Film Reviews Thread
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Original post by Aj12
Remake. Its pretty decent. Haven't see the original though
Definitely worth catching the original. Bridges and Damon together in a Western sounds pretty epic though.
Original post by Aj12
Thanks, good luck with the exam.
Thanks
I'll post the review in the next comment
Last King of Scotland
Last King of Scotland tells the tale of a recently graduated Scottish doctor named Nicholas Garrigan, who travels to Uganda in 1970 during Idi Amin’s popular-backed revolution and ends up working as Amin’s personal physician and aide to his corrupt regime. Brutally captivating and comedic in parts, Last King of Scotland is a classic film in the making.
Set in 1970, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan originally intends to help two other British doctors in aiding the locals, gripped by poverty. However as the story progresses he and his colleagues are sent by police to see an important incident involving Amin. The two bond, and Amin expresses his hatred of the British but love and admiration of the Scottish. Amin then invites Garrigan to be his personal physician and a minister of health in his system. As the story continues, the young Scot falls in love with Kai, one of Idi’s wives. The two have an affair, but while this happens Garrigan discovers atrocities committed by his leader, and is tasked by the British ambassador to report his actions to them. With a climatic ending, it is truly difficult to explain just how compelling this tale is, although it will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.
There is something truly brilliant about Last King of Scotland that makes this film so great. Perhaps Forest Whitaker’s perfect portrayal of the cruel, psychotic and sadistic dictator. Or perhaps the somewhat complex storyline that although is fictional, describes many real-life events in Amin’s reign. Whatever it is, this film is really good.
The film is not particularly action-orientated, but not a documentary either. Very gory in parts, comedic in others, Last King of Scotland is a film everybody should watch. Despite also being a warning from history about popular-backed revolutions, it is an entertaining thriller that will keep you watching till the end of the credits.
In conclusion, WHAT ARE YOU DOING READING THIS??? RENT THE BLOOMING FILM!!!
Last King of Scotland tells the tale of a recently graduated Scottish doctor named Nicholas Garrigan, who travels to Uganda in 1970 during Idi Amin’s popular-backed revolution and ends up working as Amin’s personal physician and aide to his corrupt regime. Brutally captivating and comedic in parts, Last King of Scotland is a classic film in the making.
Set in 1970, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan originally intends to help two other British doctors in aiding the locals, gripped by poverty. However as the story progresses he and his colleagues are sent by police to see an important incident involving Amin. The two bond, and Amin expresses his hatred of the British but love and admiration of the Scottish. Amin then invites Garrigan to be his personal physician and a minister of health in his system. As the story continues, the young Scot falls in love with Kai, one of Idi’s wives. The two have an affair, but while this happens Garrigan discovers atrocities committed by his leader, and is tasked by the British ambassador to report his actions to them. With a climatic ending, it is truly difficult to explain just how compelling this tale is, although it will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.
There is something truly brilliant about Last King of Scotland that makes this film so great. Perhaps Forest Whitaker’s perfect portrayal of the cruel, psychotic and sadistic dictator. Or perhaps the somewhat complex storyline that although is fictional, describes many real-life events in Amin’s reign. Whatever it is, this film is really good.
The film is not particularly action-orientated, but not a documentary either. Very gory in parts, comedic in others, Last King of Scotland is a film everybody should watch. Despite also being a warning from history about popular-backed revolutions, it is an entertaining thriller that will keep you watching till the end of the credits.
In conclusion, WHAT ARE YOU DOING READING THIS??? RENT THE BLOOMING FILM!!!
I've been meaning to post in here for ages. Here's my first attempt at writing a film review, then. 
X-Men: First Class
In the run-up to the promised spate of highly anticipated superhero films due in 2012, X-Men: First Class has established itself as both a commercial and critical success, and almost certainly the best superhero movie of the year so far. While calling it this, however, one must take into account that its competition has basically consisted of The Green Hornet and The Green Lantern, both critically slated films. This should not, of course, detract from the merits X-Men: First Class undoubtedly has, but does indicate that the superlative used to describe the film may distort its evaluation: X-Men: First Class has both perks and disappointments, but in a much greater balance than that label suggests.
Like the first X-Men (2000, directed by Bryan Singer), the film opens to a Nazi concentration camp in 1944, where soldiers attempt to forcibly separate a young Erik Lensherr – later better known as Magneto – from his mother. This conflict results in a display of Erik’s mutant powers, something quickly noted by Nazi scientist Klaus Schmidt (Kevin Bacon). Schmidt attempts to have Erik redisplay his powers, eventually unlocking them via the creation of powerful anger in Erik. At around the same time, a young telepath Charles Xavier meets a shape-shifting mutant, Raven; delighted at having found another someone else who is ‘different’, he takes her in as family. This prologue completed, the movie then launches into its points of conflict: jumping forward to 1962, we encounter an adult Erik (Michael Fassbender) beginning his quest for vengeance on Schmidt. Meanwhile, in a CIA undercover mission gone awry, Moira MacTaggert (Rose Bryne) sees Schmidt, now Americanized and calling himself Sebastian Shaw, and his mutant associates Emma Frost (January Jones) and Azazel coerce a US Colonel to advocate official decisions that would raise the risk of nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. Moira’s account, of course, is met with disbelief and derision; to try and prove the plausibility of her assertion, she asks the help of Charles (now James McAvoy), who is by this point the foremost expert in genetics and mutations, and Raven (now usually Jennifer Lawrence). While hunting Shaw, who it is eventually revealed is mutant himself, they meet and join forces with Erik. This meeting paves the way for the creation of a ‘mutant division’ in the CIA, and Erik and Charles scour the world to enlist mutants for this purpose – the first batch of the ‘X-Men’. The remainder of the film then chronicles the X-Men’s development and struggle to stop Shaw’s plans to obliterate all non-mutants in a nuclear war.
The film’s finest moments come towards the beginning, where Erik’s relentless pursuit of Schmidt/Shaw takes him across continents and on a mercilessly efficient spree of violence; these scenes help build both pace and tension in the movie’s early stages, and Erik’s chilling proficiency as a vendetta-seeker lends the film the sort of dark maturity that many superhero films have striven to achieve since it was introduced by Burton and refined by Nolan in their respective Batman films. A critical difference between these movies, however, is that while the darkness in Batman films seeps over to the issues they deal with – in Nolan’s The Dark Knight, for example, the Joker’s nihilism – X-Men: First Class relies almost wholly on the weight of the action; between Erik’s pursuit and his final showdown with Shaw, therefore, there is simply not enough substance to give the film much weight. While, like Singer, Vaughn does touch upon the motif of discrimination, this is relegated to scenes depicting old CIA members who are almost unrealistically open in their prejudice; given pre-release comments about how Fassbender and McAvoy had taken inspiration from the personalities of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. for their respective roles, one might have expected a more politically charged exploration of issues.
A similar lack of politicization taints the characterization of the lead figures. Erik Lensherr’s anger is given explanation in a tormented period of Nazi captivity, but his contempt for non-mutants is never fully explained. Perhaps accordingly, Michael Fassbender does a brilliant job of portraying an angry young man, but there is never really a noticeable non-verbal distinction between his attitude towards mutants and humans; as such, his determination to break through past all obstacles between him and Shaw is far more convincing than his brief interlude with Raven where he explains his belief in mutant superiority. Charles’ character is better substantiated, with his sheltered background forming a basis for his naivety – this change to incorporate a character flaw, from a sense of Professor X being all-wise, is one that works well to induce a little moral ambiguity: despite his good intentions, there is always a sense that he has not had to endure what others, like Fassbender, have, and that this prevents his viewpoint from attaining unquestionable validity. Raven is the only one of the remaining characters who is given much substance to work with, and apart from certain scenes by Kevin Bacon, none of them impress with their acting either. As for Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, her performance is not bad, but is likely to disappoint those who base their expectations on her performance in Winter’s Bone.
This evaluation of Lawrence, in a way, sums up the film: it is not a bad one, and almost certainly the best X-Men film yet. It is somewhat short on substance, relies heavily on effects and has underdeveloped romantic sub-plots, but no more so than is usually expected of typical superhero flicks. But there lies the disappointment: after showing enough promise in the opening stages to suggest that it can transcend the typical superhero movie, it doesn’t.
X-Men: First Class
In the run-up to the promised spate of highly anticipated superhero films due in 2012, X-Men: First Class has established itself as both a commercial and critical success, and almost certainly the best superhero movie of the year so far. While calling it this, however, one must take into account that its competition has basically consisted of The Green Hornet and The Green Lantern, both critically slated films. This should not, of course, detract from the merits X-Men: First Class undoubtedly has, but does indicate that the superlative used to describe the film may distort its evaluation: X-Men: First Class has both perks and disappointments, but in a much greater balance than that label suggests.
Like the first X-Men (2000, directed by Bryan Singer), the film opens to a Nazi concentration camp in 1944, where soldiers attempt to forcibly separate a young Erik Lensherr – later better known as Magneto – from his mother. This conflict results in a display of Erik’s mutant powers, something quickly noted by Nazi scientist Klaus Schmidt (Kevin Bacon). Schmidt attempts to have Erik redisplay his powers, eventually unlocking them via the creation of powerful anger in Erik. At around the same time, a young telepath Charles Xavier meets a shape-shifting mutant, Raven; delighted at having found another someone else who is ‘different’, he takes her in as family. This prologue completed, the movie then launches into its points of conflict: jumping forward to 1962, we encounter an adult Erik (Michael Fassbender) beginning his quest for vengeance on Schmidt. Meanwhile, in a CIA undercover mission gone awry, Moira MacTaggert (Rose Bryne) sees Schmidt, now Americanized and calling himself Sebastian Shaw, and his mutant associates Emma Frost (January Jones) and Azazel coerce a US Colonel to advocate official decisions that would raise the risk of nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. Moira’s account, of course, is met with disbelief and derision; to try and prove the plausibility of her assertion, she asks the help of Charles (now James McAvoy), who is by this point the foremost expert in genetics and mutations, and Raven (now usually Jennifer Lawrence). While hunting Shaw, who it is eventually revealed is mutant himself, they meet and join forces with Erik. This meeting paves the way for the creation of a ‘mutant division’ in the CIA, and Erik and Charles scour the world to enlist mutants for this purpose – the first batch of the ‘X-Men’. The remainder of the film then chronicles the X-Men’s development and struggle to stop Shaw’s plans to obliterate all non-mutants in a nuclear war.
The film’s finest moments come towards the beginning, where Erik’s relentless pursuit of Schmidt/Shaw takes him across continents and on a mercilessly efficient spree of violence; these scenes help build both pace and tension in the movie’s early stages, and Erik’s chilling proficiency as a vendetta-seeker lends the film the sort of dark maturity that many superhero films have striven to achieve since it was introduced by Burton and refined by Nolan in their respective Batman films. A critical difference between these movies, however, is that while the darkness in Batman films seeps over to the issues they deal with – in Nolan’s The Dark Knight, for example, the Joker’s nihilism – X-Men: First Class relies almost wholly on the weight of the action; between Erik’s pursuit and his final showdown with Shaw, therefore, there is simply not enough substance to give the film much weight. While, like Singer, Vaughn does touch upon the motif of discrimination, this is relegated to scenes depicting old CIA members who are almost unrealistically open in their prejudice; given pre-release comments about how Fassbender and McAvoy had taken inspiration from the personalities of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. for their respective roles, one might have expected a more politically charged exploration of issues.
A similar lack of politicization taints the characterization of the lead figures. Erik Lensherr’s anger is given explanation in a tormented period of Nazi captivity, but his contempt for non-mutants is never fully explained. Perhaps accordingly, Michael Fassbender does a brilliant job of portraying an angry young man, but there is never really a noticeable non-verbal distinction between his attitude towards mutants and humans; as such, his determination to break through past all obstacles between him and Shaw is far more convincing than his brief interlude with Raven where he explains his belief in mutant superiority. Charles’ character is better substantiated, with his sheltered background forming a basis for his naivety – this change to incorporate a character flaw, from a sense of Professor X being all-wise, is one that works well to induce a little moral ambiguity: despite his good intentions, there is always a sense that he has not had to endure what others, like Fassbender, have, and that this prevents his viewpoint from attaining unquestionable validity. Raven is the only one of the remaining characters who is given much substance to work with, and apart from certain scenes by Kevin Bacon, none of them impress with their acting either. As for Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, her performance is not bad, but is likely to disappoint those who base their expectations on her performance in Winter’s Bone.
This evaluation of Lawrence, in a way, sums up the film: it is not a bad one, and almost certainly the best X-Men film yet. It is somewhat short on substance, relies heavily on effects and has underdeveloped romantic sub-plots, but no more so than is usually expected of typical superhero flicks. But there lies the disappointment: after showing enough promise in the opening stages to suggest that it can transcend the typical superhero movie, it doesn’t.
An Education
The very title An Education signifies a project of profound aspirations: so sweeping and expansive is the titular (and actual) subject that it would be easy to expect a film that trips over its ambitions, or simply fails to address significant parts of the issue at hand. This expansiveness also lends the filmmaker some lease, however, in that the actual intentions of the film become debatable – what about an education is this film attempting to tackle? – as long as the film itself is profound enough to accommodate the subject. The burden here would probably fall primarily on screenplay writer Nick Hornby, better known for his novel High Fidelity and his autobiographical account Fever Pitch (whose screenplay for the 1997 film adaptation Hornby also penned). An Education is essentially an adaptation of an autobiographical essay of the same name written by Lynn Barber for Granta, so Hornby’s task would be to contextualize the given events such that they probe the depths the title of the film suggests.
The film begins with a glimpse into the world of Jenny Mellor (Carey Mulligan), a 16-year old schoolgirl in 1961 London: at her girls’ school, she and her schoolmates undergo both intellectual and behavioural moulding as was prudent at the time; at home, in her family, she is the subject of both great hope and pressure from her parents, who – particularly her father Jack (Alfred Molina) – are adamant that she is to excel in her studies and eventually go to Oxford; outside of both institutions, she is a Francophile, a professed existentialist and yearns to be ‘sophisticated’. The departure from routine, the complication in the plot, comes when an older man, David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard), enters this world and draws her into another one: with hints of the sophistication Jenny craves, he charms her, charms her parents even more thoroughly and brings to her life the dimension she had anticipated only after her education – a dimension filled with art and literature and the chic streets of Paris. There are some things amiss about David, however: he never talks to Jenny about what he does – and it is quickly discovered that his occupation is indeed a shady one – and there are more than one instances of him lying to Jenny’s parents. Jenny, however, seems content to play along up to this point, drunk as she is by the very foreign classiness of David, his friends (Dominic Cooper, Rosumund Pike) and his lifestyle; these shadows on his character only darken into significance when her decisions begin to matter – when the differences between the two worlds she flits in between become irreconcilable, and she finally has to choose between them.
The acting of the extended cast was almost universally praised on release, with Carey Mulligan in particular receiving rave reviews, a BAFTA, a BIFA and an Academy Award nomination. It probably didn’t hurt that she looks deceptively young: her performance is beset by an extremely endearing maturity, a quality that fits in perfectly with, and, indeed, is essential to, the portrayal of a young character striving to become an adult. Peter Sarsgaard turns on all his charm and is as convincing as he needs to be, and yet has an air of uneasiness hanging about him from the moment the on-screen relationship gets serious; the audience, more sober than the swept-away Jenny, is allowed a hint that something is wrong. Goldman’s friends are portrayed true to the depiction in Barber’s original article: Dominic Cooper as Danny is suave and interesting, while Rosamund Pike as Helen brings a delightful air of levity and transparency as a British 1963 version of the now stereotypically blond bimbo who discourages Jenny’s Oxford ambitions (there is a delightful irony about this casting to be found on any biographical account of Pike). Most understated, however, is probably the performances of Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour as Jenny’s parents: Molina does well to make distinct the two sides of his character – strong-willed and almost imperious as a father figure at home, but quickly unnerved in company or when confronted – while Seymour, keeping with the setting of the film and reflecting the patriarchal tendencies often portrayed, acts as a background to the family, concerned but never questioning.
