Monthly Roundup – April 2018

12 Saturday May 2018

Tags

Action, Adventure, Alain Guiraudie, Alberto Cavalcanti, Amen Island, Animation, Anthony Russo, Assassin, Avengers: Infinity War, B-movie, Babak Nafari, Bank robbery, Barbara Britton, Billy Brown, Blaxploitation, Blue Sky, Brad Peyton, Bullfighting, Burglars, Carlos Saldanha, Children of the Corn: Runaway, Children's Film Foundation, Chris Evans, Christina De Vallee, Comedy, Crime, Danny Glover, David Paisley, Drama, Eugeniusz Chylek, Ferdinand, France, Genetic experiment, Hafsia Herzi, Horror, Jake Ryan Scott, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Joe Russo, John Cena, John Gulager, Johnny on the Run, Kate McKinnon, Le roi de l'évasion, Lewis Gilbert, Literary adaptation, Ludovic Berthillot, Maggie Grace, Marci Miller, Mark Harriott, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mike Matthews, Naomie Harris, Pine-Thomas, Proud Mary, Rampage, Reviews, Rival gangs, Rob Cohen, Robert Downey Jr, Robert Lowery, Romance, Ryan Kwanten, Sequel, Sydney Tafler, Taraji P. Henson, Thanos, The Hurricane Heist, The Monster of Highgate Ponds, They Made Me a Killer, Thriller, Toby Kebbell, Unhappy Birthday, Video game, William C. Thomas

They Made Me a Killer (1946) / D: William C. Thomas / 64m

Cast: Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, Lola Lane, Frank Albertson, Elisabeth Risdon, Byron Barr, Edmund MacDonald, Ralph Sanford, James Bush

Rating: 5/10 – a man (Lowery) drives across country after the death of his brother and gives a lift to a woman (Lane) who tricks him into being the getaway driver in a bank robbery, a situation that sees him on the run from the police but determined to prove his innocence; a gritty, hard-boiled film noir, They Made Me a Killer adds enough incident to its basic plot to keep viewers entertained from start to finish without really adding anything new or overly impressive to the mix, but it does have a brash performance from Lowery, and Thomas’s direction ensures it’s another solid effort from Paramount’s B-movie unit, Pine-Thomas.

Proud Mary (2018) / D: Babak Najafi / 89m

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Danny Glover, Neal McDonough, Margaret Avery, Xander Berkeley, Rade Serbedzija, Erik LaRay Harvey

Rating: 3/10 – a female assassin (Henson) finds herself protecting the teenage boy (Winston) whose father she killed years before, and at a time when her actions cause a murderous dispute between the gang she works for and their main rival; as the titular Proud Mary, Henson makes for a less than convincing assassin in this modern day blaxploitation thriller that lets itself down constantly thanks to a turgid script and lacklustre direction, and which has far too many moments where suspension of disbelief isn’t just required but an absolute necessity.

Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) / D: John Gulager / 82m

Cast: Marci Miller, Jake Ryan Scott, Mary Kathryn Bryant, Lynn Andrews III, Sara Moore, Diane Ayala Goldner, Clu Gulager

Rating: 3/10 – arriving in a small Oklahoman town with her teenage son, Ruth (Miller) attempts to put down roots after over ten years of running from the child cult that nearly cost her her life, but she soon finds that safety still isn’t something she can count on; number ten in the overall series, Children of the Corn: Runaway is yet another entry that keeps well away from any attempts at providing anything new, and succeeds only in being as dull to watch as you’d expect, leaving unlucky viewers to ponder on why these movies still keep getting made when it’s clear the basic premise has been done to death – again and again and again…

Johnny on the Run (1953) / D: Lewis Gilbert / 68m

Cast: Eugeniusz Chylek, Sydney Tafler, Michael Balfour, Edna Wynn, David Coote, Cleo Sylvestre, Jean Anderson, Moultrie Kelsall, Mona Washbourne

Rating: 7/10 – after running away from his foster home in Edinburgh, a young Polish boy, Janek (Chylek), unwittingly falls in with two burglars (Tafler, Balfour), and then finds himself in a Highland village where the possibility of a new and better life is within his grasp; an enjoyable mix of drama and comedy from the UK’s Children’s Film Foundation, Johnny on the Run benefits from sterling performances, Gilbert’s astute direction, excellent location work, and a good understanding of what will interest both children and adults alike, making this one of the Foundation’s better entries, and still as entertaining now as when it was first released.

