Week Of October 30, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

October 30, 2006

It's been a while since we last saw Joe Carnahan, aside from the news reports of his exit from Mission: Impossible III. His second film, Narc, was made for $3 million, much of which didn't end up in the bank until months after production, leaving paychecks bouncing and dailies unseen for a long time. But the team held together, fighting to bring Carnahan's vision to the screen. And the leap from the $60,000 Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane to Narc was truly remarkable.

The leap from that film to Mission: Impossible III seemed even more profound. And as it turned out, Carnahan took a boatload of lessons from that experience... including the self respect and instinct for self preservation that led him to walk away (admittedly as the trap door beneath his feet may well have been ready to snap open).

But the exit from M:I3, which not only had him spinning his wheels for 16 months, but also seeing his truest passion project, Killing Pablo, put on hold, led to a new project. The result, Smokin' Aces, is in many ways the natural sequel to Blood, Guts. The film is a 2-hour-long third act of an action movie driven by characters who do crazy shit, as opposed to the current trend of crazy shit leading to occasional glimpses of character.

In the process, Carnahan got career redefining work out of Ryan Reynolds, Alicia Keys, Ben Affleck, and a raft of young pretty boys, a spectacular cameo from Jason Bateman and great, unexpected work from Jeremy Piven, who gets to bend his smooth-talking, fast-moving schtick into an exhausted, whipped, still dangerous, but definitively broken guy who teeters on the edge of reality and sanity.

It is still an imperfect work, as Carnahan has a few more films to make before he gets smoooooooth behind the camera. (On a project the size of MI:3, he would have had a lot of smoothing help.) But Carnahan is a performance-first guy. And he is certainly capable of making his points.

Smokin' Aces is one of those classic clock movies. "36 hours from now, this will all be over. Who will live? Who will die? Who will be left to give a shit?"

That quote is not from the movie, but it should be. Or something like it. The only thing missing from this non-stop-after-the-first-15-minutes-of-set-up movie is an urgent clock. In this case, it could literally be a clock.

In a way, the film's a bit like It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World... but with a highly-paid murder as bait instead of a cash fortune.

Universal asked about dozen journalists up to Lake Tahoe, to the hotel where much of the movie was shot, to see the film and hang out with Joe. And though I don't do many junkets or take many paid studio trips (maybe 2-4 a year), this was worth the effort (a trip of less than 36 hours, including 8 or 9 hours involved with travel) for me, just for Joe.

Carno is a guy's guy. He talks loud. He plays the room. And he speaks his truth.

No one left Lake Tahoe with questions about how Joe feels about the M:I3 experience and Tom Cruise. He can be brutally funny about The Man, but when he's not entertaining the room, he is pretty clear that he holds no deep grudge against Cruise. The process of not making the movie send Carnahan around the world with his family for extended periods, allowing them to travel in studio luxury and to learn the lessons that only the expected director of a $180 million film can learn. He got to know Team Cruisers and prominent screenwriting veterans like Bob Towne and Frank Darabont intimately... not to mention his writing partner on various happy drafts of M:I3, Tony Gilroy. He never did answer the question about whether his payout on the film was more or less than Scarlet Johansson's, but that was probably just because I didn't ask him loudly enough.

But the greatest lesson Carnahan seems to have taken from the M:I3 abortion is that he knows himself and the work he wants to do and the parameters of his willingness. He knew when he was fighting a losing battle and he can even tell you where in the finished version of M:I3 that JJ Abrams lost control to Cruise's producing instincts. And as sharp a stick in the eye as the lesson clearly was, Joe seems pleased to have had it, bigtime.

His passion for Killing Pablo remains first in his heart. The film is set up with Bob Yari at the moment, though they are looking for an additional studio in support. Actors continue to be drawn to the screenplay and the remarkable story. And he will get it done. As he says, he will get it done if he has to shoot it in a warehouse with a home video camera.

In the meanwhile, Carnahan has become a part of the Hollywood ecosystem. He has a place in Santa Monica in addition to his family home in Sac Town. Even his little brother, Matthew Carnahan is part of the game, with his first screen credit on The Kingdom due next year. (Peter Berg, who also appears in Smokin' Aces, directed that film.) But he is still Carno. He is still one of the good guys who reminds you that not everyone loses their mind when Hollywood opens its warm moist center to them. He doesn't have the edgy "fuck 'em all" thing going on either. It's not youthful hubris. It's a clear voice. He's a young director, but he has that thing that suggests he will be one of the hard working, knock 'em out guys in the style of the 70s guys who got their work ethic out of early TV. I'm looking forward to watching him groove for a long time.

Besides… he blows shit up real good.

E Me.

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