Three movies, three very different cosmologies. And all the heroes must risk life and limb to even make it to the end of the story.
The “Miami Vice” television show of the 80s featured “cool” actors playing laconic, iconic homicide detectives in a Miami filled with pastel colors, sun-splashed beaches, and upscale private harbors. Sunglasses required, jacket optional, repartee sparse.
In the 2006 film version, there is no such light touch. It’s all dark, intense, brooding, and edgy. They still have the fast cars, fast boats, and fast women, but somehow it’s less fun and carefree, and more desperately anxious. “Sonny” Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) must rescue their love interests and themselves amid a hail of automatic weapons fire and ear-splitting explosions, after going undercover to expose an international drug-smuggling ring. But the real borrowing is not from the 80s TV show, but from all the James Bond plots: infiltrate the bad guy’s lair by seducing his girlfriend. Between the clipped, brusque, rough-edged dialogue, the gratuitous violence, and the all the collateral damage, nobody will leave this one feeling uplifted. Just drained.
In the animated feature “The Ant Bully,” there is still a lot of collateral damage (the ant hill is assaulted by both a water hose and bug spray), but we’re working hard toward a child-friendly moral to this story.
A little boy, bullied by the neighborhood kids, vents his frustration on the anthill in his front yard. Through a magic potion concocted by the ant wizard, the little boy is transformed into an ant-sized human, and is then taken inside the ant colony in order to work on his … ant-ness. We all know what happens next: the little boy matures as he learns from the ants not only cooperation, but also affection. When he is returned to his human state, he’s much kinder and gentler. The only thing that prevents this well-meaning morality tale from being too tedious is the stunning artwork combined with the engaging voice talents of veteran stars like Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, and Lily Tomlin.
But star power is depended upon a little too much in “Scoop.” Woody Allen, always playing himself, wisely made “Match Point” without his appearance, or his heavy-handed direction. In “Scoop,” he returns to his old ways of believing too much in his own jokes, and making the people around him sound too much like himself. He even manages to un-glamorize Scarlett Johansson, which is not easy. She plays a journalism student who allows herself to be seduced by a manor-born Jack the Ripper (played gamely by Hugh Jackman), but the plot is subservient to the vaudeville. An interesting subplot is that a dead man (Ian McShane) gets to jump off the boat on the River Styx, silently presided over by the Grim Reaper, in order to sound a warning in the land of the living. But, of course, nobody believes him, anyway, which is exactly what Jesus said would happen when he tells his parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31).
In Woody’s world, the meek may not inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5), but they solve its problems by stumbling, stuttering, bumbling, muttering, and muddling their way through. A little of that shtick goes a long way.
Three movies, three very different cosmologies. In “Miami Vice,” the world is a fierce and cruel and foreboding place where evil is defeated by being “badder” than the bad guys. In “The Ant Bully,” the world can be both miserable and dangerous, but relationships and cooperation can overcome selfish isolationism. In “Scoop,” just keep on cracking jokes, stepping on each other’s lines, and making yourself vulnerable, and you, too, can expose the dastardly villain, and still look gentle but brilliant, unprepossessing, and vaguely incompetent, like some scatter-brained academic on a caffeine high.
Questions For Discussion:
1) Do you think that undercover operations are necessary to ensnare criminals?
2) Have you had a humbling experience that has made you more compassionate?
Ron Salfen is pastor of First Church, Terrell, Texas.
