Tag Archives: Jason Statham

Don’t Go in the Water! – The Meg (2018) and Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)

27 Monday Aug 2018

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It happens so often that it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. A major studio release is announced, and before you know it, a “rival” production is rushed onto our screens. These so-called “rivals” often operate on a fraction of the budget of the mainstream release, have a cast that few people have heard of, and betray their lack of originality at every turn. Such is the case in 2018 with The Meg being pipped to the release post by Deep Blue Sea 2, a sequel/remake that no one wanted or needed (especially nineteen years after Renny Harlin’s enjoyable if still risible original).

The Meg (2018) / D: Jon Turteltaub / 113m

Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka

The Meg is a silly, silly movie – let’s get that out of the way from the start. It provokes far more laughs than it does gasps, but at least it’s aware that it’s preposterous. This is most definitely a good thing, because if it wasn’t so self-aware, this would be an horrendously difficult movie to sit through. There are moments where the script (by Dean Georgaris and Jon and Erich Hoeber from the novel by Steve Alten) strives for serious drama – usually when someone dies, or the gravity of the situation needs reinforcing – but otherwise keeps things easy-going for much of its running time. It’s as if it can’t wait to poke fun at itself, whether it’s by giving Statham lines of the calibre of “Meg versus man isn’t a fight… it’s a slaughter” (though he does miss out on saying “Megalo-don’t”), or having its characters behave foolishly (add up how many times they deliberately put themselves at risk when there’s no need to). It’s also a movie that seems reluctant to give the Meg free rein when the script puts a resort full of swimmers, and a small dog, in its path. Anyone expecting mass carnage is going to be disappointed; better to watch Piranha 3D (2010) instead.

Of course, this is all professionally made with a suitably excessive budget needed to make the special effects look as impressive as possible, but as with many movies that have a larger than normal protagonist at its centre – see also Rampage (2018) – there are problems with the Meg’s size, and keeping it proportionally realistic in relation to its human co-stars. But there are bigger problems: the movie soon settles for being a series of showdowns between Statham’s gung-ho marine rescue specialist and the Meg that rely too often on the Meg swimming off once their encounters are over; so much for being a super-predator. Of course, this repetition is to allow the cast of characters to be picked off one by one, even though it’s obvious just who is still going to be around when the Meg is finally taken care of. Statham is fine as the improbably named Jonas (the makers clearly wanted to call him Jonah – but too much context maybe?), while Curtis and Wilson stand out because they both seem to have the measure of the material, and are obviously having fun. Turteltaub’s direction is competent without being flashy, there’s one climax too many, and sadly, Statham doesn’t get to punch or head butt the Meg (what were the makers thinking?).

Rating: 6/10 – nothing more or less than a summer popcorn movie with no other ambition than to provide audiences with a good time, The Meg is surprisingly toothless when it matters most; glossy and sleek, it goes where it needs to, but doesn’t offer the necessary thrills to make it stand out from the crowd, all of which just goes to prove that size isn’t everything.

 

Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018) / D: Darin Scott / 94m

Cast: Danielle Savre, Rob Mayes, Michael Beach, Nathan Lynn, Kim Syster, Jeremy Boado, Adrian Collins, Cameron Robertson, Darron Meyer

Where The Meg is a silly, silly movie, Deep Blue Sea 2 is a dreadful, dreadful movie, an uninspired retread of the original, and a chore to sit through (unless your standards are non-existent or you’ve suffered a recent brain trauma). Having the number two in the title would seem to make it a sequel, but in fact this is an unofficial remake, with several scenes rehashed from the first movie, and the action taking place in yet another submerged research station where genetic experiments have been carried out on – surprise! – a number of bull sharks. Sooner than you can say “shark lunch in a tin can”, things start to go wrong, and the tasty morsels – sorry, characters – inside the research facility are being picked off one by one. This tries for grim humour at times, but manages to miss the mark at every attempt; it can’t even raise some much needed unintentional humour either. Instead, the main response it provokes is one of profound ennui, and a deep regret that you started watching it in the first place. To say that it lacks energy, pace, commitment, good performances, and a decent script would be stating the obvious.

It does trade in a healthy amount of rampant absurdity, though, as evidenced by the decision to give the sharks a female leader who gives birth (thankfully off-screen) to a dozen or so little nippers who take over their mother’s murderous duties, and who make loud screeching noises when they attack (these sounds are audible above the water line – of course). Unlike The Meg, Deep Blue Sea 2 has no problem with showing the gory after effects of a shark attack, but against the odds this is one of the very few aspects it gets right. Again, the performances range from very poor (Savre) to perfunctory (Mayes, Lynn), while Beach outdoes the sharks for chewing the scenery as (the meg)alomaniacal sponsor of the research facility. Scott, clearly a long way from his days as a producer on movies such as To Sleep With Anger (1990) and Menace II Society (1993), struggles to make anything out of the by-the-numbers screenplay, its dreary nature and one-dimensional characters proving impossible to root for. If you have to see one shark-based movie in 2018, then make sure it isn’t this one. You have been warned.

Rating: 3/10 – awful enough to make you wish for a shark to come along and put you out of your misery, Deep Blue Sea 2 is the cinematic equivalent of chum in the water; brazenly stealing all the best bits from its predecessor and then doing nothing constructive with them, this is a movie that wastes no time in wearing out its welcome, and becoming irredeemably, dramatically soggy.

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The Fate of the Furious (2017)

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

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aka Fast & Furious 8

D: F. Gary Gray / 136m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Charlize Theron, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Scott Eastwood, Kurt Russell, Elsa Pataky, Helen Mirren, Kristofer Hivju

And so we come to episode eight in the ongoing Fast and Furious franchise, the series that just keeps on giving and giving… and giving and giving and giving and giving. This is a movie, one of several that we’ll see this year, that will do incredibly well at the international box office, and which will be hugely successful no matter what critics or bloggers or anyone and their auntie says about it. It’s a movie that exists in its own little cinematic bubble, oblivious to movie making trends, advances or developments. If you live in the UK, it’s the equivalent of those Ronseal adverts that state, “It does what it says on the tin”. And if you don’t live in the UK, then try this comparison: it’s like going to McDonalds and ordering a Big Mac, fries and a Coke. You know exactly what you’re getting, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve had that particular combo more times than you can remember, that’s also kind of the point. Here, familiarity breeds expectation, and the makers of the Fast and Furious movies know exactly how to satisfy that expectation.

