Film Review: Due Date
It’s very American is all I can say, by which I mean clearly made for a very broad, undemanding, Friday night, cheap-and-easy-laughs market. That would be all well and good in itself if it weren’t such a drab, lifeless, cynical and uninteresting film, which has nothing to say about its characters and doesn’t even pull the comedy off well. Robert Downey Jr plays an architect in Atlanta desperate to get home to his wife in Los Angeles who’s about to give birth to their first child. At the airport he comes into contact with Zack Galifianakis, a perm-headed lunatic with behavioural problems far more serious than just tourettes. Galifianakis gets them thrown off the plane and onto a no-fly list, forcing the most unlikely road movie ever; without even his wallet, Downey has no choice but to join him driving across the US.
It would be all well and good if this were merely a re-run of the far superior ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ but this film fails in every area where Steve Martin and John Candy succeeded. Galifianakis has no redeeming qualities worth speaking of – he portrays the lovable Candy figure from time to time but is hindered by a one-note script. Downey has the same problems – where he’s supposed to be the straight man, he’s written as the fully straight man – he’s not terribly likable either, nor terribly interesting, and has to get by on his charisma alone (of which he admittedly has in abundance). To succeed and overcome its lack of originality this film needs charm, but mystifyingly neither of the leads offers it. Galifianakis may not yet have proven any ability more than he demonstrated in ‘The Hangover’, not so Downey. I can’t fathom why he accepted this role which, given his enormous comedic talents, he then appears to sleepwalk through. I’m sure he needs a quick film between Marvel film appearances, but this shouldn’t have been it. The only time he comes alive is with Jamie Foxx – hardly surprising given their chemistry in ‘The Soloist’, but it makes you wonder why either of them bothered with this.
You could yourself write most of the thrills and spills they get into – Galifianakis falling asleep at the wheel, their accidental incursion into Mexico, the confrontation at the Grand Canyon, but for reasons known only to the committee of screenwriters an extra level of conflict is added – could they not agree a more convincing motivation to justify Foxx’s casting? But it’s a mystery too why punching a child in a film otherwise relatively serious should be deemed funny, or why Downey’s character should be written as so relentlessly mean in a film meant to be a comedy. Perhaps the American audiences aren’t thought to care that much – the British one never raised much more than a titter. A confused and pointless film, just not uniformally hateful.
5/10
Film Review: Kaboom
I must confess I don’t know all of Gregg Araki’s work, but was blown away by his adaptation of Scott Heim’s ‘Mysterious Skin’. ‘Kaboom’ appears more of a return to his cult roots, and what a return it is. Drug addled realities, huge amounts of sex between extremely hot actors and preposterous conspiracy theories. What more could you ask for, particularly with a lead actor as hot as Thomas Dekker (I may return to this)? Nothing as far as I’m concerned – this is a definitive gay cult film for the early 21st century.
Dekker (‘Heroes’/'Sarah Connor Chronicles’) plays Smith, an 18 year old gay student who refuses to self-define as such, but gets around. He lusts after his impossibly beautiful surfer roommate Thor (Chris Zykla), gossips with his sarcastic lesbian best friend Stella (Haley Bennett) and shags much of what moves – men, women, it’s all the same to him at the end of the day. One night he eats a drug laced cookie at a party and sleeps with the redoubtable London (Juno Temple); he also appears to see the violent murder of the Red Haired Girl. Or does he? Who are the animal masked men?
With this film Araki has a lot to say about the current generation (although he’s also admitted ‘Kaboom’ is a semi-biographical work as well). Smith has sex with the outrageously well-built & hot Hunter (Jason Olive) whilst on a nudist beach, is pursued by the cute Oliver (Brennan Mejia) and is desired by pretty much everyone; he’s equanimous about whom he beds as long as they’re cool. He studies film for no clear reason at all, but loves his indie music (a personal obsession of Araki’s) and only finds a hint of true intimacy with London. The writer/director has even more of a snipe at lesbian culture, suggesting (or does he?) Stella’s one conquest is an actual witch, and he peppers his highly sexualised teen drama with these odd contradictions. Smith’s obsession with the Red Haired Girl walks the film uncomfortably through this murky world, albeit without much purpose until the film’s final act.
