Turks & Caicos

Winona seems to have gotten back on top; she garners top billing in this 2014 film above such big names as Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Walken. The complicated plot of the film is made slightly more complicated by the fact that Carter and Ryder are made up to look almost alike (not confusing for the Hayes-Bohs, but it could trip up most normal people), as are Christopher Walken and Bill Nighy.

We usually include a poster or DVD cover, but this work has none, as it is a movie-length episode of a new Masterpiece Theater series. Here Ryder is shown with Bill Nighy (no relation to Bill Nye).

A small detail that makes this film unusual is that -- at least for the first 15 minutes -- Christopher Walken does not play its creepiest character. That distinction is reserved for Zach Grenier as Dido (no relation to the real Dido), the sort of capitalist who thinks he is self-made and is brimming with contempt for public servants. Poetic justice for his churlish remarks makes him the shortest-lived member of the ensemble.

The film is set in -- and named for The Turks & Caicos. This is just one place -- a tropical dependency of the United Kingdom that has nothing to do with Turkey. In the film, as in real life, its main attribute is as a tax haven where unseemly corporate behavior can take place with little if any oversight of governments.

Much of the convoluted plot centers around schemes to construct prison facilities of dubious legal standing and to grossly overcharge for them in the process, but no mention is ever made of the geographic proximity of the characters to their main subject -- the camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As much as I enjoy films with political implications, this script is in places a bit too obvious about its political goals. Most artless is a brief lecture by Walken -- directed more at the camera than at any particular character -- about the failure of "a president" to close Guantanamo.

Winona's own performance is rather good. As mentioned above, her place in the credits is really not justified by the centrality of her character's role. But through a series of complicated plots and subplots, she manages to rise above the writing and deliver a strong and interesting character with a variety of connections to those involved in the film's main conspiracies.

Final verdict: Three croquet balls, good enough for non-fans