I like Phillip Noyce, but the last good film he made was over a decade ago. I like Angelina Jolie but she’s only had one good film under her belt across her entire career. ‘Salt’ doesn’t change the game for either of them. It’s an overlong, under-written affair, punctuated by lame performances from actors who should know better and plots that were old twenty years ago, which insult the audience’s intelligence from the outset.
Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent with a murky past, who works alongside fellow agents Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor (who demeans himself by even appearing in this wreck). One day out of the blue they’re confronted by a Russian defector (erm didn’t that end a decade or two ago?), who insists Salt is a sleeper agent, who is planning on killing the Russian president. Ejiofor expresses alarm, but despite being in a top security facility the defector manages to escape with ease, as does Jolie. Rather than clearing the matter up, she goes on the run, showing she’s exactly what he says she is, but claims to be hunting her kidnapped husband, who appears to have a secret significance for her (and then doesn’t). She appears to succeed in her preposterous ambition, but of course it’s all smoke and mirrors to get to the heart of the deeper conspiracy and prevent the assassination of the American president and the triggering of the Third World War. And guess who’s behind it? Well who’s the remaining A/B-list star from the credits not accounted for?
It’s predictable hocum, playing fast and loose with the audience’s understanding of geopolitics – why is the American president prepared to launch a nuclear attack on Russia when the plot is repeatedly acknowledged as a defunct Soviet one, masterminded by independent terrorists? It’s also pretty clear that the underlying sleeper agents plot, ready to destroy American society from within, is an analogy for 9/11-style radical Islamists, but the producers were no doubt too fearful of the reaction they’d get to go with their original plot. It’s ultimately a film for young teenagers and Jolie’s most die-hard fanbase, nothing more. ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ was also poorly written, but at least it had some charm, which this does not. Kurt Wimmer’s script had originally been offered to Tom Cruise (and you can see why, as well as why he turned it down), and it clearly aims for a sequel as Salt runs into an oh-so ‘Fugitive’-esque future, promising Ejiofor, who suddenly accepts her account of her final battle with Schreiber (you guessed right) with no evidence whatsoever, that she’ll take all the remaining sleeper agents out herself. She needn’t rush.
Noyce wastes the first half hour with one interminable chase after another, and it’s all really tedious and annoying. ‘The Sum of All Fears’ covered similar ground nearly a decade ago, and with much more credibility. Jolie panics over the welfare of her husband, but not so much that she doesn’t (seem to) fulfil her programming before looking for him, and then lets the plotters murder him in front of her face. All the Secret Service bodyguards in the world can’t keep the president safe in the White House bunker. The American nuclear launch protocols are remarkably easy to manipulate. The Russian president pops up quite alive days later, even though he would have been autopsied by then. Ugh ugh ugh. To be fair it improves after the initial, never-ending (and well choreographed) chase, but the plot is silly, the dialogue cringe-worthy and the film fails lamentably to stand out in a summer crammed full of (mostly) awful blockbuster attempts. I’m prepared to accept Jolie as an action lead, but she needs to get a much better script first. Noyce in turn needs to stop trading on past glories.
I can do better vlogs than this and hopefully over the next few days you’ll get to see some better efforts. I could have said how infuriating it was to have sequences screenwriter Patrick O’Neill didn’t want to or couldn’t get himself out of explained just by drugging Diaz’s character. I could have mentioned how bizarre it was to have Cruise’s character a government sponsored secret agent, whilst owning a private secret, Thunderbirds-style island in the Azores, or how asinine the genuine bad guy (it was never going to be Cruise) was – almost reduced to twirling his evil Spanish moustache to prove his menace, and even being wrongly overdubbed in Spanish – did director James Mangold think we just wouldn’t notice? What about the oh-so-convenient ending or the bizarre finale? And why bring in Cruise’s screen parents? An unentertaining, poorly thought out mess of a film, which deserves to crash and burn.
3/10
P.S. For those of you who have seen it – was there any attempt whatsoever to explain the ‘day’ in ‘Knight and Day’?