All the familiar elements are here: exotic locations (Iceland, Cuba, New York?), Diesel being taciturn and glowering a lot (he even shouts a few times, which is new), Johnson looking like a poster boy for steroid abuse, Rodriguez glowering a lot like Diesel, Gibson acting unconscionably stupid, Bridges giving nerds a fairly good name for once, over-the-top action sequences that regularly and deliberately challenge the laws of physics, and cars, lots of shiny, sleek, expensive cars. Relative series newbies Russell, Emmanuel and Statham slot in neatly amidst the rest of the cast, while complete newbies Eastwood (good guy) and Theron (bad guy) add little and a lot respectively. Throw in some old faces from previous entries, and a storyline that’s been built on the back of the last two outings, and you have another patchy, under-developed crowd-pleaser that does enough to keep its audience interested while at the same time giving said audience very very very little that’s new. And it’s the opener for a closing trilogy of movies that will see the franchise come to an end in April 2021.

If there’s anything interesting about the movie, it’s the way in which it harkens back to earlier entries, and tries to incorporate the look and feel of those earlier movies. The opening sequence, set in Cuba, is a throwback to the approach and feel of the first and third movies, with its street-level, underground racing vibe, and beautiful hangers-on to some of the ugliest drivers ever seen on screen. There’s a car up for grabs, a sneering minor villain who thinks he can outwit Dominic Toretto (foolish man!), and some very impressive stunt driving. But it’s a measure of how far the series has come in terms of its tone and style, that this sequence – which starts off well – soon descends into the kind of ridiculous, credibility-free, and excessive action set-piece that the series has become known for. Seeing Toretto winning the race in a stripped-down junker, in reverse, and with the engine on fire no less, serves as an acknowledgement that while the series wants to honour its more scaled-back origins, it’s grown too big and excessive to be able to.

Much has been made of this movie’s main storyline – Toretto betrays his “family” – but as a plot device it’s one of the weaker ideas in the series, and all because we know that there’s no way it’s “for real”. As expected, there’s a reason for his “betrayal”, and while it’s played out with as much sincerity as returning scribe Chris Morgan can instil in his by-the-numbers screenplay, it shows a complete disregard for the character of Letty (Rodriguez) and the trials she’s endured since “dying” in part four (and especially in relation to a scene between Letty and Toretto early on in Cuba). Worse still, the whole thing leads to a scene involving Statham’s returning nemesis Deckard Shaw, and the complete reversal of his character from murderous psychopath to genial funster. It’s as if the makers have seen his performance in Spy (2015) and thought to themselves, how can we exploit this?

Character assassination apart, the movie follows the tried and tested formula of the previous three movies, and never deviates from its cookie-cutter approach. It’s no secret that the franchise thinks up its action sequences first and fits a story and plot around them later, but this time the obvious nature of such a design is even more noticeable than before. An attack on a Russian minister on the streets of New York occurs at the halfway mark, and includes the appropriation by über-villain Cipher (Theron) of any car in the area that has an on-board computer system. Why she has to activate all of them makes no sense, but it does lead to mass collisions and vehicles falling from multi-storey car parks and no end of unconvincing CGI. Far better? The scenes predceeding this where Toretto has to escape Cipher’s surveillance in order to put his own plans into action. Short, simple, and so much more effective.

One thing The Fate of the Furious does get right – finally – is its choice of villain. Stepping out of the shadows no one knew she inhabited, Cipher is played with chilling conviction by Theron, and if as seems likely, she’s going to be the villain for the last two movies as well, then her involvement could be the best thing about them – as it is here. With Statham’s character now reformed, the movie needed someone to be a real villain, and Theron comes through in spades. She’s icy, mad, and bad to the core. Theron shares most of her scenes with Diesel, and every time it’s a no contest: she acts him off the plane Cipher uses, and off the screen as well (which is a shame, as away from all his franchise movies, Pitch Black (2000) excepted, he can be a very good actor indeed).

But what about those action sequences? And what about that submarine smashing through the ice? And all those explosions? Everything we’ve seen in the various trailers? Well, they’re all as slickly produced and homogeneously exciting as those in previous entries, and they’re fine examples of modern day action heroics, but even so they remain curiously thrill-free. A prison riot does Statham and Johnson no favours thanks to having been shot in a jerky, shaky style that makes focusing on the various punches and kicks both actors dish out quite difficult to follow. It’s a sequence that could have benefitted from having a few more bone-crunching sound effects thrown in as well. The submarine sequence is reminiscent of the ending to Furious 6 (2013) (justly famous for its neverending runway), but is surprisingly restrained for all that, while the movie’s biggest explosion – naturally saved for last – also gives rise to the movie’s most ridiculous and risible moment.

But none of this matters. Not Helen Mirren’s awful Cockney accent, not Hivju’s distracting resemblance to a young James Cosmo, not even the sight of Johnson manhandling a torpedo as it races across the ice. The Fate of the Furious can do what it likes and audiences will lap it up regardless. Does this make it a bad movie? On the whole, yes, it does. But for all that, is it entertaining? Weirdly, yes, but in a subdued, stopgap kind of fashion, as if this entry in the series was a bridge between previous episodes and the ones to come, ones that will (hopefully) up the series’ game considerably. After eight movies the franchise has reached a kind of tipping point: the final two outings need to be much stronger and more focused on what they’re trying to do. The series hasn’t quite run out of mileage yet, but it’s running perilously close, and if the makers aren’t careful, the remaining movies will most likely be running on fumes.

Rating: 5/10 – fans will lap this up, but The Fate of the Furious, with its tangled ideas about family and betrayal, doesn’t add up to much, and relies too heavily on its action sequences to prop up its awkward script; the cast have to make do with the same character beats they’ve been given in previous movies, and franchise first-timer Gray isn’t allowed to do anything different with the formula, making this a movie generated and made by committee, and as a result, lacking a distinct identity to make it stand out from the rest of the series.

“Meh” Movies and Me – Part 2

10 Saturday Sep 2016

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When I posted “Meh” Movies and Me on 8 September, that was meant to be that. I had a list of movies going forward that I planned to watch and review, and none of them were big-budget, “event” movies made with conspicuous excess and an unhealthy reliance on CGI (well, all except The Legend of Tarzan). The first movie on the list was Black Tar Road (2016), and that was meant to be followed – today – by Zoom (2015), and then I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016). But instead of watching either movie I re-watched an old favourite, To Be or Not to Be (1942), and episode six of Jessica Jones (what can I say? I lag behind when it comes to TV series’). Why did I watch these instead? That’s a fair question, and the answer is simple, albeit in two parts.

to-be-or-not-to-be

Firstly, I wondered if I’d over-reacted. After all, I’d had a bad run, three movies in a row that had earned themselves 3/10 because they were basically rubbish. They were movies that really should have been vetoed at the idea stage. But they were made, they attracted well-known names to them, and they were all heavily promoted as if they were must-see movies. Now I like Jason Statham, and I like Idris Elba, and I like… Rose Byrne, and if they all appeared in the same movie together I would probably make a point of seeing it as soon as possible. But instead they made a trio of movies that were as soul-destroying as watching that last Rolo get away from you (apologies to anyone outside of Britain who doesn’t get that last analogy/joke). They made a trio of movies that they should have known – from day one – were going to be bad. Actually, not just bad, but appalling. I’m all for actors being employed and able to pay their bills each month, but can their mortgage really mean more than their self-esteem – or their reputation?

