Arrested development: The Boys Are Back

Ace sportswriter Joe Warr (Clive Owen) left England, a wife and a child to live in Australia, the home of a lovely equestrienne whom he knocked up and fell in love with. But the equestrienne unexpectedly dies far too young and too quickly, and grief-stricken Joe’s left with a slightly weird little boy (Nicholas McAnulty) he doesn’t really know how to raise. Before long his first child, now a teen (George MacKay), suddenly decides to come down under to spend an indeterminate period with his long-lost pa, too. Joe, now pulling double duty as a full-timer, finds he’s in need of a philosophy of parenting. He opts for JUST SAY YES—the motto appears on his refrigerator in magnetic letters—and sets about proving that slovenly permissiveness and playtime all-the-time can be both fun and therapeutic.

Of course disaster awaits, though the predictable and perfunctory disaster is actually pretty minor, its fallout racking up a lot of air miles more than anything else. Adapted by Allan Cubitt from Simon Carr’s memoir, The Boys Are Back is somewhat shapeless, meandering its way through Joe’s widower’s crisis without ever really being as hard on the guy as it seems to think its being. Joe’s irresponsible about a lot of things and reveals himself to be a poor negotiator with both adults and children. He lets the little one run wild and do belly flops into hotel jacuzzis. He stamps off in a huff when his mother-in-law doesn’t offer to help him out at a moment’s notice. He does a lousy job of courting another single parent, roping her into babysitting before he ever takes her out on a date. So his flaws are laid out for us to survey and cluck our tongues at. Yet somewhere between the condensation of Carr’s book into movie form and Shine director Scott Hicks’ brimming affections for the all-too-likable Owen and the golden glow of the Australian countryside, urgency and a desirable edge evaporates.

At least Owen, himself a dad, not to mention the film’s executive producer, truly does seem to immerse himself into all this. I found myself resisting The Boys Are Back and then warming up to it, mainly due to Owen’s commitment to connecting with his young costars. We’re meant to look down on Joe’s refusal to judge and play the strict patriarch as much as we’re invited to smile along with it when it’s all harmless shenanigans. But the most interesting moments actually arise from Joe’s counterintuitive acceptance of his children’s more erratic behaviour, such as when McAnulty is disturbingly obtuse and unaffected by his mother’s death. Hicks frames a lot of scenes very prettily and softens their effect further by bathing them in cocoon-like songs from Sigur Rós, but when Owen’s face becomes stone cold and withdrawn, or when that icy exterior breaks and we sense a decision is made before it’s actually announced, something works here in spite of itself. You can probably tell that I like Owen very much as an actor, but I’m still not sure what to make of his career.

Worldly goods, worldly bads: Clive Owen follows the money in The International

“I’m from the Bronx, so you gotta make it simple,” says a soon to be disposed of INTERPOL agent. Discreetly poisoned, he collapses only moments after his Berlin rendezvous with a representative of the evil International Bank of Business and Credit. As fellow agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) rushes to his rescue—only to himself collapse after being knocked upside the head by a truck’s side mirror—we quickly reckon that the intrigue we’re about to be plunged into will be anything but simple. Yet The International, written by Eric Singer and directed by Tom Twyker, wants to cater to those intellectually self-effacing Bronx-dwellers and other ostensibly dopey audience members, so while the plot becomes more wildly convoluted with each passing scene, the glut of platitudes and expository dialogue will attempt counterbalance.

The IBBC trades in more than cash. They’ve cut deals with just about every multinational, hold ties with multiple government agencies, and are single-handedly backing an armed revolution in Liberia. Apt pupils of the shock doctrine, their goal is to cultivate conflicts and control incurred debt. Along the way they’ll force a few hands, if not cut them off. From a previous post at Scotland Yard to his current gig with the apparently ineffectual INTERPOL—the other International of the title—Salinger’s long been crusading to bring these jackals to justice. With the help of a Manhattan DA lawyer (Naomi Watts), Salinger may finally be closing in, valiantly following a series of brutal incidents that could lead to the top: an IBBC VP dies under questionable circumstances, an Italian arms manufacturer and presidential candidate is assassinated, a tailing operation leads to a major shootout in the Guggenheim.

There are splendid bits of character work, such as Salinger’s tendency to have his ears injured, this man who hears too much. There are riveting set pieces, the one in the Gug being especially bracing. There is a surprisingly sinister resolution implying that vigilantism maybe the only way of dealing with powers higher than governments, and there's something weirdly assuring in how it proves that criminal networks will ultimately take care of their own. There’s also an inspired cell phone gag, though elsewhere Twyker’s attempt to wring tension out of text messaging falls flat. And there’s a lot of dragging scenes out, with padded entrances and exits or yet another show-offy bird’s eye shot, even when the scenes in question aren’t very exciting or essential to the story. When it all comes together it’s a great coulda-beena-Bond part for Owen and a decent stab at exposing the perils of globalization, but the state of the dialogue doesn’t bode well for Singer’s prospects and Twyker has yet to recover from Perfume. He made his mark with Run Lola Run over a decade ago, and some—I for one haven’t kept up—argue he’s been smudging it ever since.