It’s a quirky old film is Greenberg. And its quirkiness is both its success and failing – the film neatly refuses to fit into any particular genre – is it a man/dog buddy movie? Is it a character study? A diatribe about the failings of current society for the current 40′s generation? The answer is never clear. This defiance also makes it hard to emotionally invest in – without a clear beginning, middle and certainly no end, what is the point in watching Greenberg? Well considering nothing ends up really happening to him by the story’s end, you could easily say there is none, but my answer is this: Ben Stiller. It’s something which quite shocked me – I’ve strongly disliked Ben Stiller and hated his performances for years, but his intensely unlikeable Roger Greenberg is a character I found myself fascinated by and one I warmed to despite myself.
Screenwriter-director Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Greenberg is a 41 year old man consumed by the errors of his past and the irritations of the modern world. Recently released from a mental hospital, Greenberg housesits for his brother and family. He forges an awkward relationship with their au pair Greta Gerwig and pursues his strained friendship with former bandmate Rhys Ifans, all the while writing letters of complaint to people or institutions which don’t meet his expectations. There’s little else to the film than an investigation of these relationships – his old friends no longer want to know him since he refused a lucrative recording contract when they were young, ex-girlfriend Leigh doesn’t want to know him because of his abusive behaviour, and Ifans perseveres even though Greenberg is so self-obsessed he hasn’t even met his child. But Gerwig falls for him regardless, even when he pushes her away, consumed by self-hatred and an unwillingness to be loved. This element is a fascinating look at how others can see in us qualities which we ourselves cannot, and how we can tear ourselves apart regardless.
There’s no ending – Greenberg has things happen to him, but even by the ending it’s unclear if he’s ever going to embrace the lessons which are there in front of his face. And this is the one big frustration of the film – it’s largely Greenberg’s (or is it Baumbach’s?) stream of consciousness, with some poignant moments and superb acting, but not much else. Some people will love it, others will hate it (Stiller is determinedly unlikeable from beginning to end) – this is not a happily-ever-after film. It does however have something to say about the human condition though – Greenberg is able effortlessly to take care of his brother’s dog when he can’t take care adequately of himself, Ifans of all people realises settling down isn’t the conformist nightmare he’d feared when confronted by Stiller, and Gerwig manages to makes a stab at happiness without even bothering with these existential issues. In fact there’s far too little Gerwig.
Ultimately it’s a sad film, which, like The Road before it, is a depressing experience, but it also shares that film’s knockout performances and honest indie craftsmanship. The story could never really be neatly wrapped up after all, and by that point Baumbach has unquestionably said all he needs to say about being about being a forty-something man in the 21st century. It would still have been nice to have had a clear beginning, middle and end though.
Far and away the worst film of the last twelve months, writer/co-director Noel Clarke has bitten off far more than he can chew with ’4.3.2.1′. It’s clearly supposed to be a heist thriller-cum-girl buddy movie but nothing works right – the pacing, the script, and far too much of the acting. Clarke showed huge potential with the equally ambitious but flawed ‘Kidulthood’, but this is just overblown nonsense – sexist where it doesn’t need to be, boring where it shouldn’t be, and populated by characters who just plain aren’t interesting. Why should I care about the boorish, violent, stupid thugs and freaks surrounding the four leads? Clarke never once offers any answers.
A diamond heist has taken place in Antwerp and the diamonds have made their way to London. Tamsin Egerton finds herself with them in her hands as she prepares to jump from a bridge, flanked by her friends. Rewind to see local gangster co-plotters crossing the paths of friends Emma Roberts, Ophelia Lovibond, Egerton and Shanika Warren Markland, inadvertently involving them in the conspiracy. So far so good right? Clarke’s going to tie conspirators and the girls together, delivering a gangster thriller which would put Guy Ritchie to shame? Wrong. Clarke’s script is confused, hackneyed, over-indulgent and often pointless, giving each of the girl leads a 30 minute ‘in-between’ segment, which desperately need to lead to a major pay-off on the bridge. Except they don’t. Each segment is in itself boring and unengaging. Who cares that Egerton’s parents have split up? Why does she resort to graffiti? Who cares that Lovibond gets tricked by an internet scam in New York? What does that have to do with anything else in the film? Why do we have to keep seeing so many female crotch shots? Why does Clarke have to play a complete bastard every time? And who the hell is Michelle Ryan’s character?
