Armageddon Time (2022) – 3/5

Karmageddon

„Armageddon Time“ is an American production in the English language, but not only USA as I just saw that this film is also a Brazilian co-production and that surprises me a lot. I did not see any indicator in the cast, plot or people who made this. At least not in terms of the director and there is also no Portuguese language in here. On one occasion, an older character uses the word „Mensch“ two or three times, but I am not sure if this already passes for German language to be included here. Anyway, this film runs for almost two hours and the writer and director is James Gray, who is in his early 50s now and this movie here adds more quality to his already pretty strong body of work. Like has he made a single movie that did not get a mostly positive reception from critics and audiences? Maybe the fact that I am a bit enthusiastic when it comes to his works also has to do with how much I like Joaquin Phoenix and this actor is busy with the second Batman film right now and he did not star in this film here. But he has a long history of collaborations with Gray. Gray also did not really need him here. He could have played the character that was portrayed by Jeremy Strong maybe and this would have been the only fit age-wise I assume. But Strong did a really good job too and it is telling that he is the one receiving some awards recognition for his turn here and not one of the three Oscar winners that are also part of this film. These would be Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Chastain. Hathaway is first credit here on imdb which definitely confuses me a bit because she was rather one of the biggest supporting players. The one and only lead here is teen actor Banks Repeta and he is also harvesting some honors from critics groups and awards bodies that have young-actor-only categories.

Anyway, Hathaway plays the main character’s mother. Hopkins plays the main character’s grandfather and the father of Hathaway’s character and Jessica Chastain, like Hopkins a very recent Oscar winner, only has a one-scene performance in which she plays the sister of Donald Trump during her younger years and gives a speech. The Trumps being there closely connected to the better, more well-off school is also another indicator of how we are not supposed to see this school as something positive and desirable. But it is not simply all black-and-white either in the sense that we are supposed to see the original school as the place where the young man belongs. On the contrary, the one and only teacher there about whom we are getting some information is also not a good guy at all and even a bit on the racist side with how he treats the Black boy. Still, even if we are supposed to see the latter as a good kid who just got lost in the system, it must be said that this young man is not too likable either. At least from my perspective. Look at how he constantly insults his teacher, how he brings drugs to the school, even if he did not know what those were exactly and so on. Also the scene when he leaves his confused friend behind in the subway without saying anything was not too nice. I mean you can find apologies for him though like how the two Black men in the subway tell him that he will never become something great because of his color and they must know right? So it is also about lost dreams there and a kid so full of ambitions, but reality gets in the way for him. Let me emphasize again that here I am not talking about the main character, but his best friend. The main character always seems to have his head a bit in the clouds. We see that during one scene when he dreams of a painting he made and how this painting becomes part of the permanent exhibition at the Guggenheim museum. Towards the end, he also imagines his friend as an astronaut and himself as a renowned painter, but then reality strikes again and at least in terms of his friend, he could not be any more wrong. They say he will never see him again. The Black boy is maybe on the road to becoming nothing more than a career criminal. Tough times back then for non-White kids and the film is set several decades in the past.

The only aspect in this relationship between the students that I did not like too much was how the protagonist seemed to have changed a bit too quickly when he sees his friend again after a little while and barely wants to talk to him. But this was just a temporary inclusion. The shame he felt because of his new friends was not explanation enough from my perspective. Immediately afterwards, however, they are good buddies again. That felt more like it. Now I wanna talk about some the other characters, the males in particular. Anthony Hopkins‘ character is almost too good to be true, even when he does some swearing. The really nice and tolerant and caring grandfather. Not only is he not a racist like others his age, one female for example, but towards the end we also find out how he had no problem at all with Strong’s character marrying his daughter despite the man’s simple family background and he was the only one who did not mind. So Hopkins‘ character held the family together through kindness and when he is dead and gone eventually, then this is one explanation maybe why Strong’s character says in the car near the end that he will not beat his son again and instead try to choose the path of wisdom and compassion. This was surely inspired by Hopkins‘ character. Things looked very different before that with what happened after the drug abuse sequence at school. Completely away from that, I also really enjoyed the music in this film. All kinds of nice inclusions, no matter if we are talking about a song sung by a father to his boy in the morning, if we are talking about the music of the band that the two boys wanna see perform or if we are talking about some familiar classic tunes being used here. Tchaikovsky was a highlight. This film is a good watch, but also a nice listen.

Now let’s get back to the plot: On a few occasions, you can see the family at the center of the story follow their country’s political events. It was set around the time when Ronald Reagan was elected president and they do not like him at all. So they are Democrats and not Republicans. From today’s Hollywood perspective, we are supposed to see them as such kind people. They still do not want their son to be in touch with the Black kid for example, but this is not because they despise people of color, but rather because of the disadvantages that might occur for their son because other people despise people of color. This way you could summarize it. The N word is used at his school, but it is not used at his home. Or when it is, then people stand up against such a comment. Standing up against racial injustice is something that is crucial in this movie. Just take the words of Hopkins‘ character in his last scene. Or penultimate scene I could say if we count the one towards the end when he reappears briefly through the boy’s imagination. That penultimate scene was also very much worth watching for other reasons, namely with how grandfather and son spend some quality time together there one last time and the boy launched a rocket that was a present from the old man. The way the boy screamed there with excitement and joy was quite awesome. Like you could really feel the magic it brought to the kid’s life there. He got many presents from him indeed. There is another occasion that was nice and also it was funny what the boy called his grandpa there in this scene. There are also sad moments though and these involve Hathaway’s character. She knows her father is getting worse and will not be around for much longer. Cancer therapy was also not even close to how far it is developed nowadays in the 2020s, but even now so many people are dying from it. So we understand that she knew he would not make it when she started bawling almost while talking to her son or how she sits there in the car when the boy and his grandfather have this rocket moment or of course it is also sad when the entire family is united with the old man in bed after surgery, even if there I still kinda expected that Hopkins‘ character could stay alive until the end of the film. He did not.

Nonetheless, despite these moments of tragedy, I never got too emotional watching this one I must say. It was not really a film that touched me and I found the elaboration on society almost more interesting than the characters‘ individual struggles. If you can keep these two apart from each other anyway. They are of course intertwined. There was also one moment involving Strong’s character that stayed in the mind for me namely when he tells his son that he wants him to have a better life than his own. Nicely done. They are no bad people, the challenges for them just simply become too much at times and this results in unpleasant escalations here and there. Another problem for the protagonist is of course that he does not really have a good relationship with his older brother. There was hardly a moment of harmony between these two. That is also why he often felt so alone and struggled in making a connection with anybody and this was luckily when his new Black friend entered the picture. It was kinda funny how they became friends through massive coincidence, on the one hand with the two being punished at the same time for bad behavior, on the other hand the Black boy having to repeat a year. Otherwise, they never would have met. That is pretty much it then. I think it was an alright film, but really enthusiastic over it I am not. Seeing it once is enough and I felt as if all the others in the room of my screening thought the same. I may of course be a bit biased because of my Phoenix preference, but I’d say that Gray has done better in the past. Still I have a bit of a feeling that one of his next projects could really blow up and also result in him getting an Academy Award nomination for directing. „Armageddon Time“ I give a thumbs-up.