White Boy Rick (2018)

17 Sunday Mar 2019

Tags

Bel Powley, Crime, Detroit, Drama, Drug dealing, FBI, Matthew McConaughey, Review, Richie Merritt, The Eighties, True story, Yann Demange

D: Yann Demange / 111m

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Richie Merritt, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Rory Cochrane, RJ Cyler, Jonathan Majors, Eddie Marsan, Taylour Paige, Bruce Dern, Piper Laurie

Detroit, 1984. Richard Wershe (McConaughey) and his fourteen year old son, Rick (Merritt), are a staple at gun shows. Richard purchases guns that he then re-sells on the street, but when he modifies a couple of rifles, Rick has the idea to sell them to a local drug dealer, Johnny ‘Lil Man’ Curry (Majors). Later, he’s approached by two FBI agents, Snyder (Leigh) and Byrd (Cochrane); they make it known that one of the modified rifles was used to kill a man.Using this as a means to persuade him, Snyder and Byrd get Rick to start making drug buys as a way of infiltrating Lil Man’s operation. Once on the inside, Rick does his best to keep things from his father, while learning the tricks of the trade – tricks that come in handy when Lil Man and his crew are arrested and Rick decides that he needs a way to make money for himself, his father and sister, Dawn (Powley), and his infant son. Soon he’s in a similar position to the one that Lil Man had, but inevitably there are consequences…

A story that would stretch credulity if it hadn’t really happened, Rick Wershe’s involvement with the FBI and his subsequent life of crime should be a movie slam dunk, the equivalent of a football striker faced with an open goal (to mix sports metaphors). And while White Boy Rick benefits from two detailed and persuasive performances from McConaughey and Merritt (making his movie debut), the screenplay by Andy Weiss and Logan and Noah Miller lacks cohesion and a clear through line – though it does try its best. Rick’s story has to vie with several others, and it’s this approach that stops the movie from being as compelling as it should be. Alongside Rick’s fall from grace, the narrative momentum stops from time to time to catch up with Dawn’s on-going drug addiction and Rick’s efforts to help her (the script never quite grasps the irony of a drug dealer trying to get someone off of drugs), and Rick’s continuing liking for Lil Man’s wife, Cathy (Paige), whom he gets into bed with in more ways than one. These and other secondary storylines hamper the flow of the movie, and with its jumping from year to successive year between 1984 and 1987, the episodic nature of the material means that the cast have to work extra hard to keep it all afloat.

In the end, some of the background details have more resonance and relevance than expected, as with the deprived lower middle class neighbourhood that the Wershes live in offering a powerful reason for Rick’s turning to drug dealing as a way out. Looking out for his family is another, and taking advantage of what he’s learnt through working for the FBI allows Rick to be successful in his chosen field (more irony that the script doesn’t explore). But Rick is also a mixture of brains and naïveté, enjoying the rewards of drug dealing while ignoring the object lesson given by Lil Man’s arrest and incarceration: the FBI will always get you in the end (and even if you’ve been an informant for them). Merritt is completely convincing as Rick, cocky and unfazed by anything and everything at fourteen, more mature and focused but still easily outwitted at seventeen, and with that sense of invincibility that every teenager has. He’s matched by McConaughey, his beaten down father still hanging onto dreams of success, even if they’re modest dreams, and always looking to be the best role model for his children that he can be. Make no mistake, both father and son are flawed characters, with a penchant for moral compromise when it can benefit them both, but the bond between them gives the movie an emotional component that is missing elsewhere. Now, if the movie had focused on their relationship to the exclusion of everything else…

Rating: 6/10 – good performances all round and solid direction from Demange aren’t enough to stop the viewer from realising that White Boy Rick is not exactly involving, and that even though the majority of it is true, it’s not always as interesting as its screenplay tries to make out; with a smattering of laughs, and moments of sudden violence to leaven the evenness of the material, this is a movie that tries hard in some places, unconvincingly in others, and which often feels the strain of the effort it’s making.

On the Road #2 – Better Start Running (2018)

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alex Sharp, Analeigh Tipton, Brett Simon, Comedy, Drama, FBI, Jeremy Irons, Maria Bello, Review, Road trip, Roadside attractions, Romance

D: Brett Simon / 92m

Cast: Alex Sharp, Analeigh Tipton, Jeremy Irons, Edi Gathegi, Maria Bello, Karan Soni, Chad Faust

Working at an All Shop, Harley (Sharp) is enamoured of Stephanie (Tipton), who in turn is the object of store boss’ Mr Hankey’s (Faust) inappropriate attentions. One night, with the store closed, Hankey makes a play for Stephanie in his office, then attempts to rape her, but Harley comes to her rescue. In the ensuing scuffle though, it’s Stephanie who causes Hankey to fall through a window to his death. Panicking, Harley calls the police to let them know what happened, but in doing so, unwittingly sets the FBI – in the manic form of Agent McFadden (Bello) and her neophyte partner, Agent Nelson (Soni) – on his and Stephanie’s trail. Not content with it being just the two of them, Harley also takes along his war veteran grandfather, Garrison (Irons). Intent on using being on the run as an excuse to visit a number of roadside attractions on their way to meet an old flame of Garrison’s, the trio become a quartet when they pick up wannabe hippie, Fitz Paradise (Gathegi). As the trip continues, they visit several of the attractions on Harley’s map, and discover they share a camaraderie that deepens the longer the trip goes on…

From its opening scenes where Harley moons over the object of his affections while she behaves as if she’s in a world of her own (which, it turns out, she is), Better Start Running sets out its stall as a quirky indie romantic comedy. That it’s only partially successful is down to the narrative vagaries inherent in the script by Chad Faust and Annie Burgstede, which keeps realigning its focus every few scenes and adds moments of drama to the mix that don’t always sit well with the movie’s overall rom-com vibe. Whether it’s Bello’s gung-ho bordering on psychotic FBI agent, or Irons’ irascible and lovelorn grandfather, or even Gathegi’s mid-life crisis experiencing husband and father, the movie takes occasional lurches into more serious territory before righting itself and remembering it’s a rom-com. And even then the romantic elements are subdued, with Harley and Stephanie only coming together as a couple out of necessity rather than anything resembling true love. Maybe the movie is being deliberately counter-intuitive, but if the romantic angle doesn’t convince, then why have it there in the first place? In truth, it suffers because of all the other elements the script has seen fit to squeeze in along the way.

So the movie is uneven and often frustrating, though when it strikes the right note, it does so with a great deal of charm and skill. Some of this is down to the performances – Irons and Bello add a great deal of energy to proceedings – some of it is due to the offbeat nature of the roadside attractions that get a visit (give a big shout out to Devil’s Tower, everyone), but mostly it’s because this is a movie chock-full of laugh out loud one-liners. From Garrison’s earnest instruction to Harley (“If you must come to tomorrow, I need a flash light, concertina wire and buckshot!”) to Harley’s own admission early on (“I’m sorry. I have to go now. I’m going on the run.”), Faust and Burgstede’s script ensures that the movie retains a spirit of fun throughout, even when it can’t help but slide sideways into Seriousville. Simon juggles the various elements with aplomb but can’t unite them into an acceptable whole, and he never finds a way to offset the feeling that the writers have deliberately ensured that Harley and Stephanie aren’t the brightest bunnies in the petting zoo (which isn’t necessary at all). Still, it is amusing, and thankfully so, otherwise this would have been one road trip best conducted from the driveway.

Rating: 6/10 – with the comedic aspects triumphing every time over the script’s other, less developed or worthy elements, Better Start Running is a mixed bag that sadly, doesn’t always gel as well as it should; likeable overall, it should still be approached with caution, a bit like Agent McFadden when she’s got a perp in her sights: “A cost of a year’s incarceration? $50,000. Cost of a bullet? Fifty cents. Do the math.”

Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017)

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Deep Throat, Diane Lane, Drama, FBI, Liam Neeson, Marton Csokas, Peter Landesman, Review, True story, Watergate

aka The Secret Man

D: Peter Landesman / 103m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Diane Lane, Marton Csokas, Tony Goldwyn, Ike Barinholtz, Josh Lucas, Wendi McLendon Covey, Kate Walsh, Brian d’Arcy James, Maika Monroe, Michael C. Hall, Tom Sizemore, Bruce Greenwood, Eddie Marsan, Noah Wyle

To have lived in America during the late Sixties and early Seventies was to have lived in troubled times. The country was experiencing seismic shifts in practically all areas: sexually, racially, politically, socially. But if there was one constant, one small part of the US that could be counted on to remain the same, no matter what was occurring anywhere in the country, it was the FBI. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover remained apart from political bias or influence, an autonomous body that answered to no one, but which involved itself – if needed – in the lives of everyone. If you ever wanted to know just how much Hoover was feared, you only have to watch the first scene in Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. In it, the FBI’s Deputy Associate Director Mark Felt (Neeson) is called to the White House for a meeting with John Dean (Hall) and two of his colleagues in the Nixon administration, John Mitchell and John Ehrlichmann. When they infer that Hoover should step down as Director of the FBI, it’s Felt who chillingly reminds them about Hoover’s secret files, the ones that contain everybody’s dirty laundry. What would happen, Felt counter infers, if those files were made public. The idea of Hoover retiring is quickly dropped.