The component elements fail to tie together meaningfully, the girls are only ever at the periphery of the heist, and their character developments are thoroughly unconvincing and uninteresting. Even where the four story strands come together Clarke fails to explain how. It’s a sorry demonstration of how some scenes are in themselves interesting, but Clarke hasn’t given anywhere near enough thought to the overall narrative. It’s nice to see Kevin Smith cameoing though, and Markland’s lesbian character is occasionally quite funny indeed, but nothing can save this confused trainwreck of a film. Attitude on its own doesn’t make a film work, and Clarke should seriously think next time of directing someone else’s script. He’s been likened by some reviewers to Tarantino, but Tarantino’s characters have charm, he knows how to pace his films, and is a powerhouse storyteller even on his weakest productions. ’4.3.2.1′ in contrast has none of these qualities, although that alone seemed to appeal to the wasters whom I shared the screening with. Its a terrible demonstration of all that has historically been wrong with British cinema.
Director Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s last collaboration was the multi-award-winning ‘Gladiator’, which I admit I really didn’t care much for, so I came to their ‘Robin Hood’ remake with trepidation. And in all honesty I really liked it – it’s a 2 1/2 hour epic, with a surprisingly strong script, some funny dialogue (some terrible dialogue too) and intelligent direction; it’s highly entertaining too. Of course it’s helped by some knockout performances – Crowe hogs the screen without much effort with his Robin (now Longstride), but he’s more than matched by the outstanding Cate Blanchett as Maid Marion (now Marion Loxley). I’ll grant that noone tries to reinvent the wheel – why American William Hurt was cast as William Marshal is a complete mystery, and Crowe never strays too far from his trademark gruff persona, but somehow it all works. It’s a film which should either have been a complete retread or be completely dark and brooding, but Scott infuses his rebooted Hood drama with considerable charm, despite its length.
Robin Longstride starts the film fighting the French under King Richard (Danny Huston), on the return from the Crusades. Demoralised by their army’s brutality and excess, Longstride and his ‘merry’ friends return to England after Richard’s assassination, promising also-assassinated Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge) to return his sword to his father. Meanwhile his assassin Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong, now thoroughly Alan Rickman-ised by the film world) plays both the English the French off against each other, in the hope of power for himself following a successful French invasion. It’s a long story, hinging around Longstride’s adoption of Loxley’s identity in order to prevent Blanchett from having her property seized by the Crown. Of course the two end up together, of course Robin starts to battle injustice by the Crown, of course King John enters the fray, and of course there’s a climactic showdown on the beaches (mystifyingly bloodless at that) in which the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Or do they…?
It’s probably too long, the beach landing shamelessly (and needlessly) evokes ‘Saving Private Ryan’s Normandy landings, and the initial story set-up is probably far too involved (although the ending marks the film as an opening salvo in a new franchise attempt) but screenwriter Brian Helgeland weaves an involving yarn despite the script’s occasional excesses. It’s a welcome change under a director normally far better at delivering set pieces than a strong narrative. And Oscar Isaac positively commands the screen as a thoroughly villainous (and often hilarious, yet never crossing the line into pantomime) King John, chewing every scene he’s in for all it’s worth, his character never quite playing his hand until the final act. Those expecting a traditional Robin vs Sheriff (Matthew Macfadyen) romp will have to wait until the inevitable sequel, and those expecting more accent consistency than Prince of Thieves will be similarly (though not so thoroughly) disappointed, but this is a good start for ‘new’ Robin. We’ve had ‘Batman Begins’, now so does Robin.
Chris (‘Brass Eye’) Morris’ directorial debut about four hapless, northern Muslim suicide bombers was always sure to offend. It pokes fun at one of the most sensitive political subjects of our time – radical Islam, but unlike Armando Iannucci’s superior ‘In The Loop’ (attacking the inept launch of the ‘war’ on terror) it doesn’t have enough bite. The increasingly impressive Riz Ahmed plays Omar, a family man hell bent on jihadi martyrdom, who relies on a rag tag bunch of friends to bring about his attack on the British oppressors. The slow-witted Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar, Arsher Ali and the hilarious Nigel Lindsay all join in his conspriacy of the inept, and much of the first half of the film is based on their gently comic bumblings. They play at terrorism, even going so far as travelling to a terrorism training camp in Pakistan, but have far more to say about pop music in their martyrdom videos than anything political.
