Tag Archives: Chris Pine

Wonder Woman (2017)

02 Friday Jun 2017

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D: Patty Jenkins / 141m

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Saïd Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Lucy Davis, Elena Anaya, Lilly Aspell

On the hidden island of Themyscira live the Amazons, a fierce warrior tribe of women whose presence in the world has been kept from the rest of mankind by the wishes of Zeus. The only child on the island is Diana (Aspell), the daughter of Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen). Diana is precocious, challenging, disobedient, and determined to become a warrior like the rest of the Amazons, but her mother forbids it. Hippolyta’s sister, Antiope (Wright), trains Diana in secret, though, and she grows into a young woman (Gadot) to be reckoned with: the quickest, most agile, most determined Amazon of them all. With her fighting skills honed under the stewardship of Antiope, Diana finds she lacks a clear purpose in life, until one day the shield keeping the island hidden is penetrated by a plane that crashes into the sea. Diana rescues the lone pilot, Steve Trevor (Pine), who tells the Amazons of “a war to end to all wars”, and who provides all the reason Diana needs to leave the island and seek her destiny (once she leaves she can never return).

The pair travel to London where Trevor alerts the British High Command – led by Sir Patrick Morgan (Thewlis) – to a plot by Germany’s General Ludendorff (Huston) to end the War by use of the most deadliest form of mustard gas yet created. Forced to go it alone, Trevor recruits three old friends – would-be actor Sameer (Taghmaoui), sharpshooter Charlie (Bremner), smuggler the Chief (Brave Rock) – and with Diana, travels to the Belgian Front, where Ludendorff and his chief scientist, Dr Maru (Anaya), are in the process of preparing their new weapon to be used for the first (and they hope, last) time in the War. But Diana has no intention of letting them succeed in their plan, and convinced that Ludendorff is the modern incarnation of Ares, the disgraced God of War, she takes the fight to the Germans, and in the process learns something about herself that has been hidden from her all her life…

The question everyone is asking is an easy one to answer. The question is, is Wonder Woman the best DC Extended Universe movie to date? And the easy answer is Yes, it is. But that’s like saying, if I have one leg shorter than the other, and I have an operation to correct this, will I be better able to walk? Again, the answer is Yes, of course. And so it goes with Wonder Woman, a movie that provides a sharp upturn in quality in relation to its predecessors – Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016) – but which still embraces many of the issues and problems that have plagued those same DCEU productions.

It’s yet another movie where the tone is so earnest and so po-faced that when the script does make an attempt at humour, it’s the same as when Garland Greene says of Billy Bedlam in Con Air (1997): “he’s so angry moments of levity actually cause him pain; gives him headaches. Happiness, for that gentleman, hurts.” The humour is there, tucked away in odd places, but it never feels like an integral part of the overall tone and feel of the movie. It’s as if Allan Heinberg’s script was accused of being too heavy, and was charged with including moments of levity as a direct consequence. What this means in practice is that the movie rarely feels comfortable when it’s tasked with being funny, and seems to breathe a sigh of relief when it can move on and concentrate on providing audiences with an industrious trek through the land of superhero clichés.

As an origin story, it’s akin to the first Thor movie, in that it introduces us to a realm built on myth and legend, and after a suitable period, hijacks the central character and thrusts them into the “real” world, with all its problems and rewards. Themyscira is a first for the DC Extended Universe, a beautifully realised paradise that features sun-dappled buildings, verdant fields, and the healthy glow of bronze and gold. Its relentlessly blue skies stretch as far as the eye can see, and the azure waters of the sea are dazzling. But once the island of Themyscira is left behind, the movie defaults to the muted colour palette and downplayed visual aesthetic that governs all the movies in the DC Extended Universe. Whether we’re in London or the battle-torn Belgian countryside, the movie does its best to be all gloomy backdrop and sombre foreground. It all fits in with the earnest, dramatic nature of the material, but as a visual statement it’s less than satisfying and helps to drain some of the life from the movie as a whole.

Where the movie does score more highly is in its attention to the horrors of life on the Western Front, and the effects of warfare on the local populace. But even that acknowledgment is over quickly so as to facilitate the next action sequence (which unfortunately features the kind of jerky CGI gymnastics from Wonder Woman that you’d be forgiven for thinking wouldn’t be attempted anymore in a movie costing $149 million and released in 2017). There are other nods to the horrors of war – Charlie’s PTSD, musings on the terrible things that man can inflict on his fellow man – but while it’s good to see them addressed – however briefly – it’s as near to depth as the movie gets, and they seem shoehorned into the main storyline rather than arising naturally from it. Diana’s obsession with hunting down Ares also gives rise to further arguments about the nature of war and man’s predilection towards it, but these are largely spurious and serve only to weigh down a final showdown between Diana and Ares that quickly descends into yet another dispiriting bout of disaster porn theatrics.

As the 5000 year old Amazon princess, Gadot builds on her appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and proves that the praise she received in that movie wasn’t just a result of her standing out against its poor structure, lacklustre script, and wayward direction. There are some roles that can only be played by certain actors or actresses, and Gadot owns the part in a way that the likes of Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Beyoncé Knowles – all considered for the role in the past – would find incredibly difficult to match or improve upon. Elsewhere, Gadot isn’t the most convincing of actresses, but here she gives a compelling, intuitive performance that stretches her skills as an actress but does so in a way that marks her out – in the DC Extended Universe at least – as the character to look out for. She’s ably supported by Pine who reins in his usual cocky charm; Huston as yet another less than memorable villain; Thewlis as the politician who may or may not be all that he seems; and Wright as Diana’s strong-willed aunt. However, if anyone in the supporting cast has to be picked out, it’s Bremner, who injects some much needed energy into his scenes and who makes Charlie possibly the most well rounded character in the whole movie.