The scene serves two purposes: one, to show just why the FBI was so autonomous, and two, to make it clear to the viewer that even if Hoover wasn’t around, Felt would be, and he was just as much a keeper of the secrets as Hoover was. It’s a necessary distinction to make, as what follows in the wake of Hoover’s death on 2 May 1972, is a watershed in US history, and Felt’s involvement in that watershed is crucial to the events that led to President Nixon’s resignation from office. Make no mistake: without Felt’s involvement, and without the decision he ultimately took in becoming “Deep Throat”, the US political landscape would have continued to change irrevocably for the worse. It’s a theme that runs throughout the movie, and which has modern day parallels. After Hoover’s death, and the discovery of the Watergate break-in, the White House did its best to influence the FBI and stop it from carrying out a thorough investigation (sound familiar?). And the White House’s efforts would have succeeded – if it hadn’t been for Mark Felt.

And so we have Felt portrayed by Liam Neeson in a political drama that goes behind the scenes at the FBI during the two years between Hoover’s death and Nixon’s resignation. Based largely on A G-Man’s Life (2006), a memoir Felt wrote with John O’Connor, Peter Landesman’s latest movie is ultimately a strange beast, neither compelling enough to grab its audience and guide it safely through the political upheaval of the time, or clear enough on the details of just how Nixon was caught in a web of his own deception. Instead, Landesman’s script focuses on the need to keep Acting Director L. Patrick Gray (Csokas) in the dark about the investigation, the search for the mole in the FBI who’s leaking information to Time and The Washington Post, and on a personal front, Felt’s search for his runaway daughter, Joan (Monroe). These three strands lead to a lot of repetition as Felt repeatedly goes behind Gray’s back, accusations of someone being “Deep Throat” fly thick and fast through the FBI offices with almost everyone being accused at one point or another, and Felt reassuring his wife, Audrey (Lane), that Joan will be found safe and well.

It’s all done in a watchable, unpretentious way, with Landesman apparently content to play out the story as if he were doing it by the numbers. There’s energy here in the way that people around Felt seem to be rushing around but to no obvious purpose (Felt gives out lots of instructions but rarely receives any related feedback), and the pace of the movie is quick enough that boredom is never likely to set in, but it all seems like a missed opportunity. It’s another movie where we all know the outcome in advance (or at least should do), and so it’s also a movie where the script’s ability to create tension and maintain it is undermined from the word go. Even when Felt falls under suspicion of being “Deep Throat” and Gray implies that Felt is being bugged because of this, all it leads to is a few minutes of Felt searching his office and his home for hidden microphones, and then it’s all forgotten. In his efforts to include as much as possible that occurred during that tumultuous two-year period, Landesman has forgotten to ensure that what is included is both relevant and advances the narrative. As a result, there are too many occasions where said narrative stalls and needs to be kickstarted again.

In the title role, Neeson is square-jawed, determined, strikingly gray-haired, and a bit of a dull date. Spending time with Felt eventually becomes something of a chore. He’s not the most expressive of men – though when he becomes angry about something, his outbursts are like the tantrums of a six year old, or someone trying out being angry for the first time – and his stolid, rigid demeanour doesn’t exactly warm you to him, but where Neeson does succeed with the character is in showing his commitment to the FBI and the depth of his affiliation with it. The script hints at Felt becoming a whistleblower because of what was happening to the FBI rather than any disgust at Nixon’s criminal behaviour, but it falls short of exploring this idea fully, and instead paints Felt as a kind of Gary Cooper figure who has to do the right thing, no matter what. Neeson is also lumbered with some gloriously tedious dialogue, though the moment where he gets to say, “No one can stop the driving force of an FBI investigation, not even the FBI”, is one to cherish.

There’s good support from the likes of Lucas and Monroe, but Csokas comes across as too heavy handed as the out of his depth Gray. Lane, meanwhile, apparently gave such a great performance as Felt’s troubled wife that most of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, which is a shame as Lane provides easily the movie’s best performance in spite of this. Visually the movie is quite restrained, with a dark, limiting colour palette that is probably meant to represent the gloominess of the times, but which in reality makes the movie look unnecessarily dreary. In the end it’s a competently made movie but not one that stands out from the crowd despite its subject matter.

Rating: 5/10 – a movie that has all the potential to be a riveting political thriller is instead a rather uninspired trek through a period of US history that was anything but humdrum; Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House lacks drive and ambition in its attempts to tell Felt’s story, and settles early on for playing it safe and pedestrian in terms of its willingness to amble instead of soaring.

Wind River (2017)

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, Elizabeth Olsen, FBI, Graham Greene, Indian reservation, Jeremy Renner, Murder, Mystery, Native American, Review, Taylor Sheridan, Thriller

D: Taylor Sheridan / 107m

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Gil Birmingham, James Jordan, Jon Bernthal, Kelsey Asbille, Martin Sensmeier

The Wind River Indian Reservation is situated in Wyoming’s Wind River Basin and occupies an area of nearly three and a half thousand square miles. It’s surrounded by the Wind River Mountain Range, the Owl Creek Mountains and the Absaroka Mountains, and temperatures can drop to a point where rapid breathing of the cold air can cause death by pulmonary haemorrhage. It’s also a place where the lives of its Native Americans are blighted by a persistent drug problem and sense of aimlessness amongst its youth. These points are all worth bearing in mind when considering the merits of Wind River, the latest movie written by Taylor Sheridan, and his first as a director. Sheridan is responsible for the screenplays for Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016), two very impressive movies indeed thanks to his contributions, and this, his latest, is equally as impressive (if not more so).

This is a movie where the locations are just as important as the characters themselves and the tangled narrative that they inhabit. The backdrop for a tale of rape and murder that takes place on tribal lands, Sheridan takes the inhospitable nature of the reservation in winter and uses it as a way of examining the issues affecting the tribes people who live there, and to provide an unforgiving environment against which the plot unfolds. It begins with an eighteen year old called Natalie Hanson (Asbille) as she flees across the snow, panicked and bloody. Eventually she collapses and lies still, and remains there until she’s discovered the next day by US Fish and Wildlife agent Cory Lambert (Renner). Lambert reports his discovery to Ben (Greene), the tribal chief of police, and he in turn alerts the FBI. Their response is to send rookie agent Jane Banner (Olsen), who arrives completely unprepared for the harsh winter weather, and who has no awareness of, or background in, Indian affairs.

Banner hopes that an autopsy will prove that Natalie’s death was murder but the cause of death, pulmonary haemorrhage, won’t support that contention. Unable to bring in a full FBI investigative team, Banner decides to enlist Lambert’s help in finding out what caused Natalie to be so far from the nearest shelter. They learn from her brother, Chip (Sensmeier), that Natalie had a new boyfriend, a security guard at a nearby oil drilling site. Lambert discovers the track of a snowmobile that leads up into the mountains. He and Banner follow the track and find the naked body of a male that’s been ravaged by the local wildlife. Eventually, Banner and Ben, along with a few local deputies and members of the tribal police visit the oil drilling site on the pretext of wanting to speak to Natalie’s boyfriend, who they now know is called Matt (Bernthal). But the security guards that greet them begin behaving suspiciously, and while Banner staves off an armed confrontation between them all, Lambert is up in the mountains where the male body was found, and where he also finds a snowmobile track that leads down to the oil drilling site…

Wind River is a tough, uncompromising thriller that doesn’t stint on the emotional lives of its characters, even allowing the viewer a glimpse of the life that Natalie could have enjoyed if she’d lived, and it’s this approach that helps to anchor the murder investigation that drives the movie forward. Lambert agrees to help Banner because his daughter also died of exposure in the snow three years before, and he wants to assuage his feelings of guilt at not being able to save her. Lambert uses his skills as a tracker to piece together the events that led to Natalie’s murder, and with step he takes, Renner’s thoughtful, subdued performance allows the viewer to see his sadness slip slowly from his shoulders until he’s in a position to offer advice to Martin (Birmingham), Natalie’s father, that is both affecting and heartfelt. Aside from his supporting role in Arrival (2016), Renner hasn’t exactly been best served by the roles he’s taken over the last few years, but his portayal of the taciturn Lambert is one of his best, and a reminder that when he’s given the right material he can be very good indeed.

Sheridan is also careful to make Banner not just a fish out of water, but someone doing their best in a situation that isn’t ideal for them, but which is pushing them beyond their comfort zone. From arriving unprepared for the harsh weather conditions to the point where she begins to understand both the environment and the social climate of the reservation, Banner visibly grows as a character, and Olsen also reminds viewers that she is one of the best actresses of her generation. Displaying a tough determination, and a commitment to finding the truth, Sheridan and Olsen use Banner’s inexperience as a way of bringing out the clues and the details of Natalie’s murder and making them as fresh for the audience as they are for her. Though Lambert is nominally the lead character, and discovers said clues and details, we still see the bulk of the investigation through Banner’s eyes, and we also see the effect that it has on her throughout.

