The Comeback Trail
****

This is a comedy based on a film that was made in 1982 by the same name that was made by the late Harry Hurwitz. This remake is written and directed by George Gallo. One of the producers of this film is the wife of the late Harry Hurwitz. She and Mr. Gallo were at the preview we attended run by Steven Farber in his series titled Reel Films.

The storyline and this well executed film really gives the viewer a sense of involvement and role of the producers in making a movie come into being, albeit this one being quite exaggerated and comedic. In this case, it is a story about an old country movie star who is brought out retirement from a retirement home for people in the film industry, to star in an exciting Cowboy and Indian film. Mixed into the storyline is a subplot about possibly murdering the comeback movie star so the producers can collect on a large insurance policy on the aging star. we did not mention that this movie stars Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Zach Braff. How can a film miss with such a cast?

***

The Intern -rm

Ann Hathaway plays Jules Ostin, a young attractive woman who is CEO of an Internet company that she founded from scratch that sells woman’s clothes that they guarantees they will fit. The company has blossomed to one that has more than 200 employees. The fearless leader is married to a modern bearded young man who gave up his successful job to stay at home and raise their delightful cute little girl. Robert Di Nero plays Ben Whittaker, a retired 70 year old widower, who had been a executive in a large company that sold and manufactured telephone books. Since his wife died he retired, has been looking for something to do and came across an ad for a internship program for senior citizen in the above described Internet company that was set up by one of the young executives who had the idea that maybe seniors might have some views to balance the point of view the young people running the Internet business. The Di Nero character gets assigned to the young woman CEO who seems too busy to even assign him a task as he patiently tries to find ways to be helpful. The story takes off from there.

While this could have been just a delightful comedy, it really became much more than that. The storyline examined the role of young women in today’s business world . Who should raise the children and don’t you really have to go all in if you are trying to make it in today’s competitive world with start up companies going boom or bust.? Also, is there a role for retired seniors in today’s business environment? Are they a resource that is forgotten and lost in the race to succeed?

The voice behind the production is Nancy Meyers, writer, director and frequently producer of many important movies that reflect the changing social times such as, Parent Trap, Somethings Gotta Give, Its Complicated, What Women Want. In this current film, the questions are raised but on one hand they aren’t very nuanced and yet the answers and conclusions are way too simple. However, when the stars and supporting cast which included Rene Russo, Adam DeVine, Zack Perlman, Anders Holm Nat Wolff, Linda Lavin and the little girl played by JoJo Kushner are all so superb, you can’t help having an enjoyable movie experience.(2015)

**

Limitless- rm We saw this movie in a mutiplex that shows Coming Attractions which they think will have special appeal to the audience that has chosen to see the main feature that is playing in that particular theatre. Therefore we should have been alerted to the genre of this movie when the  three Coming Attractions all showed people getting beaten up, bad guys being chased and one memorable clip where the police are getting ready to track down the criminals and one of them  says they are dangerous, have lots of guns and whatever you do, don’t let them get into cars ( followed by many car crashes ). Now our main feature started off on a very interesting note as the main protagonist, Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is shown as a writer with writer’s block who meets his ex-wife’s brother-in law in the street who  just happens to have a top secret drug which when taken will free up the 80% of a person’s brain power that they never really use. When Eddie takes his first pill he not only is able to quickly write a great book much to the surprise of his agent but he also  finds that he has perfect recall of anything he has ever seen, amazing powers of deduction and therefore the skills to do just about any thing he wants to do. Taking these pills on a regular basis of course give him the ability  to seduce women, make money in the financial markets  and figure out ways of defeating people who might be trying to hurt him. Not surprisingly there are people who are trying to hurt him, get the pills and use the powers. There is the requisite bad guy with the Russian accent (Andrew Howard) and an on again-off again girl friend (Abbie Cornish)  who one time has to take a pill to thwart someone about  to kill her, using her temporary boost in  brain power to reverse the tables on him. There is also Carl van Loon (Robert De Niro) a Warren Buffet type character who wants to use Morra to make even more money. This relatively small role of the wise old man character seems to be a reprise of some recent DeNiro castings and is  not worthy of his great talent.  We will grant that a good part of this movie was entertaining and held our  interest but it was not satisfying. Credit should be given to director Neil Burger and his team as they skillfully showed us in flashes the  images of the fleeting memories that were now being recaptured after taking the pill and were being used for some great intellectual or physical feat. Some of these special powers may have been communicated to the audience as  the ending of the film  gave us  the feeling that they may might be setting us up for a sequel, after all the potential of this theme is Limitless.(2011)