Much has been made of Patty Jenkins being the first female director of a superhero movie featuring a female character as its lead, and Jenkins does do a decent enough job of pushing against the narrow confines of a DC superhero movie. But though she does manage to incorporate some elements of feminism into the story, there aren’t enough to make the movie into something more relevant than it is, and it’s curiously flimsy as an example of female empowerment. This is still, and despite the presence of Wonder Woman herself, a Boys’ Own adventure that could have featured any number of superheroes as its lead protagonist. It gets full marks for its period setting (something that was avoided for a long time before production finally began), but the movie takes too long in getting its audience from London to the Front, takes too much time in attempting to flesh out characters that don’t need fleshing out, and provides enough exposition to deaden the senses more effectively than Dr Maru’s poison gas. A small-scale triumph, then, and a definite improvement on the movies already mentioned above, but there’s still a long way to go before DC and Warner Bros. overcome the same problems they seem incapable – at present – of recognising and prevailing over.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that starts out strongly (much in the way that Suicide Squad did), Wonder Woman seems set on delivering on the promise it showed in its trailers, and the advance word from preview screenings, but it soon falters and falls prey to the apparently carved-in-stone requirements of the DC Extended Universe; bold and confident in places, yet haphazard and stumbling in others, it’s a movie that surprises more than it dismays, but when it does dismay the effect is, unfortunately, far more noticeable, and has far more repercussions.

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Hell or High Water (2016)

05 Monday Dec 2016

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hell_or_high_water

D: David Mackenzie / 102m

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham, Marin Ireland, John-Paul Howard, Kristin Berg, Katy Mixon, Dale Dickey, Kevin Rankin

Toby and Tanner Howard (Pine, Foster) are brothers who carry out bank robberies. They target branches of the Texas Midlands Bank, hitting two of them in the same morning. They are working to a plan of Toby’s devising, and they cover their tracks to the extent of burying the cars they use in the robberies, and taking the money across the state line into Oklahoma and laundering it at an Indian casino. Once the money has been laundered, they then get the casino to issue their “winnings” in the form of a cheque… which is made out to Texas Midlands Bank. Why? Because thanks to a reverse mortgage provided by the bank to the brothers’ recently deceased mother, their ranch will suffer foreclosure if the outstanding mortgage isn’t paid. And that’s without the oil that’s been found on their ranch as well…

The police investigation is headed up by Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Bridges) and his long-suffering partner, Alberto Parker (Birmingham). Hamilton is near to retirement, and his experience tells him that the bank robbers have a specific sum they’re aiming for; once they’ve got it they’ll stop – even though Tanner carries out an impromptu robbery on another bank. Realising that they’ve got a beef with Texas Midlands Bank, Hamilton persuades Parker to stake out one of the bank’s other branches, and they wait for the robbers to show up. With only one more robbery needed to net them the rest of the money they need, Toby and Tanner arrive at another branch altogether, only to find it’s been closed down. They decide to rob another branch in a bigger town, which also means a bigger risk.

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The robbery is not a complete success. The brothers get the money they need but find themselves pursued by gun-toting locals. They manage to split up, and soon Tanner finds himself followed by the police. As he heads into the nearby hills in an attempt to escape, Toby takes the money and tries to get across the border and return to the Indian casino. But first there’s the small matter of a police checkpoint…

A modern day Western set in West Texas (but shot mostly in Eastern New Mexico), Hell or High Water‘s sombre screenplay used to be known as Comancheria. Neither title really does justice to a story that revolves around money and the way in which its importance is felt keenly by those who don’t have it, or how casually it’s regarded by those that do have it. This part of West Texas is peppered with roadside signs offering both financial and religious solutions for dealing with personal debt, but none of these signs have been put there by the banks or the loan companies that are deemed responsible for so much of the debt and deprivation that the average West Texan endures as part of their daily life.

But Toby Howard isn’t going to accept the loss of his family’s ranch (or the oil found below it). He’s not going to become another victim of the financial institutions that plague the area with their fire-sale mentality and lack of humanity. Along with his brother, Tanner, he’s going to fight back, he’s going to make Texas Midlands Bank accountable to him. It’s a classic David vs Goliath tale, except that in this case, Goliath doesn’t even know he’s in a fight. Taylor Sheridan’s perceptive, yet harsh screenplay makes it clear who the villain of the piece is, and it’s not the brothers, even if Hamilton and Parker firmly believe they are. And it adds to the harshness of the story that Hamilton never stops viewing the Howards as villains, even when he begins to work out why they’re robbing banks in the first place. Where the viewer can have a large degree of sympathy for their plight and their solution, Hamilton has only one judgment to give: they’re criminals, pure and simple.

