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REVIEW: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Brings Sweaty Substantiality To Entertaining, Exasperating Premium Rush

The indomitable bike messenger played by  Joseph Gordon-Levitt in  Premium Rush is named Wilee, as in Wile E. Coyote, the less successful half of Looney Tunes’ eternal desert chase duo.  A few minutes into the movie, however,  it becomes clear he’s more like the Road Runner:  Wiry and whippet thin, Wilee darts through Manhattan traffic on his fixed gear bike — chain lock wrapped around his waist — thumbing his nose at the NYPD and evading the dogged pursuit of corrupt detective Bobby Monday ( Michael Shannon ). No Chamois Ass is he. Though Wilee is introduced via a spectacular slow-motion crash set to the sunny opening strains of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” he carries himself through most of the film with a cartoonish sense of imperviousness that could be interpreted as a death wish even before he gets entangled with dirty cops and Chinese gangsters. A favorite trick of the film — directed by David Koepp ( Secret Window ,  Stir of Echoes ) from a screenplay he wrote with John Kamps— has Wilee mentally projecting different paths through tight situations until he susses out the one that doesn’t leave him smeared on the sidewalk. It’s a device that underscores the character’s precarious vulnerability as he jockeys with all of the heavy metal vehicles careening through the streets of New York. This fuels the chase sequences with excitement and a looming sense of consequence. It’s a good thing too, since the bulk of the film consists of one kind of heart-pounding pursuit or another. Premium Rush is a half-entertaining, half-exasperating movie — one that sells you on the notion of New York bike messengers as great fodder for cinema but then doesn’t know how to build a feature around them. It barely has enough forward motion to make it through its 91-minute run time and spins its wheels — pun totally intended — with sequences (like one in an impound lot) that feel like blatant filler. Premium Rush  bobs and weaves stylistically using backward jumps in time to fill in plot details and cuts to a Google Maps-style city grid that establishes the locations of the characters — but ultimately there’s only so much you can do on a bike. The movie tends to get muddled and laggy when the characters hop off their two-wheelers to actually talk, because they’re not good at talking. This is the kind of film in which you constantly find yourself thinking that a particular bit of trouble could have been avoided by characters either coming clean about their problems or yelling for help when the bad guys roll their way. Wilee turns out to be a Columbia Law School grad who chooses to ride all day rather than take the bar exam because, he explains in voiceover, “I can’t work in an office.” (The crushing student loans he has to be shouldering apparently aren’t burdening his free spirit.) He’s got a fellow messenger girlfriend named Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and a professional and romantic rival in the muscular Manny (Wolé Parks), who dares to have gears on his bike. The main action in Premium Rush takes place from around 5pm to 7pm, as Wilee heads uptown to his alma mater to pick up a package from Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) that Bobby is very anxious to intercept. What’s in the package isn’t worth going into — it’s a means for the film to travel to a number of distinctly New York locations. Premium Rush depicts the city as vibrant and lived-in, from the dive bar where bike messengers gather (to watch an extremely intimate live show by the band Sleigh Bells) to a plant-lined street in the flower district, to the back-room Chinatown gambling den where wry bookies and hoods watch the impulsive Bobby dig himself a deep hole playing pai gow. Shannon has a great time chewing the scenery as the off-the-rails detective, and Gordon-Levitt continues to prove that he’s an intriguingly unconventional action hero, albeit one who comes across as a little smug in this movie. That said, he brings a sweaty substantiality to the scenes of Wilee diving through traffic against a light or hitching a ride on a cab. Like seasoned Manhattan cyclists, Gordon-Levitt  rides as if his bike is an extension of his body. While the film’s pop psychologizing about Wilee’s choice of wheels would make even the most devoted of fixie fanatics roll their eyes — he doesn’t want to stop, and he can’t, because he doesn’t believe in brakes — there’s definite  romance to be found here in the whirling of spokes, the communing of man and machine, and the crazy freedom of cutting through a dense urban landscape like sleek fish easily navigating the currents of a stream. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter.  Follow Movieline on Twitter.

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REVIEW: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Brings Sweaty Substantiality To Entertaining, Exasperating Premium Rush

Frankenweenie To Open London Film Festival; Tony Scott Memorial Set For This Weekend: Biz Break

Also in Thursday morning’s round up of news briefs, Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock scores a CNN show. For the first time, the Venice Film Festival will screen some of its films via the internet alongside their premieres. And a boxing pic is in the works for a Red Riding Hood actor. London Film Festival to Open with Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie The 56th BFI London Film Festival will open October 10th with Burton’s latest. The European premiere of Frankenweenie , taking place at the Odeon Leicester Square, will screen at 30 screens across the U.K. The festival will also host The Art of Frankenweenie Exhibition from October 17 – 21. Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Landau, Producer Allison Abbate and Executive Producer Don Hahn are expected to attend the festival. Around the ‘net… Tony Scott Memoria to Take Place this Weekend A private memorial for the British-born filmmaker who died from an apparent suicide last weekend will take place this weekend. A statement from the director’s spokesperson said: “Tony Scott will be honoured at a private, family-only ceremony this weekend in Los Angeles. The family will announce plans after Labor Day for a gathering to celebrate the life and work of Mr Scott. Details will be forthcoming once they are formalized,” The Guardian reports . Super Size Me Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock Joins CNN Spurlock’s Inside Man series will debut in April 2013 on the network. Along with Anthony Bourdain’s new CNN series, Spurlock’s show will take the viewer to “fascinating corners of American society,” and is expected to air Sunday evenings, Deadline reports . Venice to Screen ‘Horizons’ Films to Stream Worldwide 500 “seats” will be available to viewers via the internet to view the films in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section. Each film in the section, which features 10 features and 13 shorts from new and young filmmakers will be available to the limited audience for $5.25 per film and available for 24 hours starting at 9pm Italian time on the day of the film’s screening, Deadline reports . Red Riding Hood Actor Eyes Boxer Pic Shiloh Fernandez will portray the five-time world champion Johnny Tapia in biopic Johnny about the five-time world champion boxer. Eddie Alcazar is directing the indie, written by Bettina Gilois, THR reports .

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Frankenweenie To Open London Film Festival; Tony Scott Memorial Set For This Weekend: Biz Break

Kevin Costner: The Latest Movie Star Reborn?

17 years after Waterworld , is Kevin Costner back in the game? “[The] Movie Star is dead. But Costner is catching a wave that is still building, a trend that is still sinking into the cultural psyche — he’s re-emerging not as Kevin Costner, Movie Star, but as Kevin Costner, Portrayer of Memorable Characters. This is the way forward for actors in a star-less world… These days, I don’t think a true star can break through unless it’s on the back of a signature character…This is the future. This is the Movie Star’s second act. It’s not about the star anymore. Now it’s about the Celebrity Character.” [ Lainey Gossip ]

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Kevin Costner: The Latest Movie Star Reborn?