And so, the more I thought about it, the more I decided that, no, I hadn’t over-reacted. I’d been right, right to challenge the status quo, and right to call out anyone who makes a movie with the knowledge that it’s going to suck; and especially if they use millions and millions of dollars to make it. But after watching and reviewing Black Tar Road (and on the whole, liking it quite a bit), I realised that I needed a bit of a cooling off period. I needed to watch something that would remind me that mainstream movies can be entertaining, that they can have well-constructed and thought out scripts, that the cast can take those scripts and use them to create wonderful, memorable characters, and that directors can be bold and decisive and in tune with the material and above all, take risks. And so, To Be or Not to Be, which has all of those things. And Jessica Jones, which has them too, but in a different way.

But I said the answer was in two parts, didn’t I? Well, the second part is a little less obvious. When you’ve seen as many movies as I have – 14,432 and counting as of today – then you get a little set in your ways and your opinions. Not about whether or not a movie is an appalling piece of crap and doesn’t deserve to see the light of day – that’s a constant that should never be discouraged. No, it’s when you’re five or ten minutes into a movie and you know exactly how it’s going to end (and how it’s going to get there), and what’s going to happen to the characters. There are signs everywhere and most of them aren’t very subtle, which is why some movies feel like ninety minutes or more of déjà vu. Black Tar Road is such a movie, and though I liked it, it has a predictable nature to it that is as off-putting (to me) as watching a movie where you’re led by the hand from scene to scene.

jessica-jones

One of the great things about To Be or Not to Be is that even if you watch it more than once, it retains a freshness and an easy charm that’s never diminished. This is due to the quality applied to the material in every department. And Jessica Jones, while conforming to many of the expectations of contemporary television, regularly and repeatedly tries to subvert those expectations in order to keep its audience engaged and coming back for more. With this in mind, shouldn’t movies be doing the same? Shouldn’t they be trying to subvert our expectations? I think they should be, but maybe I’m in a minority. Maybe everyone else is happy with the status quo and watching movies that continually fail to meet the demands of modern audiences. And maybe that’s what today’s movie makers are counting on: that we just don’t care enough to complain, or change our viewing habits for the better.

And that really is that.

Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)

31 Wednesday Aug 2016

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Mechanic Resurrection

D: Dennis Gansel / 99m

Cast: Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh, Sam Hazeldine, John Cenatiempo, Toby Eddington, Femi Elufowoju Jr, Anteo Quintavalle

Meh.

Rating: 3/10 – a terrible sequel that lies dead on the screen, Mechanic: Resurrection features some of the worst green screen work ever (the opening fight in Buenos Aires), a plot that makes absolutely no sense at all, and performances from all concerned that border almost on perfunctory – if only they could have made that much effort; action movies don’t have to tie up every loose end or narrative loophole, but this has a script that just doesn’t know when to give up and go home, making it one of the worst experiences you’re likely to have at the cinema all year.

Spy (2015)

02 Tuesday Jun 2015

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Spy

D: Paul Feig / 120m

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Allison Janney, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Serafinowicz, Morena Baccarin, Richard Brake, Nargis Fakhri, 50 Cent, Jude Law

CIA operatives Bradley Fine (Law) and Susan Cooper (McCarthy) are the best team in the organisation: Fine out in the field, Susan back at HQ guiding and protecting him on his missions. After Fine misses out on the chance to find the whereabouts of a nuclear weapon that’s up for sale – by accidentally shooting the seller – the CIA soon learns that the seller’s daughter, Rayna Boyanov (Byrne), has taken over the sale and through corrupt businessman Sergio De Luca (Cannavale) is offering it to terrorist Solsa Dudaev (Brake).

Fine infiltrates Rayna’s home but discovers it’s a trap; Susan has to watch as Rayna kills him. When it becomes clear that Rayna knows the identities of all of the CIA’s top agents, including gung-ho hothead Rick Ford (Statham), Susan volunteers to travel to Paris where De Luca has an office, and to report back any activity. Followed there by Ford, who thinks she’ll compromise the mission, Susan discovers that De Luca is now in Rome. Once there, she switches her dowdy undercover identity for a more upmarket one, and trails De Luca to a casino. She witnesses a man spike a drink at the bar; when the drink is delivered to none other than Rayna, Susan sees her chance to get close to Fine’s killer and find out the location of the nuclear weapon.

Gaining Rayna’s confidence, the pair fly to Budapest. During the flight one of the pilot tries to kill Rayna but Susan overpowers him and lands the plane instead. In the process she reveals her skills as an agent, and Rayna becomes convinced she works for the CIA. Susan manages to convince her that her father employed Susan to look after her. Rayna believes her story, but when they arrive in Budapest, matters are complicated by the arrival of Susan’s best friend and co-worker, Nancy (Hart) who has been sent to check on her. Pretending Nancy works for her, Susan foils another bid to kill Rayna, but in doing so finds herself at Rayna’s mercy, and with the sale of the nuclear weapon a matter of hours away.

Spy - scene

It’s been four short years since Melissa McCarthy shot to fame by defecating into a sink in the movie Bridesmaids (2011). In that time she’s continued with her role in the TV show Mike & Molly, had a minor role in This Is 40 (2012), given supporting turns in The Hangover Part III (2013) and St. Vincent (2014), co-starred with Sandra Bullock in The Heat (2013), and headlined two movies of her own, Identity Thief (2013) and Tammy (2014). If the last two movies didn’t exactly set critical pulses racing, both took over $100,000,000 worldwide, proving that audiences enjoyed watching slight variations on the character she first played in director Paul Feig’s earlier movie.

But it was a character that had a limited shelf life, and with Spy, McCarthy and Feig have wisely broadened their horizons, and in so doing, have given the actress her best role yet. As the ten years desk bound CIA agent who dreams of some excitement in her life, McCarthy delivers a performance that is at once more controlled and less wayward. In creating Susan Cooper, McCarthy shows that she has much more to offer than pratfalls and foul-mouthed schtick (even though there’s room for both here, just not as much as usual), and is more than capable of playing a fully rounded character. It’s good to see her owning the material as well and riffing on it to such good effect, making Susan possibly her most endearing, and appealing role to date, and entirely worthy of the movie itself.

For the best thing about Spy is that it’s consistently funny, whether it’s subverting genre conventions by thrusting the backroom girls into the spotlight, making Fine a preening douche, Ford a ridiculous blowhard, or giving Susan some of the worst makeovers in history for her undercover identities, the movie has great fun in spoofing the spy/action movie while maintaining a more serious subplot about Susan’s gaining enough self-confidence to fulfil her potential as an agent. That Feig’s script has the confidence to attempt both, and then succeed with seeming ease, adds to the movie’s lustre, and makes it all the more enjoyable.