In one sense, the script itself does not disappoint, managing to encompass important points about its titular subject. From the very first instance of truancy, it is to be expected that Jenny’s interest in her formal education will decline; what is less expected is the vibrancy and intellect with which she defends her direction. This both facilitates and is facilitated by the exploration of the notion of a non-formal education being as valid as its official counterpart, beginning with David’s line about him having attended ‘the university of life’ and continuing with Jenny’s fascination and newfound understanding about life in the parts that follow. There is some implication that Oxford and this new lifestyle are both paths to the same goal: despite Jenny arguing at one point that university seems to lead to a dead-end of future opportunities, she also mentions in a different scene that at Oxford, she hopes to attain the kind of freedom that rigid structures have thus far denied her – the kind of freedom David’s introduction has breathed into her life. By the ending, however, the film seems to have lost its liberal tune, and it begins to appear that the message being propounded is a much more conservative one: that there is no real alternative to formal education – the depiction is that while Oxford is the longer road that leads to the sophistication Jenny craves, David is the dark, crooked alley that ultimately leads only to a Parisian imitation.
And yet, the effect of the film seems still to induce a sense of moral ambiguity: while Jenny concedes that there is ‘no shortcut’ to the kind of life she wants, her previous arguments on education remain unanswered; the set of circumstances that have shaped her final condition do not reflect universal ones, and if David had been a different character – perhaps more like what he initially appeared to be – there is no universally valid reason the film offers that Jenny would not have been better off with him. Perhaps the real message of the film is to look beneath the surface, and ‘an education’ is the entire experience depicted by which Jenny learns this. It would be tempting to believe so.
---
Needless to say, all criticisms and comments are appreciated.
The very title An Education signifies a project of profound aspirations: so sweeping and expansive is the titular (and actual) subject that it would be easy to expect a film that trips over its ambitions, or simply fails to address significant parts of the issue at hand. This expansiveness also lends the filmmaker some lease, however, in that the actual intentions of the film become debatable – what about an education is this film attempting to tackle? – as long as the film itself is profound enough to accommodate the subject. The burden here would probably fall primarily on screenplay writer Nick Hornby, better known for his novel High Fidelity and his autobiographical account Fever Pitch (whose screenplay for the 1997 film adaptation Hornby also penned). An Education is essentially an adaptation of an autobiographical essay of the same name written by Lynn Barber for Granta, so Hornby’s task would be to contextualize the given events such that they probe the depths the title of the film suggests.
The film begins with a glimpse into the world of Jenny Mellor (Carey Mulligan), a 16-year old schoolgirl in 1961 London: at her girls’ school, she and her schoolmates undergo both intellectual and behavioural moulding as was prudent at the time; at home, in her family, she is the subject of both great hope and pressure from her parents, who – particularly her father Jack (Alfred Molina) – are adamant that she is to excel in her studies and eventually go to Oxford; outside of both institutions, she is a Francophile, a professed existentialist and yearns to be ‘sophisticated’. The departure from routine, the complication in the plot, comes when an older man, David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard), enters this world and draws her into another one: with hints of the sophistication Jenny craves, he charms her, charms her parents even more thoroughly and brings to her life the dimension she had anticipated only after her education – a dimension filled with art and literature and the chic streets of Paris. There are some things amiss about David, however: he never talks to Jenny about what he does – and it is quickly discovered that his occupation is indeed a shady one – and there are more than one instances of him lying to Jenny’s parents. Jenny, however, seems content to play along up to this point, drunk as she is by the very foreign classiness of David, his friends (Dominic Cooper, Rosumund Pike) and his lifestyle; these shadows on his character only darken into significance when her decisions begin to matter – when the differences between the two worlds she flits in between become irreconcilable, and she finally has to choose between them.
The acting of the extended cast was almost universally praised on release, with Carey Mulligan in particular receiving rave reviews, a BAFTA, a BIFA and an Academy Award nomination. It probably didn’t hurt that she looks deceptively young: her performance is beset by an extremely endearing maturity, a quality that fits in perfectly with, and, indeed, is essential to, the portrayal of a young character striving to become an adult. Peter Sarsgaard turns on all his charm and is as convincing as he needs to be, and yet has an air of uneasiness hanging about him from the moment the on-screen relationship gets serious; the audience, more sober than the swept-away Jenny, is allowed a hint that something is wrong. Goldman’s friends are portrayed true to the depiction in Barber’s original article: Dominic Cooper as Danny is suave and interesting, while Rosamund Pike as Helen brings a delightful air of levity and transparency as a British 1963 version of the now stereotypically blond bimbo who discourages Jenny’s Oxford ambitions (there is a delightful irony about this casting to be found on any biographical account of Pike). Most understated, however, is probably the performances of Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour as Jenny’s parents: Molina does well to make distinct the two sides of his character – strong-willed and almost imperious as a father figure at home, but quickly unnerved in company or when confronted – while Seymour, keeping with the setting of the film and reflecting the patriarchal tendencies often portrayed, acts as a background to the family, concerned but never questioning.
In one sense, the script itself does not disappoint, managing to encompass important points about its titular subject. From the very first instance of truancy, it is to be expected that Jenny’s interest in her formal education will decline; what is less expected is the vibrancy and intellect with which she defends her direction. This both facilitates and is facilitated by the exploration of the notion of a non-formal education being as valid as its official counterpart, beginning with David’s line about him having attended ‘the university of life’ and continuing with Jenny’s fascination and newfound understanding about life in the parts that follow. There is some implication that Oxford and this new lifestyle are both paths to the same goal: despite Jenny arguing at one point that university seems to lead to a dead-end of future opportunities, she also mentions in a different scene that at Oxford, she hopes to attain the kind of freedom that rigid structures have thus far denied her – the kind of freedom David’s introduction has breathed into her life. By the ending, however, the film seems to have lost its liberal tune, and it begins to appear that the message being propounded is a much more conservative one: that there is no real alternative to formal education – the depiction is that while Oxford is the longer road that leads to the sophistication Jenny craves, David is the dark, crooked alley that ultimately leads only to a Parisian imitation.
And yet, the effect of the film seems still to induce a sense of moral ambiguity: while Jenny concedes that there is ‘no shortcut’ to the kind of life she wants, her previous arguments on education remain unanswered; the set of circumstances that have shaped her final condition do not reflect universal ones, and if David had been a different character – perhaps more like what he initially appeared to be – there is no universally valid reason the film offers that Jenny would not have been better off with him. Perhaps the real message of the film is to look beneath the surface, and ‘an education’ is the entire experience depicted by which Jenny learns this. It would be tempting to believe so.
---
Needless to say, all criticisms and comments are appreciated.
(edited 12 years ago)
Gone Baby Gone
Ben Affleck has never been the most respectable figure in Hollywood: despite some well-received performances, a quick scroll down his filmography reveals that his most frequent award nominations and wins have thus far come in the form of Golden Raspberries. From his breakthrough performance in Good Will Hunting, for which he shared the Academy Award for Best Screenplay with co-writer and co-star Matt Damon, this is a far cry; indeed, the often made comparison between himself and the latter shows that Damon had consistently acted in the better films, and perhaps better, ever since that point. It is almost as if the ending to Good Will Hunting was a prophetic allegory to the two’s careers: while Damon went on with all his ability to bigger and better things, Affleck continues to drive around to pubs, looking for trouble, and only occasionally putting down his beer and construction-worker’s helmet to turn around and say something meaningful. Against this background, one would probably be right to be sceptical about Affleck’s first forays into directing; one would be forgiven for not expecting a particularly profound or provoking film, and certainly not the gripping, intense moral conundrum that Gone Baby Gone turned out to be.
Based on the more grammatically correctly titled novel Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane, the film follows Boston based private investigators Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) as they become somewhat unwillingly involved in a search for a missing child, Amanda. Patrick is Boston-bred, and when approached directly by a relative of the missing, he feels obliged to at least examine the situation; a meeting with Helene McGready (Amy Ryan), the troubled junkie mother of the child, both allures them to and repels them from the case, and it takes the pleadings of the child’s aunt and uncle to convince them to take it up. Working with the somewhat hostile Boston Police, headed by Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), and the police investigators set on the case, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton), Patrick and Angie delve into the Boston underworld, with which Helene has shady links, and are plunged into a series of events that culminates with a failed exchange set-up for Amanda which leaves all involved shaken, Doyle voluntarily retired and Amanda missing and presumed dead. When a similar case arises two months later, however, Patrick gets involved again, makes a decision that haunts his morality, and begins to uncover dark secrets about the Amanda case that will ultimately result in an examination of fundamental morals.
Casey Affleck – who is, if it wasn’t obvious, the younger brother of Ben – too was involved in Good Will Hunting, as a member of the supporting cast. His career since then hasn’t been on the same trajectory as his brother’s – among others, he landed a minor role in Soderbergh’s Oceans series – but it had been limited to roles some way out of the spotlight; 2007 has been called his breakthrough year, as along with Gone Baby Gone, he starred in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford along with Brad Pitt, a role for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Yet, some have criticized the decision to cast him in the former, opining that he makes too imperfect a leading man; such comments seem not to take into consideration the fact that Patrick Kenzie is not meant to be a perfect character. Indeed, given the moral ambiguity of the film’s position, it could be seen almost as an advantage that Affleck lacks the righteous, imposing presence that has traditionally coloured the characters of lead actors. In this regard, it is worth pointing out that several of the characters and scenes are played out with an unease that the realism the director seems to be aspiring towards demands: in one of the early scenes where Patrick and Angie meet Helene and her relatives for the first time, it is clear that the former are uncomfortably middle-class in a working class setting, while Helene’s relatives are uncomfortably working-class in the midst of middle-class company; only Helene herself is comfortably junkie.
On the same note, it is an interesting sense of alienation that seems to surround the character of Patrick Kenzie: despite being Boston-bred and on the investigation because he knows the locals, there is a very perceptible distance between him and other Boston characters. A large part of this difference is probably the class issue: Patrick, as a ‘townie’, is clearly treated with at least some degree of suspicion even in his hometown, perhaps prompting the question as to what it is that makes a person belong in a place or with certain people. This relationship thus sets preclusion for key issues of the film: what makes a suitable home? What makes a suitable family? These questions create the setting for a socio-philosophical showdown, with the deontological-consequentialist debate at the centre, and a brilliant ending that underlines the ambiguity of the film’s position: not only does one feel that a wrong decision may have been made, but one also suspects that a right decision never existed at all.
Ben Affleck has never been the most respectable figure in Hollywood: despite some well-received performances, a quick scroll down his filmography reveals that his most frequent award nominations and wins have thus far come in the form of Golden Raspberries. From his breakthrough performance in Good Will Hunting, for which he shared the Academy Award for Best Screenplay with co-writer and co-star Matt Damon, this is a far cry; indeed, the often made comparison between himself and the latter shows that Damon had consistently acted in the better films, and perhaps better, ever since that point. It is almost as if the ending to Good Will Hunting was a prophetic allegory to the two’s careers: while Damon went on with all his ability to bigger and better things, Affleck continues to drive around to pubs, looking for trouble, and only occasionally putting down his beer and construction-worker’s helmet to turn around and say something meaningful. Against this background, one would probably be right to be sceptical about Affleck’s first forays into directing; one would be forgiven for not expecting a particularly profound or provoking film, and certainly not the gripping, intense moral conundrum that Gone Baby Gone turned out to be.
Based on the more grammatically correctly titled novel Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane, the film follows Boston based private investigators Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) as they become somewhat unwillingly involved in a search for a missing child, Amanda. Patrick is Boston-bred, and when approached directly by a relative of the missing, he feels obliged to at least examine the situation; a meeting with Helene McGready (Amy Ryan), the troubled junkie mother of the child, both allures them to and repels them from the case, and it takes the pleadings of the child’s aunt and uncle to convince them to take it up. Working with the somewhat hostile Boston Police, headed by Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), and the police investigators set on the case, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton), Patrick and Angie delve into the Boston underworld, with which Helene has shady links, and are plunged into a series of events that culminates with a failed exchange set-up for Amanda which leaves all involved shaken, Doyle voluntarily retired and Amanda missing and presumed dead. When a similar case arises two months later, however, Patrick gets involved again, makes a decision that haunts his morality, and begins to uncover dark secrets about the Amanda case that will ultimately result in an examination of fundamental morals.
Casey Affleck – who is, if it wasn’t obvious, the younger brother of Ben – too was involved in Good Will Hunting, as a member of the supporting cast. His career since then hasn’t been on the same trajectory as his brother’s – among others, he landed a minor role in Soderbergh’s Oceans series – but it had been limited to roles some way out of the spotlight; 2007 has been called his breakthrough year, as along with Gone Baby Gone, he starred in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford along with Brad Pitt, a role for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Yet, some have criticized the decision to cast him in the former, opining that he makes too imperfect a leading man; such comments seem not to take into consideration the fact that Patrick Kenzie is not meant to be a perfect character. Indeed, given the moral ambiguity of the film’s position, it could be seen almost as an advantage that Affleck lacks the righteous, imposing presence that has traditionally coloured the characters of lead actors. In this regard, it is worth pointing out that several of the characters and scenes are played out with an unease that the realism the director seems to be aspiring towards demands: in one of the early scenes where Patrick and Angie meet Helene and her relatives for the first time, it is clear that the former are uncomfortably middle-class in a working class setting, while Helene’s relatives are uncomfortably working-class in the midst of middle-class company; only Helene herself is comfortably junkie.
On the same note, it is an interesting sense of alienation that seems to surround the character of Patrick Kenzie: despite being Boston-bred and on the investigation because he knows the locals, there is a very perceptible distance between him and other Boston characters. A large part of this difference is probably the class issue: Patrick, as a ‘townie’, is clearly treated with at least some degree of suspicion even in his hometown, perhaps prompting the question as to what it is that makes a person belong in a place or with certain people. This relationship thus sets preclusion for key issues of the film: what makes a suitable home? What makes a suitable family? These questions create the setting for a socio-philosophical showdown, with the deontological-consequentialist debate at the centre, and a brilliant ending that underlines the ambiguity of the film’s position: not only does one feel that a wrong decision may have been made, but one also suspects that a right decision never existed at all.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Sequels, reboots and remakes of successful films are generally viewed with at least as much suspicion as anticipation by most film fanatics; it is often the case that such revivals fail to reach the standards set by the original, and the plea of many film-lovers is to leave the classics alone. The 1968 film Planet of the Apes is undoubtedly a classic, having featured on various lists that confirm this status, set a mark on cultural consciousness by inspiring innumerable references and parodies, and been selected for preservation as a 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant' piece by the United States Library of Congress. As such, a film that seeks to lend a grip to the legacy Planet of the Apes holds would face a very daunting task. The makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which seeks to do just that, may have been further discouraged by the franchise's history of failed reproductions: the four sequels to the original had only one success story – 1971's Escape from the Planet of the Apes – while a 2001 'reimagining' of the original by Tim Burton has been widely accepted to have been a failed reboot. The responsibility of making Rise of the Planet of the Apes must, or should, thus have been immense pressure on a director making only his second feature film and a relatively young cast.