But while Sheridan concentrates on the characters, even to giving us brief moments that tell their stories concisely and effectively, he doesn’t lose sight of the mystery he’s created and the narrative structure that allows it to unfold at a pace that doesn’t disappoint in terms of detail or leaves the viewer feeling as if they’re being led by the nose. Given the bleak (yet beautiful) nature of the environment, it’s unsurprising that there are some harsh, and somewhat brutal outbursts of violence, and the fate of one character has a pleasing, Old Testament eye-for-an-eye feel to it, but again it’s all in keeping with the milieu that Sheridan has created, and there’s an appropriate sense of nihilism that infuses the movie and keeps any sentimentality at bay, particularly in relation to the fractured outlook of its young Native Americans.

Behind the camera, Sheridan has enlisted the aid of a number of collaborators whose contributions add further lustre to the quality of the movie, and without whom this may not have been as successful. There’s Ben Richardson’s rich, detailed cinematography that also highlights the vastness of the Wind River Basin and its austere, wintry beauty, and a beautifully expressive score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis that is both unobtrusive and eerily soulful at the same time. These collaborators, along with production designer Neil Spisak and editor Gary Roach – and many more – all help make the movie a hugely rewarding and outstanding feature debut for its writer.

Rating: 9/10 – a near perfect combination of mystery thriller and cleverly mounted character-driven drama, Wind River succeeds on so many levels that it would be churlish to say otherwise; Sheridan just keeps on getting better and better, and he draws out terrific performances from his two leads, making this one of the more worthwhile movies out there, and deserving of far more awards than just Sheridan’s Un Certain Regard Director Award at Cannes this year.

Imperium (2016)

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Ragussis, Drama, FBI, Review, Terrorism, Thriller, Toni Collette, Tracy Letts, Undercover, White supremacy

D: Daniel Ragussis / 109m

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Toni Collette, Tracy Letts, Sam Trammell, Nestor Carbonell, Chris Sullivan, Seth Numrich, Pawel Szajda, Devin Druid, Burn Gorman

At the start of Imperium, relatively inexperienced FBI agent Nate Foster (Radcliffe) helps foil a terrorist bombing on US soil. His intuitive interrogation skills attract the attention of senior agent Angela Zampano (Collette). When a truck illegally carrying quantities of Caesium-137 – a chemical used in radiation treatments – crashes and six of the manifested containers are found to be missing, the FBI immediately assume that the chemical has been appropriated by Muslim terrorists. However, Zampano believes that the perpetrators are much closer to home, specifically within the white supremacy movement. She approaches Nate and convinces him that he would be an ideal choice to go undercover and infiltrate said movement and discover the whereabouts of the Caesium-137.

Connecting with a group of neo-Nazis led by Vincent (Szajda), Nate quickly earns their trust, and sets about making himself useful to them. Through Vincent, Nate is introduced to Aryan Alliance leader Andrew Blackwell (Sullivan), and other members of the movement, including atypical supremacist Gerry Conway (Trammell) who espouses supremacy ideals but leads an otherwise quiet suburban life. In turn, Nate’s attendance at a Unity Conference allows him to meet Zampano’s main target, an ultra-right-wing radio talk show host called Dallas Wolf (Letts). Wolf has ties and contacts to most of the organisations within the white supremacy movement, and Zampano is certain that he will know of any “action” that any of them may be planning. Nate gives Wolf the impression that he can help him boost the circulation of his radio show, in exchange for knowledge of any imminent “action” that Wolf may be aware of.

At a rally, a fight breaks out and Blackwell is injured. Nate helps him get away, and later receives an invitation to the Aryan Alliance’s new compound (which the FBI is unaware of). There he sees plans relating to the water network for Washington D.C., and fears that the Caesium-137 will be used to poison the water supply. Needing confirmation from Wolf, he pushes the talk show host, but Wolf refuses both the money offered to help expand his circulation, and to have anything further to do with Nate. At the same time, Blackwell is dismissed as a potential threat by the FBI. With his undercover work seemingly at an end, Nate makes one last visit to see Conway. Still “in character”, Nate relates how much he wants to make a difference to the world as it is now. And to his surprise, Conway reveals that he has the Caesium-137, and that Nate can make a difference to the world…

Imperium does two things that are dramatically unexpected: first, it makes it appear incredibly easy to infiltrate a white supremacist organisation, and second, it makes it appear equally incredibly easy to divert suspicion when an agent’s identity is called into question. There are two main occasions when it looks as if the game is up, and Daniel Radcliffe’s wide-eyed right-wing ingénue is in danger of being exposed, but apparently the trick is just to get angry, accuse others of duplicity or stupidity – or both, and treat the accusation with complete disdain. As for providing proof, don’t worry; due diligence isn’t exactly high on a white supremacist’s list of priorities. They may be paranoid, but they’re not stu- Oh, hang on. Sadly, it’s this unconvincing approach to the material that undermines much of director Daniel Ragussis’s screenplay, leaving the movie itself to struggle from scene to scene in maintaining the viewer’s interest.

It’s not so much that Imperium is a bad movie per se, but it is a movie that never grabs the viewer’s attention completely, making it an exercise that’s more frustrating than engaging or compelling. Also, there are problems with the character of Nate that Ragussis never seems to find solutions for. His initial naïvete and inexperience in field work (let alone being undercover) – illustrated by his being told to keep his weapon holstered in the movie’s opening sting operation – is highlighted in almost every scene until he’s facing Vincent across a table in a diner and making out he’s a disgruntled ex-Marine who doesn’t know why he was in Iraq. Nate gives an assured, confident performance that is completely at odds with his real, somewhat nerdy personality. He’s Serpico in suspect Levi jeans, and has an answer for everything. And despite the occasional protest to an uninterested Zampano, that’s how he remains.

This leaves the movie lacking in tension, as Nate goes about his task of infiltrating the white supremacy movement catching lucky break after lucky break and fending off any concerns about his being less than “racially superior”. And even though he’s been chosen for his empathy for others, where you might think that would lead to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome scenario, instead Nate appears largely unaffected by the hatred he encounters, and emerges from his undercover work psychologically unscathed. It’s this lack of depth, or any consequences to his involvement with such ideologically extreme people, that hurts the movie the most, as the script moves him from scene to scene, gathering intel but never being affected by what he sees and hears. This leaves Radcliffe, normally more than capable of inhabiting a role, somewhat stranded and unable to pull together a cohesive performance.

Inevitably, and despite the idea of there being a deadly chemical out there that could be used in a dirty bomb with the potential to kill thousands, it’s not a threat that anyone watching Imperium could take seriously. The various white supremacy protagonists are shown to be less than organised, preferring to squabble among themselves rather than combine their efforts and really make a difference (for which we should all be grateful), and their lack of guile and sophistication makes them a less than worrying “villain”. Only Gerry seems to be properly motivated, but in a very real sense he comes across as a left-wing idea of how a white supremacist should talk and behave; then they’d be more approachable, a notion that doesn’t make any sense at all.

With such tonal and narrative problems at the heart of the movie’s premise, Ragussis has assembled a movie that only fitfully engages the viewer, and which doesn’t seem to know just how effectively white supremacist groups are operating currently in the US, and just how much of a threat they really are (again, on this showing, not very much at all). There’s a good, thought-provoking movie to be made from the issue, but this isn’t it, and though the likes of Collette, Letts and Druid as a young neo-Nazi rise above the material for the most part, spare a thought for Radcliffe, stuck with carrying the movie for most of the running time, and whose director couldn’t get him to stop looking so scared and wide-eyed in scenes where he had no need to look scared and wide-eyed.

Rating: 5/10 – not quite a disaster, but certainly not as impressive as you might expect, Imperium is a sluggish, uncertain, and poorly assembled movie that never does itself justice; hampered by a script that feels under-developed in large stretches, this is passable stuff that requires patience and forgiveness in order to reap the few rewards it has to offer.

Now You See Me 2 (2016)

27 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Daniel Radcliffe, Dave Franco, Drama, FBI, Jesse Eisenberg, Jon M. Chu, Lizzy Caplan, London, Macau, Magic, Magicians, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, New York, The Eye, The Horsemen, Thriller, Woody Harrelson

D: Jon M. Chu / 129m

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Morgan Freeman, Jay Chou, Sanaa Lathan, Michael Caine, David Warshofsky, Tsai Chin

Ten questions you need to ask yourself while watching Now You See Me 2:

Why would prison authorities allow convicted criminal Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman) access to computer equipment that would enable him to make threats against the Four Horsemen (“You will get what’s coming to you. In ways you can’t expect.”)?
Pigeons? (Yes, pigeons.)
How does Lula (Caplan) know so much about the Four Horsemen, including the reason why Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher’s character from the first movie) isn’t around any longer?
Why is Dylan Rhodes’ (Ruffalo) attendance at a Four Horsemen “event” more suspicious to his FBI colleagues than his talking into his sleeve?
How convenient is it that Bradley has just the form Rhodes needs to get Bradley out of jail?
Chase McKinney (Harrelson) – unfortunate stereotype or unfortunate stereotype?
How likely is it, in a sequence that lasts nearly four and a half minutes, that not one of the security guards notice the playing card as it’s whipped, zipped and slipped from one Horseman to another?
How do lines such as, “But I don’t agree that we have a sackful of nada, ’cause we’re all here. That’s a sackful of something” get past the first draft stage?
When did the FBI’s remit extend outside of the US?
Could the screenplay by Ed Solomon have ended on a more absurd, ridiculous note than the surprise reveals made by Bradley?