As already noted, McCarthy delivers her best role to date, and she’s matched by the surprise – and inspired – casting of Statham as the kind of agent who can’t pass up an opportunity for a bit of self-aggrandisement. On this evidence, Statham should do more comedy, as here he’s hilarious, shouting and swearing like a man on the brink of a psychotic break, and making the kinds of boasts that are so absurd he doesn’t know how idiotic he sounds. But where Ford’s boasting is a highlight, he’s still outdone by the insults traded between Susan and Rayna, some of which are the funniest putdowns heard in recent years (and particularly when it comes to Rayna’s hairdo). Byrne and McCarthy have a great time deadpanning their lines at each other, and so does the audience as each insult escalates their dislike of each other’s character.

In support, Serafinowicz is irrepressible as Susan’s Italian contact, Aldo, for whom large bosoms are the key to happiness; Law is debonair, charming and an unfeeling arse; Janney is the CIA chief who sees promise in Susan’s wish to work in the field; Cannavale doesn’t really feature until the last twenty minutes; 50 Cent plays himself; and in a role that doesn’t see her stretch too far from her British TV persona, Hart racks up enough laughs as Nancy to have done her US career no harm at all. In short, it’s a great cast, and they all deliver as required.

The European locations are filmed by Robert D. Yeoman with that travelogue sheen that enhances even the most attractive of regions or cities, and as a result the movie is attractive to look at throughout. The music by Theodore Shapiro is occasionally overbearing, but this is due to its prominence in the sound mix rather than any compositional issues, and McCarthy’s wardrobe, courtesy of Christine Bieselin Clark, fluctuates from plain and functional to horrendous to glamorous (though her final look in the movie makes her appear too much like Dawn French for comfort). And the action scenes are splendidly realised, including a terrific fight between McCarthy and  Fakhri that wouldn’t look out of place in a… well, in a Jason Statham movie.

Rating: 8/10 – consistently entertaining, Spy is a treat for fans of McCarthy and spy spoofs in general; with a script that knows when to be serious and when to be gloriously silly, it’s a movie that is infectious in its desire to please its audience, something it does with no small amount of style and wit.

Ten Stars and the Movies You Might Not Realise They Were In

10 Sunday May 2015

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Sometimes, watching old movies can provide the occasional surprise, like seeing an actor or actress in an early role – or movie – when you least expect it. This happened to me recently when I saw National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (1995) (I’m a National Lampoon movie completist – what can I say?). Imagine my surprise when I saw Jeremy Renner’s name come up in the title credits. Imagine my further surprise when it turned out he gave one of the best performances in the movie (though not that much of a surprise if you’ve seen it).

It got me thinking about other stars and their early appearances, and what other movies are out there with fledgling – or fleeting – performances from today’s big name actors and actresses. So, a few quick searches on imdb.com later, and voilà!, this post was born. I hope you have some fun with it, and if there are any other examples that you think should have been included, or are worth mentioning, feel free to let me know.

Leonardo DiCaprio – Poison Ivy (1992)

While it’s well-known that DiCaprio’s first movie role was in Critters 3 (1991), what’s perhaps less well-known is his participation in Katt Shea Ruben’s perverse shadow play of teenage sexuality run amok. But before anyone gets too excited, his role in the movie (as ‘Guy”) amounts to a walk-on part where he comes out of a school building and crosses in front of the camera. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part, and perhaps best regarded as an example of how good DiCaprio’s agent was back then: out of nothing he got ninth billing.

Robert Downey Jr – Weird Science (1985)

Way back before he became Marvel’s go-to guy for the grounding of their Cinematic Universe, Downey Jr made an appearance in this fondly remembered ode to teenage hormones and the fetishisation of Kelly LeBrock. Cast as “Ian”, Downey Jr plays a bit of a douchebag who acts as a bully to the two main characters. It’s not a particularly memorable role, and there’s nothing to suppose that his career would take off in the way it has – twice – but it’s in keeping with John Hughes’ studied look at teenagers and their idiosyncrasies, and isn’t too embarrassing when looked back on from thirty years later.

Robert Downey Jr

Julianne Moore – The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)

As the realtor who holds the key to the reason for Rebecca De Mornay’s psychotic dismantling of Annabella Sciorra’s life, Moore made only her second movie, and met a memorable end in a booby-trapped greenhouse. Feisty and forthright – almost a template for some of her future roles – the Oscar-winning actress catches the eye but still doesn’t quite give notice of how good an actress she really is. That would be left to Short Cuts (1993), one of her most memorable performances.

Julianne Moore

Colin Firth – The English Patient (1996)

As the movie’s star-crossed lovers, everyone remembers Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas, but when it comes to the actor playing Thomas’s jilted husband, that’s when the mind may well go completely blank. But Firth matches his (then) more illustrious co-stars, and shows that, only a year after playing Mr Darcy in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, that he can play a cuckold just as well as a romantic heart-throb.

Colin Firth

Ian McKellen – Last Action Hero (1993)

In amongst Last Action Hero‘s gunfire and car chases and explosions, you may remember towards the end of the movie, the character of Death from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) stepping out of the big screen and into the real world. As audacious homages go it’s a great example of what made the movie so uneven, but McKellen brings the necessary gravitas to the role, and even adds a degree of nonchalant amusement.

Ian McKellen

Amy Adams – Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Though Adams has a track record in comedies before and since Talladega Nights, it’s unlikely that most people would place her as Will Ferrell’s love interest, whatever the circumstances (though the glasses may have helped). But as Susan, Ricky Bobby’s assistant-cum-paramour, Adams more than holds her own amidst all the manic goings-on and provides a welcome distraction from the otherwise testosterone-laden script.

Amy Adams

Cameron Diaz – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

One of a number of cameos in Terry Gilliam’s spirited psychedelic imagining of Hunter S. Thompson’s book, Diaz’s appearance as “Blonde TV Reporter” is brief, but a great example of the kind of “roles” that some stars will take either as a favour to the director, or just to be involved in a particular movie project. Plus it’s always fun to see someone pop up unexpectedly in a movie, even if it’s only for a moment.

Cameron Diaz

Nicolas Cage – The Cotton Club (1984)

Working with his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, Cage’s turn as Richard Gere’s unpredictable, violent brother is another of the actor’s mercurial early roles, and a reminder of the raw, vital talent that has been lost in the welter of tired, mortgage-paying performances Cage has given us in recent years. Taking what could have been a stereotypical role and giving it the kind of spin only he could, it shows Cage acting up a storm and commanding the viewer’s attention.

