Casual Cogitations

2012 is exactly what the trailers make it look like: a bombastic disaster film.

It's not so much that the Earth is destroyed, but that it's done so thoroughly. 2012, the mother of all disaster movies (and the father, and the extended family) spends half an hour on ominous set-up scenes (scientists warn, strange events occur, prophets rant and of course a family is introduced) and then unleashes two hours of cataclysmic special events hammering the Earth relentlessly.

This is fun. 2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year. It even has real actors in it. Like all the best disaster movies, it's funniest at its most hysterical. You think you've seen end-of-the-world movies? This one ends the world, stomps on it, grinds it up and spits it out.

It also continues a recent trend toward the wholesale destruction of famous monuments. Roland Emmerich, the director and co-writer, has been vandalizing monuments for years, as in
Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and Godzilla.

In all disaster movies, landmarks fall like dominos. The Empire State Building is made of rubber. The Golden Gate Bridge collapses like clockwork. Big Ben ticks his last. The Eiffel Tower? Quel dommage!

Emmerich thinks on a big scale. Yes, he destroys regular stuff. It will come as little surprise (because at this writing the film's trailer on YouTube alone had more than 7,591,413 views) that the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy rides a tsunami onto the White House. When St. Peter's Basilica is destroyed, Leonardo's God and Adam are split apart just where their fingers touch (the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel having been moved into St. Peter's for the occasion). Then when Emmerich gets warmed up, the globe's tectonic plates shift thousands of miles, water covers the planet, and a giraffe walks aboard an ark.

Many gigantic arks have been secretly constructed inside the Himalayas by the Chinese, funded by a global consortium, and they're the only chance of the human race surviving. Along with the animals on board, there's the maybe well-named Noah. In theory, ark ticket holders represent a cross-section of the globe, chosen democratically. In practice, this clique pulls strings to benefit the rich and connected, and wants to strand desperate poor people on the dock.

Such questions pale by comparison with more alarming events. The tectonic plates shift so violently scientists can almost see them on Google Earth. This havoc requires stupendous special effects. Emmerich's budget was $250 million, and "2012" may contain more f/x in total running time than any other film. They're impressive. Not always convincing, because how can the flooding of the Himalayas be made convincing? And Emmerich gives us time to regard the effects and appreciate them, even savor them.

Emmmerich also constructs dramatic real-scale illusions, as when an earthquake fissure splits a grocery store in half. John Cusack is the hero in an elaborate sequence involving his desperate attempts to unblock a jammed hydraulic lift that threatens to sink the ark. He does a lot of heroic stuff in this film, especially for a novelist, like leaping a van over a yawning chasm and riding a small plane through roiling clouds of earthquake dust.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

The bottom line is: The movie gives you your money's worth. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it one of the year's best? No. Does Emmerich hammer it together with his elbows from parts obtained from the Used Disaster Movie Store? Yes. But is it about as good as a movie in this genre can be? Yes. No doubt it will inflame fears about our demise on Dec. 21, 2012. I'm worried, too. Knowing my days are numbered, I'm gonna have to play Modern Warfare 6 more passionately from now on.

At one time, Nathan Ford was the best insurance investigator in the business. He was a master at recovering stolen goods, thus saving his bosses millions of dollars in payouts over the years. Unfortunately, the company wasn't interested in returning the favor, allowing Nate's son to die rather than pay for the experimental treatments that might have saved the child.

Crushed by the boy's death, Nate crawled into a bottle, which led to his divorce and finally, his inability to keep a job. Enter Victor Dubenich. Dubenich wants to hire Nate to steal back stolen research from a rival corporation—a corporation insured by the same company that screwed Nate over. Unable to resist the offer, Nate goes to the very best, the thieves and grifters he's spent his whole life chasing. He hires cat burglar Parker, hacker Hardison, and "recovery specialist" Elliott . They make quick work of stealing the research then destroying the computer copies, but once the job is done they realize they've been double-crossed and that makes them all very angry. We like this team, when they get angry.

Now it's time for Nate to pull a con of his own. He brings in the final team member, grifter Sophie and it's payback time. When all is said and done, this team of misfits finds that there's a certain joy in justice, so they decide to put their combined talents to work for the good of common man. Because all you need when fighting a corporate giant is just a little leverage.

The joy of Leverage comes from watching the plan come together. How do you get a crooked contractor to sign over the house he just stole to the people he stole it from? You simply pretend you're building a ski resort then fake an insurance scam, convince the mark Parker has a brain tumor, make two brothers suspicious of each other, then switch the legal documents at the bank, causing them to sign over everything to Nate who can then do what he wants with the assets. Like candy from a baby.

I'll give you that there are moments in the show that make you say, no way, but the writers assure us in the commentary, that (almost) everything they do is actually possible. They've gone so far as to recreate certain moments, such as sending a fake ID fax from a cell phone, just to prove the validity to the network who didn't believe them either.

One of the reasons the show works is because they have an expert in cons on their side who is not to be believed. I stood toe-to-toe with him and didn't see him steal my friend's watch, which turned up on his wrist. Apparently Beth Riesgraf, who plays Parker, learned her lessons so well, everyone checks their pockets whenever she leaves a room.

But even the cleverest con wouldn't be enough to keep you coming back every week if the characters weren't likeable, and that's a real danger when you're doing a show about thieves. Not a problem on this series. Even though they're crooks, these five are oddly relatable. Parker has social issues, which always has her saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Elliot likes to punch things when he gets frustrated. Hardison is an often-overlooked nerd and even the lovely Sophie is plagued by a dream that's always out of reach. And Nate, he's the epitome of "when bad things happen to good people," and you just want to fix him but you can't.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Leverage is the perfect blend of action, drama and comedy. The scripts are clever, the characters are charming, and the overall look is as slick as a feature film. But don't think that funny means light. You're going to have to pay close attention, if you want to follow the twists and turns in the cons, but the payoff is always worth it.