Rating: 4/10 – another poorly constructed sequel that plays fast and loose with logic, Now You See Me 2 wants the audience to like it as much as the mass London crowds go crazy for the Horsemen; slickly made but soulless, only Caplan makes an impact, and the magic tricks lack the first movie’s sense of fun, leaving the movie to rattle on for two hours without anyone having to care what happens to the characters (which is both a bonus and a relief).

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 1. Kindergarten Cop (2016)

09 Monday May 2016

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Action, Aleks Paunovic, Bill Bellamy, Comedy, Darla Taylor, Dolph Lundgren, Don Michael Paul, FBI, Flash drive, For One Week Only, Kindergarten Cop 2, Review, Sequels, Undercover, Witness Protection Program

Introduction

Sequels have been with us since the Silent Era, specifically since The Fall of a Nation (1916), a follow-up to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). Written and directed by Thomas Dixon Jr, it contained much the same contentious and controversial material as its predecessor, but was dismissed by at least one critic as a “preposterous” picture (so even then sequels had a bad rap). The idea of making a sequel to a successful movie never really caught on, but the idea of movie series did, and in the Thirties and Forties, studios such as Universal churned out movie after movie featuring the same characters (often played by the same stars but not always), and adhered to the idea of recycling long before it became fashionable in the Nineties. It wasn’t until the Seventies, and the advent of movies such as The Godfather Part II (1974) and French Connection II (1975), that the studios began to realise that the relatively humble sequel could be a money maker. In the Eighties, independent movie makers jumped on the band wagon also, giving us franchises we never asked for (usually in the horror genre) and unwanted cash-ins that held equal zero enticement. But the makers of these movies knew one thing above else: if you make a sequel to a movie that’s been even halfway successful, and make it as cheaply as possible (okay, that’s two things), then people will pay to see it, either at the cinema or in their own homes.

Sometimes though, a sequel comes along that just leaves the average moviegoer stunned by its existence. This kind of sequel – the sequel you never imagined would be made… ever – usually pops up out of nowhere, unheralded, and with no reason to exist other than that a producer, somewhere, somehow, managed to get financing for it, and people to work on it, and actors to star in it. And with all the effort that goes into the making of a movie, all the time and talent and hard work, how does this particular movie, with all its shortcomings and failures there for all to see, actually get to be as bad as it is? Because that’s the main, major problem with sequels: they pretty much suck big time. Or if they don’t suck big time then they manage to disappoint in other ways, such as retelling the same story as the first movie, or going darker, or refusing to develop the characters, or repeating the same tonal problems that existed the first time around (hello, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). Sequels come with the least level of expectation, and the most sense of a disaster waiting to be viewed. So to illustrate this point, For One Week Only will present seven of the most unnecessary sequels yet made, sequels that were/are so bad that a third movie hasn’t been contemplated or made yet.

Kindergarten Cop 2 (2016) / D: Don Michael Paul / 100m

Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Darla Taylor, Bill Bellamy, Aleks Paunovic, Michael P. Northey, Sarah Strange, Josiah Black, Raphael Alejandro, Dean Petriw, Abbie Magnuson, Tyreah Herbert, Oscar Hartley, Valencia Budijanto, William Budijanto

Twenty-six years. Not the longest period between an original and its sequel – that honour goes to Bambi (1942) and its DTV sequel Bambi II (2006), with a gap of sixty-four years – nevertheless Kindergarten Cop 2 arrives with only a minimum of enthusiasm to recommend it, and quite a lot to make any unsuspecting viewer run for the hills (even the ones with eyes). This is the kind of sequel that’s basically a retread of the original movie, with minor changes made, and no attempt to improve on things. If anything, the original Kindergarten Cop (1990) is a work of genius when compared to this drab retelling, what with Lundgren’s lumbering approach to the material (every time he smiles it seems as if the effort’s hurting him), and Paul’s absentee landlord version of directing helping to hold the movie back.

This time around, Lundgren’s FBI agent is on the hunt for a flash drive that contains a copy of details of everyone in the Witness Protection Program. It’s been hidden in a school, and it’s up to Agent Reed (Lundgren) to go undercover and locate it while masquerading as a kindergarten teacher, and trying to keep one step ahead of Russian villain Zogu (Paunovic), who wants it so he can track down the ex-girlfriend who’s going to testify against him in an upcoming trial. The whole thing is plotted so lazily that you don’t need any familiarity with the first movie to work out just what’s going to happen. Even the minor subplot involving one of the kids having an abusive parent plays out exactly as you’d expect, even though the dynamic is changed (it’s resolved by a pep talk rather than a beating).

The humour is as bland and uninspiring as expected, and the movie dials back on the original’s more brutal approach to violence. Scenes come and go without any sense of connection to each other, and some characters appear to exist in a vacuum; even Reed’s relationship with his partner, Agent Sanders (Bellamy), appears to be more of a convenience arranged by the screenplay than something borne out of two men working together over a period of years. Reed’s love interest with fellow kindergarten teacher, Olivia (Taylor), is as manufactured and hard to believe in as anything else, and the moment when school principal, Miss Sinclaire (Strange), lets rip with a baseball bat – while intended to be funny – merely reaffirms how lazy (and lousy) it all is. And to add insult to injury (the viewer’s), there’s no prizes for guessing when Reed gets to say, “Class dismissed”.

Rating: 3/10 – professionally made but only just, Kindergarten Cop 2 scrapes all kinds of layers from the bottom of the barrel – and some that no one knew were there until now; leaden and tedious, it’s a movie that drags itself along like a wounded animal that’s unaware of just how badly injured it is, but is in dire need of euthanasia.

Midnight Special (2016)

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Adam Driver, Drama, FBI, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeff Nichols, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Mystery, NSA, Review, Sci-fi, The Ranch, Thriller

D: Jeff Nichols / 112m

Cast: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Jaeden Lieberher, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Bill Camp, Scott Haze, Sam Shepard, Paul Sparks, David Jensen

It’s only taken writer/director Jeff Nichols four movies to become a movie maker whose projects carry an enormous weight of expectation. First there was Shotgun Stories (2007), then there was Take Shelter (2011). He followed that up with Mud (2012), and now he brings us Midnight Special, a tale about an eight year old boy who may be an alien, or an emissary from God, or something else completely. It’s a measure of Nichols’ success that he’s taken what could have been an awkward, unconvincing story – in lesser hands – and made it into an articulate, gripping tale that’s also exciting and thought-provoking.

The movie begins with the police searching for a missing child called Alton Meyer (Lieberher). He’s been abducted from a religious compound known as the Ranch. It’s head, Alton’s adoptive father, Calvin Meyer (Shepard), wants him back, and within the next four days. But Alton – who has to wear blue goggles during daylight hours – has been abducted by his real father, Roy Tomlin (Shannon), and he, along with his friend, Lucas (Edgerton), are trying to keep Alton safe and also get him to a certain place in four days’ time. There, something momentous will happen, but neither Roy nor Calvin Meyer knows what it is; and at this point, Alton doesn’t know either.

The FBI, and the NSA – in the form of agent Paul Sevier (Driver) – are also trying to find Alton, as they have become aware that he has been including coded intelligence in the sermons he’s written for Meyer. But Alton has other gifts, and one in particular, connected to his sight. When Ray decides to stop off at an old Ranch member’s home, that particular gift almost causes the house to shake apart. From there, the trio drive to the home of Alton’s mother, Sarah (Dunst), but not before an incident at a gas station reveals that Alton’s heat signature is similar to that of a nuclear bomb. Now a foursome, they travel on to the location that Alton must reach, however, they’re unaware that two members of the Ranch, Doak (Camp) and Levi (Haze), are tracking them with the intention of kidnapping Alton and returning him to the Ranch.

Before they are able to, Alton, who has been getting sicker and sicker, and has to avoid direct sunlight, tells Roy that he can no longer continue to keep hidden from the sun. Roy exposes Alton to a sunrise, and it has an extraordinary effect: he can now walk about unaffected in daylight, and knows exactly what he needs to do and why he needs to be in a certain place at a certain date and time. As he tells Roy: he doesn’t belong here.

Whether or not Alton makes it to his rendezvous is, ultimately, neither here nor there. What’s important is the journey he makes getting there, and the way in which he and his parents, and Lucas, make it there. One of the strengths of Nichols’ impressive and layered screenplay is the way in which Roy’s parental determination to not let anything stop him from getting Alton to his rendezvous, sometimes presents itself as unfeeling and harsh. When he and Lucas encounter a state trooper, Roy is unequivocal: he tells Lucas to shoot him. Roy doesn’t care about anyone else, only Alton, and his zeal and willingness to put moral certitude aside makes him one of recent cinema’s more interesting and intriguing characters. Shannon is perfect for the role, morally absent when he needs to be, but a committed, loving father as well, and fully able to show these two sides of Roy’s character without any sense that he’s a Jekyll and Hyde personality and able to call on either side when necessary.

