Bernell Dorrough

He doesn’t have the popularity of Steven Spielberg, the coolness of Quentin Tarantino, or even the creepiness of M. Night Shyamalan, but for those who enjoy movies, Curtis Hanson is synonymous with film making at its finest. If good storytelling, characters as complex as the BSC college football poll, and movies that don’t stuff their messages down your throat like baby food is your cup-o-tea, you could do much worse than checking out Curtis Hanson’s last three films.

8 Mile (2002)
Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Marshall Mathers, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer

One thing Hanson has a knack for is getting stellar performances from his lead actors. In no other movie was he more challenged than in “8 Mile.” Eminem’s onscreen presence in his first premiere role is reminiscent of James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.” More popular, perhaps, because of the star and the content, “8 Mile” is a familiar tale of youth trying to break out from the shackles of his environment. As Hanson’s most popular movie to date-it grossed more than $116 million domestically-”8 Mile” gave the director a chance to showcase, to a wider audience, some of his greatest skills: location shooting and character development. Filmed on location in Detroit, the film beautifully captures the horrid state of a city still in ruins from the aftermath of decades earlier race-riots. The ruins of the city prove to be the scars of those riots, each wrecked structure a contemporary mural representing the strict boundaries of the city’s race divisions, out of which arises the burgeoning art-form of hip-hop. The film’s core characters aren’t cool, or funny, and most don’t have any prospects beyond the city in which they live, but each is treated with respect-even the one who accidentally shoots himself in the groin. The film’s protagonist, Rabbit, finishes the movie a different man than he began it.

Wonder Boys (2000)
Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., Frances McDormand

Michael Douglas gives the best performance of his career in this odyssey of self-discovery through an abominable Pittsburgh, PA. Funny, tragic, and heartbreakingly true, “Wonder Boys” follows the trials and tribulations of Grady Tripp, a pot smoking college professor who, among other things, must deal with his wife leaving him, his pregnant girlfriend, one dead dog shot by his troubled student, one missing jacket worn by Marilyn Monroe, and one unfinished manuscript, which, at last check, is running at 2,611 pages. Near the beginning of the movie, a passing partygoer utters, “I thought it was more literary than cinematic.” This is Curtis Hanson’s take on his own film. A movie to be enjoyed on its own terms, but also a film about choices, this movie can satisfy both the casual movie-goer and even those eggheads among us who feel everything composed was meant to be analyzed. This is an amazing and immensely underappreciated film.

L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce

The best movie of its kind since “The Godfather,” this highly complex film made stars out of Russell Crowe and Guy Pierce. “L.A. Confidential” centers around three 1950s Los Angeles police officers (Pierce, Crowe, and Spacey), none of them morally absolute in their motives. The dichotomy between the brutal force of Crowe’s Officer Bud White, which typified the 1950s L.A.P.D., and the political ruthlessness of Pierce’s Sgt. Ed Exley (Exley, from Latin, translates into “above the law”), which would typify the force in the coming years, is, simply put, astounding. Both characters are driven by their will to help people, but the means by which they reach their respective ends affirms these characters’ place among the pinnacle of greatly flawed leading men. This is, indeed, film noir at its most literary. None can grasp the full weight of the picture through one sitting. “L.A. Confidential” poses the question: What is just? Is it shooting an unarmed rapist? Or is it bearing witness to your fellow officers’ brutal beating of retained suspects, which will ruin their careers while in turn advancing yours? During the first act, Captain Dudley Smith, played by James Cromwell, asks Sgt Exley, “Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back in order to offset the chance of some lawyer getting him off?” Exley’s answer to this question, during the film’s climax, creates one of the most ironic and visually striking metaphors in all of film. For this film-in which, out of police officers, district attorneys, and Hollywood moguls, the most moral character is the call girl-the headline of its poster truly reads correctly in its warrant that “Nothing Is What It Seems.”

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