The film comes alive in the second half, when the conspirators find there are real consequences to their plotting. It’s not just a jolly jape with nutters in the desert – they will die and people will die with them, and although the satire (largely provided by Lindsay’s excellently-mannered caucasian convert) mostly hits the mark, much of the narrative does not. If Ahmed’s band is largely the comic foil to his serious bomber, Omar needs to be far better investigated than Morris allows him to be. It’s clear that his family is fully aware of his plan and its consequences, and the co-writer/director throws up other tantalising questions about the Westernisation of his friends, but these are insufficiently explored issues (despite an outstanding performance by Ahmed) which take some serious bite out of the brilliant satirical sketches. You get the feeling that a really important idea has been attempted – particularly when Omar changes his mind far too late, but because the film can’t decide whether it’s a satire, a screwball comedy or a Working Title film with an edge, the ending leaves you wanting better explanations than those on offer.
Morris clearly wants to suggest the suicide attacks in the UK were largely caused by bumbling idiots who were in over their heads and didn’t quite grasp the enormity of their actions, but that’s not quite enough. Morris’ characters are fully integrated into Western society, all loving pop culture – Omar is well-to-do with a family – and it remains unclear from ‘Four Lions’ what led him to plan his suicide attacks. We only get brief glimpses into his political life, from his connections in Pakistan, to his alienation from the Islam of his neighbourhood, and indeed the irony of its persecution by the British state, leaving us with a film which is occasionally very funny but without enough dots presented for us to join up with real satisfaction.
Roman Polanski should be kept locked up for this monstrous crime against cinema. Absolutely everything about this adaptation of the Robert Harris novel stinks: the script is turgid, it relies on countless deus-ex-machinae, the acting is appalling, the direction has no punch or insight; indeed the film doesn’t even know what it is. Is it a searing indictment of Tony Blair’s involvement with the PNAC neocons in the US? Is it a political thriller? Is it a character piece on the Blairs? Not once does Polanski make his mind up, and it’s unbelievable that a writer of his calibre should have submitted such drivel to audiences, even under his current circumstances. How the book’s author Robert Harris could have collaborated on the script and have it turn out so dreadfully is even more shocking.
Ewan McGregor plays the ghost writer for ex-Prime Minister Adam Lang’s (Pierce Brosnan, as a none-too-subtly coded Blair analogue) memoirs. Lang lives a life earning countless millions on the American lecture circuit, but constantly has to outrun peace protesters, outraged at his adventure in Iraq. Suddenly he’s indicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for investigation for war crimes. So far so uncomfortable, but why was his former Foreign Secretary behind it, and why did McGregor’s predecessor end up dead? Polanski takes an inordinate amount of time merely to get to the point, boring us with countless irrelevant scenes with Brosnan’s secretary Kim Cattrall (along with her hilarious English accent) an inexplicable affair with Brosnan’s wife (Olivia Williams, looking nothing like Cherie Blair), and sudden revelations about Brosnan’s university friendships with Tom Wilkinson and others which fail to set the screen alight or amount to an intelligible conspiracy. When we know Blair willingly allied himself with Bush and his PNAC cronies, and did so out of vanity at the very least, what conspiracy could Harris and Polanksi possibly paint to justify this rambling mess of a film?
Nothing. The wife killed the previous ‘Ghost’. Why? To prevent her being indicted by the ICC! Ridiculous, when he was the one in power. And why then (and how) should she then finish the film by murdering McGregor? Well over two hours utterly wasted. Two major leads with no charisma on their own or together, mystifying casting in the case of the awful and pointless Cattrall, and more British stereotypes than you can shake a stick at, ‘The Ghost’ crumbles quickly under its own pretentions. Ultimately considering the subject matter the fault for the film’s failings lies with Polanski. Given that Brosnan’s former Prime Minister is such a close analogue for Blair, this film needed to say something, either about him (it doesn’t), her (it doesn’t) or at least use McGregor to run a suspenseful chase around the real-world issues, but it doesn’t do even that. Only approaching his assassination in the penultimate act does Brosnan’s character remotely (ironically) come alive. It’s more than you can say about McGregor.
Filming stopped when Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for serious offences of his own. This unspeakable, unentertaining mess should never have seen the light of day.