What’s also important is that Roy believes in Alton, albeit in a different way from Calvin (he and his followers believe that Alton’s rendezvous is also the time when they will all be judged by God). He believes in his son, wholeheartedly, and even if what he knows is incredibly far-fetched. If it wasn’t for the light that can stream from Alton’s eyes when he’s exposed to sunlight, the viewer would be hard pressed to believe in the same way as Roy does. Nichols doesn’t keep the viewer in the dark for long (no pun intended), and any doubts are dispelled when Elden (Jensen), the ex-Ranch member has to have “another look”. From then on, Alton’s gifts/abilities/powers are assimilated into the narrative in a way that both explores them and allows them to drive events forward. As the otherworldly Alton, Lieberher does a fantastic job of balancing his closeted childhood with his increasing awareness of the skills he really possesses (he reads a lot of comic books and at one point asks about Kryptonite as if it were real).

Nichols orchestrates all this with a tremendous amount of flair, even as he keeps a tight rein on the more overt sci-fi elements of his screenplay. The subplot involving the Ranch members sometimes comes across as more of an afterthought, or late addition to the script, while the inclusion of Sarah doesn’t give Dunst much more to do than look concerned and hesitant. And there’s one very important question that Nichols leaves right until the very final shot to explain (in many respects it’s the most important question). But with such a high level of confidence on display, Nichols can be forgiven a couple of narrative faux pas, and his handling of the action sequences is bracing and not at all derivative (a major feat in itself). The whole thing is beautifully shot by Nichols’ regular DoP Adam Stone, and there’s an insidious, disorientating score courtesy of another Nichols’ regular, David Wingo.

Rating: 8/10 – Nichols continues his run of impressive features with a movie that asks what it is to be human, and comes up with some unexpected answers in the process; Midnight Special is an intelligent, original, and supremely well executed sci-fi drama, as well as a fantastic example of what can be done with a well constructed script, a more than willing cast, inspired direction, and all on a modest budget.

Monthly Roundup – March 2016

31 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Andy Mikita, Australia, Comedy, Cricket, Crime, Death of a Gentleman, Deathgasm, Devil worship, Disaster, Documentary, Drama, Ed Cowan, Edgar Ramirez, Ericson Core, Extreme Sports, FBI, Fred Durst, Horror, Ice Hockey, India, James Blake, Jarrod Kimber, Jason Bourque, Jeremy Sisto, Johnny Blank, Luke Bracey, Michael Shanks, Michelle MacLaren, Milo Cawthorne, Movies, Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story, Murder, Paul Johansson, Point Break (2015), Population / 436, Ray Winstone, Religion, Remake, Reviews, Robbery, Rockwell Falls, Sam Collins, Sci-fi, Sebastian Spence, Sports, Stonados, SyFy, Test match cricket, Twenty 20, Water spouts

Deathgasm (2015) / D: Jason Lei Howden / 86m

Cast: Milo Cawthorne, James Blake, Kimberley Crossman, Sam Berkley, Daniel Cresswell, Delaney Tabron, Stephen Ure, Andrew Laing, Colin Moy, Jodie Rimmer

Rating: 7/10 – when a teenage wannabe death metal band come into possession of sheet music that, when played, summons a demon called the Blind One, it’s up to them to stop both a zombie outbreak and the Blind One from destroying the world; raucous, rough around the edges, and with a liberal approach to gore, Deathgasm is a good-natured horror comedy that stumbles on occasion but, luckily, never loses sight of its simple brief: to be loud, dumb and lots of fun.

Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story (2013) / D: Andy Mikita / 87m

Cast: Michael Shanks, Kathleen Robertson, Dylan Playfair, Andrew Herr, Emma Grabinsky, Martin Cummins, Andrew Kavadas, Teach Grant, Ali Tataryn, Lochlyn Munro, Tom Anniko, Donnelly Rhodes, Erik J. Berg

Rating: 6/10 – the true story of ice hockey legend Gordie Howe who, after retiring in 1971, came back two years later and played not only with his two sons but in a new league altogether – and maintained his winning ways; looking like a strange hybrid of TV movie and abandoned big screen project, Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story does its best to avoid being a formulaic biopic, but is let down by the episodic nature of the script and a tendency to raise issues but not always follow them through.

Point Break (2015) / D: Ericson Core / 114m

Cast: Edgar Ramirez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer, Matias Varela, Clemens Schick, Tobias Santelmann, Delroy Lindo, Max Thieriot, Nikolai Kinski

Rating: 4/10 – ex-extreme sportsman Johnny Utah joins the FBI and is given the opportunity to infiltrate a group of extreme sports fanatics who may or may not be responsible for a string of daring robberies; pretty to look at and featuring some great extreme sports sequences, Point Break is nonetheless a pointless remake with poor performances from all concerned, a woeful script, and lacks the edge Kathryn Bigelow brought to the original, leaving the viewer to wonder – yet again – why Hollywood insists on making so many dreadful remakes.

Stonados (2013) / D: Jason Bourque / 88m

Cast: Paul Johansson, Sebastian Spence, Miranda Frigon, Jessica McLeod, Dylan Schmid, William B. Davis, Grace Wolf, Thea Gill

Rating: 3/10 – off the coast of Boston, freak water spouts appear and hurl large stone chunks in all directions, putting everyone in danger and hoping they don’t hit land and become… stonados!; made in the same year as Sharknado, this tries to take itself seriously, but without a sense of its own absurdity it stutters from one poorly staged “stonado” sequence to another while – ironically – being unable to shrug off a whole raft of ineffective, embarrassing performances.

Population / 436 (2006) / D: Michelle MacLaren / 88m

Cast: Jeremy Sisto, Fred Durst, Charlotte Sullivan, Peter Outerbridge, David Fox, Monica Parker, Frank Adamson, R.H. Thomson, Reva Timbers

Rating: 6/10 – a census taker (Sisto) comes to the small town of Rockwell Falls and begins to suspect a terrible conspiracy, one that keeps the town’s population fixed at the same number; an uneasy, paranoid thriller with horror overtones, Population 436 features a good performance from Sisto and a well maintained sense of dread, but is held back from being entirely convincing by some awkward soap opera moments and a mangled reason for the town keeping its numbers to 436.

Death of a Gentleman (2015) / D: Sam Collins, Jarrod Kimber, Johnny Blank / 99m

With: Sam Collins, Jarrod Kimber, Ed Cowan, Giles Clarke, Narayanaswami Srinivasan, Lalit Modi, Gideon Haigh, Mark Nicholas, Chris Gayle

Rating: 8/10 – journalists Collins and Kimber set out to make a movie about their love of cricket and the challenges it faces, both commercially and culturally, and discover a scandal that threatens an end to test match cricket; not just for fans of “the gentleman’s game”, Death of a Gentleman is a quietly impressive documentary that sneaks up on the viewer and exposes the level of corruption at the very top of the game, revealing as it does the way in which the sport is being held to ransom by Srinivasan and a handful of others.

Solace (2015)

11 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abbie Cornish, Afonso Poyart, Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell, Drama, FBI, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Murder, Psychics, Review, Serial killer, Terminal illnesses, Thriller, Visions

D: Afonso Poyart / 101m

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell, Xander Berkeley, Marley Shelton, Janine Turner, Kenny Johnson, Sharon Lawrence

Solace is one of those movies. You know, a movie that dares you not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It’s a movie that acknowledges the idea of credibility and then tramples all over it with big hob-nailed boots on. It’s so consistently bad that there’s no getting over just how awful it is. And it just goes to show that, sometimes, actors definitely go for the pay cheque rather than the artistic challenge (not that there is one here, unless you count keeping a straight face when the movie gets really silly).

But in amongst all the terrible dialogue and horrible acting, there are lessons to be learnt from Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin’s script, lessons that could prove invaluable if you’ve a mind to write your own serial killer thriller. Here are ten pointers toward making that movie a success.

1 – Always give your central protagonist – here Hopkins’ psychic John Clancy – a heartrending backstory that will have no relevance at all until the final scene, when you can reveal a dark secret that sheds new light on the character and his/her motivations (but which will be redundant in terms of the drama).

2 – If your central character is a psychic it’s important to keep moving the goalposts in terms of what triggers his/her visions. Start off with being touched by others, then move on to have them be practically all-seeing all by themselves.

3 – If your villain is another psychic with advanced “powers”, don’t forget to make sure that, in the end, he/she is no match for your central character, and can be easily defeated, despite having a talent for seeing every outcome of every situation ahead of time.

4 – If you have to involve the police or Federal authorities, then make sure that those characters are at odds with each other in terms of their beliefs; one should be totally behind your psychic hero, while the other should doubt their abilities, and say so more than once.