Nicolas Cage

Jason Statham – Collateral (2004)

Billed as “Airport Man”, Statham has a small but pivotal role in Michael Mann’s L.A.-set thriller, and he more than holds his own in his scene with Tom Cruise. It’s the kind of unexpected appearance that enriches a movie, and lets the audience know that Statham – already an established star in his own right – can still do character work when required… and very effectively.

Jason Statham

Natalie Portman – Mars Attacks! (1996)

Three years before she became Queen Amidala in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Portman took a supporting role as the President’s daughter, Taffy, in Tim Burton’s anarchic alien invasion romp. Sharing scenes with Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close, Portman enters into the spirit of things with gusto, and has one of the best lines in the movie: “Guess it wasn’t the dove.”

Natalie Portman

Uh-Oh! Here Comes Summer! – Furious 7 (2015) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

03 Sunday May 2015

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Furious 7

Furious 7 (2015)

aka Fast and Furious 7

D: James Wan / 137m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, John Brotherton, Lucas Black

Having bested Owen Shaw and his gang in the previous instalment, now Dominic (Diesel), Brian (Walker), Letty (Rodriguez), and what seems like every main character from the series, have to pull together – with the aid of the mysterious Mr. Nobody (Russell) to take down his vengeful brother, Deckard Shaw (Statham). Throw in the hunt for a software programme, and its creator (Emmanuel), that can track anyone anywhere in the world, a trip to Abu Dhabi, and the usual amount of hyper-realistic cartoon violence, and you have the most successful entry in the franchise to date with, at time of writing, a worldwide gross of $1,352,724,000 (making it the fourth highest grossing movie ever).

Avengers Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

D: Joss Whedon / 141m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Hayley Atwell, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård, Linda Cardellini, Claudia Kim, Thomas Kretschmann, Andy Serkis, Julie Delpy, Henry Goodman

In an attempt to retire the Avengers from group duty, Tony Stark (Downey Jr) creates a robot that comes equipped with artificial intelligence. Only there’s a flaw: the robot, named Ultron (Spader), sees the best way of carrying out his peacekeeping mission is to wipe out the human race (and thereby ensure a peaceful world). With internal conflicts hampering their efforts to combat Stark’s creation, the introduction of Quicksilver (Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) to the mix, a showdown between the Hulk (Ruffalo) and Iron Man in his Hulkbuster suit, and Ultron planning an extinction level event, you have a sequel that has made $424,460,000 at the box office in just over a week.

And so we have the first two candidates for 2015’s Mega-Blockbuster of the Year Award. In the red corner we have the testosterone-fuelled, carmageddon-inspired Furious 7, and in the blue corner we have Avengers: Age of Ultron, the latest juggernaut designed to increase Marvel’s grip on the world and its wallet. The inclusion of their box office takes is deliberate, as this is really what both these movies are about: making as much money as possible off the back of a heavily marketable idea. That the idea is becoming stale (Furious 7) or showing signs of running out of steam already (Avengers: Age of Ultron) is neither here nor there. These movies are guaranteed crowd pleasers, and all the studios that make them have to do is give the fans enough of what they like most to ensure those big box office grosses.

It’s a well-known fact that recent entries in the Fast and Furious franchise have been built around the action sequences: the stunts come first and then a story is created around them. Such an approach isn’t exactly new, but as the series continues, it appears that the writer, Chris Morgan, is fast running out of ways to keep it as real as possible given the absurd, physics-defying world Dominic and his family live in. Morgan has scripted every movie since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and this time round the law of diminishing returns has clearly set in with a vengeance. With its dodgy timescales, crude attempts at characterisation, and action sequences that go on and on and on without ever changing pace (or should that be, gear?), Furious 7 is a movie that believes in its hype so much that it’s forgotten it still needs to make an effort beyond what’s expected of it.

Of course, script revisions had to be made due to the untimely death of Paul Walker, but like so many of the cast, he’s marginalised in a movie that has too many characters and too little time to do much with them apart from put them in continual jeopardy. Brewster is sidelined in the Dominican Republic (admittedly, not so bad), Johnson winds up in hospital until needed at the end, and Walker’s contribution seems reduced to fighting Tony Jaa. But with the script showing more interest in the villains (Statham, Hounsou, Russell maybe) than its heroes, it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that the main characters have nowhere to go – everyone, even Letty with her amnesia, is still the same as they were when they first appeared. Maybe this kind of familiarity is what the fans want but ultimately it just means that future entries – and there are three more planned for release – will continue to mine the same formula and with less satisfying results.

Furious 7 - scene

The same problem that occurs in Furious 7 occurs in Avengers: Age of Ultron, namely what to do with so many different characters, especially the new ones. Writer/director Whedon doesn’t appear to be as sure this time round as he was on the first Avengers movie (and it may be why he won’t be helming the two Avengers: Infinity War movies). While he does effective work exploring the personalities and idiosyncrasies of the Avengers themselves – Stark’s continuing egotism, a burgeoning relationship between Bruce Banner and Black Widow (Johansson), where Hawkeye (Renner) spends his downtime – he’s less successful when it comes to the villain, the villain’s sidekicks, and the whole let’s-level-a-city-and-cause-as-much-destruction-as-possible angle.

With so many characters to deal with, it’s inevitable that some of them don’t receive as much attention as others. The introduction of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch is a case in point, with Taylor-Johnson reduced to asking people he’s knocked over if they saw that coming (and not just once), and Olsen saddled with a perma-frown as she casts spells on people. They have a back story but it doesn’t impact on how they behave in the movie, and their teaming up with Ultron seems convenient rather than a well thought out plot development. Likewise, we have appearances by Kretschmann (dispensed with too quickly), Serkis (as an intro to his character’s appearance in Black Panther), and Delpy (as Natasha Romanoff’s childhood instructor). All great actors, and all reduced to walk-ons in the service of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But all great superhero teams need a great villain, and while Ultron seems to pass muster, the main problem with him is the actor cast to play him. Now it’s not that James Spader is a terrible actor – far from it – but what’s clear from his performance is that, rather than come up with an entirely new characterisation, he’s gone for a slight deviation on Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist… and it’s been encouraged. As a result we have a robot that often sounds whimsical rather than destructive, and petulant when he should be megalomaniacal. Whedon is good at injecting comedy into his movies – here, the throwaway line “No it wasn’t” is used perfectly – but when he tries too hard, as he does with Ultron, the effect is lost, and the viewer could be forgiven for wondering if Ultron is meant to be so eccentric.

On the action front, once again we’re treated (if that’s the right word) to another massive showdown where buildings are levelled, the Avengers fight off an army of attackers (last time the Chi’tauri, this time Ultron’s robots), and the special effects budget goes through the (recently blasted) roof. The whole massive destruction approach is a huge disappointment, having been done to death already in movies such as Man of Steel (2013) and the previous Avengers outing (and even Furious 7 with its car park demolition). (If anyone is listening, please let Thanos take on the Avengers on his own when he finally “does it himself”.)