Plot-wise, the film essentially attempts to do what Conquest of the Planet of the Apes did: chronicle the origins of the ape-ruled world Planet of the Apes depicted; Wyatt has been quick to state, however, that while this new film does take inspiration from Conquest, it is a fundamentally different storyline, making it a reboot of the series rather than a remake of a movie. The film opens immediately to scenes of human cruelty; in a jungle somewhere, apes are being hunted for uses in science, and the focus quickly goes to an ape later named Bright-Eyes by her captors on account of a luminescent green in her eyes – this is, as is later explained, caused by the genetically-engineered chemical being tested on her. The developer of the chemical is a young scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco), who believes it can ultimately be used as a cure for Alzheimer's, with which his own father (John Lithgow) is afflicted. After Bright-Eyes shows uncanny intelligence following the use of the drug on her, Will deems his project a success, an evaluation backed by his money-minded employer Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) – until during a presentation on the drug to potential investors, Bright-Eyes goes berserk for no apparent reason, ultimately forcing security personnel to shoot and kill her. The whole project is quickly called off, but it is later discovered that the reason for the chimp's aggression was a baby chimp she had secretly had while in captivity; this baby chimp is not part of the company's plans, and has to be secretly smuggled home by Will, who later names him Caesar. It quickly becomes apparent that Bright-Eyes' cognitive abilities have been genetically transferred to Caesar, and over time, he gains mental prowess far beyond normal chimps. This, of course, causes conflict with the 'normal' human world, and Caesar is soon plunged into the centre of a series of events that will change the course of normal life.
While it may be too soon to compare the film to the classic that spawned the franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has been well received; it is a good blockbuster film that offers plenty of action, but also offers substance by examining several interesting issues. The notion of apes issuing a revolt against humans casts a deeply satirical shadow on general human attitudes to and cruelty against their fellow primates (and animals in general) – this, at face value, would be the key theme of the film – but it is not inconceivable that there is symbolism involved: that there may be some sort of Marxist allegory in the film's script. Where this theory might come apart is where Caesar becomes an almost holy figure – though even this might be construed as a satire of socialist movements' tendencies to glorify individuals (this, however, is likely reading far too deep). There are some parts that detract from a sense of realism: the conversations between Caesar and Maurice seem overly elaborate, and in giving Caesar the gift of speech, the filmmakers are disregarding what zoologists and psychologists have known since the 50's: that upbringing and intelligence alone do not allow chimps to actually speak – there is a biological, not a cognitive, barrier. The film also makes a series of further assumptions about intelligence – that it boosts emotion, that it gives rise to existential questions, that it creates a sense of class consciousness – but these are interesting assumptions, and lend heavily to the film's substance.
The clear star of the show is Andy Serkis, who provides the basis for the motion-capture animated Caesar – from movements and gestures to facially expressed emotions, Serkis supplements Caesar's characterization most convincingly (there have even been whispers of a possible Oscar nomination). And ultimately, it is the characterization of Caesar that makes the movie work: it is the slowly mounting confusion, sadness, and then anger, and then a single-minded determination – the transformation of the character, that gives the film a profoundly ironic human heartbeat.
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Not entirely sure about this one, tbh. I might give it another read later and look to extend it a bit...
Sequels, reboots and remakes of successful films are generally viewed with at least as much suspicion as anticipation by most film fanatics; it is often the case that such revivals fail to reach the standards set by the original, and the plea of many film-lovers is to leave the classics alone. The 1968 film Planet of the Apes is undoubtedly a classic, having featured on various lists that confirm this status, set a mark on cultural consciousness by inspiring innumerable references and parodies, and been selected for preservation as a 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant' piece by the United States Library of Congress. As such, a film that seeks to lend a grip to the legacy Planet of the Apes holds would face a very daunting task. The makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which seeks to do just that, may have been further discouraged by the franchise's history of failed reproductions: the four sequels to the original had only one success story – 1971's Escape from the Planet of the Apes – while a 2001 'reimagining' of the original by Tim Burton has been widely accepted to have been a failed reboot. The responsibility of making Rise of the Planet of the Apes must, or should, thus have been immense pressure on a director making only his second feature film and a relatively young cast.
Plot-wise, the film essentially attempts to do what Conquest of the Planet of the Apes did: chronicle the origins of the ape-ruled world Planet of the Apes depicted; Wyatt has been quick to state, however, that while this new film does take inspiration from Conquest, it is a fundamentally different storyline, making it a reboot of the series rather than a remake of a movie. The film opens immediately to scenes of human cruelty; in a jungle somewhere, apes are being hunted for uses in science, and the focus quickly goes to an ape later named Bright-Eyes by her captors on account of a luminescent green in her eyes – this is, as is later explained, caused by the genetically-engineered chemical being tested on her. The developer of the chemical is a young scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco), who believes it can ultimately be used as a cure for Alzheimer's, with which his own father (John Lithgow) is afflicted. After Bright-Eyes shows uncanny intelligence following the use of the drug on her, Will deems his project a success, an evaluation backed by his money-minded employer Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) – until during a presentation on the drug to potential investors, Bright-Eyes goes berserk for no apparent reason, ultimately forcing security personnel to shoot and kill her. The whole project is quickly called off, but it is later discovered that the reason for the chimp's aggression was a baby chimp she had secretly had while in captivity; this baby chimp is not part of the company's plans, and has to be secretly smuggled home by Will, who later names him Caesar. It quickly becomes apparent that Bright-Eyes' cognitive abilities have been genetically transferred to Caesar, and over time, he gains mental prowess far beyond normal chimps. This, of course, causes conflict with the 'normal' human world, and Caesar is soon plunged into the centre of a series of events that will change the course of normal life.
While it may be too soon to compare the film to the classic that spawned the franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has been well received; it is a good blockbuster film that offers plenty of action, but also offers substance by examining several interesting issues. The notion of apes issuing a revolt against humans casts a deeply satirical shadow on general human attitudes to and cruelty against their fellow primates (and animals in general) – this, at face value, would be the key theme of the film – but it is not inconceivable that there is symbolism involved: that there may be some sort of Marxist allegory in the film's script. Where this theory might come apart is where Caesar becomes an almost holy figure – though even this might be construed as a satire of socialist movements' tendencies to glorify individuals (this, however, is likely reading far too deep). There are some parts that detract from a sense of realism: the conversations between Caesar and Maurice seem overly elaborate, and in giving Caesar the gift of speech, the filmmakers are disregarding what zoologists and psychologists have known since the 50's: that upbringing and intelligence alone do not allow chimps to actually speak – there is a biological, not a cognitive, barrier. The film also makes a series of further assumptions about intelligence – that it boosts emotion, that it gives rise to existential questions, that it creates a sense of class consciousness – but these are interesting assumptions, and lend heavily to the film's substance.
The clear star of the show is Andy Serkis, who provides the basis for the motion-capture animated Caesar – from movements and gestures to facially expressed emotions, Serkis supplements Caesar's characterization most convincingly (there have even been whispers of a possible Oscar nomination). And ultimately, it is the characterization of Caesar that makes the movie work: it is the slowly mounting confusion, sadness, and then anger, and then a single-minded determination – the transformation of the character, that gives the film a profoundly ironic human heartbeat.
---
Not entirely sure about this one, tbh. I might give it another read later and look to extend it a bit...
Captain America: The First Avenger
There have been a number of major superhero films out in recent times, and they just keep coming. It is not simple to exactly pinpoint why. Perhaps it is because new technology like advanced CGI and 3-D has allowed filmmakers to translate their visions of such characters and stories more effectively. Perhaps they have been inspired by the critical and huge commercial success of recent superhero flicks like Raimi’s Spiderman and Nolan’s Batman films. Perhaps it is even an opportunistic foray into escapism in light of the state of the global economy. One more certain reason for the slew of Marvel superhero films in particular, though, is the upcoming Avengers film, which has been given a 2012 release-date. And a Captain America film was always going to be an essential predecessor. As the traditional leader of the Avengers, Captain America should, in context of the duopolistic Marvel-DC dichotomy in the comic-book world, have a place parallel to Superman; following good reception during the Second World War, however, the Captain’s popularity had declined drastically, and he was practically absent from the cultural scene until a revival in the mid-1960’s – a revival as the leader of the Avengers. The character’s identity is thus tied in, in a sense, with the Avengers – the title of this new film suggests as much – and it would probably be necessary for Captain America: The First Avenger to make a splash for the Avengers movie to retain the hype that surrounds it.
Plot-wise, the film fundamentally stays true to the comic-book narrative. Following opening scenes, the story goes to 1942, where an officer of Nazi Germany’s Scientific Research division, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), raids a cathedral in Denmark to find a powerful, mystical cube of energy, the tesseract; this he uses to garner energy and create weapons that have the potential to destroy any major city in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, over in the United States, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a skinny, sickly, perpetually allergic young man with only big morals to compensate for small stature. Due to certain emotional ties, he is desperate to enlist and fight in the army, but, given his health records, is denied the opportunity; an unequal relationship of sorts is presented in his friendship with James ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who is in the army. By complete chance, Rogers’ predicament is overheard and his passion noted by a German-born military scientist, Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), and the latter offers him a chance to partake in a military-scientific experimental programme under the initially scathing eye of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones). The military exercises prove once again that Rogers is physically skimpy but morally righteous, and he is ultimately selected for the experiment; designed by Erskine and eccentric inventor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), this involves shutting him up in an ominous-looking compartment, injecting him with a serum developed by Erskine and powering up a machine that emits sparks and makes a lot of noise. The result, of course, is that he becomes the archetypal physically perfect specimen, and, now equipped with both a perfect body and morality, ready to take on forces that threaten humanity – in other words, Schmidt, who, as an early participant of Erskine’s experiments, is also the super-villain Red Skull.
The characterization, on the other hand, has been tweaked a little. Most noticeable is probably the character of Bucky; introduced in the first edition of Captain America as ‘Captain America’s young ally’, a lithe, slim, distinctly Robinesque figure, the Bucky presented here is a gruffer, grown man. The sense of internal conflict that arises when the roles in his friendship with Stevens are reversed – he is initially undoubtedly the more dominant of the two – makes for an interesting side-plot that is tragically underused. The other main change in characterization is that of Schmidt; in the original comics, Schmidt, or Red Skull, is an ardent Nazi who has been hand-picked by Hitler to enforce fascist propaganda via terrorism – here, however, the filmmakers have chosen the more historically acceptable route of having him rise out of a fascist scenario but transcend it in his evilness and form a secret breakaway organization, making the character himself more egocentric and individual. Unfortunately, it also has him come across as a bit more of a loony, and fails to explain how he managed to accumulate a dedicated army of the size depicted if the goal of his campaign is openly solely to garner power for himself.
Most important, of course, is the characterization of Steven Rogers. What we are presented with, however, is an incredibly simplistic picture; someone who, by virtue of his lack of physicality, is morally robust – the later transformation is meant to have us cheering as the formerly little-guy dishes out just desserts. One issue with this is that there seems not to be enough pathos in the back-story to inspire empathy for the character: Batman is orphaned; Superman is literally alienated; Captain America gets punched a couple of times in a back-alley by sneering, unpatriotic bullies. This also encompasses a second issue: the underuse of a reason for the bad-guys doing what they are doing. Schmidt hints it at one point, claiming that both he and the Captain have transcended ordinary humanity, and that the seat of the dominant is their rightful place; any such depth, however, is quickly brushed off, and it soon seems a case of the bad guys simply being bad and the good guys simply being good. What this lack of depth, hurried side-plots and limited back-story reduces the film to is almost something of a back-story in itself – as if it were a two-hour trailer for Avengers.
There have been a number of major superhero films out in recent times, and they just keep coming. It is not simple to exactly pinpoint why. Perhaps it is because new technology like advanced CGI and 3-D has allowed filmmakers to translate their visions of such characters and stories more effectively. Perhaps they have been inspired by the critical and huge commercial success of recent superhero flicks like Raimi’s Spiderman and Nolan’s Batman films. Perhaps it is even an opportunistic foray into escapism in light of the state of the global economy. One more certain reason for the slew of Marvel superhero films in particular, though, is the upcoming Avengers film, which has been given a 2012 release-date. And a Captain America film was always going to be an essential predecessor. As the traditional leader of the Avengers, Captain America should, in context of the duopolistic Marvel-DC dichotomy in the comic-book world, have a place parallel to Superman; following good reception during the Second World War, however, the Captain’s popularity had declined drastically, and he was practically absent from the cultural scene until a revival in the mid-1960’s – a revival as the leader of the Avengers. The character’s identity is thus tied in, in a sense, with the Avengers – the title of this new film suggests as much – and it would probably be necessary for Captain America: The First Avenger to make a splash for the Avengers movie to retain the hype that surrounds it.
Plot-wise, the film fundamentally stays true to the comic-book narrative. Following opening scenes, the story goes to 1942, where an officer of Nazi Germany’s Scientific Research division, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), raids a cathedral in Denmark to find a powerful, mystical cube of energy, the tesseract; this he uses to garner energy and create weapons that have the potential to destroy any major city in a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, over in the United States, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a skinny, sickly, perpetually allergic young man with only big morals to compensate for small stature. Due to certain emotional ties, he is desperate to enlist and fight in the army, but, given his health records, is denied the opportunity; an unequal relationship of sorts is presented in his friendship with James ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who is in the army. By complete chance, Rogers’ predicament is overheard and his passion noted by a German-born military scientist, Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), and the latter offers him a chance to partake in a military-scientific experimental programme under the initially scathing eye of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones). The military exercises prove once again that Rogers is physically skimpy but morally righteous, and he is ultimately selected for the experiment; designed by Erskine and eccentric inventor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), this involves shutting him up in an ominous-looking compartment, injecting him with a serum developed by Erskine and powering up a machine that emits sparks and makes a lot of noise. The result, of course, is that he becomes the archetypal physically perfect specimen, and, now equipped with both a perfect body and morality, ready to take on forces that threaten humanity – in other words, Schmidt, who, as an early participant of Erskine’s experiments, is also the super-villain Red Skull.
The characterization, on the other hand, has been tweaked a little. Most noticeable is probably the character of Bucky; introduced in the first edition of Captain America as ‘Captain America’s young ally’, a lithe, slim, distinctly Robinesque figure, the Bucky presented here is a gruffer, grown man. The sense of internal conflict that arises when the roles in his friendship with Stevens are reversed – he is initially undoubtedly the more dominant of the two – makes for an interesting side-plot that is tragically underused. The other main change in characterization is that of Schmidt; in the original comics, Schmidt, or Red Skull, is an ardent Nazi who has been hand-picked by Hitler to enforce fascist propaganda via terrorism – here, however, the filmmakers have chosen the more historically acceptable route of having him rise out of a fascist scenario but transcend it in his evilness and form a secret breakaway organization, making the character himself more egocentric and individual. Unfortunately, it also has him come across as a bit more of a loony, and fails to explain how he managed to accumulate a dedicated army of the size depicted if the goal of his campaign is openly solely to garner power for himself.
Most important, of course, is the characterization of Steven Rogers. What we are presented with, however, is an incredibly simplistic picture; someone who, by virtue of his lack of physicality, is morally robust – the later transformation is meant to have us cheering as the formerly little-guy dishes out just desserts. One issue with this is that there seems not to be enough pathos in the back-story to inspire empathy for the character: Batman is orphaned; Superman is literally alienated; Captain America gets punched a couple of times in a back-alley by sneering, unpatriotic bullies. This also encompasses a second issue: the underuse of a reason for the bad-guys doing what they are doing. Schmidt hints it at one point, claiming that both he and the Captain have transcended ordinary humanity, and that the seat of the dominant is their rightful place; any such depth, however, is quickly brushed off, and it soon seems a case of the bad guys simply being bad and the good guys simply being good. What this lack of depth, hurried side-plots and limited back-story reduces the film to is almost something of a back-story in itself – as if it were a two-hour trailer for Avengers.
Hello- This is my hastily written review after seeing this film last night. It is not meant to be particularly professional - I don't pay much attention to plots. There are spoliers in here.
Cowboys and aliens- it does what it says on the tin. Yes, pretty much. Is it an original idea? Well, thoughts that it might mimic Wild Wild West’s steampunk aesthetic , comedy or buddy movie idea are a little wide of the mark.