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Mackenzie keeps things this simple throughout, and does so against a backdrop of financial ruin and macho posturing that serves as a vindication for Tanner and Hamilton’s behaviour. Tanner’s a hothead, unpredictable and rash; you never know if he’s going to jeopardise Toby’s plan or see it through without incident. Foster has played this kind of role before, but here he injects a sense of melancholy that makes Tanner more tragic than perhaps he has a right to be. It makes his performance all the more impressive: Foster knows that Tanner is as close to a stereotype as this movie gets, but he ignores that and makes the character as intriguing and beguiling in an off-kilter way as he can.

Bridges is equally impressive, his brooding, jowly features looking out and around from behind his sunglasses, his massively non-PC comments about his partner’s racial background funny, but only in a “long-time married couple” sense. But Sheridan’s script doesn’t let Hamilton have it all his own way. When he says, proudly, “This is what they call white man’s intuition,” Alberto is quick to respond, and in a perfectly deadpan manner: “Sometimes a blind pig finds a truffle.” All humour aside, though, Bridges projects a stern, authoritarian personality for Hamilton; he’s a man caught at the end of a career that has seen so many changes it’s almost overwhelming, so much so that once his retirement arrives, he can’t rest or leave the past behind.

These two roles, and the complexity that both actors bring to them, threaten to leave Pine way behind in the acting stakes, but he’s more than a match as the mastermind behind it all, his downtrodden, put-upon character finally taking a chance on himself in a desperate time of need. Pine isn’t exactly the most intuitive of actors – you can see the wheels turning in most of his performances – but here he does something quite remarkable: he imparts a stillness to the role that makes Toby all the more worthy of our time and attention. Foster may have the flashier role, but it’s Pine who provides the moral and emotional compass for the movie to navigate by.

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All this is set against some stunning desert landscapes, perfectly lensed and lit by DoP Giles Nuttgens, and acting as unconcerned characters occasionally drafted into the story for effect. Those wide open expanses, with their unending vistas and rippling heat hazes speak of a far-off country where the promise of a better life is just over the horizon – if only the brothers could get there. But Toby’s plan is much more prosaic than that, and Mackenzie uses the character’s yearning for a better life for his children to highlight Toby’s innate nobility. Mackenzie and Nuttgens are aided by exceptional editing by Jake Roberts – the movie has an elegiac feel throughout that lends itself so well to the movie’s internal rhythm – and there’s a wonderfully melancholy, rueful score courtesy of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Rating: 9/10 – a movie that rewards the viewer on so many levels, Hell or High Water takes its financial vigilante characters down a hard road indeed, but makes the prize as compelling and profound as possible, and without dumbing down the narrative; the three leads are magnificent, and the whole mise-en-scene is handled with care and confidence by all concerned, leading to a movie that is by turns haunting, complex, thrilling, and emotionally draining.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Star Trek Beyond

D: Justin Lin / 122m

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, Deep Roy, Shohreh Aghdashloo

It’s unfortunate, given the response to Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), that the latest instalment in the JJ Abrams’ revamped movie franchise opens with über-Captain James T. Kirk (Pine) lamenting his time in space as part of the Enterprise’s five year mission. After nine hundred and sixty-six days, Kirk is, frankly, bored, and as he puts it, “wondering what it is we are trying to accomplish”. It’s like a listening to a man who’s treading water in the ocean, far from land, and hoping a shark comes along to break the monotony. Harking after further adventure, Kirk sounds petulant rather than unhappy. But if it’s a challenge he’s after, then he need wait no further, because once the Enterprise has docked at the Federation’s new super-duper starbase, the Yorktown (a nod to the Enterprise’s original name in the original series’ pilot), an alien craft seeking help arrives and propels Kirk and his long-suffering crew into just the kind of adventure that he craves.

Told that an alien menace headed by someone called Krall (Elba) is responsible for the abduction and imprisonment of her crew, Kalara (Wilson), leads Kirk and co to the planet where her crew are being held. Orbiting the planet, the Enterprise suffers a devastating attack, and the main saucer is forced into a crash landing – but not before Krall and his men have invaded the starship and made it clear they’re after an artifact – the Abronath – that is on board, and not before the crew have been either captured by Krall or gotten away by means of the Enterprise’s escape pods. Spock and Bones escape together, as do Kirk and Chekov, while Scotty gets clear by himself. Down on the planet, Scotty meets Jaylah (Boutella), a scavenger whose people were captured and imprisoned by Krall in the past. She takes him to what she calls her ship, and Scotty is amazed to find it’s the remains of the USS Franklin, a ship long considered to have been lost.

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Meanwhile, Spock has been injured, and Bones is doing his best to keep him alive. Sulu and Uhura have been captured, and Kirk and Chekov head for the downed Enterprise to see if they can make it operational again. Krall appears to be one step ahead of everyone, and his motive for gaining the Abronath is revealed to be part of a plan of revenge on the Federation. Aided by Jaylah, the crew of the Enterprise come together to fight back against Krall’s homicidal intentions, and in the process, find some very unique ways of taking the fight to him.

When Paramount announced that they were rebooting the original Star Trek franchise and had given the project to JJ Abrams, it seemed like a risky proposition, what with William Shatner et al having become so completely associated with the roles of Kirk and Spock and Bones etc, that it was hard to imagine anyone else portraying them. But Abrams was more than up to the task, and even managed to come up with a plot device that allowed his “new crew” to have their own adventures independently of the original movie series’ timeline. Quinto was a great choice for Spock, Pine had the cocksure audacity of a younger Kirk down pat, and Urban was possibly a better (if underused) Bones than DeForest Kelley. Only the lack of a convincing villain stopped Star Trek (2009) from being a complete triumph. And then Star Trek: Into Darkness tried to be too clever for its own good with its “He’s not Khan/Okay, he is Khan” shenanigans, and overwrought plotting.

