Tag: Benjamin Bratt

“DMZ” (HBO Max), the 4-Part Series, Critiqued @ SXSW 2022

On March 19, 2022

Benjamin Bratt and Rosario Dawson on March 13 at SXSW.

Just finished watching all four episodes of “DMZ” with Rosario Dawson and Benjamin Bratt available on HBO Max.

The first episode, which I saw at the World Premiere on Sunday, March 13^th, in Austin at SXSW, was dynamite. The other three episodes continue the chaos and action-packed drama of a United States that has experienced a Civil War, with Manhattan a microcosm of the tragedy of war as 300,000 residents are trapped within a demilitarized zone.

The set-up of the comic-book generated plot is that Alma must journey back from the relative safety of the U.S. outside of Manhattan and re-enter the DMZ to try to find the child she became separated from when evacuating 8 years prior.

I will try not to give away too many plot points, but I do want to make some observations about the entire season, not just the first episode. Ava Duvernay directed one episode, but Ernest Dickerson directed the rest of the series. It is all done well, with special mention of the acting, special effects, script and the title sequence.

Here are some “Pro” and “Con” observations for the entire series, complete with the pictures taken on top of the Riley Building in downtown Austin on Sunday, March 13^th, which Warner Media took over for a press event at noon, just prior to the film’s 4:15 p.m.

PROS:

Cast of “DMZ” at SXSW (l to r): Freddy Miyares, Bnjamin Bratt, Rosario Dawson, Hoon Lee and Writer/Producer Roberto Patino.

The acting is top-notch. Rosario has some gut-wrenching scenes and she gives it her all. She also has to be a kick-ass heroine, fighting, running, etc. Great work. The Writer/Producer Petino praised Dawson’s work from the stage of the Paramount. Watching Benjamin Bratt at work as the charismatic gang leader is equally riveting.
I have always thought that Benjamin Bratt was an under-utilized leading man and the parts I’ve seen him in did not make the most of his charismatic presence. Here he is magnetic as the would-be leader of the DMZ, a man who fought in Afghanistan and should know that those who fight and die in the trenches are used and abused by their superiors. Parco Delgado, Bratt’s character, is willing to do whatever it takes to keep and hold power and we see that in episode 1 and all others.
The writer/director who plucked Rosario’s character from the comic book and amplified it is going for a “good versus evil” vibe that puts Alma’s character as the White Knight and leaves us wondering how she will cope with the brutality of a Parco Delgado. The way that Parco is dispatched was fitting.
This is a star-making turn for young actor Freddie Miyares, who plays the adult version of Rosario’s son, Christian. Miyares first came to the public’s attention playing one of the Central Park Five in “When They See Us” and he also appeared in “The L Word.” He has worked with Ava Duvernay previously.
The young actors In the cast—-Madison Johnson, Venus Ariel, Jordan Preston Carter—are all good and natural actors.
The explosions and helicopters and ruins of the war-torn DMZ are beautifully rendered.
The opening credits are very good.
Hoon Lee as Wilson was good, as was Reynaldo Gallegos as Cesar.
The screenplay written by Roberto Patino has some great lines that relate to ALL wars and ALL war zones and victims, so it is particularly timely against the backdrop of the Ukraine/Russia ongoing assault.
There is the possibility of continuing this series past the four episodes in the can.

CONS:

Cast of “DMZ” present in Austin, Texas, for press event on Sunday, March 13, 2022 at SXSW.

For my tastes, the constant man-on-man beat-downs could have been reduced to, at most, two. As it is, there are several. I am not a fan, although others will be. I will say that the fight between the fit 48-year-old Benjamin Bratt and the much-younger Freddy Miyares was epic, as was the fight scene between the characters of Parco Delgado and Wilson.
There were a lot of “war scenes,” which makes sense in that this is a war zone, but who is fighting whom and why is not made perfectly clear, other than the infighting amongst the various New York City sections of Manhattan.
I also watched a few episodes of the new “Halo” series and “DMZ” is infinitely superior. “Halo” involved killing people that we haven’t even met, let alone learned to care whether they live or die, whereas, in this four-part series, we get to know the characters first.
One power broker has (supposedly) gained control of water. How? We are told very few of the mechanics of power in this DMZ. Did she take over a dam or what?
The function or purpose of the United States Army is not made totally clear. Are they trying to take over Manhattan from the locals because the locals are defending their city to the death, as is happening in Ukraine now? Naaaah. The New Yorkers I personally know (and I know a few) would not be fighting to the death against the U.S.’s superior fire power. (They might want better garbage pick-up, however.)
Other than Rosario’s star turn as the Big Kahuna, the other women get short shrift. The kids actually get more screen time and more lines than the other females, including the girlfriends of characters Skel and Parco.
Did Coca Cola underwrite a big part of this film’s costs? I ask because of one specific scene. I was reminded of the Coca Cola scene in “Dr. Strangelove,” for some reason, but, today, the specific mention of a product in such glowing terms is usually a product tie-in. I thought the idea that the machine would have ANY Coke cans left in it, or that they wouldn’t be flat, was preposterous. Many of my soft drinks are flat the instant I bring them home from the grocery store, so I found the delicious-ness of Coca Cola to be highly suspect in one scene in the plot.
The individual(s) manning the radio broadcast(s) are somewhat unclear. Who was it? Who is it going to be?
Lots of character names are dropped and, eventually, we find out who some of them are, but simply mentioning “Susie” (et. al.) didn’t cut if for me. But, then, I was not a reader of the comic books during their hey-day.