Avengers Age of Ultron - scene

Ratings:

Furious 7: 6/10 – overblown (though no surprises there) and lacking a coherent story, Furious 7 has all the ingredients the fans love, but as a tribute to the late Paul Walker it falls short; a triumph of hype over content, someone seriously needs to look under the hood before taking this particular baby out for another drive.

Avengers: Age of Ultron: 7/10 – overblown and lacking in any real drama, Avengers: Age of Ultron skates perilously close to being Marvel’s first dud since Iron Man 2 (2010); saved by Whedon’s attention to (most of) the characters, it lumbers through its action set-pieces with all the joy of a contractual obligation.

Wild Card (2015)

02 Monday Feb 2015

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Wild Card

D: Simon West / 92m

Cast: Jason Statham, Michael Angarano, Milo Ventimiglia, Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, Max Casella, Sofia Vergara, Jason Alexander, Anne Heche

Nick Wild (Statham) is a security consultant living and working in Las Vegas. He’s also a gambler with a dream: win $500,000 and spend five years living the life he’s always wanted, starting with a year sailing around the Mediterranean. He takes a job protecting a young man named Cyrus Kinnick (Angarano) while he plays at the casinos. At the same time he receives a message from a friend called Holly (Garcia-Lorido), asking him to visit her. When he does he finds she’s been raped and beaten up by three men she met at the Golden Nugget. She tells Nick she wants to find out who they are so she can sue them.

Nick soon discovers the three men were local gangster Danny DeMarco (Ventimiglia) and two of his men. He’s warned not to go anywhere near them, but when he tries to tell Holly he couldn’t find out who the men were, she realises he’s lying and reminds him of a debt he owes her. Knowing it will cause trouble for him, Nick pays a visit to DeMarco at his suite. He disables DeMarco and his men, giving Holly – who’s never intended to sue them – a chance to exact her revenge on the gangster. She threatens to cut off his penis, and even nicks the side of it; he cries and pleads for forgiveness. Relenting, Holly takes $50,000 from him and splits it with Nick before leaving town.

Nick takes Cyrus to a casino, and while Cyrus plays at a craps table, Nick takes his half of DeMarco’s money and begins to gamble. He’s soon on a winning streak that culminates in his winning $506,000, enough for him to leave Las Vegas. He’s about to cash in his chips when he’s struck by an anxiety attack. He tells Cyrus that he’s been fooling himself: the money isn’t enough for him to avoid having to come back to Vegas after his five years are up. Telling himself he needs a bigger pot of money he stakes all his winnings on a single bet… and loses it all. Afterwards, he’s attacked by DeMarco’s men but manages to defeat them. But this leads to Nick being summoned to see Baby (Tucci), the boss of organised crime in Las Vegas. DeMarco has come to him with a story that Nick came to his suite, beat him up and shot his men, and stole the money to gamble with. Now Nick has to prove to Baby that DeMarco is lying, or his life will be forfeit…

Wild Card - scene

A remake of the Burt Reynolds’ movie Heat (1986), Wild Card is a project that Statham has been trying to get made for around five years. It’s also an adaptation by William Goldman of his own novel and a reworking of his script for Heat. A crime drama that features another of Statham’s occasional forays into character acting, the movie doesn’t offer anything new (hardly possible given the material’s history), but it does make for an entertaining, if occasionally risible, trip through the underbelly of life in Las Vegas.

It’s a milieu that’s been explored many, many times before, but here there’s a sense of  ennui that drifts alongside the narrative, making the characters’ desperation and need for self-improvement all the more affecting. Cyrus is a twenty-three year old self-made multi-millionaire who wants to know what it’s like not to be afraid, and to have the self-confidence to “be a man”. Holly is an escort who, like Nick, wants a better life where she’s not always at the mercy of others. And Nick himself is afraid that he’ll spend the rest of his life in Vegas, scratching a living and ending up alone. A lot of this is underplayed, a smart move by Goldman, and it gives the movie an edge that comes as a bit of a surprise.

With Las Vegas providing a more than suitable backdrop, Wild Card keeps its themes of redemption and avarice well to the fore. Nick’s return to the table after winning the money he’s always dreamed about is both inevitable and startling, and gives Statham the chance to show that he can be a better actor than a lot of people give him credit for. Sure he can pull off an action scene without breaking sweat or getting out of breath, but here he’s stretched on more than a few occasions – lying to Holly, appearing to kowtow to DeMarco, going back to the tables, looking bereft after he’s lost – and while he still maintains an aloof, taciturn presence, it’s a more rounded performance than usual.

But this being a Jason Statham movie, and one directed by Simon West – they also collaborated on The Mechanic (2011) – there’s room for a clutch of exhilarating, superbly choreographed fight scenes. Fans won’t be disappointed by the brutally inventive ways in which Nick dispatches various henchmen – one close up of a nose being broken is particularly impressive – and if these sequences still prove to be the main highlights of a movie that does its best not to be “just” an action movie, then it’s unfortunate but not entirely surprising.

The rest of the cast provide adequate support, though some are reduced almost to cameos or appear to have done only a day’s filming. Angarano and Ventimiglia have more than most to do but have a job with characters who remain cyphers throughout, with Ventimiglia in particular struggling to make more of DeMarco than the preening, psychotic gangster he appears. Garcia-Lorido brings an emotional intensity to her role that bodes well for her future, while Tucci phones in one of his patented “man with excess mannerisms” performances as Las Vegas’s capo di tutti capi. But with the likes of Davis, Heche and Vergara reduced almost to walk-on roles, the movie ends up feeling a little misogynistic.

All in all, West directs with his usual visual flair and helps Statham give one of his best performances. Goldman’s script is peppered with some less than quotable lines of dialogue – “He goes crazy and he shoots maybe my best two friends in the whole world” – but the structure is solid and Nick’s love/hate relationship with Sin City is woven into the storyline in a way that is meaningful and instructive of Nick’s personality. There’s a pleasingly claustrophobic feel to the casino scenes, and Shelly Johnson’s cinematography captures the glitz and the glamour of Las Vegas alongside its less attractive features.

Rating: 7/10 – worth seeing as a movie where Statham stretches his abilities as an actor, and for a couple of outstanding fight sequences, Wild Card is the kind of action movie that starts slow and builds to a (vicious) climax; unpretentious, and occasionally solemn, one can only hope that Statham and West get a chance to team up again soon.