Ferdinand (2017) / D: Carlos Saldanha / 108m

Cast: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, Anthony Anderson, Bobby Cannavale, Peyton Manning, David Tennant, Jeremy Sisto, Lily Day, Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, Gabriel Iglesias

Rating: 8/10 – a young bull called Ferdinand (Cena) whose disposition includes a fondness for flowers and protecting other animals, finds himself temporarily living with a supportive family, until events bring him back to the world of bullfighting that he thought he’d left behind; the classic children’s tale gets the Blue Sky treatment, and in the process, retains much of the story’s whimsical yet pertinent takes on pacifism, anti-bullying, and gender diversity, while providing audiences with a rollicking and very humorous adventure that makes Ferdinand a very enjoyable experience indeed.

The Hurricane Heist (2018) / D: Rob Cohen / 98m

Cast: Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Ralph Ineson, Melissa Bolona, Ben Cross, Jamie Andrew Cutler, Christian Contreras

Rating: 4/10 – thieves target a US Treasury facility during a Category 5 hurricane, but don’t reckon on their plans going awry thanks to a Treasury agent (Grace), a meteorologist (Kebbell), and his ex-Marine brother (Kwanten); as daft as you’d expect, The Hurricane Heist continues the downward career spiral of Cohen, and betrays its relatively small budget every time it sets up a major action sequence, leaving its talented cast to thrash against the wind machines in search of credibility and sincerity, a notion that the script abandons very early on as it maximises all its efforts to appear as ridiculous as possible (which is the only area in which it succeeds).

The Monster of Highgate Ponds (1961) / D: Alberto Cavalcanti / 59m

Cast: Sophie Clay, Michael Wade, Terry Raven, Ronald Howard, Frederick Piper, Michael Balfour, Roy Vincente, Beryl Cooke

Rating: 6/10 – when his uncle (Howard) returns home from a trip to Malaya, David (Wade) gets to keep a large egg that’s been brought back, but little does he realise that a creature will hatch from the egg – a creature David, his sister Sophie (Clay), and their friend, Chris (Raven) need to protect from the authorities until his uncle returns home from his latest trip; though the special effects that bring the “monster” to life are less than impressive, there’s a pleasing low budget, wish fulfillment vibe to The Monster of Highgate Ponds that allows for the absurdity of it all to be taken in stride, and thanks to Cavalcanti’s relaxed direction, that absurdity makes the movie all the more enjoyable.

Rampage (2018) / D: Brad Peyton / 107m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy

Rating: 5/10 – a gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator are all exposed to an illegal genetic engineering experiment and become massively bigger and more aggressive thanks to the corporation behind the experiment, leaving the gorilla’s handler (Johnson) to try and help put things right; based on a video game, and as brightly ridiculous as any movie version of a video game could be, Rampage uses its (very) simple plotting to bludgeon the audience into submission with a variety of exemplary digital effects, while also trying to dredge up a suitable amount of emotion along the way, but in the end – and surprisingly – it’s Johnson’s knowing performance and Morgan’s affected government spook that trade this up from simple disaster to almost disaster.

Unhappy Birthday (2011) / D: Mark Harriott, Mike Matthews / 91m

aka Amen Island

Cast: David Paisley, Christina De Vallee, Jill Riddiford, Jonathan Deane

Rating: 4/10 – Rick (Paisley) and his girlfriend, Sadie (De Vallee), along with their friend Jonny (Keane), travel to the tidal island of Amen to reunite Sadie with her long lost sister, only to find that the islanders have a secret that threatens the lives of all three of them; a low budget British thriller with distinct echoes of The Wicker Man (1973) – though it’s not nearly as effective – Unhappy Birthday highlights the isolated nature of the island and the strangeness of its inhabitants, but reduces its characters to squabbling malcontents pretty much from the word go, which makes spending time with them far from appealing, and stops the viewer from having any sympathy for them once things start to go wrong.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) / D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 149m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, William Hurt, Letitia Wright

Rating: 8/10 – Thanos (Brolin) finally gets around to collecting the Infinity stones and only the Avengers (and almost every other Marvel superhero) can stop him – or can they?; there’s much that could be said about Avengers: Infinity War, but suffice it to say, after eighteen previous movies, Marvel have finally made the MCU’s version of The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

The King of Escape (2009) / D: Alain Guiraudie / 90m

Original title: Le roi de l’évasion

Cast: Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi, Pierre Laur, Luc Palun, Pascal Aubert, François Clavier, Bruno Valayer, Jean Toscan

Rating: 6/10 – when a middle-aged homosexual tractor salesman (Berthillot) falls in love with the daughter (Herzi) of a rival salesman, this unexpected turn of events has further unexpected repercussions, all of which lead the pair to go on the run from her father and the police; as much a comedy of manners as an unlikely romance, The King of Escape is humorous (though far from profound), and features too many scenes of its central couple running across fields and through woods, something that becomes as tiring for the viewer as it must have been for the actors, though the performances are finely judged, and Guiraudie’s direction displays the increasing confidence that would allow him to make a bigger step with Stranger by the Lake (2013).