5 – If you have an agent or policeman who doubts the psychic’s abilities then you should definitely include a scene where their history is laid bare with as much detail as possible, and which should be upsetting for them to hear. (This will ensure that the audience is completely impressed with the psychic’s powers.)

6 – It’s very important that your villain should be able to kill on more than one occasion and never leave any DNA or other forensic evidence at any of the crime scenes. This will make him/her seem invincible/uncatchable until it’s time for them to be defeated with ease by the psychic hero.

7 – Always ensure your psychic hero gets to upstage their police partners by making educated guesses that they can pass off as benefits of their psychic abilities. This will be important when the narrative takes a wrong turn or gets bogged down by its own implausibilities.

8 – When deciding on the killer’s motivations, it’s always best to make them sound like they’re acting with the best of (misguided) intentions. But always be sure to translate those motivations into the kind of dialogue that even the most talented actor couldn’t make convincing.

9 – Never ever insult your audience by including a scene where the psychic refuses to help the authorities because of past traumas. Everyone knows they’ll take the case, and everyone knows their reason for doing so is completely irrelevant (if it’s mentioned at all).

10 – Be sure to include several “psychic montages” that comprise shots and short clips from the rest of the movie interspersed with other, abstract images that have no relevance to the story at all (but which look pretty or ominous). Feel free also to include shots that feature the characters but which don’t actually occur anywhere else in the movie; get away with this by saying these shots are “interpretive”.

Oh, and if you can, get Anthony Hopkins to play your psychic hero. He doesn’t seem to mind what roles he takes on these days.

Rating: 3/10 – originally shot in 2013 and shelved by Warner Bros until it was picked up for distribution by troubled Relativity Media, Solace is a dreadful thriller that deserves to be locked up and never seen again; the cast are wasted, the direction is ham-fisted, and the script refuses to make any sense whatsoever, leaving the viewer with only one option – and you don’t have to be psychic to work out what that is.

Monthly Roundup – December 2015

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Barbara Nedeljakova, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Betrayal, Bruce Willis, Camping, Charlie Chan, CIA, Condor, Cynthia Rothrock, D.B. Sweeney, Drugs smuggling, Espionage, Extraction, FBI, Feds, Florida, Gina Carano, Horror, Jorge Montesi, Kellan Lutz, Mantan Moreland, Murder, Outside the Law, Patriarch Key, Phil Rosen, Reviews, Rupert Bryan, Sidney Toler, Steven C. Miller, The Hike, Thriller, Zara Phythian

The Hike (2011) / D: Rupert Bryan / 83m

Cast: Barbara Nedeljakova, Zara Phythian, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Lisa-Marie Long, Jemma Bolt, Stephanie Siadatan, Daniel Caren, Dominic Le Moignan, Shauna Macdonald, Tamer Hassan

Rating: 2/10 – five female friends decide to take a trip into the woods only to find themselves at the mercy of three psychos; an unforgivably awful UK torture porn movie, The Hike doesn’t have the strength of its own convictions and features some truly abysmal “acting”.

Extraction (2015) / D: Steven C. Miller / 83m

Cast: Kellan Lutz, Bruce Willis, Gina Carano, D.B. Sweeney, Joshua Mikel, Steve Coulter, Dan Bilzerian, Lydia Hull

Rating: 3/10 – when former CIA operative Leonard Turner (Willis) is abducted by terrorists, it’s down to his son (Lutz) to rescue him; Willis’s career continues in its downward spiral, but now he’s starting to take his co-stars with him, in an action movie that occasionally glances at credibility but then looks away in shame.

Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) / D: Phil Rosen / 65m

aka Charlie Chan and the Secret Service

Cast: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Arthur Loft, Gwen Kenyon, Sarah Edwards, George J. Lewis, Marianne Quon, Benson Fong, Muni Seroff, Barry Bernard, Gene Roth, Eddy Chandler, Lelah Tyler

Rating: 6/10 – Charlie Chan investigates when an inventor is found dead and the plans of the top secret weapon he was working on go missing; the first Charlie Chan movie to be made by Monogram, this is still an efficient murder mystery with a few tricks up its sleeve.

Outside the Law (2002) / D: Jorge Montesi / 90m

Cast: Cynthia Rothrock, Seamus Devers, Jessica Stier, Jeff Wincott, Stephen Macht, Dan Lauria, Brad Greenquist, Don Harvey, Petra Wright, James Lew

Rating: 3/10 – betrayed secret agent Julie Cosgrove (Rothrock) takes time out from being on the run to bust up a drug smuggling ring operating out of a sleepy Florida town; late vintage Rothrock sees the action star still uncomfortable when called upon to smile, but there’s little she can do to improve this plodding (and naturally implausible) thriller.

Stretch (2014)

11 Monday May 2015

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Chris Pine, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Ed Helms, FBI, Gambling debt, James Badge Dale, Jessica Alba, Joe Carnahan, Limo driver, Patrick Wilson, Review

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.

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).

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.

Mini-Review: Dinosaur 13 (2014)

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

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"Sue", Black Hills Institute, Court case, Documentary, FBI, Maurice Williams, Neal Larson, Paleontology, Peter Larson, Review, Susan Hendrickson, Terry Wentz, The Field Museum, Todd Douglas Miller, Tyrannosaurus Rex

D: Todd Douglas Miller / 95m

Peter L. Larson, Neal L. Larson, Patrick Duffy, Kristin Donnan, Terry Wentz, Bob Farrar, Susan Hendrickson, Bill Harlan

In 1990, Susan Hendrickson, one of a team of workers searching for fossils at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota, discovered the remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that proved to be eighty per cent complete. The dinosaur was named “Sue” after Hendrickson, and was purchased by the Black Hills Institute for $5,000 from the owner of the land it was found on, Maurice Williams. The remains were transported to the Institute where their cleaning and restoration was overseen by its president, Peter Larson.

In 1992, the Institute was raided by the FBI and Sue’s remains were confiscated. Larson and the Institute were accused of theft from Government land (as the property where Sue was found was held in trust). After a lengthy trial, Sue was deemed to be Williams’ property after all and her remains were returned to him. In the meantime, charges were brought against Larson, his brother Neal and other members of the Institute for financial misdeeds unrelated to Sue’s discovery. While Williams got Sotheby’s to sell Sue for the princely sum of $7.6 million, Peter Larson was jailed for two years. Sue is now on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, while Larson is still searching for and finding T. Rex skeletons.

Dinosaur 13 is one of those documentaries that makes no bones (excuse the pun) about its partisanship, and does its best to highlight the absurdities of a situation that could have been easily avoided if only a little background research had been done in the first place, and before anyone went looking for bones in the South Dakota soil. The excitement generated by Sue’s discovery sees the folks at the Black Hills Institute all but fall over themselves to retain her remains, but their lack of diligence in knowing who the land belonged to is scary (as are some of the later misdemeanours the movie reveals). However, the Government’s reaction is clearly disproportionate to what Larson and the rest actually did, and as the draconian efforts employed to convict them become clearer, the movie morphs from being about one of the greatest dinosaur finds in living memory – if not the greatest – into a cautionary tale about the way in which U.S. law can be used to punish a group of individuals.

In amongst the terrible injustices meted out to the various members of the Black Hills Institute, there are moments of bitter irony: Hendrickson becomes a state witness even though she has nothing to tell them, and when Larson is imprisoned, his intake papers show the reason for his incarceration as “failing to fill out paperwork”. Miller uses a variety of techniques to highlight and clarify the various events that happened, from interviews with those concerned – Larson’s ex-wife, Kristin, is particularly eloquent – to archival footage and pertinent television footage, to explanatory captions that move the story forward. It’s an engrossing movie that’s intelligently assembled and grabs the attention from the get go; by the end, you’re aghast at the ways in which everything went sour so quickly.

Rating: 8/10 – while Dinosaur 13 is clearly on the side of the people at the Black Hills Institute, and decries their treatment by the Government, it’s far more objective than it seems at first glance; leaving the passionate arguments on both sides for the people involved to express, the movie (thankfully) maintains its true focus on Sue and her sixty-five million year journey from the South Dakota hills to the bright lights of Chicago’s Field Museum.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Drama, FBI, Insider trading, Investment fraud, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, Jonah Hill, Jordan Belfort, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Martin Scorsese, Matthew McConaughey, Penny stocks, Review, Stratton Oakmont, True story

D: Martin Scorsese / 180m

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Kyle Chandler, Matthew McConaughey, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, Cristin Milioti, Shea Whigham, P.J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi, Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski, Ethan Suplee

Already the basis for the movie Boiler Room (2000), and adapted from the life and experiences of Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio), an investment broker who started his career on Wall Street in the late Eighties, and went on to become the head of his own company, selling penny stocks to gullible investors before moving into the big leagues, The Wolf of Wall Street is a modern day cautionary tale about greed, corruption and the pursuit of money.

