Goliath 3: Literally Streaming Excellence

Goliath 3, steaming on Amazon Prime video, could have been written and directed by David Lynch, and I mean that as a compliment.  It has a singer in a nightclub characterizing the action or moving it along with a fine assortment of songs including "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "The Rose".  Believe it or not, she even gives a pretty good rendition of "In Dreams," twice no less.  Drug states easily and uneasily intermingle with the reality, a state of perception easily adduced to Billy Bob Thornton as attorney Billy McBride, and he's abetted by a great cast including all kinds of memorably seedy people, including even a Dennis in a big role, not Hopper but Quaid.

And the general plot couldn't be more pressingly relevant: a rapacious almond company literally sucking the water out of southern California.  As Patty Solis-Papagian (very well played by Nina Arianda), Billy's associate attorney in fighting the monsters, aptly puts it, they're working in "Satan's dusty ass crack".  This dry, druggy, alcohol-washed ambience is the most trenchant we've seen so far on Goliath.  (But I'd be happy to see Billy unknowingly drugged by his adversaries a little less often.)

Though this season stars a combination of water and the struggling lack of it, there's not a placid scene in the eight episodes.  Instead, we get a cascade of surprises, including plot twists, old enemies, comeuppances, and unexpected deaths and survivals.   It's a bracing, drenching, refreshing, and addictive season, which makes it an especially good thing that it's streaming (ok, that's it for the water references).  Kudos to the memorable heroes (Billy and Patty with the hard-to-pronounce last name) and memorable villains (Dennis Quaid as Wade, and Amy Brenneman as his sister Diana).  Highest recommendation.

See also Goliath 1 on Amazon: Law Drama as Its Meant to Be Seen ... Goliath 2: Truly Surprise Ending

Vantage Point: Flawed but Fine

Hey, I just saw Vantage Point on DVD. The critics didn't much like it, but, once again, I didn't much agree with them.

In fact, I thought Vantage Point was pretty good. Kept me guessing with good twists and lots of action. A refreshingly different kind of assassination movie - especially in tune with the complexities of our age, in which the bad guys are far from dummies.

Two points I did have a little trouble with -

1. William Hurt played both the President and his double. Now, I can understand the people in Spain, in the crowd, not knowing the difference. But the event was televised on GNN - a CNN equivalent - with close-ups to boot. How would the double, however much he looked and sounded like the President, have fooled the American people and everyone in the news business? (This flaw could have been dealt with by setting up the news coverage as unable, for whatever tech or security reason, to deliver close-ups of the President with decent sound.)

2. I guessed Matthew Fox (Agent Taylor) was the bad guy as soon as he told Dennis Quaid (Agent Barnes) that he, Fox, would check something out. Now, I think making Fox the bad guy was an ingenious move, given that we know him best as Jack Shephard on Lost, who is good, through and through. But something in that scene between Fox and Quaid gave it away, at least to me.

Nonetheless, if was a fine movie. With an especially good part played by Forest Whitaker, who never disappoints. (Also good to see Richard T. Jones - Agent Ellison from The Sarah Connor Chronicles - playing Agent Holden in Vantage Point.)

PS: My wife had trouble with an additional point in the movie: Why did the terrorists want to take the President alive? Didn't bother me, though. I thought that, with these more intelligent than usual terrorists, we're supposed to assume that they understand that holding a US President hostage gives you a better hand to play than killing the President.