I enjoyed all the lines that underscored the futility of violence as a solution to world problems, and, while I praised them in my original review and even repeated some of those lines, verbatim, with the current world situation, the more the better, so I’m both praising writer/producer Roberto Patino for his excellent work in that regard and saying, “More, please

“DMZ” Series Has World Premiere at SXSW on March 13, 2022

By Connie Wilson

On March 14, 2022

In Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

The riveting drama “DMZ” was premiered at SXSW 2022 on Sunday, March 13^th, 2022, at the Paramount Theater in downtown Austin. Prior to the showing of this first of four episodes of the limited series (which will air on HBO Max beginning on March 17^th), Dawson and Bratt and others met the press on the rooftop of the Riley Building. The cast continued answering questions at a Q&A following the screening of the first of the four-part series.

Cast of “DMZ” (Warner Media) on Sunday, March 13, at the Paramount Theater in Austin at SXSW 2022.

Producer/Writer Roberto Patino (“Westworld”), taking the stage with the cast in Austin (far right), described how he had taken the Vertigo graphic novel (comic), which ran from 2005 to 2021, and selected Rosario Dawson’s character of Alma Ortega to develop more fully. Because of the pandemic, the series was pared down to only 4 episodes

Premise: A Civil War has decimated the United States. This is particularly relevant at a time when we are closer to Civil War than at any time since the 1861-1865 North/South conflagration. The story focuses on the DMZ (Demilitarized zone), a ravaged Manhattan Island with 300,000 souls trapped inside.The various parts of Manhattan have been taken over by various gangs. We are taken to the Village, the Upper East Side, Midtown, Central Park, Chinatown and all other parts of the city.

One power-broker within the warring factions is portrayed beautifully by Benjamin Bratt, as a whip-thin political gang leader radiating ruthless charisma. Onscreen, he explains, “People don’t want leaders. They want spectacle.” Imagine a good-looking, taller, younger, articulate Hispanic Putin. He’s a power-hungry leader who will stop at nothing to consolidate his reach and is running for Governor of the DMZ, telling the enthusiastic crowd that the DMZ will become its own state. Bratt is outstanding in the role, menacing and believable.

Rosario Dawson and Benjamin Bratt at the Premiere of “DMZ,” a 4-part episodic WarnerMedia presentation at the Paramount Theater in Austin on March 13, 2022, at SXSW Film Festival.

Alma (Rosario Dawson) portrays a medic, a single mother desperate to find her missing son, Christian They were separated while fleeing the city six years prior, in a scene straight out of the train stations in Ukraine occurring right now. In Episode #1, Rosario interacts with another medic, portrayed by Mamie Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep and a look-alike for her talented mother. It’s an intense exchange as the medic trapped within the DMZ (Gummer) takes Dawson’s Alma under her wing in helping her search for her missing son. Show-runner/writer Patino paid tribute to Dawson’s work telling her, “You inhabited this woman so thoroughly and made her your own.” True that.

Everyone in Episode #1 was very credible, but another outstanding performance is turned in by Jordan Preston Carter, who portrays the young Odi Peerlis. The actor has eleven credits since 2016 and, while his exact age is not mentioned in his bio, he appears to be roughly ten years old and holds his own against a talented adult cast. He is a natural. The character of Odi conveys the trauma and pathos of children caught in the midst of war. The parallels with current real life are obvious.

One line from the film explains the film’s themes/conflict this way: “Even when we’re here, surrounded by two armies with guns firing on one another, people can’t see past killing each other to better themselves.” Later, the line is: “People won’t hesitate to kill you for whatever you’ve got.” A lot of truth in those scripted lines.

Dawson’s character represents hope and a better way of dealing with life than through never-ending violence. In her remarks to the audience, she mentioned her own hard-scrabble upbringing on New York’s lower East side and described the entire four-episode series as “real” and “poignant.” Dawson decried “patriarchal toxic masculinity”and said that she hopes her character is a catalyst to help eliminate it.

Benjamin Bratt at SXSW with “DMZ.”

Bratt, too, described a change of heart in portraying his character as he began work on the series based on a comic book. He said that, at first, he thought it would be fun to portray a kick-ass comic book character. As the series went on, he began to see Parco Delgado (his character) as “a real person suffering from habituation learned as a young man; might makes right. Clearly he is someone who recognized the opportunity to seize power.”

The Ava Duvernay directed series, judging from the showing today, is dynamite. Don’t miss it! (HBO Max on Thursday, March 17, 2022).