Having become a licensed stock broker, Belfort begins work on the worst day possible, 19 October 1987, Black Monday. With his company ruined by the fallout, Belfort is forced to start again at the bottom, working for a small investment company that sells penny shares to small-time investors. Seeing the potential in a part of the investment industry that offers a fifty per cent commission on any sales, Belfort starts up his own investment company, Stratton Oakmont. Taking some of the staff from the investment company, he shows them how to persuade reluctant investors into parting with their money, and more importantly, ensuring they never take their money out again, thereby keeping up the exorbitant profits Belfort and his staff are raking in. He meets Donnie Azoff (Hill) who comes to work for him; together they build up the company until they’re at a point where they can compete with some of the bigger Wall Street firms. Their selling tactics and methods bring them to the attention of the FBI’s Agent Denham (Chandler) who begins an investigation into their fraudulent business practices. In the meantime, Belfort’s first marriage collapses; he becomes addicted to drugs, booze and sex; the FBI’s investigation prompts him to spirit his money away to Switzerland; he remarries, this time to Naomi (Robbie), and has two children with her; risks his life getting to Switzerland when it looks as if he’ll lose all his money; sees one of his friends, Brad (Bernthal), go to jail thanks to Azoff’s stupidity; and excess dominates his life completely. When a deal to take a shoe company public on the stock market (and illegally arrange to be the major stockholder) begins to unravel, and his marriage falls apart, Belfort finds himself helping the FBI incriminate his colleagues in order to avoid a long prison sentence.

With occasional breaks to camera, Belfort relates his life of excess with a relish that reflects both his character and, you suspect, a love for the times that hasn’t quite dissipated. Starting as a typically naive young man with bold aspirations, Belfort appears easily swayed when Azoff coaxes him into taking drugs, and he seems equally unconcerned by the ease with which he can swindle unsuspecting investors. While this aspect isn’t properly addressed, it’s not so much where Belfort has come from as what he does once he’s there that the movie is concerned with. The Wolf of Wall Street focuses on the excess of both the characters and the times they were active, a period in recent history (the Nineties) where affluence by any means was a mantra to live by, and if you weren’t rich then you were a nobody.

Working with his usual technical mastery, Scorsese recreates that period with remarkable skill and the level of incidental detail is impressive. The look of the movie is always arresting, and there’s never a moment when the camera doesn’t pick out an impressive detail or something visually interesting. Scorsese also knows when to keep the camera moving, or when to choose an odd camera angle to highlight the mood or emotion of a scene. There are moments when it’s like watching a cinematic masterclass, so sure is Scorsese of his filmmaking prowess and intuition.

Arresting as it is visually, The Wolf of Wall Street stumbles a bit when it comes to the structure of the movie and its content. There are too many extended pep talks that Belfort gives to his staff, too many scenes of drug-fuelled debauchery (we get it – that was the lifestyle), and too many occasions where the core of a scene is repeated but with some variation (Belfort reassuring first wife Teresa (Milioti) that everything will be okay; Azoff and Belfort congratulating themselves on the amount of money they’ve made). There are moments that lead nowhere: Belfort’s butler saying he’s seen Azoff at a gay club; sudden changes in tone: Belfort attacks Naomi when she threatens to leave him and take their children with her; and awkward moments that should be more meaningful: Belfort confessing his addictions to Naomi’s Aunt Emma (Lumley).

Terence Winter’s script, adapted from Belfort’s own memoir, does contain some good scenes, hits a patchy stretch around the two hour mark, and relegates the FBI investigation to a handful of scenes where Denham stares at info-laden whiteboards. Thankfully there are more than enough individual scenes that work – and work brilliantly – to offset the missteps. There’s Belfort’s lunch with first boss Mark Hanna (McConaughey), a mini-classic where Hanna explains the attitude needed to succeed as a stockbroker; McConaughey almost steals the movie with that one scene alone. There’s the scene where Azoff meets Belfort and quits his job upon seeing proof of the amount of Belfort’s earnings; Belfort waking up at the end of a flight to Switzerland and having Azoff explain why he’s restrained in his seat; Belfort’s veiled attempt to bribe Denham during a meeting on Belfort’s yacht – and Denham’s amused response; and best of all, Belfort’s attempts to leave a country club after succumbing to the effects of several out-of-date Quaaludes – it’s the funniest sequence of 2013 and shows that DiCaprio has a surprising aptitude for physical comedy.

As Belfort, DiCaprio puts in one of his best performances, imbuing the man with a vain pride that proves his downfall. It’s no one-dimensional characterisation, and DiCaprio nails the insecurities and the insanity of Belfort’s lifestyle: regarding money as “fun vouchers”; thinking he can seduce Aunt Emma; the aforementioned trip to Switzerland that results in the sinking of his yacht. It’s a raging, tornado-like performance, with DiCaprio towering above his co-stars, eclipsing everyone around him. As Belfort’s loyal “partner in excess” Azoff, Hill sports prominent false teeth and exudes charmless unreliability from every pore. Robbie, fresh from playing the girl who got away in Richard Curtis’ About Time, is superb as Naomi, a simple girl from New Jersey who falls for Belfort but resists the darker aspects of the dream life he builds for them. In minor supporting roles, Dujardin – as a slimy Swiss banker – and Lumley stand out from the crowd, and in the role of Belfort’s father, Reiner provides a calm at the eye of the storm that helps offset the wanton debauchery.

Ultimately, the success of The Wolf of Wall Street depends on whether or not the rise and inevitable downfall of a self-confessed drug addict and convicted fraudster is worth three hours of anyone’s time. The movie is entertaining and convincingly portrays the hedonistic, shallow lifestyle Belfort and his cronies enjoyed, and it’s shot through with humorous moments, and yet the movie appears to revel in the hedonism itself. With a cameo from the real Belfort, as well as only a passing nod towards the thousands of investors who were defrauded, The Wolf of Wall Street could be seen to be saying that Belfort et al were just greedy and selfish, and not so deserving of our approbation. The operative words here, though, are “could be”. Without those occasional darker elements, our sympathy for Belfort would be complete.

Rating: 7/10 – a better collaboration for Scorsese and DiCaprio than the lamentable Shutter Island (2010), The Wolf of Wall Street is striking, beautifully filmed and too eager to have its coke and snort it; less a character study than a valediction of the times, and saved by a handful of smart, knowing performances.

American Hustle (2013)

20 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

AMSCAM, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, David O. Russell, Drama, FBI, Investment scam, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Review, Seventies crime, True story

D: David O. Russell / 138m

Cast: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, Michael Peña, Shea Whigham, Alessandro Nivola, Elisabeth Röhm

Small-time hustlers Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Adams) have made a success out of an investment scam that involves Sydney posing as an English aristocrat with British banking connections. They become so successful that they soon attract the attention of ambitious FBI agent Richie DiMaso. DiMaso gives them a choice: either be prosecuted or help him go after local mayor Carmine Polito (Renner) who he suspects of being corrupt. Not really having a choice, Irving and Sydney go along with DiMaso’s plan, only to find the plan mutating beyond the scope of exposing Polito’s possible corruption. Soon the Mob is involved and DiMaso’s ambitions are jeopardising both the scam he’s set up, and their lives. With Irving’s wife, Rosalyn (Lawrence) causing unexpected complications as well, it’s up to Irving and Sydney to come up with one more scam to save their necks.

Apparently based on the ABSCAM scandal from the late Seventies – where the FBI attempted to expose corrupt politicians and senators by dressing up as Arab sheikhs and offering them bribes for a wide range of illegal requests – American Hustle is a weird movie in many ways. It celebrates Irving and Sydney’s love for each other while at the same time eulogising Irving’s faithfulness to his wife and adopted child. The movie also presents their investment scam as essentially victimless. This sets up DiMaso as the movie’s villain-in-residence, and encourages us to root for Irving and Sydney from the very beginning, and while pretty much every movie under the sun has a protagonist that the audience is supposed to identify or empathise with, the fact that Russell so blatantly overlooks their criminal tendencies – other than as necessary for the plot – is immediately disarming: we’re actively complicit in their criminal behaviour. Where’s the moral ambiguity?

While Irving and Sydney are clearly “nice” criminals, Richie is the “bad” cop: manipulative, self-aggrandising, violent, and arrogant. He attempts to come between Irving and Sydney, shows his impatience at every turn, and due to his eagerness to get ahead, rarely makes the right move when part of the scam is in progress. So bad is he, it’s almost funny, as if he’s an unfortunate composite of every bumbling FBI agent ever portrayed on the big screen. Rosalyn, initially dim-witted and somewhat agoraphobic, develops into a player overnight, eventually “showing” Irving the way out of their shared predicament. She’s a brash, outspoken character who never once rings true except when lambasting Irving for getting involved with Sydney. And then there’s Carmine, a well-meaning politician whose naïveté gets him into so much trouble, and so quickly, you wonder how he ever managed to become mayor in the first place. These are the main characters that Russell has admitted he cared more about than the story.

With such a focus, it’s a relief then that the performances by all concerned are uniformly excellent. Bale, sporting a hideous comb-over and a beer gut, gives one of his best performances as the love-struck, hen-pecked, slightly less clever than he thinks Irving. With each scene he peels back another layer of a man who at first seems one-dimensional and hollow, but who is actually heartfelt and loyal to those he cares about. It’s a carefully structured performance and reminds anyone who might have forgotten that Bale is as adept at playing ordinary characters as he is damaged or vengeful ones. Adams offers equally good support – and a decent British accent – as the emotionally torn Sydney, battling her burgeoning feelings for Richie before realising he’s using her as much as she’s used her marks in the past. As the wildly out of control Richie, Cooper excels, adding to the kudos he gained from The Place Beyond the Pines with a controlled yet seething reading of a man with too much ambition for his own good, and a frightening lack of empathy or understanding of the people around him. Renner has the least showy role, but manages to breathe life into a character who, at first, lacks any depth. As the movie progresses, his need to help the people is shown as a personal crusade and his inevitable downfall a sad indictment of the collateral damage that can occur in these situations. And lastly, there’s Lawrence, possibly the finest actress of her generation, imbuing Rosalyn with a vulnerability and tenacity that more than make up for the deficiencies in the characterisation. She’s nothing short of miraculous.

With such a concentration on the characters, rather than the story or indeed the script – there’s a great deal of improvisation throughout – American Hustle ultimately falls short of its potential. The story and plot are predictable, with any quirks that may have been part of the real-life scam ironed out in favour of more time with Irving and Sydney and Rosalyn and Richie and Carmine. Russell directs with his usual flair, and while his focus may have been misguided, the look and feel of the Seventies is recreated effectively – those clothes! – and the structure of the movie is almost flawless. Danny Elfman’s music, along with a carefully selected soundtrack, helps heighten the mood of the period and complements Linus Sandgren’s warm-toned cinematography, while Judy Becker’s production design provides a subtler evocation of time and place than most “period” pieces.

In essence, this isn’t the polished gem that most would have it but more of a rough diamond. Russell is incapable of making a dull movie, but he nearly pulls it off here. This is a character piece, not the crime drama the trailers and the advertising make it out to be, and while there’s always room for a character piece, with this movie’s background, more attention to those aspects would have made the movie a stronger, more interesting watch.

Rating: 8/10 – with a great cast – and one notable cameo – keeping things from being too dull, American Hustle doesn’t quite make the grade as a modern classic; absorbing and awkward to watch in equal measure, there’s another movie in there somewhere but not the one that Russell wants us to see.

Runner Runner (2013)

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ben Affleck, Costa Rica, Crime drama, FBI, Gambling, Gemma Arterton, Justin Timberlake, Online gaming, Review, Thriller

D: Brad Furman / 91m

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck, Gemma Arterton, Anthony Mackie, Michael Esper, Oliver Cooper, Christian George, Yul Vazquez, John Heard, Bob Gunton

Supporting his financial outlay at university by acting as a facilitator for an online gambling organisation, Richie Furst (Timberlake) is ratted on to the Dean (Gunton) who gives him an ultimatum: either quit or be expelled. Richie’s response is to bet all his remaining money on an online gaming site; when he loses it all he suspects the game was rigged. When he finds proof, he determines to travel to Costa Rica – where the site is based – and show the site’s owner, Ivan Block (Affleck), what he’s found. Grateful for Richie’s information, he offers him a job which Richie accepts. Now living the high life, Richie begins to woo Ivan’s personal assistant (and ex-lover) Rebecca (Arterton). While Richie enjoys his new lifestyle, things begin to crumble around him. He is targeted by FBI agent Shavers (Mackie) who tells him Block is a scam artist. Two of his friends who came to work for Block on Richie’s recommendation begin to find strange anomalies in the way Block’s site is run. When one of them ends up beaten to death, Richie finally begins to realise the enormity of the situation he’s got himself into.

Advertised as a thriller, Runner Runner certainly has thriller elements, but largely this is a crime drama that keeps the actual crime so far off screen that it might as well not be there. That Block is running a scam seems of little consequence against the effect it has on Richie; the movie concentrates almost exclusively on how Richie is betrayed time after time, and then how he retaliates. There’s a larger story here with the possibility of a much wider drama being explored, but the script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien keeps things restricted to Block’s empire, with occasional side trips to island enforcer Herrera (Vazquez), the man Block has to pay in order to keep his business running.

What doesn’t help is the incredible naïveté that Timberlake is forced to adopt due to the laziness of the script. For someone attending Princeton, Richie is possibly the dumbest student you’re ever likely to meet. He falls for Block’s spiel hook, line and sinker, and even when he’s tricked time and time again, he still carries on as if Block’s assertions are just “part of the job”. Even when he realises how much trouble he’s in he tries to escape back to America, something agent Shavers has already told him would not be permitted. And then, when he agrees to help the FBI and the Costa Rican police bring down Block, he’s suddenly able to turn the tables just…like…that.

Making online gambling interesting is something the movie also fails to achieve, and a few over-the-top parties that Block hosts aside, there is little glamour here. Costa Rica is a beautiful country but you wouldn’t know it from the glimpses you get of it, and Arterton, who has a pouting attractiveness, is relegated to the sidelines for most of the movie. So what you end up with is a movie that looks and feels bland and uninteresting, and as a result, ends up disappointing its audience in almost every scene.

Furman directs with an indifference to the material that makes you wonder if he saw the problems ahead of time and decided just to take the pay. Timberlake sleepwalks through most of his scenes, while Affleck looks embarrassed by some of the dialogue he has to (try to) give credibility to. Arterton is wasted, Mackie tries too hard and gives a one-note performance, and Heard is saddled with a character so similar to his role in Sharknado (2013) it’s almost embarrassing. With no one trying very hard either in front or behind the camera, Runner Runner is doomed to fail from the very first frame.

Rating: 4/10 – a silly, shabby drama with pretensions toward being a thriller, Runner Runner is the cinematic equivalent of roadkill; a low point for all concerned that will be hard to beat.

The Shadow of Silk Lennox (1935)

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bank robbery, Creighton Chaney, Crime drama, FBI, Gangster, Lon Chaney Jr, Murder, Nightclub, Ray Kirkwood, Review

D: Ray Kirkwood / 60m

Cast: Lon Chaney Jr, Dean Benton, Marie Burton, Jack Mulhall, Eddie Gribbon, Larry McGrath, Allen Greer, Theodore Lorch

After four years of being billed as Creighton Chaney in an effort to make his own way in movies, Lon Chaney Jr finally landed his first lead role in this below average potboiler. As nightclub owner cum gangster John Arthur “Silk” Lennox, Chaney does his best to appear urbane and charming, and there are moments when he almost pulls it off, but mostly he looks uncomfortable; when he’s being an out and out villain, Chaney appears more relaxed. It was inevitable perhaps that Chaney’s career – outside of Of Mice and Men (1939) and The Wolf Man (1941) – would be given over to playing villains. He wasn’t blessed with matinee idol looks, and often his delivery was a little off, but he was a formidable screen presence, and it’s interesting to see him here finding his feet.

Lennox and his gang rob banks. He tricks the police into giving him a cast-iron alibi for his latest robbery, and when they fail to make any headway, it’s down to the FBI to lend a hand. Fortuitously, one of Lennox’s gang, the Deacon (Budd Buster), tries to leave town with the money from the robbery. Lennox tracks him down and has him killed; this provides the FBI with the opportunity they need to bring Lennox to justice.

The short running time reflects the slightness of the plot, and the by-the-numbers filmmaking. The script, adapted by Norman Springer from his story The Riot Squad, is too weak to make much of an impact, and Kirkwood directs without attempting to make any of it appear interesting. There’s a sub-plot involving an act at the nightclub – played by Benton and Burton – that plays as unconvincingly as Lennox’s trademark saying “It’s all going as smooth as silk”. The sets are functional and look entirely too flimsy, and the photography, by the usually reliable Robert F. Cline, is flat and uninspired, leaving the movie a chore to look at. There’s a chirpy performance from Mulhall that raises the stakes when he’s onscreen but this isn’t until the last twenty minutes or so; before then, everyone else fails to ignite the soggy material.

From here, Chaney would go on to a succession of uncredited roles in movies such as Slave Ship (1937) and Love and Hisses (also 1937). He had other, credited, roles but it wasn’t until Of Mice and Men that he finally broke out as a leading man, even if it was largely in low budget horror movies. Chaney was capable of giving strong performances when needed, but all too often his personal demons got in the way of his career. Seeing Chaney in The Shadow of Silk Lennox is like watching a fighter early on in his career who’ll maybe only get that one chance at a title shot. It’s reassuring to know that, even with his eventual decline as an actor – Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964) anyone? – Chaney had his time in the sun. He was sometimes an unpredictable actor, and that often makes watching some of his movies more rewarding than they should be (although that can’t be said here).

Rating: 3/10 – low budget doesn’t have to mean low quality but it does here; ponderous and underwhelming, The Shadow of Silk Lennox fails to rise above its mediocre origins.

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~ Viewing movies in a different light

Tag Archives: FBI

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Mini-Review: Dinosaur 13 (2014)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

American Hustle (2013)

Runner Runner (2013)

The Shadow of Silk Lennox (1935)

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