Solace (2015)

11 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

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.

Heist (2015)

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Bus 657, Casino, Crime, Dave Bautista, Drama, Gina Carano, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Review, Robbery, Robert De Niro, Scott Mann, Thriller

D: Scott Mann / 93m

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert De Niro, Dave Bautista, Gina Carano, Morris Chestnut, Kate Bosworth, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Summer Altice, D.B. Sweeney, Lydia Hull

There are few things in the world of cinema more dispiriting, more dismal, than the sight of good actors struggling to make something out of nothing. We’ve all seen them: those star-drenched movies that feature a great cast; the kind of movie where you can’t help but think, “Well, if they all signed up for it then it must be good”. But here’s the thing, the thing that a lot of people forget: actors, just like everyone else on the planet, have bills to pay, and so, sometimes, they forget about the “art” of cinema and focus on getting paid. And you can tell within minutes of the movie starting that the Oscar-winner in the supporting role is bored, or that the up-and-coming actor with a few good roles under his belt is trying too hard by way of compensating for the paper-thin nature of his character, and the star looks weary throughout, as if once committed to making the movie he can’t wait for filming to be over. (And let’s not mention any promotion work, where they might have to talk about the movie and how “good” it is…)

And so it is with Heist, a movie that has no real reason for existing, and wouldn’t be missed if by some chance it suddenly didn’t. This is knock-off movie making of the finest ordure, a terrible waste of the cast’s time, the crew’s time, your time, everybody’s time. It sucks, and royally. Despite what you see on screen, the overwhelming impression is of a movie made just for the sake of it, because somebody – and here we have to lay the blame very firmly at the feet of writer Stephen Cyrus Sepher – had an idea for a movie and they managed to persuade five separate production companies to cough up the money to make it. And as so often happens in these situations, nobody looked at Sepher’s script and said, “Er, hang on a second…”

Ironically given the movie’s subject matter, this should be filed under “take the money and run”, as everyone involved does not quite enough to make Heist a watchable affair, from Mann’s uninspired, by-the-numbers direction to Sepher’s cliché-ridden, nonsensical script to half a dozen bored performances that help to sap the life out of a movie that’s already on life support. The main offender is De Niro, giving possibly the worst performance of his career, a lazy, credibility-free caricature of a gangster. De Niro is so bad that if you were to show someone who had no idea about his career or his legacy this particular movie, and then showed them, say, Raging Bull (1980), that someone would be completely baffled as to how it could be the same actor. This is a role where he mugs his way through in lieu of providing a recognisable character, and where he makes absolutely no attempt to convince the audience that his character’s sudden change of heart in the last ten minutes is in any way believable.

Elsewhere, the movie’s star looks tired and/or bored, with Morgan summing up just enough energy to get him through each scene, while Bautista undoes the kudos he’s gained from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) by giving such a one-note performance it’s embarrassing (though to be fair his character doesn’t exactly benefit from being written that well). He’s matched by Chestnut as De Niro’s psychotic right hand man, but both actors are outdone by Gosselaar’s crooked cop, a wise-cracking annoyance who’s introduced in the most unlikely of fashions and continues to be annoying until the script finally has done with him. And Carano continues to undo the good work she did in Haywire (2011) by steadfastly refusing to alter her expression no matter what.

With so many things going against it, Heist struggles along from scene to scene, clearly happening in its own little alternate universe where the laws of plausibility are flouted with impunity, and where bad directing, writing and acting are actively encouraged and supported. The plot, such as it is, involves Morgan teaming up with Bautista to rob De Niro’s casino, but when the robbery goes wrong, they hijack a bus and head for Texas (as you do). Bautista is bad through and through – hey, he doesn’t care if the pregnant lady on board goes into labour, that’s how badass he is – but Morgan is doing it to pay for his sick daughter’s transplant operation (so he’s much more noble). The threat of passengers being killed keeps the police at bay, while De Niro and Chestnut beaver away in the background looking for a way to isolate Morgan from the bus and for De Niro to get his money back. Along the way Carano becomes an ally, Bosworth cameos as De Niro’s daughter, and bus driver D.B. Sweeney continually looks like he’s wondering what happened to his career.

