"Twisters": If You Feel It, Chase It

 A friend of mine once inquired, while contemplating one of those movies in which cars crack up on (and off) the country backroads, “Why does it lift the human spirit to see a car flying off a bridge?”

 In that vein, I herewith go off-road into a recommendation of an old-school,  capital-M Movie: the wide theatrical release “Twisters”, a standalone sequel to "Twister.". 

The promo push from the studios who paired to make it has told us much of the pedigree.  It’s a school-of-Spielberg/Amblin production directed by relatively new phenom Isaac Lee Chung, with a story from Joseph Kosinski (the “Top Gun: Maverick”  director was once slated to shoot the film) and written by Mark L. Smith  (“The Revenant”).

 Perhaps one reason there was a reasonably good turnout in a local cinema for an early-access screening this past Wednesday evening is the casting of current It Man (and “Hit Man”) Glen Powell--with the love interest being supplied by another arriving star, Daisy Edgar-Jones (“Where the Crawdads Sing”).

 Most pundits working cinema terrain are forever seeking an adventurous indie film to praise. In fact, if it checks enough boxes as daring or innovative, we might really roll it over and tickle its belly for outsmarting Hollywood.

That said, the core strength of “Twisters” lies in its refusal to turn certain action movie expectations on their head. Indeed, “Twisters” fully presents as a big-screen natural. There will indeed be deadly,  rapacious tornados barreling across wheat fields to shred towns, blow up an oil refinery, and pluck some unlucky souls aloft. 

Somehow the film finds the right tone and temperament to show it all without tears as the victims go whirling up the thunder-cracking, digitally created spouts and swirls. In this its resembles its famous soaring-cow predecessor, and like Bill Paxton in the original “Twister,” Powell’s sometime rodeo cowboy, reborn as science-savvy storm chaser Tyler Owens, honors the reluctantly airborne  souls by showing  heroic efforts to save them. (See the above photo). 

Edgar-Jones’s Kate Cooper has half-buried, traumatic past experience with lightning cracks and E-5 twisters. In a smart moveimaking chess move, Chung blasts into a key story point with breathtaking elan by first uncorking a flashback that’s both hair-raising and haunting. (The run time is a well-paced 2 hours, 2 minutes).

The most evocative review I read was by IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, who amidst much enthusiasm, nonetheless found the Kate role to be “thankless”. 

I differ there. In fact, I can foresee other female leads getting acting noms this year for performances perhaps less  nuanced– and quietly powerful--than hers. Maybe that’s because this is a film that remains determined to honor various time-honored and appealing tropes (not always a curse word, that). The harrowing Kate history that must be unpacked one day; but well before, the meet-not-so-cute of the co-stars plumbs antagonism, a disharmony emblematic of the story's two dueling bands of storm chasers.

There's a moment early on, with characters and gear assembling  near the Oklahoma plains under the threat (and promise) of catastrophic weather, when I had some momentary doubts as to tone. Crafty as Powell has proven to be in arriving as not just a crowd favorite but, per fellow actors, a widely acclaimed and winning workmate, the challenge the script sets him is to show him coming on all brash and flexing as the Tornado Wrangler, a vain hunk with a big bank roll from his YouTube following. “I wanted to start out with my character presenting as exactly the guy you think he is,” says Powell in a quote, “this self-promoting adrenaline junkie…but then you realize there’s real depth to him.”

 I trust it spoils nothing to say that before the withdrawn and steely Kate can figure out what lies beneath Tyler’s bluster, she will take advantage of several chances to trim his cool stance back a peg. Powell, in a way reminiscent of a flustered male encountering a strong woman in a Hawks drama, gradually and winningly (by iron- rom-com and action-flick law) gives ground and looks for ways to help Kate create her tornado-busting dream. They will come to share a mantra: "If you feel it, chase it."

 There’s a subplot involving the worrified Anthony Ramos (“In the Heights”) as Javi, a friend from back when who draws our empathy as he lures Kate back into the chase. Even as we see him smitten with Kate (as you may be watching the fresh-faced Edgar-Jones),  he finds himself in business with a rather nefarious land speculator who’s buying up twister-wrecked properties on the cheap. (There’s also some tenuous hinting that climate change is what's churning up fresh atmospheric hell  in the heartland.)  

As the Javi subplot perhaps too earnestly winds its way through both the romantic quandaries and the work rivalries,  it’s easy to grant forgiveness to a movie that’s such a what'll-ya-have buffet sink of pleasures,

Of course the links to the All-American touchstone of “The Wizard of Oz” go deeper than Miranda Lambert’s soundtrack cut, “Ain’t In Kansas Anymore,” and current country fave Lainey Wilson’s “Out of Oklahoma” is a well-rendered, now-lulling, now-declamatory  love ballad playing underneath certain romantic moments. But the real needle-drop deserving a double high-five is the snippet, sampled briefly in round-the--old-camp-fire style by a couple of unplugged singers; it’s from the great  Richard Thompson’s  [“Let me take my chances on the…”]  “Wall of Death”.

Chung knows not  only where to put the sticks but when, and the team of scenarists, director and star knows how to lash the action forward and simultaneously let it resonate with the romance. The film's choice to let Kate enforce her plans with  Tyler being subordinated a bit plays  with good effect as events ramp us up to the story’s sisters-are-doing-it-for themselves action.  

 Again, Powell knows when to take his moments and how to make a quietly spoken moment—including a bit about a jeopardized pet dog that   his “Top Gun” pal Tom Cruise would meet with zest—and make a simple riposte play like a helicopter dunk for the audience. .

 Not to go too rah-rah, but if you haven’t been watching Powell score repeated winning moments through the recent work, it may be  time to take a look. He’s become a leading man for all cinematic seasons, and if the stacks of scripts at Ryan Gosling’s  door can hardly be decreasing, it occurs that as a duo they could make a pretty good buddy dramedy together.

 This will be a career-enhancer for all the key players. (Director Chung already earned an Oscar nom--as did lead actor Steven Yuen– for 2020’s “Minari,” about a Korean family  trying to flourish on Arkansas, and Edgar-Jones earned an Emmy nom for “Under the Banner of Heaven”).

 Maura Tierney appears as Kate’s mom and shares an unselfishness in the work with fellow thespian Powell. The brief scenes in which they revolve together around the quiet storm that is Kate work a certain magic through which each of those three characters, and the film itself, is palpably boosted. 

Yeah, call this a summer summons to the big screen (and the big speakers). 

 One of the Tyler’s slightly addled crew refers to Javi’s professionalized cadre as “the squares,” and it’s true enough. But set the two teams in action amidst a mad chase for hailstorms and love recaptured, and you arrive at a place, as in Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee," where even squares can have a ball.