Director Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a good film; sadly though because it’s also a Disney film it stops itself from being a great film. As fun as it is (and the 3D rendition is a lot of fun), this sequel to the original cartoon suffers from the same problem as ‘Avatar’ – no plot. Or rather there is a plot, but it’s so Disney-fied and insubstantial that it might as well not have had one at all. Right from the outset the twin conclusions are telegraphed, both in Wonderland and in the real world, and, well, Disney doesn’t disappoint. Burton’s Alice – Mia Wasikowska could just as well be Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries – screenwriter Linda Woolverton doesn’t exactly take any risks in her storytelling, but this film isn’t even carried by that film’s charm. For that matter it doesn’t even rely on the original cartoon’s charm, or rely much on the Lewis Carroll source material. Burton may have visual flair, boundless imagination, a sense even of the absurd, but it’s a film with no heart; despite some delightful touches – the Cheshire Cat, Helena Bonham-Carter’s Red Queen and Anne Hathaway’s White Queen, it’s actually quite dull.
Much has been made of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter and much has been said of newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice, but neither impresses so much as to make much of an impression and whilst Wasikowska may have Gwyneth Paltrow’s looks, she doesn’t have her presence or her ability. Alice is a curiously 2D character in a 3D film, and epitomises the wasted opportunities which litter this film. It’s frustrating, considering the interesting clashes available in telling the story of an adult Alice returning to the Wonderland she’d forgotten she’d visited as a child. Depp in turn unquestionably entertains but you’ve seen the crazy man ‘thing’ many times before; his amalgam of Jack Sparrow, Sweeney Todd and Willy Wonka is enjoyable but exactly what you’d expect of him. The supporting cast however is an utter knockout – Alan Rickman, Geraldine James, Matt Lucas, Michael Sheen & Stephen Fry all have enjoyable turns, but they fail to lift this from substandard fayre. Great for the kids, amusing for the adults, but not terribly entertaining.
I know that Alice Sebold’s book is revered for some reason or another, but the film sure didn’t give any of the reasons away as to why. That’s not to say that director and co-screenwriter Peter Jackson has made a bad adaptation, far from it, but it’s not remotely clear what the film is supposed to be about. Is it a ‘Ghost’-style, beyond-the-grave murder mystery? Is it a teen romance? A story of a serial killer? It never settles on anything particularly, and Jackson’s focus never stays still long enough to get an emotional grip on proceedings. Teenager Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is murdered by serial killer neighbour Stanley Tucci in the early 70s, and narrates the film from the afterlife. We see her family life, we see her first love, ambitions and insecurities, just as she’s about to start really growing up. After her death we see her stuck in the ‘In-Between’, a half-way house between life and the afterlife, seemingly trapped by her parents’ (Mark Wahlberg & Rachel Weisz) inability to let her go. Will Tucci get away with it?
Well yes, and it’s a highly unsatisfying end to a film which claims to aspire to much more. There are other unsatisfying aspects to the film however, from Wahlberg’s whiny, insubstantial performance, to his and Rachel Weisz’s frustratingly unmoving grief, through to the non-story about the police (were they really that incompetent in the seventies?); it all may be entertainingly knitted together, but it’s emotionally unengaging. It leaves Ronan standing almost alone, excelling as Susie Salmon, as does Tucci as her killer, and the absence of a clearer focus on their relationship before and after her murder, and the lack of emotional resonance of her life being cut short are genuinely missed opportunities. But Jackson doesn’t spend long enough on any character’s plight for us to engage with it in any depth. And what was Susan Sarandon doing as the comedically drunk grandmother?
Susie doesn’t end up leading her parents to Tucci – Wahlberg figures it out on his own, and even the moment where her disembodied spirit could intervene to stop Tucci from getting away with his crime is spoiled by a ridiculously contrived (and inappropriate) sequence with Ronan and her still-living true love. What was the point of it all? What was the point of framing the real world stories with Susie’s adventures in the afterlife? It may have looked impressive, but was overlong and overindulgent, and I never figured it out.
Colin Firth may well lose out to Jeff Bridges for the Best Actor Oscar, but make no mistake he richly deserves one here, as a gay British university professor who has to cope with the sudden death of his long-term boyfriend in 1960s America. In a society still deeply homophobic, he must remain stoic and professional, and cope invisibly with the crushing pain and loneliness from losing his soulmate. And Firth’s depiction of George’s plight is nothing short of remarkable. From his cold response to the secretive phone call confirming Jim’s (Matthew Goode) death, to his very private tears and subsequent soundless breakdown with his best friend (Julianne Moore), George’s grief is never anything short of devastatingly believable. This may all sound terribly depressing, but screenwriter/director Tom Ford manages to make the film a very rich, emotional story about love, and gay love at that.