Whereas Wild Wild West, regardless of how you feel about its plot and script, seemed to put up every penny of its huge budget on screen in a series of extravagantly lavish purpose built sets, Cowboys and Aliens’ most dominating feature, the alien lair, or a huge abandoned ship, appear to be CGI complemented with real world sets in the close ups. Cowboys and Aliens is not a Men in Black type comedy really. It doesn’t even try to be particularly amusing. It plays it mostly as straight as a poker hand flush, the laughs to be had from Jake Lonergan’s (Daniel Craig) lack of concern for his own safety and coldness towards even his allies. He turns his back on a man with a loaded gun in no time at all, arrogantly assuming some kind of divine right not to be shot. He punches a man in the mouth who’d had the temerity to express pleasure at seeing him again after several years. And he’s supposed to be the hero. Presumably at the risk of feeling like he was playing second fiddle to Ford’s similarly understated charm, he generally doesn’t try Indiana Jones wisecracks. He’s as dry as Cliff Richard’s wine cabinet.
He wakes up in the middle of the desert with a bracelet around his arm. Now this seems a bit of a premature way to set you hero up as someone who must fight to the death to gain the tools to preserve himself – he has it right from the start and never relies on anything more imaginative. There are no clever set pieces as such – it is literally just shooting and occasionally stabbing aliens with a few love interests. But first they attack the town where he finds himself in in an opening introduction to the aliens that hints that this may be a homage to B-movies. The effects are no Independence Day at this point, just aliens lassooing (a similarity with cowboys that is never explored) unfortunate townspeople up to their disappointingly ordainary looking spaceships with lots of blue flashing lights going off like a pre 20th century rave. But this hint of comedy to come is never utilised – instead the film becomes darker and scarier and it works in parts on that level. But unfortunately they are mostly in dream sequences so their impact is diminished. The aliens themselves are pretty well done it has to be said. Their faces morph in and out, they’re like a combination of H R Geiger’s Alien (as in Ridley’s Scott Alien) crossed with … a facehugger from H R Geiger crossed with a more human form. You would not want to meet one on a pleasant day , let alone a dark night.
So throughout the film Craig’s character teams up with Harrison’s character, a sherrif type- begrudgingly as Harrison ’s son had picked a stupid fight with Craig and the other townspeople, resulting in the end with Craig being banged up in jail for his newcomer insubordination. Harrison is dry and grizzled and a little bit overshadowed, against expectations, by Craig.
In short, quite a good scary alien film in the second half and quite a straightforward, dry, cowboy film with native Americans featuring too. Unfortunately the combination of these 2 elements deserved some comedy and some more imaginative set pieces and a greater variety of settings. It's a popcorn movie with not enough popcorn in the cowboy bits.
My overall: 3 stars out of 5.
4 out of 5 if you like Clint Eastwood films or shooting hordes of quite impressively scary aliens in videogames a lot and a bit of impressive CGI.
2 out of 5 if you wanted a comedy film or good looking spaceships.
Cowboys and aliens- it does what it says on the tin. Yes, pretty much. Is it an original idea? Well, thoughts that it might mimic Wild Wild West’s steampunk aesthetic , comedy or buddy movie idea are a little wide of the mark.
Whereas Wild Wild West, regardless of how you feel about its plot and script, seemed to put up every penny of its huge budget on screen in a series of extravagantly lavish purpose built sets, Cowboys and Aliens’ most dominating feature, the alien lair, or a huge abandoned ship, appear to be CGI complemented with real world sets in the close ups. Cowboys and Aliens is not a Men in Black type comedy really. It doesn’t even try to be particularly amusing. It plays it mostly as straight as a poker hand flush, the laughs to be had from Jake Lonergan’s (Daniel Craig) lack of concern for his own safety and coldness towards even his allies. He turns his back on a man with a loaded gun in no time at all, arrogantly assuming some kind of divine right not to be shot. He punches a man in the mouth who’d had the temerity to express pleasure at seeing him again after several years. And he’s supposed to be the hero. Presumably at the risk of feeling like he was playing second fiddle to Ford’s similarly understated charm, he generally doesn’t try Indiana Jones wisecracks. He’s as dry as Cliff Richard’s wine cabinet.
He wakes up in the middle of the desert with a bracelet around his arm. Now this seems a bit of a premature way to set you hero up as someone who must fight to the death to gain the tools to preserve himself – he has it right from the start and never relies on anything more imaginative. There are no clever set pieces as such – it is literally just shooting and occasionally stabbing aliens with a few love interests. But first they attack the town where he finds himself in in an opening introduction to the aliens that hints that this may be a homage to B-movies. The effects are no Independence Day at this point, just aliens lassooing (a similarity with cowboys that is never explored) unfortunate townspeople up to their disappointingly ordainary looking spaceships with lots of blue flashing lights going off like a pre 20th century rave. But this hint of comedy to come is never utilised – instead the film becomes darker and scarier and it works in parts on that level. But unfortunately they are mostly in dream sequences so their impact is diminished. The aliens themselves are pretty well done it has to be said. Their faces morph in and out, they’re like a combination of H R Geiger’s Alien (as in Ridley’s Scott Alien) crossed with … a facehugger from H R Geiger crossed with a more human form. You would not want to meet one on a pleasant day , let alone a dark night.
So throughout the film Craig’s character teams up with Harrison’s character, a sherrif type- begrudgingly as Harrison ’s son had picked a stupid fight with Craig and the other townspeople, resulting in the end with Craig being banged up in jail for his newcomer insubordination. Harrison is dry and grizzled and a little bit overshadowed, against expectations, by Craig.
In short, quite a good scary alien film in the second half and quite a straightforward, dry, cowboy film with native Americans featuring too. Unfortunately the combination of these 2 elements deserved some comedy and some more imaginative set pieces and a greater variety of settings. It's a popcorn movie with not enough popcorn in the cowboy bits.
My overall: 3 stars out of 5.
4 out of 5 if you like Clint Eastwood films or shooting hordes of quite impressively scary aliens in videogames a lot and a bit of impressive CGI.
2 out of 5 if you wanted a comedy film or good looking spaceships.
(edited 12 years ago)
Cowboys and Aliens
If you watch any science-fiction film from the first half of the 20th Century, you’re most likely to find a world populated with small, green aliens, usually labelled ‘Martians’ (for serious want of a better name), maybe sporting an extra eye or ear or something. For the first generation of science-fiction films, this was the typical extra-terrestrial, exemplified perhaps in Looney Tunes’ Marvin the Martian (okay, so maybe he wasn't green, but his helmet was).
How times change. Nowadays, it seems the prerequisite for any alien is a gritty, dirt-tinted skin tone, a body larger than any man’s, with arms longer than legs (and possibly multiple arms), and some kind of bulbous eyes. Cloverfield, Super 8 - modern monster movies now seem as uninspired in their character design as that constant barrage of little green men must have done sixty years ago. Cowboys and Aliens, it disappoints me to write, diverts little from this modern stereotype.
But a word of warning: while it will not surprise in character design, Cowboys and Aliens will certainly surprise in its tone and content. And, sadly, I don’t mean that in a positive way. Director Jon Favreau’s most recent works are the Iron Man films - action, action and more action, with a little bit of character. While the first was lauded as one of the greatest Marvel films to date, the second received far more negative reviews, and consequently Favreau has parted ways for the upcoming threequel. If Cowboys and Aliens is any indication (and Iron Man 2 certainly is), this can only be a good thing.
The premise is simple (or simply daft); a small village of homesteaders in 1873 Arizona find themselves under attack from alien craft, not long after a mysterious, unnamed stranger with an even stranger bracelet bequeaths himself upon them. That man is Daniel Craig - gritty, brutal and hard as nails in the finest performance the two hours runtime has to offer - as Jake Lonergan, outlaw and wanted criminal. Opposite him is Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde, one of Jake’s victims, played by a tired Harrison Ford. That’s not to say Ford’s acting is terrible; it’s just nowhere near on par with his past work, a theme that runs ever more apparent in his recent films.
During the aforementioned attack, however, several prominent townsfolk are abducted, and the posse band together - Dolarhyde and Lonergan shoulder-to-shoulder - to retrieve their captured brethren. In this way, the first half of Cowboys and Aliens plays out like a Western mystery film - following trails, flashbacks, etc. However, such use of flashbacks to explore Lonergan’s past seems out of place, even in such a mesh of genres as this. The visual effects during these piecemeal memories are an unwanted distraction, and show flaws in Favreau’s work.
The surprises of the film come in its nature: an inane concept, but one that is taken with far too much seriousness - Cowboys and Aliens is harsh, brutal and smeared in blood and sweat. Prisoners incinerated; children using knives to save the day; it’s not exactly laugh-a-minute stuff, and definitely not what you’d expect from the suggestive title.
Meanwhile, the film’s barely existent plot is more of an afterthought than anything else, and Ford’s remark to the excuse - sorry, reason - the aliens are attacking (for gold, apparently) speaks for itself: “that’s ridiculous. What are they gonna do with it? Buy things?” For the most part, the mismatch of genre styles seems like nothing more than an excuse for Favreau to have some men in Stetsons beat up CGI blobs. Similarly, loose morals are crammed in last minute, with cheesy, clichéd redemptions undercooked and unnecessary. In a film where knives are the shining beacon of justice, handed out by father of hope Colonel Dolarhyde, was it so crucial that all the elements that made the characters interesting be taken away, in favour of yet another happy ending (where everyone’s no doubt learnt their lesson; slap on the wrist and off you go)? I think not.
Cowboys and Aliens looked set to be one of the great blockbusters of summer 2011, but without even a hint of irony in its tone, coupled with a lacklustre plot, the film fails to live up to expectations. It’s not much fun, ridiculously hard-hitting, and there’s no point to it. All I can say for it is that the action sequences are at least mildly entertaining, helped by a lack of blurry 3D, and that it’s still, somehow, watchable. Maybe it’s the actually engaging ‘mystery’ trail across the desert in the film’s first half, or the too-few gags that appear every now and then, or the [barely] adequate cast. But even still, Cowboys and Aliens could have been so much better.
5/10
If you watch any science-fiction film from the first half of the 20th Century, you’re most likely to find a world populated with small, green aliens, usually labelled ‘Martians’ (for serious want of a better name), maybe sporting an extra eye or ear or something. For the first generation of science-fiction films, this was the typical extra-terrestrial, exemplified perhaps in Looney Tunes’ Marvin the Martian (okay, so maybe he wasn't green, but his helmet was).
How times change. Nowadays, it seems the prerequisite for any alien is a gritty, dirt-tinted skin tone, a body larger than any man’s, with arms longer than legs (and possibly multiple arms), and some kind of bulbous eyes. Cloverfield, Super 8 - modern monster movies now seem as uninspired in their character design as that constant barrage of little green men must have done sixty years ago. Cowboys and Aliens, it disappoints me to write, diverts little from this modern stereotype.
But a word of warning: while it will not surprise in character design, Cowboys and Aliens will certainly surprise in its tone and content. And, sadly, I don’t mean that in a positive way. Director Jon Favreau’s most recent works are the Iron Man films - action, action and more action, with a little bit of character. While the first was lauded as one of the greatest Marvel films to date, the second received far more negative reviews, and consequently Favreau has parted ways for the upcoming threequel. If Cowboys and Aliens is any indication (and Iron Man 2 certainly is), this can only be a good thing.
The premise is simple (or simply daft); a small village of homesteaders in 1873 Arizona find themselves under attack from alien craft, not long after a mysterious, unnamed stranger with an even stranger bracelet bequeaths himself upon them. That man is Daniel Craig - gritty, brutal and hard as nails in the finest performance the two hours runtime has to offer - as Jake Lonergan, outlaw and wanted criminal. Opposite him is Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde, one of Jake’s victims, played by a tired Harrison Ford. That’s not to say Ford’s acting is terrible; it’s just nowhere near on par with his past work, a theme that runs ever more apparent in his recent films.
During the aforementioned attack, however, several prominent townsfolk are abducted, and the posse band together - Dolarhyde and Lonergan shoulder-to-shoulder - to retrieve their captured brethren. In this way, the first half of Cowboys and Aliens plays out like a Western mystery film - following trails, flashbacks, etc. However, such use of flashbacks to explore Lonergan’s past seems out of place, even in such a mesh of genres as this. The visual effects during these piecemeal memories are an unwanted distraction, and show flaws in Favreau’s work.
The surprises of the film come in its nature: an inane concept, but one that is taken with far too much seriousness - Cowboys and Aliens is harsh, brutal and smeared in blood and sweat. Prisoners incinerated; children using knives to save the day; it’s not exactly laugh-a-minute stuff, and definitely not what you’d expect from the suggestive title.
Meanwhile, the film’s barely existent plot is more of an afterthought than anything else, and Ford’s remark to the excuse - sorry, reason - the aliens are attacking (for gold, apparently) speaks for itself: “that’s ridiculous. What are they gonna do with it? Buy things?” For the most part, the mismatch of genre styles seems like nothing more than an excuse for Favreau to have some men in Stetsons beat up CGI blobs. Similarly, loose morals are crammed in last minute, with cheesy, clichéd redemptions undercooked and unnecessary. In a film where knives are the shining beacon of justice, handed out by father of hope Colonel Dolarhyde, was it so crucial that all the elements that made the characters interesting be taken away, in favour of yet another happy ending (where everyone’s no doubt learnt their lesson; slap on the wrist and off you go)? I think not.
Cowboys and Aliens looked set to be one of the great blockbusters of summer 2011, but without even a hint of irony in its tone, coupled with a lacklustre plot, the film fails to live up to expectations. It’s not much fun, ridiculously hard-hitting, and there’s no point to it. All I can say for it is that the action sequences are at least mildly entertaining, helped by a lack of blurry 3D, and that it’s still, somehow, watchable. Maybe it’s the actually engaging ‘mystery’ trail across the desert in the film’s first half, or the too-few gags that appear every now and then, or the [barely] adequate cast. But even still, Cowboys and Aliens could have been so much better.
5/10
(edited 12 years ago)
Fright Night
Fright Night is a hard film to categorise. A reimagining of the surprise 1985 hit that shares the same name, it treads a fine line between comedy and horror; never overtly funny but clearly made with a tongue firmly in one cheek. A plot that builds dramatically towards the end keeps it ticking along nicely, but it is saved from abject mediocrity due to the manic performances of the supporting cast.
The film opens slowly. We meet our protagonist, a high-schooler named Charley Brewster (played by Anton Yelchin) as he goes about his daily life. He lives in suburban Las Vegas, and has transitioned from a geeky adolescence to a cooler life, complete with regulation hot girlfriend (Imogen Poots) and jock friends. He is also stressed. The audience knows this because in the opening five minutes two different characters in two different scenes tell him this, despite no supporting evidence. It’s a pretty lazy script tactic to tell you something instead of showing it, but the film doesn’t have much concern for the backstory or motivations of its characters. As it is aiming squarely for a B-movie vibe this is understandable, but it makes the decision to spend the first half of the film establishing these characters confusing and ultimately wasted. Luckily the appearance of next door neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrell) livens things up, because he is a vampire. An annoying trope in many horror films is the ignorance of the main characters about the monsters they are facing, and it’s refreshing to have a cast in Fright Night that is pretty up to speed on the rules regarding vampires. Some of the best scenes come from the early stages of the film, when Charley and Jerry are sussing each other out. After consulting with vampire-obsessed alcoholic illusionist Peter Vincent (played by David Tennant, who seems to be channelling David Bowie), things come to a head when Charley tells his mum about Jerry’s identity, and Jerry responds by torching their house in an undeniably impressive way. From then on the film shifts gears into all-out action with car chases, set-pieces and a climatic fiery showdown. It’s here where the film is at it’s strongest, freed from the restraints of the clunky script.
While the young starring duo are proficient enough and somewhat likeable, their inexperience is evident and in scenes where they spar with the more experienced cast, they come up sorely lacking. Colin Farrell seems to be having even more fun in this role than he did in Horrible Bosses, suggesting comedy is an area he’s suited to, and David Tennant is tremendous fun to watch, giving a lively performance despite writing that forces him to spend much of his time simply sat around swearing.
Fright Night isn’t particularly memorable, but the well-executed action sequences make it very watchable and the personalities of Farrell and Tennant keep it interesting when the explosions stop. The 3D effects are barely noticeable except for the half dozen times a character throws something at the camera (and then the most noticeable element is how flat they look) and if you see it you’d be better off saving some money and seeing it in 2D if possible.