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Perhaps realising that going “darker” on the first sequel works only on other sci-fi franchises, the producers have decided with this third outing to go lighter and make Star Trek Beyond more like an episode of the original series; or to be more accurate (or cynical – you decide) a retread of Star Trek: Generations (1994). The script, by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung (who appears briefly as Sulu’s husband, a gender acknowledgment that carries no weight whatsoever in the grand scheme of things), coasts along for the most part, and does what the original series always did so well: focuses on the relationships between Kirk, Spock and Bones, gives Scotty a chance to shine when something needs fixing (which happened pretty much every week), adds an alien collaborator to help the crew overcome the villain, throws in said villain and ensures they have a grudge against everyone else, and sidelines Uhura at every opportunity (though she is involved, by reference, in one of the movie’s funniest scenes). A tried and tested formula, to be sure, and one that on this occasion makes for an enjoyable if underwhelming experience.

But while enjoyable is good – and in a loud, dumb, fun kind of way the movie is enjoyable – there’s something missing that stops it from becoming a Star Trek movie that makes you want to go back and view it again because you had such a great experience watching it the first time. Partly because Krall is yet another weak villain, partly because there are too many occasions when the solution to a problem is to “couple the doohickey to the whatchamacallit and transverse the first number you thought of” (and who knew Kirk was so familiar with the properties of FM radio frequencies?), and partly because any plot development that relies on the presence of a fully functioning motor bike on the bridge of a downed starship, is stretching credibility to snapping point. (There are other moments where the viewer’s jaw is in danger of hitting the floor, but to reveal them all would take too long.)

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In the director’s chair, Fast & Furious alumni Lin makes a decent enough fist of things but doesn’t manage to provide audiences with anything really memorable to go away with. It’s a turbo-charged experience, to be sure, and Lin, along with his editing team (Greg D’Auria, Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto and Steven Sprung) ensures that the movie zips along at an exciting pace. The visuals are as crisp and vibrant as you would expect, and even though there’s an over-reliance on CGI, this is to be expected: it’s a science fiction movie, for Pete’s sake; how else is it going to look? The cast enter into the spirit of things, though Elba struggles with his dialogue thanks to the kind of alien mask that looks great but probably isn’t that functional; and there’s a touching moment where Spock looks at a picture from the past (that he can’t possibly have).

All in all, Star Trek Beyond is a movie that falls under the heading of “honourable mention”. It’s not going to be at the top of anyone’s list of all-time favourite Star Trek movies, but it won’t be anywhere near the bottom, like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). It zips along like a young child eager to show off the neat-looking toy it’s just found, but as any parent will tell you, even neat-looking toys can lose their attraction quickly and without warning.

Rating: 6/10 – a middling, superficially diverting entry in the Star Trek canon, Star Trek Beyond is nothing new or special, and only occasionally rises to meet the demands of franchise (and genre) expectations; more a case of “boldly going where everyone has been before” than anything else, the movie is yet another reminder that the odd-numbered entries in the series are the ones that don’t always work.

The Finest Hours (2016)

18 Monday Apr 2016

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The Finest Hours

D: Craig Gillespie / 117m

Cast: Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Holliday Grainger, Eric Bana, John Ortiz, Kyle Gallner, John Magaro, Graham McTavish, Michael Raymond-James, Beau Knapp, Josh Stewart, Abraham Benrubi, Keiynon Lonsdale, Rachel Brosnahan

On 18 February 1952, the SS Pendleton, sailing from New Orleans to Boston, was one of two ships caught in a severe storm; both broke in two off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The other unfortunate ship was the SS Fort Mercer. With thirty-three crew members aboard the still floating stern of the ship, the Coast Guard despatched a motor boat from nearby Chatham, though with only four crew on board. In rough seas and with no guarantee they would reach the ailing ship in time, the motor boat reached the Pendleton and was able to rescue all but one of the remaining crew. The rescue was widely regarded as one of the most daring rescues in the history of the United States Coast Guard. In 2009, the rescue was the subject of a book, The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman.

If the brief account given above seems to indicate that The Finest Hours will be a gripping, edge-of-the-seat recounting of the that daring rescue mission, then potential viewers be warned: the movie doesn’t reach that level of excitement at any point in its running time. Instead the movie elects to be a very pedestrian retelling of the events on that fateful day, and initially, seems more concerned about covering the romance between motor boat skipper Bernie Webber (Pine) and his girlfriend, Miriam Pentinen (Grainger). We get to see how the two meet, and then there’s a protracted sequence where their engagement requires Bernie to speak to his commander, Daniel Cluff (Bana), for permission to wed (it’s a formality but Bernie treats it as if he’s asking Cluff  for something major).