George wanders through his now emotionally cold existence with a cool detachment, which Ford details for us with a subdued colour palette, lighting up when human warmth crosses his path. The neighbour’s daughter, the Spanish hustler or just the sunset – George is given multiple reasons to go on, yet he continues his race towards death, unable to engage with the world without Jim. His emotional coldness briefly unravels with his fag hag Julianne Moore (vamping it up as a proto-Patsy – fun, but the weakest link in an otherwise powerful film), but it’s only with the arrival of student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult, sporting a remarkable American accent) that his rush towards death is truly halted. Hoult is even prettier than during his run in ‘Skins’, and is more than a match for Firth’s George. Without treading on Jim’s metaphorical toes, Kenny makes George feel again, and the sheer sensuousness of their burgeoning love affair is breathtaking, largely through never being consummated.
Ford’s attention to detail adds a level of depth which makes this film truly great – from the set design to the costumes, through to the score, every facet of George’s world is painted with love and precision. That some of Ford’s visual trickery isn’t as effective as the rest of the movie is a small criticism – pretty much all of it allows the film to pack a disproportionately powerful punch. ‘A Single Man’ may not in itself be a political film about gay rights, but it is a very effective criticism of gay invisibility. Some have said it is a film which simply addresses universal truths about love, but I agree when David Cox points out that it’s very much a gay film, but addressed at everyone. And in that it’s inordinately successful.
A noir thriller will never operate at the same pace as a standard actioner, but there’s still no excuse for the often meandering pace of director Martin Campbell’s remake of his own 1980′s BBC TV serial. I still haven’t seen the original, but despite some good performances (particularly by Gibson) this version doesn’t work anywhere near as well as the highly acclaimed original is reported to, and oddly it’s largely because of Campbell himself. Gibson returns to the big screen as policeman Tommy Craven, whose daughter (Bojana Novakovic) is shot down in front of him. The police and media believe he was the target, but Craven doesn’t, and is swiftly drawn into a conspiracy within the American defence industry. Will he meet his daughter’s fate or will hitman-cum-mysterious-ally Ray Winstone help him to reveal Craven’s boss’ (Danny Huston) activities to the world?
Campbell tries almost too hard to rise above a script (by William Monahan and Andrew Bovell) which is mystifyingly pedestrian, given the source material. Gibson does his best, but his role is under-written, and he often has to labour through overly talky sequences which have no dramatic energy whatsoever, other than through his still potent charisma. Even more mystifyingly are the direction and editing, which on more than one occasion are little more than amateurish. It feels like there are different elements constantly pushing against each other, and it makes a worthy production often uncomfortable and reduces its impact. Gibson though has no problem emoting as the policeman haunted by his dead daughter, already looking in real life far older than his years. But although you feel anything can happen around him (the manic Lethal Weapon energy is far from gone), there’s no dramatic tension to the story he’s acting in. It’s a missed opportunity by a director with such energy-bursting triumphs as ‘Goldeneye’ and ‘Casino Royale’.
The conspiracy is never adequately fleshed out, although its real-world murkiness is a nice touch. The links between Blackwater, the Bush Administration, the CIA and other organisations have long been known but have been very difficult (if not impossible) to prove, and ‘Edge of Darkness’ is fully aware of that, in ways ‘State of Play’ was not. If its noir elements had been put together a bit more competently (and the sickly ending avoided completely), and a little more political conviction been shown, this might have been a truly exciting return for the much missed Mel Gibson the actor. As it is it’s a mildly enjoyable diversion, which promises more than it delivers.