The Expendables 3 (2014)

15 Friday Aug 2014

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Expendables 3, The

D: Patrick Hughes / 127m

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Robert Davi

Having rescued old friend Doc (Snipes), who’s been in prison in a foreign country for eight years, Barney (Stallone) and part of his team of Expendables head for Somalia in order to stop an arms deal that the US government – represented by Drummer (Ford) – wants foiled; they also have to capture arms dealer Victor Mins in the process.  But the plan goes wrong when Victor Mins turns out to be Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson), co-founder of the Expendables, and a man Barney thought he’d killed years before.  As Barney and his team come under increasing firepower, Stonebanks targets Caesar (Crews) and shoots him, wounding him badly.  They manage to escape but the experience prompts Barney to “retire” the rest of his team, even his closest friend Lee (Statham).  With Drummer still anxious to get Mins/Stonebanks, Barney enlists the help of Bonaparte (Grammer) in putting together a newer, younger team.  Once assembled, Barney and his new recruits go after Stonebanks.  They manage to capture him but their getaway is prevented by Stonebanks’ men who rescue him, and in a reversal of fortune, seize Barney’s young team.

With at first only Galgo (Banderas), a mercenary desperate to prove himself, and Trench (Schwarzenegger) to help him, Barney finds his old team refusing to let him go without them; he also finds himself backed up (unofficially) by Drummer.  The group heads for Stonebanks’ military training complex.  Getting in proves to be easy, but with Stonebanks’ men plus an army ranged against them, getting back out is a whole different matter.

Expendables 3, The - scene

The first Expendables movie was an okay affair bolstered by the concept itself: take a number of ageing action stars and put ’em all together and see how much fun can be had.  The follow up was more of the same and had an extended airport shootout that was bizarrely unexciting.  Now, with Hollywood’s current penchant for making trilogies out of almost any movie idea, we have the latest – and hopefully last – testosterone-fuelled outing for the getting-on-a-bit daredevils.

For anyone who’s seen the first two movies, the lack of a solid storyline won’t come as a surprise, nor will the lack of credible characters, residing as they do in such an incredible world (perhaps Barney and his team should be called The Incredibles – no, wait, that’s already been taken).  The returning viewer will also see that the dialogue has been kept at a first draft stage, character motivations remain simplistic at best, and the performances are as one-note as before.  In short, there’s been as much effort put into this movie as the first two.

It’s an amazing achievement when a movie is the culmination of all the bad things of its predecessors, and then adds a few more bad things for good measure.  With The Expendables 3, Stallone and co-writers Clayton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt have taken the witlessness of these movies and instead of reining it all in, have instead ramped it up another notch.  There’s the opening sequence where Doc is rescued from a heavily guarded train: he’s been in prison for eight years – why is it only now that Barney decides to free him?  In Somalia, Barney’s jeopardises the mission when he sees Stonebanks and tries to kill him (it’s Stallone’s “Khan!” moment).  When he assembles his new team, Barney awkwardly swaps his old friends for “kids” he feels a paternal responsibility for – so in either case he’s trying to people he cares about from getting hurt, so why the need to change the team (other than as a script requirement)?  Surely it would be more dramatic if it’d been the other way round and Barney was using the new team to rescue the old one.

And then there’s the big bad villain himself, Conrad Stonebanks, a vicious, preening, self-deluded ex-mercenary turned arms dealer who doesn’t exactly hide from the world – at one point he’s seen attending a museum exhibition in the middle of Moscow – but whom the US government appears to have no knowledge of and worse yet, no photos of him.  And yet Drummer tracks him down to Bucharest with apparent ease and the new team track his movements – again, with ease.  But before all this, nothing?  No clue?  Not one photograph to run through a Facial Recognition programme?  No?  Really?

It’s disheartening when you see so little effort going into something that cost $90 million to make (though really it’d be disheartening whatever the budget; the makers of these movies aren’t exactly inexperienced).  But where the script founders and sinks under the weight of its own (limited) expectations, the hoped-for rescue from complete viewing drudgery courtesy of some slam-bang action sequences also fails to materialise.  Just how many times can these guys go through the same motions, the same fights, wade through hundreds of run-into-the-line-of-fire extras and stuntmen, without themselves wondering if it’s all worth it?  And how many times can the audience?

In terms of the cast, the Expendables themselves walk through it all without pausing to act, while newcomers Ford, Banderas and Grammer – we’ll leave Lutz et al. as they’re not allowed to contribute very much – do their best to inject some energy into the proceedings, though Ford’s grumpy turn serves only to reinforce every off screen curmudgeon story you’ve ever heard about the man.  Only Banderas seems to have gauged the mediocrity of the situation and decided to ignore it all; Galgo is the only character you can even remotely warm to (and he’s essentially a big motor mouth).

In the director’s chair, Hughes – who’s been tapped for the upcoming remake of The Raid (2011) (as if we need it) – shows a grasp of how to assemble an impressive action sequence but doesn’t bring anything new to the equation, instead falling back on tried and tested shots, camera angles and set ups.  Of the various showdowns at Stonebanks’ hideout, a two-hander featuring Banderas and Rousey taking on all-comers is more effective than most, and the eventual brawl between Barney and Stonebanks is a severe let-down, less of a brawl and more of a slightly “harder” version of patty-cake.

With The Expendables 4 already rumoured to happen, there’s a sense that whatever box office returns this outing secures, the series is going to continue until Stallone says otherwise (he’s also prepping further Rambo and Rocky sequels).  But unless he hands the writing reins over to somebody else, the law of diminishing returns may well dictate otherwise.

Rating: 4/10 – loud, dumb, unadventurous, and reworking a whole raft of already tired scenarios, The Expendables 3 proves that however much fun a bunch of actors are having on a movie, it doesn’t mean the audience will have the same experience watching it; short on ingenuity and with the now de rigueur extended action sequence to round things off, this is one movie that doesn’t know when to quit.

Homefront (2013)

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Homefront

D: Gary Fleder / 100m

Cast: Jason Statham, James Franco, Izabela Vidovic, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, Marcus Hester, Clancy Brown, Rachelle Lefevre, Omar Benson Miller, Frank Grillo, Chuck Zito, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Austin Craig

Adapted by Sylvester Stallone from Chuck Logan’s novel of the same name – and once considered as the basis for a Rambo movie – Homefront finally makes it to the big screen with fellow Expendable Jason Statham in the lead role instead.

With its throwback style reminiscent of Seventies action movies such as Walking Tall, and Gator, Homefront settles into a familiar groove from the start, with undercover DEA agent Phil Broker (a badly bewigged Statham) having infiltrated drug dealing bikers The Outcasts.  When an attempt to bust them goes wrong, it leaves Outcasts kingpin Danny T (Zito) swearing revenge on Broker and his family.  Two years on and Broker has recently moved to the sleepy town of Rayville; in the meantime his wife has died and he’s left to bring up their nine year old daughter Maddy (Vidovic) all by himself.  A playground altercation with bully Teddy Klum (Craig) – Maddy gives him a bloody nose – leads to Teddy’s mom Cassie (Bosworth) seeking revenge.  She enlists the help of her brother, Gator (Franco), a local meth dealer.  When Gator finds out about Broker’s past he decides to let the remaining Outcasts deal with him; using his girlfriend Sheryl (Ryder) as an intermediary, Gator works out a deal where the Outcasts will distribute his drugs nationally in exchange for Broker’s whereabouts.