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In the midst of Bernie’s dithering, the SS Fort Mercer‘s plight is reported, but other coast guard stations are already dealing with it. It’s only when the Pendleton’s equal predicament comes to light that Bernie actually stops being a bit of a doormat and chooses to go out to the stricken vessel. Most everyone sees it as a reckless, even suicidal mission, and Bernie is joined by just two of his colleagues, Richard Livesey (Foster) and Andy Fitzgerald (Gallner), and by a seaman, Ervin Maske (Magaro), who just happens to be there when the Pendleton‘s plight is discovered. Each man knows that there’s a good chance they won’t make it to the ship, or even come back, but as Bernie says, “They say you gotta go out. They don’t say you gotta come back”. And with that reassuring quote, the four men take a motor boat out into heavy seas and fight their way over a stretch of treacherous water called the Bar. And from there, and without a compass to guide them, they attempt to find the Pendleton.

Even now it all seems highly dramatic, the kind of heroic true story that proves inspiring, and makes the viewer want to be a part of that rescue mission if it were at all possible. But the movie founders from this point on, and while the crew of the Pendleton, ostensibly led by engineer Ray Sybert (Affleck), struggle to keep the stern afloat until help arrives, Bernie and his crew are faced with a seemingly number of violent swells to overcome, and all of which are bested by Bernie – basically – accelerating over or through them. This repetition proves wearing, and robs the movie of any tension, because no matter how big the approaching waves are, Bernie just floors it, and any sense of peril is quickly and completely dismissed.

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Meanwhile, Sybert has to contend with semi-mutinous crew member D.A. Brown (Raymond-James) and his insistence that they get off the Pendleton by using the lifeboats. In one of the movie’s better scenes, Sybert shows everyone why that isn’t such a good idea, but otherwise any tension is dissipated by Affleck’s restrained performance, and no concrete sense that anyone on the ship is in any real danger (which is disconcerting considering their situation). And this is the movie’s main problem: it doesn’t really know how to make all this frightening or gripping or challenging. Even during the rescue, a sequence which should have ramped up the tension to unbearable levels, the movie fails to capitalise on the situation and keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. Instead the movie acts as a kind of dramatic, clichéd tick box exercise.

The movie also marginalises all its characters with the exception of Miriam. While Bernie and his crew become mere figures on a boat who are focused on the seas ahead, everyone back at Chatham is kept either hanging round the coast guard radio, or eventually, in a risible sequence where the townsfolk gather their cars at the dock with their headlights on to guide poor Bernie home, asked to pull together and be part of the heroic effort themselves. This is partly down to Miriam, who makes an attempt to get the rescue mission called off because Bernie has decided to do the right thing. It’s an incredibly selfish thing to do, but the movie tries to make her look heroic rather than self-serving, and it never recovers from it. And once he is out there, and despite several dozen close ups, Pine’s Bernie could be just about anyone getting buckets of water thrown over them.

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The Finest Hours also has an odd visual look about it, one that heightens the artificality of the CGI rendered waves and the Pendleton‘s exterior, particularly when the actual rescue is in progress. It’s at this point that the viewer will be unable to retain a sense of the scope and size of the mission itself, and will be trapped into thinking, “what a small tank they must have used”. And then, with the trip out to the stricken Pendleton having taken so long, the movie rushes the return trip, and the movie ends without ever establishing itself as a thrill-ride or a serious, dramatic tale of heroism on the high seas.

Partly this is due to the structure of the script, which pays too much attention to events playing out on land rather than at sea, and Gillespie’s watered-down direction (pun intended). As a result, the cast make little impact, with only Grainger standing out from the faceless crowd – Foster is one of several cast members who are completely wasted in their roles – and the movie lurches from one unconvincing scene to the next, devoid of any sense of unease, and ending up as stranded as the Pendleton is in the few hours left to it before it sinks completely.

Rating: 5/10 – only occasionally (and even then briefly) powerful, The Finest Hours does scant justice to its true story, and introduces too many fictional elements to make it work effectively; with a bland central performance from Pine, and without a strong-minded director at the helm, the movie disappoints more than it impresses and seems almost wilfully lacklustre.

Z for Zachariah (2015)

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Z for Zachariah

D: Craig Zobel / 98m

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, Chris Pine

In an abandoned town, a young woman (Robbie) scavenges for food and other supplies. She wears home made protective clothing that protects her from the air. Once she has what she needs she heads out of town and into the nearby hills. Once she’s reached a certain distance she removes the protective clothing and continues on into a valley where it appears the air isn’t contaminated. She’s met by her dog, and together they reach her home, a farm where they live by themselves. There’s no electricity or gas, no working generator, but at least the weather is good, and the young woman has plenty of food.

It’s a lonely existence, but one borne out of necessity. The world has suffered a catastrophe, and the young woman, whose name is Ann, is a survivor, trapped/saved by the valley she lives in, which somehow acts as a natural barrier against whatever has happened. She’s already survived a hard winter where she nearly ran out of food, but she’s better prepared now, and is growing vegetables, tending chickens, and keeping a cow. She is becoming used to being alone, but still longs for human company.

