Survivalist Adventure with Satirical Reality TV Sensibilities Benefits from Lawrence's Star Turn

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2012)

Among indie-film aficionados, 21-year-old Jennifer Lawrence has lent an impressive-for-her-years gravitas to a diverse array of roles in Guillermo Arriaga's "The Burning Plain" (2008), Drake Doremus's "Like Crazy" (2011), and most memorably, Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone" (2010). She showed up as Mystique, one of the "X-Men: First Class" in the big-budget 2011 actioner last year, but it was her role as resourceful backwoods survivor Ree Dolly in "Winter's Bone" that appears to be the direct descendant of the heroine in this 2012 adrenalin rush of a movie - Katniss Everdeen, just sixteen but an expert archer living in District 12, the poorest of the dozen civilian sectors that make up the future state of Panem. Based on Suzanne Collins' hugely popular young-adult trilogy, Katniss' story is enmeshed in a dystopian society ruled by an unforgiving government seeking to provide penance to its downtrodden citizens through annual televised, "Survivor"-like bloodletting sports which give the movie its provocative title. Each event requires two "tributes" from each district, a boy and a girl, who must participate in a winner--takes-all survivalist match which means a likely violent death for the 23 others who must lose in the process.
This gory concept is leavened by new-to-the genre Gary Ross' ("Seabiscuit") surprisingly humanistic direction; a sometimes shrewd, sometimes silly screenplay by Ross, Collins and Billy Ray ("Shattered Glass"); and a sharp cast combining the faces and fit bodies of young Hollywood with veterans who don't appear to be taking the proceedings too seriously. It's over 2 1/2 hours long, so the pacing has to be quicksilver, and Ross manages to keep the momentum up for most of the story. In the introductory sequence, District 12 is represented as a tableau of Dorothea Lange-style images reminiscent of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl in "The Grapes of Wrath". Katniss lives with her passive mother and worshipful younger sister Prim. As fate would have it, Prim is chosen out of a raffle-like fishbowl to be the district "tribute" at which point Katniss unhesitantly volunteers to take her place. She is paired up with an oppressed baker's son named Peeta, who is more than willing to play by the rules to win the game. They are whisked off to the Capitol where along with the rest of the "tributes", they are groomed and trained in a style akin to "American Idol". This part of the movie is more predictably entertaining given the sly, satirical jabs at current reality-TV programming.
Once the games finally begin in the forest, it becomes more of a standard adventure action yarn albeit with some clever twists that recall scenes from Peter Weir's underrated "The Truman Show". However, the events start to feel by-the-numbers as the "tributes" meet their inevitable fates in orderly succession. Give Ross credit for not belaboring the violent elements in order to maintain the film's PG-13 rating. What I liked most about this part of the film was not so much the burgeoning relationship between Katniss and Peeta (which feels a bit more emotionally removed perhaps due to what may be coming in the sequels) but the poignant connection between Katniss and young Rue, which culminates into the film's most moving moments. Less effective are the hand-held camera-work by Tom Stern and the agitated editing by Stephen Mirrione and Juliette Welfling, both elements making it sometimes difficult to figure out what is going on at any given moment. Moreover, the movie loses whatever social consciousness it had at the beginning save for one racially motivated scene of violence. In spite of these flaws, Lawrence gives the movie a much-needed soul as she drives the film's fanciful narrative through her stoic yet penetrating nature.
Josh Hutcherson ("The Kids Are All Right") doesn't make as vivid an impression as Peeta but handles the role serviceably, while it seems fairly obvious Liam Hemsworth's curtailed role as Gale, the smitten boy Katniss leaves behind, will be more prominent in the sequel. Among the "tributes", Amandla Stenberg shines brightest in the spotlight role of Rue. More exaggerated turns are provided by Woody Harrelson as drunken mentor Haymitch Abernathy, Elizabeth Banks as garishly garbed escort Effie Trinket, and Stanley Tucci as preening blue-haired emcee Caesar Flickerman, a Ryan Seacrest-doppelganger. Relatively more subtle are Lenny Kravitz (complete with gold eyeliner) as Katniss' compassionate stylist Cinna, Wes Bentley ("American Beauty") as sinister show producer Seneca Crane, and a lionized Donald Sutherland as the President. Production designer Philip Messina and costume designer Judianna Makovsky deserve kudos, even though Katniss's flaming-red (literally) evening gown was underwhelming. For such an obvious franchise, the film manages to entertain for most of its running time, even if parts feel quite derivative of other films like "The Running Man" and even ancient relics like "The Most Dangerous Game". It's a pretty effective start to the trilogy.