With its surprisingly leisurely pace, Homefront is a formulaic and professional Hollywood action movie, competently made, with no surprises and reminiscent of every other stranger-comes-to-town movie you’ve ever seen.  It allows Statham to stretch his acting muscles a little, sets up Franco as the baddest badass on the block only to renege on the deal two thirds in, puts Brown in uniform as the dishonest sheriff in Gator’s pocket (but does nothing more with it than that), gives Bosworth a chance to release her inner skank for a while, and sidelines Lefevre as Broker’s potential love interest at around the halfway mark.  Stallone’s script is full of these undeveloped story lines, and character arcs that are either cut short or allowed to peter out, all in order to allow more time for the action beats and the extended section where the Outcasts are brought back in.  It’s this part of the movie that is the most disappointing as the running time is padded out unnecessarily: Gator tells Sheryl to contact Danny T’s lawyer (Vince), Sheryl contacts him, he speaks to Danny T, Sheryl reports back to Gator, Sheryl meets Danny T’s lieutenant Cyrus (Grillo), and then the Outcasts travel to Rayville.  It all takes way too long, and all to set up the final showdown between Broker, Gator and the bikers which ends up being a two-part affair (and poorly edited at that).

Homefront - scene

While it’s always good to see Statham kick ass – a fight at a gas station is probably the movie’s highlight – here he’s asked to be conflicted about his violent abilities.  It’s not entirely successful, focusing as it does on the effect Broker’s activities have on Maddy. The problem is that Broker has taught Maddy self-defence already (that’s how she gives Teddy a bloody nose) and is really pleased with her for standing up for herself.  And yet when he has to defend himself and Maddy witnesses it, she acts horrified and troubled.  This raises the question of whether she knows what Broker did for a living (after all she’s old enough to know); it’s never referred to, though, and remains just another loose end in a movie that litters them like confetti.

The deficiencies of Stallone’s script aside, Homefront at least looks good, its Louisiana locations shot in that slightly rosy glow beloved of so many cinematographers (here Theo van de Sande), and Statham acquits himself well.  Vidovic is captivating, Franco and Ryder do their best with roles too underwritten to care about, there’s too little screen time for Brown, and for once, the “black sidekick/friend/new acquaintance” (Miller) doesn’t get killed in the crossfire, but actually kills one of the bikers when they attack Broker’s home.  The only real surprise is Bosworth, raging at the mouth, swearing like a motherf*cker, and fit to explode from the anger she has pent up inside her.  Sadly, the script requires her to undergo a sea change, and this unfortunately robs her character of any further credibility, but for the first thirty minutes or so she steals the movie completely.

Rating: 5/10 – a misfire on so many levels, Homefront suffers from an unpolished script and lacklustre direction; technically solid with a couple of good fight scenes involving Statham (which you’d expect anyway), this never really matches up to its potential.

Hummingbird (2013)

07 Thursday Nov 2013

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aka Redemption

D: Steven Knight / 100m

Cast: Jason Statham, Agata Buzek, Vicky McClure, Benedict Wong, Ger Ryan, Anthony Morris, Christian Brassington, Victoria Bewick

There are times when watching a Jason Statham movie is akin to watching an old friend do their favourite party trick: they may execute the trick with all their usual finesse (or lack of it), and they may add or refine it as they feel necessary. But when all’s said and done, it’s still the same old trick. The same is true of Hummingbird, a London-based drama that does its best to show that Statham has a broader range than we might think, but then still gets him to thump various co-stars and stuntmen.

Statham plays Joey, on the run from a military court martial and living rough on the streets of London. When we first meet him he’s sheltering in a cardboard box with a woman called Isabel (Bewick). They’re separated after an encounter with a local criminal enforcer called Taxman (Morris) and his henchman; Joey has tried to resist and been beaten for his efforts. He manages to get away over the rooftops and eventually finds his way into a flat where he discovers the owner is away until October (it’s now February). He cleans himself up, helps himself to the owner’s clothes and finds a new credit card amongst the mail piled up by the front door (as well as an envelope conveniently stamped Pin Enclosed).

Joey has become a drunk since going AWOL and despite his new-found good fortune he returns to the bottle. While drunk he goes to a shelter run by the Church and gives £500 to Sister Christina (Buzek); in the past he has relied on the food provided by the shelter and wants to give something back in return. Joey also asks her to find out what’s happened to Isobel.

Hummingbird - scene

Now at this point, one of two things could have happened: one, Joey spirals ever further into alcoholism before finding redemption through a selfless act, or two, Joey turns his life around and does things of true value before facing up to his past. But writer/director Knight comes up with a third option: Joey turns his life around and joins a Chinese crime syndicate. It’s an amazing choice and his motivation for doing so remains murky throughout. It allows for the requisite punch-ups that Statham is renowned for, but offers little in the way of real character development. His relationship with Sister Christina becomes more involved, almost romantic, but it’s her motivation that remains murky, and so the movie stumbles from scene to scene with no clear purpose or, ultimately, resolution.

Statham is an actor for whom expressing real emotion is always going to be a stretch, and he’s fashioned his career accordingly as the stoic loner who’s stony expression acts as much as a warning to others as a mask for his feelings. And while Hummingbird might be viewed as an attempt to show he has more skill as an actor than expected, the material doesn’t allow him to do so. He’s still the taciturn outsider, resorting to violence when necessary and doling out clipped lines of dialogue. There may be an emotional role out there that Statham would be entirely suited to, but this isn’t it.

As for the rest of the cast, Buzek offers a conflicted Sister Christina who becomes dangerously close to Joey and finds herself in turmoil because of it, while other characters come and go without making much of an impact. The exception is Max Forrester (Brassington), a particularly nasty punter who abuses prostitutes and finds himself the target of Joey’s somewhat confused sense of morality. Otherwise, this is a movie that concentrates on its two main characters.

The London locations are used to good effect – it’s always strange to see places like Shaftesbury Avenue largely deserted, whatever the time of day – and the production design by Michael Carlin is suitably grimy and depressing. Knight proves to be a capable director but sadly his own script lets him down; it’s an uneasy mix of unlikely romance, grim docudrama, social criticism, action movie and crime drama, and not all of the elements gel. There’s also a problem with the pacing, with some stretches slowing the movie unnecessarily.

Rating: 6/10 – not all bad but a disappointment nevertheless; Knight needs to tighten any further film scripts he writes, and Statham – if he wants to – should commit to a script that really stretches him as an actor.