Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Directed by Joe Russo
After the cataclysmic events in New York with The Avengers, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America is living quietly in Washington, D.C. and trying to adjust to the modern world. But when a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague comes under attack, Steve becomes embroiled in a web of intrigue that threatens to put the world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Captain America struggles to expose the ever-widening conspiracy while fighting off professional assassins sent to silence him at every turn. When the full scope of the villainous plot is revealed, Captain America and the Black Widow enlist the help of a new ally, the Falcon. However, they soon find themselves up against an unexpected and formidable enemy—the Winter Soldier.
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What critics say influenced Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), The Winter Soldier nods to ’70s classics Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
If the first “Cap” was a throwback to classic World War II films, “Winter Soldier” is a nod to the great espionage films of the 1970s, movies like “3 Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View,” even going so far to bridge the two by casting “Condor” star Robert Redford as shady politician Alexander Pierce.
It’s a rote “trust-no-one” shtick that’s as old as “The Parallax View” and “Three Days of the Condor,” the latter a film that the directing brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (TV’s “Community”) delusively think they are paying homage to.
Instead of the pulp-inspired 1940s aesthetic of the first movie, The Winter Soldier takes its inspiration from the paranoia-fueled conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, movies like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View , with a modern-day focus on ubiquitous government surveillance and drone warfare.
Subtitled The Winter Soldier, a nod to the Captain’s mysterious new cold-blooded nemesis, the movie comes wrapped not only in the Stars and Stripes but also Watergate-meets-9/11 paranoia from influences like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, the latter especially so thanks to the forceful and nuanced presence of Robert Redford.
That notion — of powerful or violent forces conspiring against civilians — also primed some of the decade’s finest, most haunting movies: The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, and All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor, both with Robert Redford as a cocky crusader against government corruption.
The presence of Robert Redford as an ambiguous high-level spook reminds us of the plot’s borrowings from the conspiracy thriller Three Days of the Condor, while a brief shot of the Watergate complex references Redford’s All the President’s Men.
Notable for having induced Robert Redford to take a (significant) role in the sort of blockbuster franchise that he has studiously avoided throughout his illustrious career, the film actually uses an important aspect of the veteran star's iconography as stylistic inspiration, that being the ethos surrounding Sydney Pollack's 1975 Redford-starring espionage thriller Three Days of the Condor.
The movie's other inspiration are '70s conspiracy thrillers like All the President's Men and Three Days of the Condor, which the Russo brothers honor by wisely and miraculously casting Robert Redford, who starred in both films.
Too quickly to generate proper suspense (yet causing plenty of giddy disbelief), The Winter Soldier nods to ’70s classics Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
In a plot borrowed directly from the 1975 Redford thriller Three Days of the Condor , Rogers goes underground, trusting no-one except his new friend Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and his colleague Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), the ex-KGB assassin and major babe.
Ever since 2000's X-Men, they have been growing in numbers exponentially.
Those three massive new next-generation Helicarriers and a large-scale plan to prevent crime before it even happens (it's very "Minority Report," with splashes of some of the "X-Men" films) probably have something to do with it.
Redford adds a sense of cold war craftiness, especially in an homage scene to “The Manchurian Candidate.”
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The movie's other inspiration are '70s conspiracy thrillers like All the President's Men and Three Days of the Condor, which the Russo brothers honor by wisely and miraculously casting Robert Redford, who starred in both films.
Robert Redford adds cred to the political suspense harking back to 3 Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men but it’s mostly just in presence.
For someone who will never master the intricacies of the “Marvel universe” of cross-pollinated properties and storylines, an almost immediate satisfaction in the fine craft of directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (“Community,” “You, Me And Dupree”) came from how closely allied this superhero adventure is to 1970s American movies, down to the superb casting of Robert Redford, the face of 1970s paranoia classics like “Three Days Of The Condor,” “The Candidate” and “All The President’s Men,” as the enforcer of 2010s universal spying on the world’s citizenry.
That notion — of powerful or violent forces conspiring against civilians — also primed some of the decade’s finest, most haunting movies: The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, and All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor, both with Robert Redford as a cocky crusader against government corruption.
The Rip Van Winkle of superheroes goes rogue in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” an impressively equal sequel to 2011’s superb origin story “Captain America: The First Avenger” that trades the earlier film’s apple-pie Americana for the uneasy mood of a 1970s paranoia thriller — a resonance underscored by the casting of “Three Days of the Condor” and “All the President’s Men” star Robert Redford in a prominent supporting role.
Chris Evans has grown significantly in his role since The Avengers , and he's far more appealing here, going for the same kind of charming, simple quality that Christopher Reeve had in the Superman movies.
Sci-fi geeks of a certain age will get a special kick out of seeing “Logan’s Run” ingenue Jenny Agutter reprising her brief “Avengers” role as a member of the U.N.-ish “World Security Council,” and busting out some highly impressive karate moves to boot.
Nolan’s method worked brilliantly for The Dark Knight trilogy, but that’s because Bruce Wayne is still a vulnerable man underneath the cowl.
Don’t get me wrong, the universe they have created is unparalleled and possessed by a consistency of success on par with Disney’s other child Pixar, but has there been a The Dark Knight?
Interestingly, Cap becomes the voice of liberal humanism in the film, questioning the validity of military tactics that are inherently fascistic, even when wielded by “the good guys” (he essentially recognizes what Batman fails to in The Dark Knight).
By treating their comic-book-derived films more as regular "issues" than film events, Marvel may never produce a film as great as The Dark Knight , but it'll never sink to a low like Batman and Robin either.
Like Superman killing a drone to end Man of Steel (and Batman using everyone's cellphones to catch the Joker in The Dark Knight), Cap 2 is also critique of our technological dystopia and cancerous paranoia.
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Gone are the pulp machinations of Joe Johnston--this one is more The Empire Strikes Back than The Rocketeer, where the victories are Pyrrhic and the bad guys are smarter and better-equipped.
The first was a golden-hued romance directed with yesteryear style by Joe Johnston ("The Rocketeer").
And like the chilly Cold War thrillers the film emulates — including "Marathon Man," "The Manchurian Candidate" and just about every Tom Clancy novel — "Winter Soldier" thaws out some hot-button issues.