George Clooney is the everyman for the 21st century. Who needs Tom Hanks’ cheery optimism when you can have Clooney’s well-mannered disconnection? His Ryan Bingham is a man of the times- a contractor hired by firms to fire their staff in the recession so they don’t have to. Bingham is at home in the sterility of air side America, packaging his existence into his suitcase, living almost the entire year on the road, and measuring everyone else by their ability to navigate speedily through his space. He meets Alex (Vera Farmiga) – his female analogue and every bit his equal, and they begin a sterile, disconnected relationship which suits their needs, and why not? America is thoroughly rationalised, and they count themselves as amongst the tools which keep it that way. They don’t compare feelings, rather travel discount cards, admiring one another through their mutual convenience to each other. Bingham fools himself even into believing he’s doing the people he’s firing a favour, by doubling as a ‘life coach’. Enter Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who derails his feelings and responsibilities-free life by convincing his boss Jason Bateman to pull him and his colleagues off the road, and start firing people by webcam. Before that can happen she must go out on the road with Bingham to try their firm’s new system out on-site, and no longer able to insulate herself from the pain she causes, Natalie is forced to change. She isn’t the only one…
‘Up In The Air’ is a comedy of manners which belts you when you least expect it – the humour is often gently amusing, but make no mistake director and co-writer Jason Reitman has something harsh to say about recession-hit America as it limps into the century’s second decade. Class act Clooney’s charisma would make this work even if the screenplay were a dud, but together they make it sparkle. Clooney’s aloof but amusing observations on his fellow travellers are contrasted with talking heads interviews of those he’s fired, and the cost of his personal success is constantly challenged. With Bingham at the same time the fulcrum between both a bittersweet rom com and an odd-couple film, Reitman runs the risk of trying to make the film do too much, but instead it catches fire. That you can be entertained with laugh-out-loud comedy one minute and ferocious social commentary the next is a testament to all concerned, and the performances are outstanding – Clooney’s well-matched by both Kendrick and Farmiga, and even Bateman reins himself in. Reitman never loses control of the contrasting issues, values and tensions between his three leads, and successfully uses Clooney as the prism through which we view 2010 America; it may be funny and pretty but it’s heartless, unfair and sterile too. He clearly hopes the chastened Bingham we see at the film’s close will one day be matched by his country.
‘Up in the Air’ is at it’s heart a dark tale of dreams lost and dreams discarded. It proves ‘Juno’ wasn’t a one-off, and that old school charm can still successfully underpin even the most biting morality plays. Studios take note.
There’s a downright great idea here, buried under a great morass of excessive overstyling and script failures. That’s not to say that ‘Daybreakers’ isn’t entertaining – it is – but its clever premise is brought down by never living up to the ideas it sets out, and because of lackadaisical direction by the Spierig brothers (who also co-wrote the film). It’s a shame because the idea of a world dominated racially by vampires is a novel one – would it too socially stratify, and what would vampiric corporate America’s priorities be? If the principal industrialised commodity were human blood, what would the social and business ramifications be of a shortage? Environmentalism in a vampire movie could have given space for a truly incisive (ahem) social commentary, but Michael and Peter Spierig eschew one in favour of simple blood and gore, overstylised visuals, and zingy one-liners.
Hunky Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a hematologist unhappy with vampirism and its farming of humans to near extinction. His attempts to formulate a blood substitute for boss Sam Neill (whose human cancer was undone by his conversion to vampirism) amount to naught, he fights with brother Michael Dorman, a success in the vampiric armed forces having been a failure in its human analogue, and faces gradual starvation as both sides face mutually assured destruction. That is until he crosses paths with Willem Dafoe’s band of humans, some survivors and some ex-vampires, who reveal the existence of a cure. The race is then on to safeguard the remaining humans, whilst saving the vampires – has vampirism stripped them of their morals or has immortality merely accentuated what was already there?
From a great start – corporate boss Neill overseeing the human blood farms, facing a dip in profits as scarcity pushes the price up, and vampires attacking ‘lower class’ vampires, it descends into a barely coherent second half, replete with moody glares at the screen but not much in the way of intelligible plotting. Hawke gets himself cured, so why is he still sleepwalking through the role? Why does Dafoe spend more time with classic one-liners than actually fulfilling an interesting function in the story? What happened to the politics? Neill rejects the cure but he’s the bad guy, but would others also say ‘what’s to cure?’ Why just ignore the social implications of vampirism when they informed so much of the first half of the movie? It all gets left behind in the Spierig brothers’ eagerness to deliver the blood, guts and gore which must have been expected of them. But whilst that element is entertaining, it isn’t something you haven’t seen countless times before. So many good ideas, such half-hearted execution.