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One day her unspoken wish is answered. She discovers a man (Ejiofor), dressed in an anti-radiation suit, on the road near her home. He has a portable Geiger counter and is taking readings. When he realises that the area is unaffected he removes his suit. When Ann moves closer she finds him gone from the road and bathing at the base of a nearby waterfall. She implores him to get out, quickly, as the water is contaminated. Back at the farmhouse his sickness threatens his life, but thanks to drugs he has in his possession, Ann is able to save him from dying. The man, whose name is John, recuperates slowly, but he helps Ann as much as he can and even comes up with a plan to get the tractor going again. Ann and John begin to rely on each other, and as they do they become closer, forming a bond of mutual reliance and affection. And then they discover that there’s somebody else in the valley as well…

Those familiar with Robert C. O’Brien’s novel will know that there are only two characters in Z for Zachariah, and that the novel concerns itself with themes of science versus nature, and the clash of identities between Ann and John. But in Nissar Modi’s adaptation these themes are missing, and the viewer is left with themes of sexual jealousy and remorse, and John’s need to control the people around him (even if it’s just Ann). With the introduction of Caleb (Pine), Modi not only changes the nature of the struggle between Ann and John, he also changes irrevocably the tone of the movie and makes it less intriguing to watch.

What begins as a clever survivalist movie soon develops into a relationship drama where two people, who previously thought they were the only ones alive in their part of the world, adapt to coexisting again. It’s this section of the movie, where it’s just Ann and John and their relationship takes hold that offers the most rewards. As portrayed by Robbie, Ann is a gauche, likeable character who has a simple sincerity about her. It’s a good contrast to John’s anguished, bitter personality, and Ejiofor shows us the man’s deep-rooted insecurities slowly but surely, until the viewer is forced to realise that he’s not quite the “good man” that Ann believes he is. Pitted against her God-fearing background – her father built and preached in the nearby church – John treads carefully enough, but still leaves enough clues that he’s not fully to be trusted.

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And it would have been great to see that dynamic play out with just the two characters, with Ann perhaps coming to terms with living with a man she’s attracted to but can’t trust. But again Modi doesn’t want to do that. Instead he introduces Caleb and makes the movie about sexual desire, a ménage à trois, with both John and Caleb circling each other and looking for ways to impress Ann. But where Caleb is supportive and charming, John reacts boorishly, and it’s at this stage of the movie where it becomes uncomfortably like a soap opera, and where the script struggles to maintain a clarity of purpose. At one point tells Ann that he’s okay with her being attracted to Caleb, that it’s okay if they want to “go and be white people together”. This remark is said in an almost offhand manner by John, but it’s indicative of the way in which the script suddenly lacks purpose. It’s a casual, racist comment, and should be powerful in its own way for being voiced by someone who’s black, but the script leaves it hanging, and never goes back to it.

With the last third hamstrung by needing to be more dramatic, the good work of the first hour is left behind. Pine is appropriately charismatic but as Caleb worms his way into Ann’s affections, the combination of the script, Pine’s performance, and Zobel’s now wayward direction, makes the whole thing seem implausible. All three elements fail to make a cohesive whole, and while the trio toil away at harnessing the energy of the waterfall to provide power for the generator, the viewer is left to watch things develop in such a way that the inevitable confrontation between John and Caleb lacks any bite, and the movie tries to end on a note of ambiguity that doesn’t really hold up.

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Robbie, who is definitely an actress to watch at the moment, is very good as Ann, capturing the character’s innate trusting nature and revealing the pain she feels when that trust is abused. Ejiofor is equally good but John is a flawed character in more ways than one, and the script is less than subtle when it comes to revealing his motivations, leaving the actor to make the most of some very clumsy dialogue and direction. Along with Pine, Ejiofor seems to have been left to figure things out for himself in the final third, and Zobel’s influence wanes on the material the longer the movie goes on. By the end it’s almost as if the cast have directed themselves, but it’s at odds with what Zobel’s done up til then, and it shows.

Narrative and character disappointments aside, the movie at least looks absolutely beautiful, the New Zealand backdrops shot with an exquisite eye by Tim Orr, who did some equally impressive work on The World Made Straight (2015). It’s the one aspect of the movie that’s consistent throughout, and in conjunction with Robbie’s performance, makes the movie worth seeing, but both have to work hard to offset the slow pace made at the beginning, and the tired resolution at the end.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that never quite gels into a satisfying whole, Z for Zachariah still has enough going for it to warrant a look; with all due respect to Pine, perhaps it’s also one to watch up until the actor makes his appearance – then you’ll have seen the best of it.

Trailer – The Finest Hours (2016)

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

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The Finest Hours is based on a true story, and is set in 1952, when a nor’easter off the New England coast tore two oil tankers – the SS Mercer and the SS Pendleton – in half. The ensuing rescue mission took place in some of the most extreme sea weather ever experienced, and was fraught with danger. The cast includes Casey Affleck, Chris Pine, Eric Bana, Ben Foster, and fresh from The Riot Club (2014), Holliday Grainger, and the cinematographer is Javier Aguirresarobe, whose work on movies such as The Road (2009), A Better Life (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013), is a strong indication that this may well be one of the most strikingly shot dramas of 2016. But what is clear from the trailer is that this is one movie that might just eclipse The Perfect Storm (2000) for storm-drenched action.

Stretch (2014)

11 Monday May 2015

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Stretch

D: Joe Carnahan / 94m

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Chris Pine, Ed Helms, James Badge Dale, Brooklyn Decker, Jessica Alba, Shaun Toub, Randy Couture, Matthew Willig, Ben Bray, David Hasselhoff, Ray Liotta, Norman Reedus

Following the unexpected break up of his relationship with the love of his life, Candace (Decker), would-be actor and ex-cocaine and gambling addict Stretch (Wilson) turns to limo driving to make ends meet. With his life coasting along in neutral, it comes as a shock when one day a gambling debt he thought had lapsed, is taken over by Ignacio (Bray), who wants payment by midnight of the same day. With little chance of coming up with the $6,000 he owes, Stretch convinces one of his co-workers, Charlie (Alba), to steer any high-paying customers his way during the evening, in the hope that he’ll earn enough in tips to pay off Ignacio.

