about Bradbury's novel and therefore turning it into a good movie was not easy. That said, I had high expectations for HBO's Fahrenheit 451 because of the network's resources and the cast, especially the cast. Unfortunately, it's a misfire.

Set in a distant future, when books are banned and firefighters, in order to destroy them, start fires instead of putting them out, the film follows Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan), a young fireman who does his job without questioning believing that's the right thing to do. One day, while on his job, Guy witnesses something terrible and begins to question his task. 

While the basic plot points from Bradbury's novel are here, there are many changes --that Hollywood ending, seriously?!-- and some parts were completely left out which gives the film a feeling of incompleteness. In spite of that, the film was off to a good start. In fact, the first part is pretty engaging and enjoyable but eventually, the lazy writing took over and the story no longer interested me, it only bored me.

I did like, however, the filmmakers decided to make the story more suitable to our times by incorporating modern technologies, especially live streaming.  Still, I'm not sure having the internet in a story like this makes a lot of sense. And it also made it look like a Black Mirror episode. 

The characters are another problem as they completely lack development. Guy Montag's motives are not clear at all. Also, the filmmakers left out Montag's wife and replaced her with an uninteresting love interest which took away from the character a layer of depth --and it would have been much appreciated here. 

HBO

In spite of that, Michael B. Jordan still manages to carry the film and give a pretty good performance as the leading character. Michael Shannon's performance, on the other hand, is much greater. He once again gives an excellent performance as he truly captures the character of Captain Beatty and delivers the character's evil, satanic presence. 

In addition to Jordan and Shannon's strong performances, Fahrenheit 451 has quite beautiful visuals. It does feel like they were trying to replicate Blade Runner 2049 but the dark and gritty cinematography and the futuristic neon aesthetics are very beautiful to look at.