Of course Araki peppers the film with his other personal obsessions – what is the cult of the animal masked men and what do they want? Why does Smith keep appearing to be able to see elements of his future? What starts out as a teen drama veers towards a vicious, self-satirising black comedy with bitingly incisive wit. Stella attacks public figures like Clay Aiken, Mel Gibson, Lady Gaga, and gay people in general, with even Smith acknowledging ‘strange seems to be the new normal’. Araki wraps his characters in a 90210-esque pastel coloured world, but it becomes increasingly paranoid – Smith and Oliver never get it on, Smith gets attacked and robbed in his dorm room by an assailant who might just be imaginary, and asks too late if Hunter has safer sex, whilst continually being pursued by the animal masked men just out of the edge of his consciousness. Araki has no shame in suddenly changing perspective, and when he breaks out fully into black comedy the film takes on an entirely different and in many ways deeper significance: are all these relationships for naught?
As the writer/director points out earlier in the film, film studies student Smith may be completely wasting his time in education by studying an art form which has a limited shelf life, and Araki hints very strongly that there’s no point to anything. It’s quite an achievement to wrap nihilism in light hearted sexuality, which keeps it very light, enjoyable and entertaining from the outset. It may become very Twin Peaks-esque but it’s also very funny – the Red Haired Girl changes persona and identity more than once as the film races through its various acts, but never once does Araki lose hold of your sympathy for some terrifically drawn characters (Dekker’s Smith in particular). Cult films may or may not be your thing, but when the film starts with a full frontal nude shot of an outrageously beautiful young man, how can you go wrong? Run, don’t walk I say. I will again when it eventually hits British cinemas.
9.5/10
Film Review: RED (Spoilers)
They do still have it, it’s true. And if director Robert Schwentke and screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber had played to that, you’d have had a film truly worthy of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, the co-creators of the DC/Wildstorm book, upon which the film is based. The tone of the adaptation is completely different for starters, sure – Bruce Willis’ retired CIA assassin Frank Moses isn’t a cold, relentless killer with room in his heart only for pensions clerk Mary-Louise Parker, before killing everyone in Langley for trying to off him in his retirement. The film’s Frank Moses instead has friends – the batshit crazy John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, who lives in a care home, and the deadly Helen Mirren, who although retired still kills a bit on the side. He cracks a bit wise, but the film’s Moses is still targeted for assassination by the CIA, here by up-and-coming CIA assassin Karl Urban, who is as unquestioning as Willis was in his youth and is no less deadly.
The movie fast becomes a good humoured road trip around the US, as Moses tries to stay one step ahead of Urban, who is in turn being controlled by nefarious people behind key figures in the CIA. Will he and his gang stay alive long enough to track down who’s behind the plot to kill them? It’s an awful lot of fun, with Malkovich’s excellent insane act (we need more of him on screen please), Freeman’s normal stoicism commanding every scene he’s in, and Willis is well enough cast as Moses, although the gleam in his eye was occasionally jarring (Sin City proved he can do without). The film offers some quite sharp commentary on age too, with the parallels between Willis and Urban clear, and Helen Mirren effectively stealing the show out from under the men, but for some unknown reason she and her male cohorts are only allowed to burn slowly on screen, rather than explode. You are granted what becomes a rollercoaster ride, sure, but it surely would have made better sense to have taken these larger than life personalities and let them off the leash. The first half of the film also suffers from far too little energy – it takes far too long to get to Malkovich and for the wisecracking to start in earnest; artist Cully Hamner imbued the book with more pathos than the film has, and with less plot to work with.
From the amount it’s earned, ‘RED’ has successfully made a statement about age in Hollywood. Willis and co couldn’t have been more warmly embraced by audiences both sides of the pond, and rightly so – it’s wonderful to see these greats so warmly embraced. It may not be a perfect film – Parker’s role for example is horribly underwritten and occasionally fully out of step with the characters around her, the dark rationale behind the book is ditched in favour of a generic conspiracy theory, and Willis could have been much truer to Ellis’ Moses, but the film gets right more than it gets wrong. Pity that its moments of real bite – Malkovich running with a suicide jacket at the vice president (Julian McMahon), pretty much any scene Mirren is in – weren’t more plentiful.
7/10
Film Review: Route Irish (Spoilers)
Ken Loach is angry about Iraq and he wants you to know it. The thing is Ken Loach is always angry, and this is both the biggest strength of this film and its biggest weakness. ‘Route Irish’ is a story about the private security industry in post-war Iraq, and the way in which the British working class are hired by unscrupulous profiteers, often at the cost of their lives. Loach as ever offers a fierce, class-based perspective on what remains a largely secret war – it’s often gruelling stuff, often brilliantly acted, but its uncompromising viewpoint leaves you questioning the point of it. If an all-time great film-maker insists on making a film which is so harsh it’s barely entertaining, how does he think he’ll get his message across (however valid)? Who’ll want to come and watch it? It’s not ‘Hurt Locker’ after all.