Fright Night is a hard film to categorise. A reimagining of the surprise 1985 hit that shares the same name, it treads a fine line between comedy and horror; never overtly funny but clearly made with a tongue firmly in one cheek. A plot that builds dramatically towards the end keeps it ticking along nicely, but it is saved from abject mediocrity due to the manic performances of the supporting cast.
The film opens slowly. We meet our protagonist, a high-schooler named Charley Brewster (played by Anton Yelchin) as he goes about his daily life. He lives in suburban Las Vegas, and has transitioned from a geeky adolescence to a cooler life, complete with regulation hot girlfriend (Imogen Poots) and jock friends. He is also stressed. The audience knows this because in the opening five minutes two different characters in two different scenes tell him this, despite no supporting evidence. It’s a pretty lazy script tactic to tell you something instead of showing it, but the film doesn’t have much concern for the backstory or motivations of its characters. As it is aiming squarely for a B-movie vibe this is understandable, but it makes the decision to spend the first half of the film establishing these characters confusing and ultimately wasted. Luckily the appearance of next door neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrell) livens things up, because he is a vampire. An annoying trope in many horror films is the ignorance of the main characters about the monsters they are facing, and it’s refreshing to have a cast in Fright Night that is pretty up to speed on the rules regarding vampires. Some of the best scenes come from the early stages of the film, when Charley and Jerry are sussing each other out. After consulting with vampire-obsessed alcoholic illusionist Peter Vincent (played by David Tennant, who seems to be channelling David Bowie), things come to a head when Charley tells his mum about Jerry’s identity, and Jerry responds by torching their house in an undeniably impressive way. From then on the film shifts gears into all-out action with car chases, set-pieces and a climatic fiery showdown. It’s here where the film is at it’s strongest, freed from the restraints of the clunky script.
While the young starring duo are proficient enough and somewhat likeable, their inexperience is evident and in scenes where they spar with the more experienced cast, they come up sorely lacking. Colin Farrell seems to be having even more fun in this role than he did in Horrible Bosses, suggesting comedy is an area he’s suited to, and David Tennant is tremendous fun to watch, giving a lively performance despite writing that forces him to spend much of his time simply sat around swearing.
Fright Night isn’t particularly memorable, but the well-executed action sequences make it very watchable and the personalities of Farrell and Tennant keep it interesting when the explosions stop. The 3D effects are barely noticeable except for the half dozen times a character throws something at the camera (and then the most noticeable element is how flat they look) and if you see it you’d be better off saving some money and seeing it in 2D if possible.
Source Code
When Christopher Nolan’s Inception hit theatres last summer, it caused something of a furor, with critics at all levels praising its originality and calling it the most intelligent proper blockbuster in years. Besides further solidifying Nolan’s reputation as one of the best young directors around, perhaps Inception also served to spark interest on another couple of levels: of more action films that might also be intelligent, of more intelligent films that might also be commercially successful (Inception grossed over $800 million and is one of the highest grossing films of all time) and the revival on a large scale of the reality-questioning sci-fi film. While some fans have already begun calling for a sequel (much to the disgust of many others), they may be somewhat placated for the moment by Source Code, the latest film from Duncan ‘Zowie Bowie’ Jones, which seeks to incorporate all of these elements.
The film opens to sequences of film that alternately zoom into a moving commuter train and depict an overhead view of Chicago. On this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there. He quickly discovers after a brief interchange with a fellow passenger (Michelle Monaghan) that he should also be unsure of whom he is; he stumbles across the aisle, taking in the rest of the passengers, and trying to comprehend what’s going on – when there’s a massive explosion that seemingly annihilates the train and everyone on it. Then, on this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there.
While it might make sense for some mainstream audiences to suspect Source Code is a product of a stream of thought that originated with Inception, it would be fair to say that this is untrue; a less known project of Jones’ was the 2009 multi-award winning independent film Moon, which is also a sci-fi quasi-reality-centred movie. Both of these, of course, are influenced by what is arguably the instigator of the sub-genre, Blade Runner, a film both Nolan and Jones have professed to be great admirers of. While they both draw on Blade Runner thematically, however, they have taken very different approaches to the issues: while Inception mirrors the coldly intellectual neo-noir aspect of Blade Runner, Jones in Source Code has, as he did in Moon, chosen to focus on the more human element (in terms of Nolan comparisons, therefore, the film is more evocative of Memento than Inception); as such, Gyllenhaal’s character fits well into the ‘more human than human’ characterization from Blade Runner, particularly in comparison to several of the other characters.
The immediate comparison Source Code sparked on release, however, was not with any of the above – most critics instead immediately likened it to the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. This comparison is unenviable, and an unfortunate one for Source Code: although its focus is undoubtedly on a different plane to the former, with the overarching crime plot as essential as the human issue, the basis on which it is being compared – the fundamental change in character, the characterization process over the movie – does exist, and Source Code is, on those grounds, distinctly inferior to Groundhog Day. The point where one film succeeds and the other stumbles is after the pathos of the inescapable (which both films portray well in their respective styles) where the change in the characters is to be depicted; where in Groundhog Day, this change is gradual and explainable, Source Code seems to skip ahead, only really showing the end product and in effect making the change much less believable.
In terms of Source Code as part of a continuity of Jones’ own work, there is a clear thematic link with Moon. Despite Jones’ insistence that Moon was not meant to be overtly political, there is an undeniably political theme that it shares with Source Code: of exploitation, tied in to the deeply existential motif of both films; this is also yet another link Jones’ work has with Blade Runner. In Source Code, however, the stumbling block comes in the element of ambiguity: in both Blade Runner and Moon, the philosophical and political issues are tied together by the intellectual ambiguity that defines the characters’ existences, as well as, to a lesser degree, moral ambiguity. Source Code first plays up the moral ambiguity by placing the individual’s experience, and in a virtualized reality at that, against the collective’s in ‘the real world’; depictions of patriotism being used as a motivational tool add to this ambiguity, and the distress on both sides produces conflict that is both engaging and provoking. As it approaches its finale, however, the moral ambiguity is undone by the denouement in the plot, leaving the rest of the film somewhat bland: it is an easy choice between the protagonist and antagonists, while the film’s focus on human elements leave little intellectual ambiguity to compensate.
Ultimately, while Source Code does not quite touch the standards of Moon and Inception, it does pack in enough to be enjoyable and, for the most part, thoughtful. If nothing else, it does highlight the fact that Duncan Jones is probably as good a director as his début suggests, both in his technique and his choice of scripts.
---
I changed my approach a bit here, using shorter paragraphs (not to begin with: paragraph 3 and 4 were one paragraph to begin with, with some of 3 to be merged in 1; I thought somewhere in the middle that it might flow better this way). I'm not sure yet whether this makes the review more readable or just more sprawling, so comments to that regard would be much appreciated.
When Christopher Nolan’s Inception hit theatres last summer, it caused something of a furor, with critics at all levels praising its originality and calling it the most intelligent proper blockbuster in years. Besides further solidifying Nolan’s reputation as one of the best young directors around, perhaps Inception also served to spark interest on another couple of levels: of more action films that might also be intelligent, of more intelligent films that might also be commercially successful (Inception grossed over $800 million and is one of the highest grossing films of all time) and the revival on a large scale of the reality-questioning sci-fi film. While some fans have already begun calling for a sequel (much to the disgust of many others), they may be somewhat placated for the moment by Source Code, the latest film from Duncan ‘Zowie Bowie’ Jones, which seeks to incorporate all of these elements.
The film opens to sequences of film that alternately zoom into a moving commuter train and depict an overhead view of Chicago. On this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there. He quickly discovers after a brief interchange with a fellow passenger (Michelle Monaghan) that he should also be unsure of whom he is; he stumbles across the aisle, taking in the rest of the passengers, and trying to comprehend what’s going on – when there’s a massive explosion that seemingly annihilates the train and everyone on it. Then, on this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there.
While it might make sense for some mainstream audiences to suspect Source Code is a product of a stream of thought that originated with Inception, it would be fair to say that this is untrue; a less known project of Jones’ was the 2009 multi-award winning independent film Moon, which is also a sci-fi quasi-reality-centred movie. Both of these, of course, are influenced by what is arguably the instigator of the sub-genre, Blade Runner, a film both Nolan and Jones have professed to be great admirers of. While they both draw on Blade Runner thematically, however, they have taken very different approaches to the issues: while Inception mirrors the coldly intellectual neo-noir aspect of Blade Runner, Jones in Source Code has, as he did in Moon, chosen to focus on the more human element (in terms of Nolan comparisons, therefore, the film is more evocative of Memento than Inception); as such, Gyllenhaal’s character fits well into the ‘more human than human’ characterization from Blade Runner, particularly in comparison to several of the other characters.
The immediate comparison Source Code sparked on release, however, was not with any of the above – most critics instead immediately likened it to the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. This comparison is unenviable, and an unfortunate one for Source Code: although its focus is undoubtedly on a different plane to the former, with the overarching crime plot as essential as the human issue, the basis on which it is being compared – the fundamental change in character, the characterization process over the movie – does exist, and Source Code is, on those grounds, distinctly inferior to Groundhog Day. The point where one film succeeds and the other stumbles is after the pathos of the inescapable (which both films portray well in their respective styles) where the change in the characters is to be depicted; where in Groundhog Day, this change is gradual and explainable, Source Code seems to skip ahead, only really showing the end product and in effect making the change much less believable.
In terms of Source Code as part of a continuity of Jones’ own work, there is a clear thematic link with Moon. Despite Jones’ insistence that Moon was not meant to be overtly political, there is an undeniably political theme that it shares with Source Code: of exploitation, tied in to the deeply existential motif of both films; this is also yet another link Jones’ work has with Blade Runner. In Source Code, however, the stumbling block comes in the element of ambiguity: in both Blade Runner and Moon, the philosophical and political issues are tied together by the intellectual ambiguity that defines the characters’ existences, as well as, to a lesser degree, moral ambiguity. Source Code first plays up the moral ambiguity by placing the individual’s experience, and in a virtualized reality at that, against the collective’s in ‘the real world’; depictions of patriotism being used as a motivational tool add to this ambiguity, and the distress on both sides produces conflict that is both engaging and provoking. As it approaches its finale, however, the moral ambiguity is undone by the denouement in the plot, leaving the rest of the film somewhat bland: it is an easy choice between the protagonist and antagonists, while the film’s focus on human elements leave little intellectual ambiguity to compensate.
Ultimately, while Source Code does not quite touch the standards of Moon and Inception, it does pack in enough to be enjoyable and, for the most part, thoughtful. If nothing else, it does highlight the fact that Duncan Jones is probably as good a director as his début suggests, both in his technique and his choice of scripts.
---
I changed my approach a bit here, using shorter paragraphs (not to begin with: paragraph 3 and 4 were one paragraph to begin with, with some of 3 to be merged in 1; I thought somewhere in the middle that it might flow better this way). I'm not sure yet whether this makes the review more readable or just more sprawling, so comments to that regard would be much appreciated.
Original post by Abiraleft
Source Code
When Christopher Nolan’s Inception hit theatres last summer, it caused something of a furor, with critics at all levels praising its originality and calling it the most intelligent proper blockbuster in years. Besides further solidifying Nolan’s reputation as one of the best young directors around, perhaps Inception also served to spark interest on another couple of levels: of more action films that might also be intelligent, of more intelligent films that might also be commercially successful (Inception grossed over $800 million and is one of the highest grossing films of all time) and the revival on a large scale of the reality-questioning sci-fi film. While some fans have already begun calling for a sequel (much to the disgust of many others), they may be somewhat placated for the moment by Source Code, the latest film from Duncan ‘Zowie Bowie’ Jones, which seeks to incorporate all of these elements.
The film opens to sequences of film that alternately zoom into a moving commuter train and depict an overhead view of Chicago. On this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there. He quickly discovers after a brief interchange with a fellow passenger (Michelle Monaghan) that he should also be unsure of whom he is; he stumbles across the aisle, taking in the rest of the passengers, and trying to comprehend what’s going on – when there’s a massive explosion that seemingly annihilates the train and everyone on it. Then, on this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there.
While it might make sense for some mainstream audiences to suspect Source Code is a product of a stream of thought that originated with Inception, it would be fair to say that this is untrue; a less known project of Jones’ was the 2009 multi-award winning independent film Moon, which is also a sci-fi quasi-reality-centred movie. Both of these, of course, are influenced by what is arguably the instigator of the sub-genre, Blade Runner, a film both Nolan and Jones have professed to be great admirers of. While they both draw on Blade Runner thematically, however, they have taken very different approaches to the issues: while Inception mirrors the coldly intellectual neo-noir aspect of Blade Runner, Jones in Source Code has, as he did in Moon, chosen to focus on the more human element (in terms of Nolan comparisons, therefore, the film is more evocative of Memento than Inception); as such, Gyllenhaal’s character fits well into the ‘more human than human’ characterization from Blade Runner, particularly in comparison to several of the other characters.
The immediate comparison Source Code sparked on release, however, was not with any of the above – most critics instead immediately likened it to the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. This comparison is unenviable, and an unfortunate one for Source Code: although its focus is undoubtedly on a different plane to the former, with the overarching crime plot as essential as the human issue, the basis on which it is being compared – the fundamental change in character, the characterization process over the movie – does exist, and Source Code is, on those grounds, distinctly inferior to Groundhog Day. The point where one film succeeds and the other stumbles is after the pathos of the inescapable (which both films portray well in their respective styles) where the change in the characters is to be depicted; where in Groundhog Day, this change is gradual and explainable, Source Code seems to skip ahead, only really showing the end product and in effect making the change much less believable.
In terms of Source Code as part of a continuity of Jones’ own work, there is a clear thematic link with Moon. Despite Jones’ insistence that Moon was not meant to be overtly political, there is an undeniably political theme that it shares with Source Code: of exploitation, tied in to the deeply existential motif of both films; this is also yet another link Jones’ work has with Blade Runner. In Source Code, however, the stumbling block comes in the element of ambiguity: in both Blade Runner and Moon, the philosophical and political issues are tied together by the intellectual ambiguity that defines the characters’ existences, as well as, to a lesser degree, moral ambiguity. Source Code first plays up the moral ambiguity by placing the individual’s experience, and in a virtualized reality at that, against the collective’s in ‘the real world’; depictions of patriotism being used as a motivational tool add to this ambiguity, and the distress on both sides produces conflict that is both engaging and provoking. As it approaches its finale, however, the moral ambiguity is undone by the denouement in the plot, leaving the rest of the film somewhat bland: it is an easy choice between the protagonist and antagonists, while the film’s focus on human elements leave little intellectual ambiguity to compensate.
Ultimately, while Source Code does not quite touch the standards of Moon and Inception, it does pack in enough to be enjoyable and, for the most part, thoughtful. If nothing else, it does highlight the fact that Duncan Jones is probably as good a director as his début suggests, both in his technique and his choice of scripts.
---
I changed my approach a bit here, using shorter paragraphs (not to begin with: paragraph 3 and 4 were one paragraph to begin with, with some of 3 to be merged in 1; I thought somewhere in the middle that it might flow better this way). I'm not sure yet whether this makes the review more readable or just more sprawling, so comments to that regard would be much appreciated.
When Christopher Nolan’s Inception hit theatres last summer, it caused something of a furor, with critics at all levels praising its originality and calling it the most intelligent proper blockbuster in years. Besides further solidifying Nolan’s reputation as one of the best young directors around, perhaps Inception also served to spark interest on another couple of levels: of more action films that might also be intelligent, of more intelligent films that might also be commercially successful (Inception grossed over $800 million and is one of the highest grossing films of all time) and the revival on a large scale of the reality-questioning sci-fi film. While some fans have already begun calling for a sequel (much to the disgust of many others), they may be somewhat placated for the moment by Source Code, the latest film from Duncan ‘Zowie Bowie’ Jones, which seeks to incorporate all of these elements.