With his boss Naseem (Toub) worried about a rival limo company run by the mysterious Jovi (Couture), Stretch sees his first pick-up, David Hasselhoff, persuaded to go with the Jovi. In an attempt at getting his own back, Stretch gets to the Jovi’s next client, Ray Liotta, first. Picking him up from a movie set, Liotta leaves with a prop gun and fake police I.D., but insists that Stretch return them to the studio. Before he can do so, Charlie sets him up with another client, an eccentric businessman called Roger Karos (Pine). Knowing that he’s a renowned big tipper, Stretch tells Karos about his gambling debt; Karos agrees to tip Stretch that amount if he takes him wherever he wants to go.

“Wherever” turns out to be a secret sex club. When they get there, Karos gives Stretch a task: to visit another club, see a Frenchman called Laurent (Dale) and obtain a specific briefcase, plus locate a supply of cocaine, and all within one hundred minutes – without fail. But Laurent is expecting Karos to hand over some ledgers in exchange for the briefcase (which contains a lot of money). Using Ray Liotta’s fake police I.D., Stretch bluffs his way out of the club with the briefcase, and by chance runs into Candace. Without batting an eyelid he tells her he’s doing really well and when she shows a renewed interest in him, Stretch turns her down flat.

He gets hold of some cocaine but the limo gets stolen. With the briefcase hidden inside it, he tracks it down, only for it to be towed by the Jovi’s brother, Boris (Willig). Stretch manages to get the limo back and returns to pick up Karos. But Karos reneges on his deal to pay Stretch the $6,000, saying he was a minute late in returning to collect him. So when Ignacio calls demanding the money, Stretch tells him to meet him where Karos wants to go next. But when they all meet up, Stretch’s plans go awry when the Jovi appears and Karos hands Stretch over to him.

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You know, a funny thing happened on the way to the box office…

Stretch was originally scheduled for release in March 2014, but with two months to go, Universal scrapped the release and allowed producer Jason Blum to offer the movie to other distributors. But no one picked it up, and it came back to Universal. Eventually the movie was released on iTunes and Amazon.com, and VOD, in October 2014. Which begs the question, if Universal were so eager to disown it, then just how bad a movie is it?

The answer is: not that bad. It is rough and ready though, and often threatens to disappear up its own backside by trying to be edgy and complicated, but on the whole Joe Carnahan’s blackly comic limo ride is a bit of a guilty pleasure. He’s helped immensely by the casting of Wilson in the title role, his resigned, long-suffering features put to excellent use throughout as Stretch manoeuvres his way through the kind of night that only happens to characters in the movies. It’s Scorsese’s After Hours (1985) given a more modern sensibility and with a higher absurdity quotient.

It does, however, take an age to get going. It’s not until Ray Liotta’s dropped off at his hotel that the movie begins to move up a gear, and Stretch’s evening really starts to fall apart. Up until then we’re treated to too many scenes that show just how much his life sucks, and how everything he tries never quite works out how he needs it to. By the third or fourth example we get the idea, but Carnahan isn’t finished, and Stretch’s humiliation continues, right up until the moment he cons the briefcase from Laurent. From then on he begins to fight back – against Naseem, the Jovi and Boris, Ignacio, and Karos. It’s great to see this particular worm turning, and Wilson’s unprotesting features change to reflect the smug satisfaction Stretch begins to experience as he turns the tables on everyone. It’s a winning performance, and one that makes the viewer root for Stretch at every turn.

Wilson is the calm centre at the midst of what is an otherwise wild and wacky tale of male empowerment gone AWOL, but more than holds his own when up against the feverish performance given by an uncredited Pine. Sporting a bushy hairstyle and beard, and making his appearance semi-naked in a parachute, Pine gives such a larger than life performance it’s almost as if he’s been given carte blanche by Carnahan to do and say whatever he wants (such as setting fire to the inside of the limo, or punching himself in the face for “clarity”). Luckily, he’s not so over-the-top that he proves too much of a distraction, but when he isn’t on screen, his absence is palpable; full marks to Carnahan then for not over-relying on him, or letting the character take over.

But while Wilson and Pine have fun with their roles, fun that translates as unwavering commitment in front of the camera, spare a thought for poor Ed Helms, saddled with playing Karl, the ghost of an ex-limo driver. The script requires him to pop up at odd moments and either point out Stretch’s failings, or pass comment on the action. He’s meant to be a source of humour, and Helms plays him that way, but alas nobody thought to tell Carnahan, who provides him with some of the most awkward dialogue this side of a later entry in the Saw series. To compensate, though, the cameos – from Hasselhoff, Liotta, Shaun White, and Norman Reedus – are all hilarious (especially Reedus’s).