Mark Womack plays Fergus, a former soldier and mercenary who doesn’t believe the official explanation of his life-long best friend Frankie’s (John Bishop) death in Iraq. As he investigates (with the help of Frankie’s girlfriend Andrea Lowe), Fergus finds the ruthless lengths which the private security firm they were both attached to will go to in order to retain their lucrative contracts. Will a man already angry and impatient be able to hold it together long enough in order to bring those responsible for Frankie’s death to book?
Loach’s latest is little more than a glorified blogpost – a polemic against the security industry in post-war Iraq, and how the working classes aren’t just being butchered there as a result, but how the secret war they’re involved in is being exported back here. It’s fantastic that he’s exploring a story which most of the media are largely ignoring, but his his relentless, uncompromising position on his subject matter is regularly offputting. His leads are ghoulish stereotypes, and whilst they may be true to life they’re hardly enjoyable characters to spend time watching. Loach has been around long enough surely to get off his high horse and compromise some analysis for entertainment value, but he persists in retaining production values better suited for television (despite some impressively well-shot action sequences filmed in Jordan).
Paul Laverty’s script irritatingly veers from intelligent to overblown, as a dour (but worthy) investigation into the issues turns into an exercise in revenge, as Fergus kills first the fellow contractor he believed murdered Frankie, and then the bosses of the firm itself, before committing suicide. The consequences of his actions are never properly looked at, and the waterboarding sequence endured by co-star Trevor Williams was surely unnecessary in making the sociological points Loach wants rammed down your throat. You can’t help but wonder if the sudden change in tone was imposed on the veteran film maker (the film was financed by more film companies and authorities than I’ve ever seen before), as the impact of his investigation is largely lost. It would surely have been far more enjoyable and worthwhile to have seen the impact of contractors continuing to war back in the UK.
Having said that, if Loach is your thing you can’t miss this. You won’t exactly leave feeling warm hearted, but you will have learned something about the war you may not have understood before, and he should be commended for achieving that. Pity that his audience will be so small he might as well not have bothered.
6/10
Film Review: Easy A (Spoilers)
It’s not hard to see why Emma Stone has already become the next big thing. Easily stepping into La Lohan’s shoes for feelgood teen comedy with bite, she commands the screen with just as much charisma as she showed in ‘Zombieland’, and with intelligence to spare. Granted, ‘Easy A’ doesn’t require much intelligence to watch, but it does ask some awkward questions about modern teenagers and of teen life in general, and doesn’t always offer easy answers. Stone plays Olive Penderghast, a high school loner who one day inadvertently makes her best friend think she’d slept with a college student. Enter her gay friend Brandon (Dan Byrd), a bullied loner too, who asks her to pretend to have sex with him in order to relieve his daily torment. She agrees, but it opens the floodgates for all bullied loners – Olive relieves the suffering of the lives of the high school oppressed, but at the cost of her own reputation. She meanwhile doesn’t have sex with anyone, and doesn’t even notice the advances of ‘Woodchuck’ Todd (Penn Badgley).
Bert V Royal’s script is peppered with hilariously funny lines, largely given to Stone’s ultra-liberal parents Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, but Will Gluck’s movie isn’t afraid of going very dark places too. Stone is even thrown under the bus by school counsellor Lisa Kudrow (typically witty yet acerbic), who sleeps with a ‘Christian’ student behind her husband Thomas Haden Church’s back. Royal and Gluck never give her a break – her reputation gets shot to hell whilst trying to do the right thing, yet the people she helps don’t help her back. It may not be as black as ‘Heathers’, but it has a similar point to make about contemporary teen culture.
It likens itself to the teen movies of the 1980′s (‘Say Anything’ in particular), but whilst it occasionally has similar sensibilities, it does tread ground they covered more sincerely two and a half decades ago. There’s nothing original here, and whilst Stone fills the role effortlessly, she does quite often give off the air that she’s beneath it. I couldn’t agree more – ‘Zombieland’ most recently made that clear, and it’ll be interesting to see her in the Spider-Man reboot, but this is still a lot of well-meaning fun. Comparisons have been made between this and ‘Clueless’ – both have strong, career-making female leads, both pay homage to notable pieces of literature (Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ there, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ here), and it’s a significant point; both may be fluffy but they’re intelligent too. You won’t see a teen movie ultimately this good again for a long time.
8/10
Film Review: The Social Network
The combination of Jesse Eisenberg playing Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with direction by David Fincher is a stroke of genius. It really is. The story of the creation of Facebook and the conflicts arising from it between the co-founders and others connected to Zuckerberg at the time should have been deathly dull: a semi-autistic computer nerd who some say screwed everyone over (at least in the film, I’ll get to real life later) in order to make his website the Next Big Thing doesn’t sound like a must-see. And indeed the conflicts shouldn’t come across as terribly sympathetic for film audiences – these are Harvard elitists who fell out, and the outcomes (particularly the lawsuits) are a matter of public record. There are no surprises here, yet Fincher manages to keep it gripping from the start.