The film opens to sequences of film that alternately zoom into a moving commuter train and depict an overhead view of Chicago. On this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there. He quickly discovers after a brief interchange with a fellow passenger (Michelle Monaghan) that he should also be unsure of whom he is; he stumbles across the aisle, taking in the rest of the passengers, and trying to comprehend what’s going on – when there’s a massive explosion that seemingly annihilates the train and everyone on it. Then, on this train, a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes, unsure of where he is or why he’s there.
While it might make sense for some mainstream audiences to suspect Source Code is a product of a stream of thought that originated with Inception, it would be fair to say that this is untrue; a less known project of Jones’ was the 2009 multi-award winning independent film Moon, which is also a sci-fi quasi-reality-centred movie. Both of these, of course, are influenced by what is arguably the instigator of the sub-genre, Blade Runner, a film both Nolan and Jones have professed to be great admirers of. While they both draw on Blade Runner thematically, however, they have taken very different approaches to the issues: while Inception mirrors the coldly intellectual neo-noir aspect of Blade Runner, Jones in Source Code has, as he did in Moon, chosen to focus on the more human element (in terms of Nolan comparisons, therefore, the film is more evocative of Memento than Inception); as such, Gyllenhaal’s character fits well into the ‘more human than human’ characterization from Blade Runner, particularly in comparison to several of the other characters.
The immediate comparison Source Code sparked on release, however, was not with any of the above – most critics instead immediately likened it to the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. This comparison is unenviable, and an unfortunate one for Source Code: although its focus is undoubtedly on a different plane to the former, with the overarching crime plot as essential as the human issue, the basis on which it is being compared – the fundamental change in character, the characterization process over the movie – does exist, and Source Code is, on those grounds, distinctly inferior to Groundhog Day. The point where one film succeeds and the other stumbles is after the pathos of the inescapable (which both films portray well in their respective styles) where the change in the characters is to be depicted; where in Groundhog Day, this change is gradual and explainable, Source Code seems to skip ahead, only really showing the end product and in effect making the change much less believable.
In terms of Source Code as part of a continuity of Jones’ own work, there is a clear thematic link with Moon. Despite Jones’ insistence that Moon was not meant to be overtly political, there is an undeniably political theme that it shares with Source Code: of exploitation, tied in to the deeply existential motif of both films; this is also yet another link Jones’ work has with Blade Runner. In Source Code, however, the stumbling block comes in the element of ambiguity: in both Blade Runner and Moon, the philosophical and political issues are tied together by the intellectual ambiguity that defines the characters’ existences, as well as, to a lesser degree, moral ambiguity. Source Code first plays up the moral ambiguity by placing the individual’s experience, and in a virtualized reality at that, against the collective’s in ‘the real world’; depictions of patriotism being used as a motivational tool add to this ambiguity, and the distress on both sides produces conflict that is both engaging and provoking. As it approaches its finale, however, the moral ambiguity is undone by the denouement in the plot, leaving the rest of the film somewhat bland: it is an easy choice between the protagonist and antagonists, while the film’s focus on human elements leave little intellectual ambiguity to compensate.
Ultimately, while Source Code does not quite touch the standards of Moon and Inception, it does pack in enough to be enjoyable and, for the most part, thoughtful. If nothing else, it does highlight the fact that Duncan Jones is probably as good a director as his début suggests, both in his technique and his choice of scripts.
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I changed my approach a bit here, using shorter paragraphs (not to begin with: paragraph 3 and 4 were one paragraph to begin with, with some of 3 to be merged in 1; I thought somewhere in the middle that it might flow better this way). I'm not sure yet whether this makes the review more readable or just more sprawling, so comments to that regard would be much appreciated.
Great review and I agree with many of your points about the continuity between Jones' first and second features.
Jones has definitely proved Moon was not just a lone star, and I can see him building up a strong and varied opus of work similar to acknowledge greats like Ridley Scott, although hopefully without the directorial misfires.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by Sirocco11
Great review and I agree with many of your points about the continuity between Jones' first and second features.
Jones has definitely proved Moon was not just a lone star, and I can see him building up a strong and varied opus of work similar to acknowledge greats like Ridley Scott, although hopefully without the directorial misfires.
Jones has definitely proved Moon was not just a lone star, and I can see him building up a strong and varied opus of work similar to acknowledge greats like Ridley Scott, although hopefully without the directorial misfires.
Thanks, I really like your review of it too (though I didn't think the film was quite as good as you seem to have
). 
(edited 12 years ago)
Super 8
Summer for the movie industry usually means blockbusters; the movies released in and around this season are aimed at the widest possible audience and generally with the intention of generating the greatest possible revenue. The result is most often a thriving of testosterone-fuelled action, sex-filled comedies and fun, fast family films that contain little or none of either element – of, some might attest, style over substance. Such films, particularly if they are recent, are not usually counted amongst classics, or films with the potential to one day be considered as such: unless they break into lists of highest-grossing films, they are usually relegated to memory and television re-runs in (and for) future months. Some filmmakers at least, however, have pushed for and produced pieces that lend credibility to this vein of cinema, and perhaps none more so than Steven Spielberg; a decade spanning over four decades took a turn towards the relatively heavy with films like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, but much of Spielberg's reputation stems from his early spectacular success with ventures like Jaws, Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones series and, of particular interest to the focus of this review, E.T the Extra-Terrestrial. The last became, in 1983, the highest grossing film of all time, with revenues of over $700 million; more importantly, it became one of the defining films of its generation, with images etched so deep into the public consciousness that they are still used and referred to almost thirty years later. This legacy is apparent immediately apparent at a superficial level in J. J. Abram's Super 8 – both films are about a bunch of kinds and an alien – but some have remarked that Super 8 is not simply a tribute to Spielberg's classic, but something of a successor to it.
Super 8 opens to the sombre notes of a funeral, where 14-year old Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) sits outside the outside the house, presumably unable to face the reality of his mother's death, while his father, Deputy Sheriff Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler) handles the condolences – until an unwelcome guest arrives in the form of Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard), whom Jackson blames for his wife's demise; a brief and largely one-sided scuffle ends with Dainard being led away in handcuffs. The movie then skips four months; a much brighter Joe is helping his bullish and somewhat bullying friend, Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths) make an amateur film (using, as might be expected, Super 8 film), with a cast to whom Charles manages to draw Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning). The connection between the latter and Joe is all but instant, and, during the film-shoot at the small town's train station, metaphorical sparks begin to appear – until a full-blown and very much non-metaphorical explosion launches the kids and the plot into a more action-packed setting. There has been a clearly deliberate crash by a car into an approaching train, and while that initially means little more than a sequence of immense fear for the group, unknown to them, it also means that a very dangerous, very hostile being has been released into their midst, while another dangerous and arguably hostile entity approaches their town to recapture it.
The film has been criticized by some sections for being 'a movie for children'; even disregarding the fact that some 'movies for children' can be fantastic films, this seems a bit of an unfair accusation – the underlying idea behind the criticism is that Super 8 is simplistic, and while the ending might be argued to be so, the film in its entirety does offer layers of conflict. The more obvious one is the alien-government-protagonists jumble, whose fairly high-speed sequences are well complemented by the film's technical gloss and special effects. Of more importance, perhaps, and the element on which the film might be more justifiably criticized, is that of the human relations and conflicts. The most perceptible conflicts are perhaps the ones between Jackson and Louis, which seems a hurried take on forgiveness, and the overarching grief of loss over the Lamb household; the cathartic final scene contains a neat piece of symbolism, but not one that seems to work especially well – apart from the opening scene, there is little evidence that Joe is in any way hung over about his mother's death; the theme of letting go would probably work much better on Jackson, or even the alien. Then there are the more intriguing complications: the precarious relationship between Louis and Alice heads for an emotional climax, and the intervention of the extra-terrestrial seems more unfortunate than anything; there is the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque relationship between Joe and Alice, which might have been better used to bring out emotions in Courtney and Fanning (though only the latter really looked capable of putting in more than she had been required to); most interesting, perhaps, was the relationship between Joe and Charles, an inequity thrown into jeopardy by the love-triangle subplot – this final complexity is sadly underused, and is only partially resolved and in a bizarrely prompt fashion at that. And yet, despite it's shortcomings – the plot seems a bit undirected towards the end, and the execution is in places clumsy – Super 8 is fairly slick and fairly intelligent: in the midst of the summer scene, it wouldn't be a stretch to say it stands out as one of the best movies out so far this year.
Summer for the movie industry usually means blockbusters; the movies released in and around this season are aimed at the widest possible audience and generally with the intention of generating the greatest possible revenue. The result is most often a thriving of testosterone-fuelled action, sex-filled comedies and fun, fast family films that contain little or none of either element – of, some might attest, style over substance. Such films, particularly if they are recent, are not usually counted amongst classics, or films with the potential to one day be considered as such: unless they break into lists of highest-grossing films, they are usually relegated to memory and television re-runs in (and for) future months. Some filmmakers at least, however, have pushed for and produced pieces that lend credibility to this vein of cinema, and perhaps none more so than Steven Spielberg; a decade spanning over four decades took a turn towards the relatively heavy with films like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, but much of Spielberg's reputation stems from his early spectacular success with ventures like Jaws, Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones series and, of particular interest to the focus of this review, E.T the Extra-Terrestrial. The last became, in 1983, the highest grossing film of all time, with revenues of over $700 million; more importantly, it became one of the defining films of its generation, with images etched so deep into the public consciousness that they are still used and referred to almost thirty years later. This legacy is apparent immediately apparent at a superficial level in J. J. Abram's Super 8 – both films are about a bunch of kinds and an alien – but some have remarked that Super 8 is not simply a tribute to Spielberg's classic, but something of a successor to it.
Super 8 opens to the sombre notes of a funeral, where 14-year old Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) sits outside the outside the house, presumably unable to face the reality of his mother's death, while his father, Deputy Sheriff Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler) handles the condolences – until an unwelcome guest arrives in the form of Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard), whom Jackson blames for his wife's demise; a brief and largely one-sided scuffle ends with Dainard being led away in handcuffs. The movie then skips four months; a much brighter Joe is helping his bullish and somewhat bullying friend, Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths) make an amateur film (using, as might be expected, Super 8 film), with a cast to whom Charles manages to draw Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning). The connection between the latter and Joe is all but instant, and, during the film-shoot at the small town's train station, metaphorical sparks begin to appear – until a full-blown and very much non-metaphorical explosion launches the kids and the plot into a more action-packed setting. There has been a clearly deliberate crash by a car into an approaching train, and while that initially means little more than a sequence of immense fear for the group, unknown to them, it also means that a very dangerous, very hostile being has been released into their midst, while another dangerous and arguably hostile entity approaches their town to recapture it.
The film has been criticized by some sections for being 'a movie for children'; even disregarding the fact that some 'movies for children' can be fantastic films, this seems a bit of an unfair accusation – the underlying idea behind the criticism is that Super 8 is simplistic, and while the ending might be argued to be so, the film in its entirety does offer layers of conflict. The more obvious one is the alien-government-protagonists jumble, whose fairly high-speed sequences are well complemented by the film's technical gloss and special effects. Of more importance, perhaps, and the element on which the film might be more justifiably criticized, is that of the human relations and conflicts. The most perceptible conflicts are perhaps the ones between Jackson and Louis, which seems a hurried take on forgiveness, and the overarching grief of loss over the Lamb household; the cathartic final scene contains a neat piece of symbolism, but not one that seems to work especially well – apart from the opening scene, there is little evidence that Joe is in any way hung over about his mother's death; the theme of letting go would probably work much better on Jackson, or even the alien. Then there are the more intriguing complications: the precarious relationship between Louis and Alice heads for an emotional climax, and the intervention of the extra-terrestrial seems more unfortunate than anything; there is the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque relationship between Joe and Alice, which might have been better used to bring out emotions in Courtney and Fanning (though only the latter really looked capable of putting in more than she had been required to); most interesting, perhaps, was the relationship between Joe and Charles, an inequity thrown into jeopardy by the love-triangle subplot – this final complexity is sadly underused, and is only partially resolved and in a bizarrely prompt fashion at that. And yet, despite it's shortcomings – the plot seems a bit undirected towards the end, and the execution is in places clumsy – Super 8 is fairly slick and fairly intelligent: in the midst of the summer scene, it wouldn't be a stretch to say it stands out as one of the best movies out so far this year.
30 Minutes or Less
If you have seen Zombieland, you’ll already have a good idea of what to expect from 30 Minutes Or Less. Zombieland saw director Ruben Fleischer and star Jesse Eisenberg team up to create a slacker comedy packed with sharp humour and characters you actually liked, and Fleischer and Eisenberg’s new collaboration largely emulates the success of that film, albeit swapping out zombies for crime.
Eisenberg plays Nick, an employee at a pizza store with the titular 30 minute delivery promise. He shares an apartment with his friend Chet (Aziz Ansari), until Chet finds out about the intimate relationship between his twin sister and Nick and freaks out. Meanwhile, frustrated millionaire’s son Dwayne (Danny McBride) decides to act on advice a stripper gives him to have his father killed, and just needs a hundred thousand dollars to pay for the hit. The solution? Order a pizza, drug the deliverer, strap a bomb to his chest and give him ten hours to go and rob a bank. Nick ends up as the hapless guy wearing a C4 vest, forcing him to go to Chet and beg for his help to pull off the heist. As preposterous as this all sounds, it is tightly enough scripted to convey it all with a minimum of contrivance and skips along quickly enough to avoid too much introspection about the absurdity. The plot is serving as little more than a foil for a buddy comedy, after all, and so can be forgiven its moments of contradiction (how many time-pressured scenarios can you think of where a diversion is made to quit a crappy job?).
The most important thing for such a film is the strength of the cast, and here everyone gives a competent, if not particularly adventurous, performance. Aziz Ansari replicates the same highly strung role that you may have seen in shows like Scrubs and Parks and Recreation, but his sense of comic timing is spot on. After a breakout role in The Social Network Eisenberg gives the impression that he is coasting here, but his immense likeability pervades through every scene. The jokes themselves are of varying quality and several scenes feel out of place, but they come rapidly enough to ensure that when one doesn’t work there isn’t a noticeable gap in the humour, and there’s enough that hit the mark to generate a fair few laughs.
30 Minutes Or Less conjures up the workshy sense of the main characters in the film. It’s funny, but it doesn’t try too hard to do anything else. This is probably for the best, as it allows it to stand on the merits of its comedy without being burdened with regards for character development or plot. And on that judgement, it largely succeeds. For 90 minutes of disposable enjoyment, you could do an awful lot worse than this.
If you have seen Zombieland, you’ll already have a good idea of what to expect from 30 Minutes Or Less. Zombieland saw director Ruben Fleischer and star Jesse Eisenberg team up to create a slacker comedy packed with sharp humour and characters you actually liked, and Fleischer and Eisenberg’s new collaboration largely emulates the success of that film, albeit swapping out zombies for crime.
Eisenberg plays Nick, an employee at a pizza store with the titular 30 minute delivery promise. He shares an apartment with his friend Chet (Aziz Ansari), until Chet finds out about the intimate relationship between his twin sister and Nick and freaks out. Meanwhile, frustrated millionaire’s son Dwayne (Danny McBride) decides to act on advice a stripper gives him to have his father killed, and just needs a hundred thousand dollars to pay for the hit. The solution? Order a pizza, drug the deliverer, strap a bomb to his chest and give him ten hours to go and rob a bank. Nick ends up as the hapless guy wearing a C4 vest, forcing him to go to Chet and beg for his help to pull off the heist. As preposterous as this all sounds, it is tightly enough scripted to convey it all with a minimum of contrivance and skips along quickly enough to avoid too much introspection about the absurdity. The plot is serving as little more than a foil for a buddy comedy, after all, and so can be forgiven its moments of contradiction (how many time-pressured scenarios can you think of where a diversion is made to quit a crappy job?).