So, it’s a bad movie, but it’s professionally made and manages to look a little more glossy than your average TV movie, but with so many “did they really just do that?” moments littering the narrative, no amount of goodwill generated by the production crew can mitigate for the farrago of bad ideas and decisions made in front of the camera. This could – and should – have been better in every way but sadly, no one took the time or made the effort to improve things, and the result is a movie that should be a dictionary definition of the word lame. Or awful. Or lousy. Or rubbish (you get the picture).

Rating: 3/10 – one to avoid, Heist only scores so highly because the crew, at least, weren’t asleep at the wheel; with no one attempting to correct the mistakes inherent in the script, or even recognise them, all the viewer can do is to try and stop their jaw from continually hitting the floor from seeing all the ridiculous antics the script is packed with.

Desierto (2015)

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alondra Hidalgo, Border crossing, Drama, Gael García Bernal, Illegal immigrants, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jonás Cuarón, Murder, Racism, Review, Sniper, Survival, Thriller

Desierto

D: Jonás Cuarón / 94m

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Alondra Hidalgo, Diego Cataño, Marco Pérez, Lew Temple

In Jonás Cuarón’s second feature Desierto, we’re quickly introduced to a group of Mexicans who are being smuggled across the border into the US. They’re in the back of a truck, and amongst them is Moises, played by Gael García Bernal. When the truck breaks down on the edge of a vast salt flat, Moises is the only one who can pronounce the truck beyond repair. Faced with the problem of how to get these “illegals” to their expected destination, two of the “guides” decide to go the rest of the way on foot. This involves trekking across some rugged countryside, but one of the guides is in more of a hurry than the other, and soon there are two groups making the journey, the ones who can keep up with the main guide’s fast pace, and the few laggers who are encouraged by the other.

The distance that develops between them comes in handy when the first group are targeted by loony self-styled border guard and all-round racist psycho Sam, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. One by one he picks them off with his sniper’s rifle, and leaves them dead in a clearing, men and women. It’s all the same to Sam, and is one area where he does believe in equal opportunity. Watching this massacre transpire, Moises and the rest of the second group, which includes Adela, played by Alondra Hidalgo, soon flee the scene, but not without tipping off Sam as to their presence. Helped by his close companion and canine buddy Tracker – who he’s apparently trained to sniff out and savage illegal immigrants – Sam hunts down the remaining illegals until only Moises remains to stand against him. Which of course he does.

Wearing its confused heart on its sleeve from the outset, Desierto wants to be a taut, hard-edged thriller: brutal, unapologetic and bad-ass. But therein lies Desierto‘s problem, because at its core it’s really a wannabe bad-ass movie that lacks conviction, and steals as much as it can from as many other variations on Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoesdack’s The Most Dangerous Game (1932) as it can. Now, a little plagiarism (or homage, as Hollywood likes to call it) can go a long way, but when that plagiarism is used to so little effect, then it makes for such a dispiriting experience that the viewer could be forgiven for taking out their own sniper rifle and blasting away at the screen just to get a buzz on. As a thriller it’s a non-starter, thanks to Cuarón’s flat, uninspired direction, and the lack of investment made by the script in any of the characters (the responsibility of Cuarón again and co-scribe Mateo Garcia).

Moises, Adela, even Sam – all are relieved of any kind of back story. We don’t know why any of the Mexicans are travelling across the border in the first place, and without this information, without knowing what their hopes or dreams or ambitions are once they reach the US, it’s nigh on impossible to care about them. Even as you watch the massacre, you’ll be more aware of how the camera has been placed than whether or not the the life of the person being shot and killed is worth your sympathy (yes, it’s a cleverly staged and “executed” massacre, and also rather well edited – so that’s okay then).

And equally we know nothing about Sam, a man of whom you could say he’s a cartridge short of a full magazine, or to border control what Bill Clinton was to same sex marriages. He’s a cipher, a boogeyman for the Mexicans to run from (and over the course of the movie that’s all they do), as he moans and complains to his acrobatic dog about the Hell he’s living in. It makes you want to yell at him, “Well if it’s that bad, sell all your guns and move to Florida!” