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Tis week’s picks include Apatow delivers an affectionate – and overdue – portrait of the 99-year-old comedy genius. Plus, Marvel satirises its superheros with Wonder Man and Patrick Dempsey delivers a killer leading man.
Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man! ★★★★ (HBO Max)
Not every documentary needs to be a revelation – sometimes a reminder is equally valuable. Made with an affectionate but nonetheless keen eye, this narrative about the life and lines of comic genius Mel Brooks shows not just the laughs that come from being one of the funniest people alive but also the dedication, anxiety and drive that accompany the humour. Seeking the public spotlight since the 1950s, Brooks has been a delight for so long that he’s become taken for granted. This two-part series thankfully corrects that.
Brooks, who turns 100 in June, is still a spry presence and his faculties retain an inventive hum. Filmmaker Judd Apatow, who directs with Michael Bonfiglio, interviews Brooks but 99-Year-Old Man deliberately stitches together sequences from Brooks’ lengthy public life. The same anecdote is recalled from interviews in different decades, as a who’s who of chat-show hosts – Johnny Carson, Michael Aspel and Andrew Denton – happily cede the floor to Brooks. It’s touching watching him age on screen while maintaining such impeccable timing.
The structure is chronological. Melvin Kaminsky was born in a Brooklyn tenement in 1926 and, as one future collaborator says, he mistook the doctor’s initial slap for applause and hungered for more. The Jewish-American experience shaped him, as did fighting in World War II, before the excellent archival footage and retrospective interviews follow Brooks from television gag writer to hit movies such as The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. “There’s a great energy that fear can create,” he simply notes.
Interviews with the likes of Adam Sandler and Conan O’Brien celebrate Brooks but the documentary does a fine job of drawing out not just Brooks’s absurd innovations but what they more broadly came to stand for. He believed in laughter as a salve, defying authoritarianism through satire and the value of kindness. Brooks never punched down with his mockery but, even when he grew serious in discussing his sometimes-divisive work, the astuteness doesn’t preclude self-deprecation. Lots of lessons here for contemporary artists.
The timeline becomes steadily more bittersweet as Brooks grows old. His beloved second wife, the Academy Award-winning actress Anne Bancroft, died in 2005, while his best friend of 70 years, fellow comic actor and filmmaker Carl Reiner (Rob’s father), passed away in 2020 during one of the pair’s nightly dinners together. A grieving Brooks kept going to Reiner’s house for dinner in the months afterwards, trying to hold on to their connection. That Brooks recounts these devastating losses with great pluck is another of his many achievements. This excellent documentary captures most of them.
Wonder Man ★★★ (Disney+)
A satire about struggling actors and the ludicrous Hollywood inequality they’re trying to get around doesn’t sound like a particularly original idea, but when you plug it into the dour world of Marvel superheroes it’s actually a welcome change of pace. Created by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and Andrew Guest (Community), Wonder Man is a shaggy comic-drama about fulfilling your dream. Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) doesn’t want to be a superhero; he just wants to play one.
There’s still quite a bit of lore behind this eight-part series, starting with Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), a British actor whose addiction had him playing the fake super-villain the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. Apparently this is a world with both real superpowers and Marvel’s actual superhero movies, but the dissonance is slight because Abdul-Mateen II and Kingsley are quite good together as buddies united by their obsessive love of acting and skilful self-sabotage of their respective careers.
The result has strands of Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys and Apple TV’s The Studio: I laughed when a rival actor is said to have an advantage because he was “Paul Thomas Anderson’s surfing instructor”. Inevitably, superpowers and their suppression come to the fore, along with familial tension, CGI sequences and underwritten female roles. But the droll outlook and unlikely thespian bromance win out. Just.
The Wrecking Crew ★★★(Amazon Prime Video)
With a script by Your Friends & Neighbours creator Jonathan Tropper, this action-comedy starring Dune co-stars Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista as estranged brothers investigating their father’s suspicious death in Hawaii has enough 1990s throwback charm to rise above its contemporaries. Momoa and Bautista, who respectively play a loose-cannon cop and disciplinarian special forces operative, have fun with the action sequences and put some genuine effort into the fractured sibling dynamic. Given how many cursory action films are cranked out for streaming these days, that’s a win.
Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart ★★★½ (Netflix)
Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 years old when she was kidnapped from her Utah home in 1987 and subsequently imprisoned and raped by her captor for nine months before being rescued, has made a calculation with this true-crime documentary. Benedict Sanderson’s feature-length report is conventionally structured, unfolding much how you would expect in this oversaturated genre. But in her interview, Smart speaks with remarkable clarity and emotional detail about what she experienced. As an advocate for missing persons, Smart’s using the biggest platform available to dispel myths, place blame appropriately and nudge lawmakers. It’s punishing, but she’s genuinely inspiring.
Drops of God (season 2) ★★★ (Apple TV)
Debuting in 2023, this fascinating cross-cultural drama defined niche streaming with a coolly expressive adaptation of the Japanese manga series about a fine wine-based battle between a late expert’s estranged French daughter, Camille (Fleur Geffrier), and his Japanese protege, Issei (Tomohisa Yamashita).
It was Rocky for sommeliers, slowly attracting a loyal audience through an oddly thrilling and satisfying arc. The new season, with fresh vino mysteries, finds the duo working together, instead of competing. The revised dynamic makes up for some storytelling repetition, allowing the show’s serene detail and distinct taste to flourish.
Memory of a Killer ★★ (Stan)
Has McDreamy become McNightmare? In this uninspiring American crime drama, one-time Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey jettisons his leading-man appeal, playing a covert hit man and soon-to-be grandfather named Angelo Doyle. A big-dad-energy photocopier salesman by day and sleek assassin by night, Angelo’s dual lives start to fragment as his cognitive functions decline. He’s forgetting things when his life depends on being precise, but the tenson is oddly bland and Dempsey is not suited to the professional killer role, especially when paired with Sopranos star Michael Imperioli as Angelo’s handler.
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