The most important thing for such a film is the strength of the cast, and here everyone gives a competent, if not particularly adventurous, performance. Aziz Ansari replicates the same highly strung role that you may have seen in shows like Scrubs and Parks and Recreation, but his sense of comic timing is spot on. After a breakout role in The Social Network Eisenberg gives the impression that he is coasting here, but his immense likeability pervades through every scene. The jokes themselves are of varying quality and several scenes feel out of place, but they come rapidly enough to ensure that when one doesn’t work there isn’t a noticeable gap in the humour, and there’s enough that hit the mark to generate a fair few laughs.
30 Minutes Or Less conjures up the workshy sense of the main characters in the film. It’s funny, but it doesn’t try too hard to do anything else. This is probably for the best, as it allows it to stand on the merits of its comedy without being burdened with regards for character development or plot. And on that judgement, it largely succeeds. For 90 minutes of disposable enjoyment, you could do an awful lot worse than this.
Whoops, forgot to post here.
Submarine
It is often an exciting thing to watch a stunning new debut film. Of course, it is immensely pleasurable to watch any stunning film, but there is something about knowing that the director or actors in the film are just beginning and hitherto unknown that adds to the satisfaction of the film being a good one: one feels part of something fresh and powerful that is just taking root and can only continue to grow. There is thus an understandably high level of expectation that follows, and a massive sense of vindication when such expectations are met; the rave reviews Shame has been picking up at the Venice film festival seem now to substantiate the excited lyrical-waxing the followed a viewing of Hunger, as did Fish Tank for post-Red Road hype and Source Code after the brilliant Moon. Of course, there are some filmmakers who fail to pass through heaven’s gate and are instead left behind as empty shells playing dangerous games with their futures, but these do not seem to be too common: it would seem that one-off sparks of brilliance are rarely debuts. Yet, there is a chance, which might just temper the excitement one feels at Richard Ayoade’s rather excellent debut offering Submarine.
If the public’s response thus far has been lower-key, it may have to do, apart from the limited publicity the film has sought, with the fact that the storyline at first glance looks rather worn: Submarine is a coming-of-age drama-comedy involving a confused teenager, a capricious love-interest and undersexed parents in an empty marriage – the general mix that usually results in a barrage of bad decisions being inconsequential at the end and the protagonist becoming unconfused, a better person, and involved in a relationship with someone they ‘deserve’. Fortunately, Submarine isn’t as predictable, wielding an innovativeness that complements its protagonist’s idiosyncrasies. The latter, and idiosyncrasies in general, become a prominent part of the film’s ruminations; indeed, the film opens the central character, Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) philosophizing at people’s self-perceived individuality and uniqueness. Based on the novel of the same name by John Dunthorne, Submarine is divided into a prologue, three chapters and an epilogue; the aforementioned philosophising is joined in the prologue by a quick glimpse into Oliver’s life: his own self-perceived uniqueness, the first stirrings of his existential contemplations, his dismay at his parents’ frigidity towards one another, and Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige), a girl – the girl – in his class. Between his relationship with Jordana, which is further complicated by her own grievances at home, the situation with his parents, Jill (Sally Hawkins) and Lloyd (Noah Taylor), which is further complicated by the appearance of his mother’s first boyfriend (Paddy Considine), and his struggle to find himself, which is complicated by all of the above, Oliver is squeezed, stretched, and submerged.
The cover of the Submarine DVD shows Oliver looking straight ahead, with part of the picture (starting somewhere between his eyes and his nostrils) overlapped with a translucent blue. The effect is a simple one and probably wouldn’t require a whole lot of Photoshop skills to replicate, but it is effective in its depiction of the protagonist being in some way submerged, submarine; in this regard, it is a cover that reflects the stylistic direction of the film itself – Submarine contains plenty of special effects, but ones used economically to drive home a point rather than the budget-draining superfluities that have come to dominate the mainstream in recent times. The effectiveness of Submarine’s effects are in large part due to the intelligent editing and some good camerawork – both encouraging indicators in assessing a new director.
What really makes Submarine work is the complexity of the human relationships: what seem to begin as simple love (Oliver-Jordana), apathy (Jill-Lloyd) and concern (Oliver-parents) affairs evolve into tragicomedic messes that effectively enhance the depiction of Oliver’s confusion. A general selfish worry about the state of his parents’ marriage, for instance, is changed over the course of the movie to Oliver more empathizing than simply sympathizing with his father, while his mother seems to change somehow into the generalized female half of the relationship: Oliver, in a way, transposes his relationship with Jordana into his parents’, thus finding an almost existential reason to save it; it could even be argued that it is this reimagining that takes over his handling of reality, causing him to take the decisions he does. And underneath this psychological melee of the characters in relation to each other, there is a distinct examination of Oliver, and the changes that occur in his personality. It is a peculiarity of his phase that he seems to both strive for and strive against change: in the beginning, he makes plans to radically alter his life by any means, proclaiming that he cannot let his ‘principles stand in the way of progress’; later, he muses how much easier it would be if life were more like a TV soap opera, where in between the changes and happenings, there were fadeouts and breaks, where one could simply pause and take a breather. With both production value and this dual-layered approach to human subjects, Submarine is a very good film and a brilliant coming-of-age story.
Submarine
It is often an exciting thing to watch a stunning new debut film. Of course, it is immensely pleasurable to watch any stunning film, but there is something about knowing that the director or actors in the film are just beginning and hitherto unknown that adds to the satisfaction of the film being a good one: one feels part of something fresh and powerful that is just taking root and can only continue to grow. There is thus an understandably high level of expectation that follows, and a massive sense of vindication when such expectations are met; the rave reviews Shame has been picking up at the Venice film festival seem now to substantiate the excited lyrical-waxing the followed a viewing of Hunger, as did Fish Tank for post-Red Road hype and Source Code after the brilliant Moon. Of course, there are some filmmakers who fail to pass through heaven’s gate and are instead left behind as empty shells playing dangerous games with their futures, but these do not seem to be too common: it would seem that one-off sparks of brilliance are rarely debuts. Yet, there is a chance, which might just temper the excitement one feels at Richard Ayoade’s rather excellent debut offering Submarine.
If the public’s response thus far has been lower-key, it may have to do, apart from the limited publicity the film has sought, with the fact that the storyline at first glance looks rather worn: Submarine is a coming-of-age drama-comedy involving a confused teenager, a capricious love-interest and undersexed parents in an empty marriage – the general mix that usually results in a barrage of bad decisions being inconsequential at the end and the protagonist becoming unconfused, a better person, and involved in a relationship with someone they ‘deserve’. Fortunately, Submarine isn’t as predictable, wielding an innovativeness that complements its protagonist’s idiosyncrasies. The latter, and idiosyncrasies in general, become a prominent part of the film’s ruminations; indeed, the film opens the central character, Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) philosophizing at people’s self-perceived individuality and uniqueness. Based on the novel of the same name by John Dunthorne, Submarine is divided into a prologue, three chapters and an epilogue; the aforementioned philosophising is joined in the prologue by a quick glimpse into Oliver’s life: his own self-perceived uniqueness, the first stirrings of his existential contemplations, his dismay at his parents’ frigidity towards one another, and Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige), a girl – the girl – in his class. Between his relationship with Jordana, which is further complicated by her own grievances at home, the situation with his parents, Jill (Sally Hawkins) and Lloyd (Noah Taylor), which is further complicated by the appearance of his mother’s first boyfriend (Paddy Considine), and his struggle to find himself, which is complicated by all of the above, Oliver is squeezed, stretched, and submerged.
The cover of the Submarine DVD shows Oliver looking straight ahead, with part of the picture (starting somewhere between his eyes and his nostrils) overlapped with a translucent blue. The effect is a simple one and probably wouldn’t require a whole lot of Photoshop skills to replicate, but it is effective in its depiction of the protagonist being in some way submerged, submarine; in this regard, it is a cover that reflects the stylistic direction of the film itself – Submarine contains plenty of special effects, but ones used economically to drive home a point rather than the budget-draining superfluities that have come to dominate the mainstream in recent times. The effectiveness of Submarine’s effects are in large part due to the intelligent editing and some good camerawork – both encouraging indicators in assessing a new director.
What really makes Submarine work is the complexity of the human relationships: what seem to begin as simple love (Oliver-Jordana), apathy (Jill-Lloyd) and concern (Oliver-parents) affairs evolve into tragicomedic messes that effectively enhance the depiction of Oliver’s confusion. A general selfish worry about the state of his parents’ marriage, for instance, is changed over the course of the movie to Oliver more empathizing than simply sympathizing with his father, while his mother seems to change somehow into the generalized female half of the relationship: Oliver, in a way, transposes his relationship with Jordana into his parents’, thus finding an almost existential reason to save it; it could even be argued that it is this reimagining that takes over his handling of reality, causing him to take the decisions he does. And underneath this psychological melee of the characters in relation to each other, there is a distinct examination of Oliver, and the changes that occur in his personality. It is a peculiarity of his phase that he seems to both strive for and strive against change: in the beginning, he makes plans to radically alter his life by any means, proclaiming that he cannot let his ‘principles stand in the way of progress’; later, he muses how much easier it would be if life were more like a TV soap opera, where in between the changes and happenings, there were fadeouts and breaks, where one could simply pause and take a breather. With both production value and this dual-layered approach to human subjects, Submarine is a very good film and a brilliant coming-of-age story.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Premiering at the 68th Venice International Film Festival around two weeks prior to general release, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was greeted almost instantly with unanimous critical acclaim. Cries of sophistication, intelligence, and an astounding, absorbing experience were bandied around various film institutions; as of this writing, Tinker holds a 97% aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes after thirty five reviews. Just one of those has been negative. This begs the question: why?
The film revolves around the British secret service in the 1970s; more specifically, the attempts of a forcibly retired spy, one George Smiley (Gary Oldman), to uncover a mole within the organisation, who has been feeding information to the Russians. Thus commences a twisted, vicious web of lies, deceit and corruption; with every other character a suspect, Smiley’s hunt for the perpetrator brings him into conflict with almost the entire supporting cast.
And what a stellar cast that is. Oldman is supported by everyone from John Hurt to Colin Firth in an absolutely outstanding A-List set of actors; a line-up complemented superbly by up-and-coming stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy (the latter you may recognise from last year’s Inception and in next year’s Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises). The performances are all immeasurably British, and really help to capture the feel of Cold-War era England.
Such an atmosphere is furthered still by Alfredson’s stellar direction. Tinker carries style by the barrelful, with murky greys, greens and browns dousing the rain-filled milieu; in essence, it’s everything a typical Brit might imagine when conjuring up images of their homeland. And it only serves to reflect the ambience of the film in general; in a world where no one can be trusted, full of lies and misery, the mise-en-scene of Alfredson’s efforts is a directorial marvel.
It’s a huge shame, then, that Tinker’s strengths end here.
Indeed, what’s clear from Alfredson’s interpretation is that Tinker Tailor was originally adapted as a seven part television series for a reason. All credit to John Le Carré for such an intricately woven web of a tale, but the means to an end that Tinker relies on for its sucker punch are woefully underplayed in Peter Straughan’s subpar script. Should you manage to follow its elaborate, jarring storyboard to the last detail, and correctly assume the identity of the mole, there’s little chance you’ll care. Tinker tries to be complex and ends up convoluted.
Alfredson fails to allow the plot to develop at a natural pace; much of the film’s opening scenes belong solely to Smiley, yet instead of exposition to the story we’re given montages of his character. This of course allows for development of the protagonist, personifying the film to such an end, but where a plot as complex as that of Le Carré’s is concerned, crammed into a meagre 127 minute screenplay, it might be assumed that more focus should be given on expanding the story. Character development is intrinsic, yes, but Alfredson captures it throughout the film anyway. The slow starting pace of a rushed plot hinders Tinker; indeed, it is precisely this which gives it such a convoluted feel.
In Alfredson’s desire to illuminate such an intelligent plot in little over two hours runtime, he manages to almost completely alienate the audience, providing little to engage with. Multiple narrative threads dangle loosely as the credits roll, helped in no manner by yet another montage that seemingly wishes to only give every character, no matter how minor, another couple of seconds of screentime, offering few tied knots.
This hectic wish to complicate things further simply alienates too the antagonists; too little exposure is given to the suspects and secondary characters, to the end that when the reveal happens, you’ll be left wondering why you wanted to know in the first place. Tinker boasts style, sophistication and a little substance, but ultimately ends up disengaging, unabsorbing and emotionally defunct.
5/10
Premiering at the 68th Venice International Film Festival around two weeks prior to general release, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was greeted almost instantly with unanimous critical acclaim. Cries of sophistication, intelligence, and an astounding, absorbing experience were bandied around various film institutions; as of this writing, Tinker holds a 97% aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes after thirty five reviews. Just one of those has been negative. This begs the question: why?
The film revolves around the British secret service in the 1970s; more specifically, the attempts of a forcibly retired spy, one George Smiley (Gary Oldman), to uncover a mole within the organisation, who has been feeding information to the Russians. Thus commences a twisted, vicious web of lies, deceit and corruption; with every other character a suspect, Smiley’s hunt for the perpetrator brings him into conflict with almost the entire supporting cast.
And what a stellar cast that is. Oldman is supported by everyone from John Hurt to Colin Firth in an absolutely outstanding A-List set of actors; a line-up complemented superbly by up-and-coming stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy (the latter you may recognise from last year’s Inception and in next year’s Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises). The performances are all immeasurably British, and really help to capture the feel of Cold-War era England.
Such an atmosphere is furthered still by Alfredson’s stellar direction. Tinker carries style by the barrelful, with murky greys, greens and browns dousing the rain-filled milieu; in essence, it’s everything a typical Brit might imagine when conjuring up images of their homeland. And it only serves to reflect the ambience of the film in general; in a world where no one can be trusted, full of lies and misery, the mise-en-scene of Alfredson’s efforts is a directorial marvel.
It’s a huge shame, then, that Tinker’s strengths end here.
Indeed, what’s clear from Alfredson’s interpretation is that Tinker Tailor was originally adapted as a seven part television series for a reason. All credit to John Le Carré for such an intricately woven web of a tale, but the means to an end that Tinker relies on for its sucker punch are woefully underplayed in Peter Straughan’s subpar script. Should you manage to follow its elaborate, jarring storyboard to the last detail, and correctly assume the identity of the mole, there’s little chance you’ll care. Tinker tries to be complex and ends up convoluted.
Alfredson fails to allow the plot to develop at a natural pace; much of the film’s opening scenes belong solely to Smiley, yet instead of exposition to the story we’re given montages of his character. This of course allows for development of the protagonist, personifying the film to such an end, but where a plot as complex as that of Le Carré’s is concerned, crammed into a meagre 127 minute screenplay, it might be assumed that more focus should be given on expanding the story. Character development is intrinsic, yes, but Alfredson captures it throughout the film anyway. The slow starting pace of a rushed plot hinders Tinker; indeed, it is precisely this which gives it such a convoluted feel.
In Alfredson’s desire to illuminate such an intelligent plot in little over two hours runtime, he manages to almost completely alienate the audience, providing little to engage with. Multiple narrative threads dangle loosely as the credits roll, helped in no manner by yet another montage that seemingly wishes to only give every character, no matter how minor, another couple of seconds of screentime, offering few tied knots.
This hectic wish to complicate things further simply alienates too the antagonists; too little exposure is given to the suspects and secondary characters, to the end that when the reveal happens, you’ll be left wondering why you wanted to know in the first place. Tinker boasts style, sophistication and a little substance, but ultimately ends up disengaging, unabsorbing and emotionally defunct.