It sure is bleak, which isn’t to say that director John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic road movie (adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s book) isn’t technically brilliant or outstandingly well acted. But ‘The Road’ is so nihilistic, so full of pessimism and dread, with no humour whatsoever, you can’t really call it entertaining or a film you can recommend for a good night out. This isn’t a problem though, because you can’t fault it on its artistic merits – from the washed out colour palette, giving further depth to the lifeless Earth, through to the Hollywood-unfriendly storyline, Joe Penhall’s script is true to itself from start to finish, and even the apparent product placements are true to the book (Coca Cola in particular had initially resisted its inclusion). Viggo Mortensen stars as an unnamed man, guiding his son Kodi Smit-McPhee through a desolate, dead America, with no plant or animal life, and with other humans reduced to violence and cannibalism in order to survive. Facing starvation or a violent death they head to the coast, hoping for something better, using one another to hold on to their sense of morality along the way.
And although the pair have no hope and little chance, they continue to fight for their survival on a planet no longer able to support life, Mortensen holding on to his responsibilities as a father, and Smit-McPhee intuitively believing in the value of being ‘a good guy’. It’s a fascinating character study of morality and fatherhood, in the face of utter hopelessness. And both actors are more than up to the task – Mortensen provides a tower of strength under unthinkable pressure, and Smit-McPhee gives a compelling depiction of hope, compassion and optimism, while the rest of his race descends into savagery. Penhall’s script has them relying on one another to hold on to what they believe in, both supporting and pushing when humanity has given up entirely, and it effectively draws you in. Could the tone have lightened up on occasion? Sure, but Hillcoat admirably never loses his focus from his pair, nor do we lose our compassion for them.
There is some genuinely shocking and mostly underplayed horror, and the stark, mostly on-location visuals add to the feeling of constant dread. The attention to detail of the dead Earth is simultaneously impressive and depressing, and although we never find out what brought about The End of the World, we don’t need to. This is all about Father and Son, showing goodness can prevail under any circumstance. More of a technical achievement than a ‘must see’, ‘The Road’ is nonetheless an impressive film and worthy of your time – just pick the right one.
How Guy Ritchie of all people managed to put together a perfectly good and highly enjoyable Sherlock Holmes movie, and with Robert Downey Jr in the lead, is beyond me. But the fact remains that his brazen attempt to both reboot Holmes and to set up a franchise succeeds, in an odd way a little too well. The ex-Mr Madonna and his screenwriters Michael Robert Johnson and Anthony Peckham actually cram far too much detail into an otherwise lovingly crafted and straightforward conspiracy against the British state, and leave the first half a little bloated and a bit too clever for its own good. Is Lord Blackwood (the sublime Mark Strong) really a black magician, using dark arts to take over Britain and then the world? With highly enjoyable twists and turns, the fractious Holmes and Watson investigate.
The first half of the movie is quite perplexing, despite some excellent scenes where we see the world from Holmes’ point of view. The bare knuckle fight sequence may upset film Holmes purists, but getting a snapshot of how his mind works adds a valuable dimension to Downey’s oddball performance. Whilst he clearly can’t decide still whether to play the character or just ‘do Downey’, he errs on the side of caution for the most part and is a highly watchable, charismatic lead; to manage Holmes and Stark simultaneously is no mean achievement. And Jude Law as a heavily retooled Watson is a delight too – the chemistry between them dominates the movie, as they both chew their way through every scene they share. And the back half of the movie – the payoff – is extremely strong and remarkably traditional; anyone expecting the Hollywoodised style of the trailer couldn’t be more wrong. Whilst Ritchie’s pacing is as rapid as you might imagine, it’s never at the expense of story. Well almost never – it might have helped to have known more about Holmes’ past relationship with Rachel McAdam, but this is a minor quibble.
The rebooted Sherlock Holmes for a new century is a definite success and great entertainment for audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Its highly impressive look, its eschewing any form of origin sequence (I mean who doesn’t know who Holmes is?) and the decision to take a whole new approach with Holmes and Watson casting are all triumphs for Ritchie. The lead-in to the sequel (which seems to have now been greenlit) is also pretty welcome; I can stand to revisit these characters quite happily. All in all an excellent balance between a cerebral mystery and out and out action – a very pleasant surprise.
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