He’s helped in no small measure by the casting of his star. Eisenberg showed in Zombieland that he has intelligence, charisma and superb comic timing. In ‘The Social Network’ he refines all of those qualities to deliver a dark, interesting and genuinely compelling performance of a notable recluse. Zuckerberg himself has complained that the motivations ascribed to him in the film weren’t what drove him, and that there were numerous factual inaccuracies, but that surely misses the point. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has gone on record saying this was a dramatisation of real events, and he’s quite right – an attempt to capture history would have made this a documentary, which it’s very clearly not; it’s an entertaining but subjective presentation of a true story. Take a look at what Zuckerberg himself has to say:
I think he’s wrong in his conclusion – I think this film is an effective character study that chooses not to take what he says at face value; adapted as it is from Ben Mezrich’s ‘The Accidental Billionaires’. It’s entitled to have its own viewpoint, right or wrong, and co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s (Andrew Garfield, promising pretty and intense things for the Spider-Man reboot) account of that period is likely no more definitive than Zuckerberg’s. The film ultimately is successful at giving a very powerful and electric (the editing in this film is quite brilliant) account of the forces and the period which led to the rise of worldwide social media.
Fincher punctuates Sorkin’s note-perfect dialogue with his normal washed-out palette and it looks just gorgeous, but a niggle remains. Sorkin and Fincher never do take a definitive stand on Zuckerberg – that much power and no agenda? Really? They suggest (as does he) that it was something he just wanted to do, without really understanding (or caring much about) the forces he unleashed, but this never really washes. What they succeed in demonstrating (through a very effective structure, cutting backwards and forwards from two of the lawsuits against Zuckerberg) is the incredible disparity between a bunch of elitist kids who were close before they got very lucky and very powerful indeed, and very much not afterwards. ‘The Social Network’ doesn’t have the punch of ‘Fight Club’ but it too effectively encapsulates the period it’s set in. Great stuff.
9/10
Film Review: Devil (Spoilers)
‘Devil’ may have had an excellent promotional campaign, but the connection with M Night Shyamalan should really set alarm bells off to those in the know. For all the bluster about being a supernatural thriller, ‘Devil’ is surprisingly conventional, often tediously so, and is ultimately painfully preachy and annoying.
Five people enter a skyscraper lift, all with their own secrets. Half way up it stops inexplicably, as things start to go wrong. Then the lights go out and passengers start dying, but why? That’s what cop Chris Messina must find out, with communication with the passengers inexplicably poor and other terrible accidents happening around him. One security guard insists that Satan has intervened, but with what agenda?
What could have been a classic blood n guts fright fest comes across more like a poor TV movie, with the most obvious passenger of all (Jenny O’Hara) hosting the Devil, who aims to cull His way through the other passengers until He reaches his intended target. Of course Logan Marshall-Green’s dark secret just happens to connect to Messina’s dark past, leading to a woefully predictable moral quandry for the investigating officer, which of course (being a Shyamalan creation) is resolved in the most patronising and preachy manner possible. Director John Erick Dowdle does, I admit, achieve the impossible and makes this irritating mess pretty entertaining – there may be almost no suspense but there’s sure some fun shock value. Screenwriter Brian Nelson’s work though is ultimately a pretty weak affair – no credible character development, a thoroughly uninteresting story with the world’s most pointless voiceover practically screaming the film’s subtext for those stupid enough not to have read the title of the film.
Only worth bothering with at the cinema if you’re really bored, otherwise a definite example of wait until it’s on the TV and see it for free!
4/10
Film Review: Buried (Spoilers)
If Ryan Reynolds hadn’t been attached to this it no doubt would never have been made, and this steaming pile of crap really shouldn’t have. Rarely in my cinema going life have I ever been so infuriated by a 90 minute experience, having left feeling like my time had been utterly and completely wasted but for experiencing the sight of Reynolds’ arms (and what arms!). The travesty is that ‘Buried’ is underpinned by a whole series of good, theatrical ideas, which never get tackled (or directed) properly, and then there are the continuity goofs. But I’ll get to them.
Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, an American truck driver in Iraq, whose convoy is attacked by insurgents, who kill most of his friends. He is buried in a wooden coffin in a shallow grave, and ransomed for $5 million, and has the length of the film to either raise the money or find his way out. What should then be an exercise in suspense and claustrophobia then mystifyingly becomes an exercise in tedium. Which family member is he phoning? Who cares? Is it really likely that his HR director would torment him so thoroughly when he’s close to death? Why do we need to hear the political platitudes from screenwriter Chris Sparling about how widespread and horrific this phenomenon is in post-war Iraq right now? Director Rodrigo Cortes never buckles down and delivers the suspense/horror film which this initially promises to be.
It’s not because the premise is faulty – it’s entirely because there’s never any real sense of suspense. Reynolds hears a call to prayer, suggesting he’s not just in a shallow grave but a really shallow grave – why doesn’t he just kick his way out when the coffin starts to collapse? Why is more not made of the clock ticking, of the mobile phone he’s given losing power? Why does he have more air than he could possibly handle, after burning more than his fair share with his lighter’s flame (and a goddamn fire) and panicking regularly? These inconsistencies may be true to life for all we know but this is a movie – although Reynolds makes Conroy very human and likeable this just isn’t entertaining or remotely compelling.
And don’t get me started about the betrayal of an ending. I accept that either way out would have been difficult to write, but it comes straight out of the Twilight Zone. It might work on the TV after half an hour of suspense, but not after 90 minutes of the film makers desperately trying to tell you something. Conroy’s death, whilst neatly undoing his ‘rescue’, tells you you’ve just wasted the entire movie finding out very little about a nice (but uninteresting) man for no reason. I wish I’d walked out. Don’t touch with a barge pole.
2/10
Film Review: Tamara Drewe (Spoilers)
It’s starting to seem like heresy, but I wasn’t really bothered about Stephen Frears’ latest slice of British life ‘Tamara Drewe’, based on the comic strip by Posy Simmonds. I feel I probably should have – looking through the online copy of the strip it’s clearly quite amazing, and Frears has long been one of my favourite directors, but this just screamed ‘misfire’ throughout, despite some impressive performances (notably by Tamsin Greig) and some seriously thoughtful moments. But for a film adapting a work of such wit and insight into country village life it was awfully sanitised – at times it felt like a Working Title film – and star Gemma Arterton offered very little to the title role other than her normal vacuous, pouting beauty. There was a serious amount of insight to be had in middle aged relationships and indeed into the tensions to be found in English village life, but it felt overcooked, so eager to please the inevitable American hordes with their old-fashioned ideas about England, that much of its worth got drained right out of it.
Stephen Frears has had a number of peaks into British life: ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’, ‘The Queen’, ‘Mrs Henderson Presents’ & ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ to name but a few, but this is by far the most overtly middle class (by his own admission). And in my opinion this is the film’s downfall – the Tamara in the strip is a powerful indictment on female sexuality and what she had to change about herself to get ahead in the world. Here though Arterton offers the odd commentary on celebrity – sanitised for the Working Title ‘Love Actually’ audience, but given she’s not gifted in front of the camera, most of her scenes come across wooden or downright dead. There’s a great opportunity to contrast her move up in the world with young Jessica Barden’s character, stuck unnoticed in nowheresville, but where the strip had Jody’s desperation leading her to a dark end, here her hatred of village life is simply dumbed down for comic effect.
Whilst I can’t deny that the subplot of Roger Allam’s affairs behind screen wife Tamsin Greig’s back is entertaining (and you can’t knock their acting chops), it’s just not terribly original, nor is it always believable. Allam’s initial bit on the side may have been a social climber, but his affair with Arterton is impossible to comprehend. Out of the entire cast only Greig really manages to stop herself from indulging in the stereotypes clearly present in Moira Buffini’s screenplay, and to inject a third dimension into proceedings. Both character and actor have a great deal to say about middle class women in her position, but it’s again slightly undermined by some of the inappropriate comedy surrounding her (Allam dying under a herd of stampeding cows?). Only Barden’s character offers the greatest opportunity to force contrasts into the story and make the characters more interesting, but Frears only ever offers a saccharine look at the social pressures driving her.
‘Tamara Drewe’ is an extremely warm, friendly and amazingly cast film. The comedy is enjoyable in a ‘My Family’ sort of way, and it’s a mildly interesting look at an area of English life which rarely gets mainstream film attention. It just has nothing challenging (or terribly original) about it at all and left me a bit cold.
6/10
Film Review: Salt (Spoilers)
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.
4/10
Film Review: Knight and Day (Spoilers)
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’?
Film Review: Greenberg (Spoilers)
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.
7/10
Film Review: 4.3.2.1 (Spoilers)
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.
3/10
Film Review: Robin Hood (Spoilers)
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.
7.5/10
Film Review: Four Lions (Spoilers)
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.
7.5/10