5/10
Killer Elite
An often used strategy by people shifting through films is to use the cast as an indication of both how good and of what type a given movie is. This is certainly not foolproof, given the variety of both genres and quality many actors tend to go through, but it is not a bad strategy when references are of scarce availability. Read backwards, the cast of Killer Elite would take a user of this strategy on an increasingly steep slide of disillusionment: Robert De Niro is one of the most respected actors of his generation, and, indeed, all time; Clive Owen is hardly regarded in the same light, but has turned up more than once in intelligent and engaging movies; and cue the drop – Jason Statham. Over the years, Statham has come to embody the stereotyped action hero, just as his films have come to represent the stereotype of the action movie: a fast, violent affair with big explosions and little substance. Of course, such a stereotype is unfair on the action genre, and, some might argue, carries an unfairly negative connotation of the escapist aspect of cinema. But is it an accurate summary of any given Statham movie? In a recent interview for The Guardian, while defending his choice of movies so far as being based on what he himself would have paid to watch, Statham did add that his character in Killer Elite is ‘a lot more conflicted than anything else I’ve done... that gives rise to a lot more requirements from me as an actor’
There is some conflict outside of the plot of Killer Elite: both the film and the book on which it is based, Ranulph Fiennes’ The Feather Men, profess to be based on real events, a claim that has been met with opposition, ridicule, and even disgust by some. The story is basically of the series of murders of four former SAS officers by a team of professional assassins; the conflict here between two teams of trained killers is summed up in the movie’s tagline of ‘May the best man live’. In Killer Elite, this premise is dramatized through the perspective of what becomes the single assassin who executes the job, Danny Bryce (Statham). The driving factor behind the murders in the plot is the will of Sheik Amr (Rodney Afif), who wishes to see the men who killed his sons during an interventionist mission in the region dead; the primary motivation for Bryce, who following certain events has retired from the profession, is the fact that the Sheikh has his friend and mentor, Hunter (De Niro), in captivity. Thus forced, Bryce begins his assignment – only to run into trouble in the form of ‘The Feather Men’, a secret and illegitimate group of ex-SAS personnel who look out for their own; placed on Bryce’s case by this group is Spike Logan (Clive Owen).
In one scene, an MI6 agent (David Whiteley) says of characters such as Bryce and Logan that they ‘never see the bigger picture... never see what (they) are fighting for’ – if it is this simplistic nature that the movie is trying to highlight, then it is completely successful: the characterization is wafer-thin; the motivations, one-dimensional. Statham’s character is meant to be ‘the best in the business’, but seems never to have thought through what it is to be a killer, and is easily unhinged by an event that has been explored in its various forms far too many times to have any true shock value. The task of lending his character some emotional depth falls upon some half-hearted flashbacks of a romantic relationship whose impetus is ambiguous and whose nature is the clichéd home-model of the workaholic with a secret. It is only further hampered by the fact that the two characters with whom he seems to have human relationships beyond the professional – Hunter and his girlfriend, Anne (Yvonne Strahovski) – have very little characterization themselves, both seeming to exist only as filler characters for the plot: the two characters most important to the protagonist are little more than extras. The only character whose characterization goes any way towards convincingly substantiating motivations is Clive Owen’s existentially troubled ex-SAS soldier; and even then, it is a character neither original nor comprehensively explored.
Ultimately, the movie does not even contain some of the saving graces of other films Statham has appeared in: almost none of the quirky quips from early endeavours like Snatch, or even the big explosions advocates of cinema as a predominantly escapist art form lauded. Nor does De Niro put his better foot forward: even in a character as a hired assassin, there is none of the quiet menace that won him his first Academy Award in The Godfather Part II. The premise of the film is not exactly original, but might have been a decent basis for a better written script; as it is, it is the characterization (or lack of it) that ultimately lets Killer Elite down – a revised version with extended characterization might make it better, but, with the script it currently runs on, not by very much.
An often used strategy by people shifting through films is to use the cast as an indication of both how good and of what type a given movie is. This is certainly not foolproof, given the variety of both genres and quality many actors tend to go through, but it is not a bad strategy when references are of scarce availability. Read backwards, the cast of Killer Elite would take a user of this strategy on an increasingly steep slide of disillusionment: Robert De Niro is one of the most respected actors of his generation, and, indeed, all time; Clive Owen is hardly regarded in the same light, but has turned up more than once in intelligent and engaging movies; and cue the drop – Jason Statham. Over the years, Statham has come to embody the stereotyped action hero, just as his films have come to represent the stereotype of the action movie: a fast, violent affair with big explosions and little substance. Of course, such a stereotype is unfair on the action genre, and, some might argue, carries an unfairly negative connotation of the escapist aspect of cinema. But is it an accurate summary of any given Statham movie? In a recent interview for The Guardian, while defending his choice of movies so far as being based on what he himself would have paid to watch, Statham did add that his character in Killer Elite is ‘a lot more conflicted than anything else I’ve done... that gives rise to a lot more requirements from me as an actor’
There is some conflict outside of the plot of Killer Elite: both the film and the book on which it is based, Ranulph Fiennes’ The Feather Men, profess to be based on real events, a claim that has been met with opposition, ridicule, and even disgust by some. The story is basically of the series of murders of four former SAS officers by a team of professional assassins; the conflict here between two teams of trained killers is summed up in the movie’s tagline of ‘May the best man live’. In Killer Elite, this premise is dramatized through the perspective of what becomes the single assassin who executes the job, Danny Bryce (Statham). The driving factor behind the murders in the plot is the will of Sheik Amr (Rodney Afif), who wishes to see the men who killed his sons during an interventionist mission in the region dead; the primary motivation for Bryce, who following certain events has retired from the profession, is the fact that the Sheikh has his friend and mentor, Hunter (De Niro), in captivity. Thus forced, Bryce begins his assignment – only to run into trouble in the form of ‘The Feather Men’, a secret and illegitimate group of ex-SAS personnel who look out for their own; placed on Bryce’s case by this group is Spike Logan (Clive Owen).
In one scene, an MI6 agent (David Whiteley) says of characters such as Bryce and Logan that they ‘never see the bigger picture... never see what (they) are fighting for’ – if it is this simplistic nature that the movie is trying to highlight, then it is completely successful: the characterization is wafer-thin; the motivations, one-dimensional. Statham’s character is meant to be ‘the best in the business’, but seems never to have thought through what it is to be a killer, and is easily unhinged by an event that has been explored in its various forms far too many times to have any true shock value. The task of lending his character some emotional depth falls upon some half-hearted flashbacks of a romantic relationship whose impetus is ambiguous and whose nature is the clichéd home-model of the workaholic with a secret. It is only further hampered by the fact that the two characters with whom he seems to have human relationships beyond the professional – Hunter and his girlfriend, Anne (Yvonne Strahovski) – have very little characterization themselves, both seeming to exist only as filler characters for the plot: the two characters most important to the protagonist are little more than extras. The only character whose characterization goes any way towards convincingly substantiating motivations is Clive Owen’s existentially troubled ex-SAS soldier; and even then, it is a character neither original nor comprehensively explored.
Ultimately, the movie does not even contain some of the saving graces of other films Statham has appeared in: almost none of the quirky quips from early endeavours like Snatch, or even the big explosions advocates of cinema as a predominantly escapist art form lauded. Nor does De Niro put his better foot forward: even in a character as a hired assassin, there is none of the quiet menace that won him his first Academy Award in The Godfather Part II. The premise of the film is not exactly original, but might have been a decent basis for a better written script; as it is, it is the characterization (or lack of it) that ultimately lets Killer Elite down – a revised version with extended characterization might make it better, but, with the script it currently runs on, not by very much.
Drive
If you’ve ever played the PlayStation classic Driver, then the opening sequence of Drive should look inherently familiar. It’s a car chase the way car chases should be done; it’s not over the top, it’s exquisitely directed, and carries the cool, collected ambience of John Tanner’s effortless vigilantism. It’s an exceptional introduction to an exceptional film; one that oozes style and charm whilst blending an amalgam of genre conventions into what can only be termed an ‘arthouse blockbuster’.
Following the story of a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway vehicle for local crooks, Drive immediately introduces its protagonist’s proficiency behind the wheel through a precise and skilful chase sequence - one that sees the unnamed Driver (Ryan Gosling) help a pair of burglars escape a helicopter pursuit. It’s an effective introduction, and immediately sets the tone of the film through the distinguished camerawork - Gosling enjoys plenty of low angles to establish his control of the situation - and beautifully executed lighting, in the neon nightscapes of Los Angeles.
Such landscapes, emphasised through the scenic panning shots of the opening titles, indicate a neo-noir vibe to Drive that’s mixed to great effect with an ensemble of other genre conventions. At times it drifts towards something of a 70s slant, reminiscent of the Scorsese great Taxi Driver (1976), whilst the hot pink, cursive titles and lavish use of gore suggest something of a Tarantino-esque grindhouse format. Whilst these features are not so unique when each is presented alone, the mesh of all leads to something quite untypical - so it’s with great credit to director Nicolas Refn that it’s executed so beautifully.
Bursting with symbolic flair, Refn’s vision is unique; it’s a slower-paced effort, but one that manages to capture its audience with gracious ease. Unlike Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the slow, methodical storyboarding here works to great effect, absorbing the audience into the melancholy mind of The Driver, as his true persona is laid bare.
In many ways, however, Drive is deceptive; not least in its titular form - at just four points in the film does Gosling sit behind the wheel for any extended period of time. Indeed, following the opening sequence, Drive takes rather more of a romantic turn, through the introduction of neighbour Irene and her son Benicio in our protagonist’s life. Thus follows a sepia-doused montage of Gosling seemingly playing the natural doting father to Benicio, whose own paternal influence lies incarcerated for an unknown crime. While seemingly out of place in terms of what we’re shown beforehand, these nostalgic and uplifting moments give Drive a well-placed injection of heart and soul.
But of course, as must inevitably happen, Benicio’s father, Standard (even Irene asks at one point, “where’s the deluxe version?”), shows up again - released from prison, and carrying baggage, in the form of a hefty debt of protection money. It’s not long before Irene and Benicio are threatened, and so in steps The Driver to help. Matters become awry after a fatal pawn shop robbery, and soon we’re knee deep in a web of treachery, lies and deceit. It’s not exactly ground-breaking stuff, but it’s often enough unpredictable that it’s suitable for purpose. Sadly, the finale bows to storytelling convention maybe a little too heavily, but such a slight flaw can easily be overlooked for all that’s come before it.
Gosling himself is superb; forever emblazoned with that unique vacant determinism, his character is just as absorbing as the film. He’s a modern day Travis Bickle in many ways, if slightly more ambitious behind the wheel. Just like Travis, the unnamed Driver’s character has flaws; he is effortlessly awkward, and yet carries a certain charm and nervous smile that so brilliantly mask his psychopathic tendencies that the Driver’s acts of violence feel as though they are a twist in and as of themselves. The character’s wild extremes suggest something of a hyper reality about him; the representation of each of us, of our highs and our lows, drawn out and plastered onto a screen, in the form of this beautifully menacing, reserved and yet likeable Driver.
It’s a stunning but shattering lecture in storytelling from Refn; his characters all with an impetus to an end that so define their status. Carey Mulligan delights as the soft-spoken, kind-hearted and motherly Irene; again, a character with flaws - just look at her choice of husband - but one who you can’t help but sympathise for. Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman lie opposite our convoluted heroes, both excelling in their twisted nature; Perlman the self-serving, belligerent mobster, and Brooks the coldly apologetic investor. At times one might even sympathise for Brooks’ actions, though as the film progresses and his true character is revealed, it is not sympathy Refn draws on; merely a sheer contempt for his deeds. The role reversal is implemented perfectly, in stellar efforts from both screenwriter Hossein Amini and Brooks himself.
A unique, beautiful vision, executed with a suitably twisted grace, Drive is methodical, yet for the most part unpredictable - a stirring achievement from director Refn. Definitely one of the greats of the 21st Century - improbable sequel pending, you won’t see another film like it.
10/10
If you’ve ever played the PlayStation classic Driver, then the opening sequence of Drive should look inherently familiar. It’s a car chase the way car chases should be done; it’s not over the top, it’s exquisitely directed, and carries the cool, collected ambience of John Tanner’s effortless vigilantism. It’s an exceptional introduction to an exceptional film; one that oozes style and charm whilst blending an amalgam of genre conventions into what can only be termed an ‘arthouse blockbuster’.
Following the story of a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway vehicle for local crooks, Drive immediately introduces its protagonist’s proficiency behind the wheel through a precise and skilful chase sequence - one that sees the unnamed Driver (Ryan Gosling) help a pair of burglars escape a helicopter pursuit. It’s an effective introduction, and immediately sets the tone of the film through the distinguished camerawork - Gosling enjoys plenty of low angles to establish his control of the situation - and beautifully executed lighting, in the neon nightscapes of Los Angeles.
Such landscapes, emphasised through the scenic panning shots of the opening titles, indicate a neo-noir vibe to Drive that’s mixed to great effect with an ensemble of other genre conventions. At times it drifts towards something of a 70s slant, reminiscent of the Scorsese great Taxi Driver (1976), whilst the hot pink, cursive titles and lavish use of gore suggest something of a Tarantino-esque grindhouse format. Whilst these features are not so unique when each is presented alone, the mesh of all leads to something quite untypical - so it’s with great credit to director Nicolas Refn that it’s executed so beautifully.
Bursting with symbolic flair, Refn’s vision is unique; it’s a slower-paced effort, but one that manages to capture its audience with gracious ease. Unlike Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the slow, methodical storyboarding here works to great effect, absorbing the audience into the melancholy mind of The Driver, as his true persona is laid bare.
In many ways, however, Drive is deceptive; not least in its titular form - at just four points in the film does Gosling sit behind the wheel for any extended period of time. Indeed, following the opening sequence, Drive takes rather more of a romantic turn, through the introduction of neighbour Irene and her son Benicio in our protagonist’s life. Thus follows a sepia-doused montage of Gosling seemingly playing the natural doting father to Benicio, whose own paternal influence lies incarcerated for an unknown crime. While seemingly out of place in terms of what we’re shown beforehand, these nostalgic and uplifting moments give Drive a well-placed injection of heart and soul.
But of course, as must inevitably happen, Benicio’s father, Standard (even Irene asks at one point, “where’s the deluxe version?”), shows up again - released from prison, and carrying baggage, in the form of a hefty debt of protection money. It’s not long before Irene and Benicio are threatened, and so in steps The Driver to help. Matters become awry after a fatal pawn shop robbery, and soon we’re knee deep in a web of treachery, lies and deceit. It’s not exactly ground-breaking stuff, but it’s often enough unpredictable that it’s suitable for purpose. Sadly, the finale bows to storytelling convention maybe a little too heavily, but such a slight flaw can easily be overlooked for all that’s come before it.
Gosling himself is superb; forever emblazoned with that unique vacant determinism, his character is just as absorbing as the film. He’s a modern day Travis Bickle in many ways, if slightly more ambitious behind the wheel. Just like Travis, the unnamed Driver’s character has flaws; he is effortlessly awkward, and yet carries a certain charm and nervous smile that so brilliantly mask his psychopathic tendencies that the Driver’s acts of violence feel as though they are a twist in and as of themselves. The character’s wild extremes suggest something of a hyper reality about him; the representation of each of us, of our highs and our lows, drawn out and plastered onto a screen, in the form of this beautifully menacing, reserved and yet likeable Driver.
It’s a stunning but shattering lecture in storytelling from Refn; his characters all with an impetus to an end that so define their status. Carey Mulligan delights as the soft-spoken, kind-hearted and motherly Irene; again, a character with flaws - just look at her choice of husband - but one who you can’t help but sympathise for. Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman lie opposite our convoluted heroes, both excelling in their twisted nature; Perlman the self-serving, belligerent mobster, and Brooks the coldly apologetic investor. At times one might even sympathise for Brooks’ actions, though as the film progresses and his true character is revealed, it is not sympathy Refn draws on; merely a sheer contempt for his deeds. The role reversal is implemented perfectly, in stellar efforts from both screenwriter Hossein Amini and Brooks himself.
A unique, beautiful vision, executed with a suitably twisted grace, Drive is methodical, yet for the most part unpredictable - a stirring achievement from director Refn. Definitely one of the greats of the 21st Century - improbable sequel pending, you won’t see another film like it.
10/10
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