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With the movie pushing credibility further and further under the wheels of absurdity, Stretch often comes perilously close to derailing, but at each crazy turn Carnahan reins it in and finds some plausibility – however weak – from somewhere, and the movie carries on regardless. It’s a movie that comes self-contained and relies on its own twisted logic to work, and  for the most part, that’s exactly what happens: it works. There’s a romantic sub-plot involving Stretch and a woman he’s met online, plus the whole running-scared-of-the-Jovi-and-his-brother routine, and they add nicely to the mix, adding some small amount of depth to the story and providing some secondary amusement.

If its’ all a little too far-fetched then it’s to be expected. And though being a little far-fetched doesn’t necessarily hurt the movie, it does raise that question again: just what bee had gotten into Universal’s bonnet? Because from here, Carnahan’s crazy thrill ride has a lot to offer once that shaky start has passed.

Rating: 7/10 – with a very slow start leading eventually to all sorts of comic encounters and dialogue – “I’m sorry, I didn’t see the light.” “Well, don’t go towards it now.” – Stretch is an imperfect but still hugely enjoyable comedy-thriller; best viewed with any expectations dialled down so that it can (again eventually) surprise you and make you glad you watched it.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

07 Friday Feb 2014

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Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit

D: Kenneth Branagh / 105m

Cast: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Lenn Kudrjawizki, Alec Utgoff, Peter Andersson, Elena Velikanova, Nonso Anozie, Seth Ayott, Colm Feore, Gemma Chan

With franchise reboots seemingly the order of the day in Hollywood at the moment, we shouldn’t be too surprised to find Tom Clancy’s CIA analyst dusted down and given a new lease of life courtesy of parent company Paramount.  Twelve years on from the frankly underwhelming The Sum of All Fears, we find our hero not only younger but given the dubious benefit of an origin story.  It’s a slightly too comfortable move by Paramount, and while you can understand they might want to make a few more Jack Ryan movies in the future, this is quite a soft, predictable movie for a “first” outing.

We first meet Ryan at college in England on the day of 9/11.  The terrible events of that day prompt him to enlist in the Marines and we move on to events in Afghanistan that see Ryan badly injured and needing intense physical therapy so that he can walk again.  Here he meets two people who will be instrumental in getting him back on his feet: junior doctor Cathy Muller (Knightley), and shadowy spook Thomas Harper (Costner).  Fast forward ten more years and Ryan is working on Wall Street as an undercover analyst working for Harper and looking for financial dealings and transactions that might indicate terrorist funding.  He is living with Cathy who knows nothing of his double life.  When Ryan discovers Russian accounts that are being hidden from view, he travels to Moscow to investigate.  Surviving an attempt on his life, Ryan meets businessman Viktor Cheverin (Branagh) and discovers a plot to destabilise the US economy.  To make matters more complicated, there’s a terrorist attack being planned, and Ryan’s girlfriend turns up unexpectedly in Moscow.

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While the plotting and characterisations in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit are fairly simple and straightforward, there’s a disconnect between the high-tech gadgetry and versatility of the modern communications devices on display, against the feel and visual styling that Branagh brings to the fore throughout.  This is very much an Eighties spy thriller, with many of the Cold War frills that were prevalent then, and there’s a large debt owed to The Fourth Protocol (1987).  The script tries its best to avoid the usual clichés but remains a fairly sterile affair, devoid of any real tension and saddled with the kind of arch-villainy better suited to a Bond movie.  (Indeed, Branagh’s character and performance would have looked completely at home during Pierce Brosnan’s tenure.)  What elements the movie does pilfer from recent years gives it more of a Jason Bourne feel but without the angst.  When Cathy turns up in Moscow there’s a sense that hers and Ryan’s relationship – given such a strong focus in the first third of the movie – is going to continue in the same vein, but the script relegates her to the necessary damsel in distress; and once she’s saved she’s removed from the movie altogether until the inevitable coda (but not before she’s conveniently validated Ryan’s double life, previously a plot point that drove their relationship).

With Cheverin’s financial machinations lacking the flair or excitement that can only be offset by a series of (thankfully) non-CGI action sequences, the movie plays out its showdowns and action beats proficiently enough without giving us anything new or different.  (The last third, with its chases through Moscow and Manhattan, also seem to  provide a potential cure for back pain: Ryan’s injuries from Afghanistan, still causing him problems today, are forgotten about as he’s thrown around a lot in vehicle collisions and found hanging out the back of a truck.)  There’s a distinct lack of tension as well, and the short scene where Ryan determines both the location of the terrorist attack and the person who’ll carry it out, is laughably preposterous.  Branagh juggles the various elements to good effect but thanks to the script’s holding back, he can’t quite make things as exciting as they should be.

Pine is okay as the newest Ryan on the block, his youth and inexperience played to good effect until he’s required to don the mantle of action hero.  Knightley takes the generic girlfriend role and manages to make it interesting, though she’s hampered by the script’s reluctance to include her character as anything more than attractive window-dressing (it’ll be interesting to see if she returns for any sequels).  As the equally generic villain, Branagh fares better as the patriot willing to sacrifice anything to humble the West, but it’s Costner, experiencing a bit of a career revival at the moment, who fares the best.  He gives a quiet, unshowy performance that adds some much-needed gravitas to the proceedings, and he dominates each scene he appears in.

Rating: 7/10 – as a reboot, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit shows too much restraint on the action front, and has a plot that is too underwhelming for its own good (even if it does sound a credible threat); if there is a sequel it will need to take some bigger steps if it’s going to compete with the Bonds and the Bournes of this world.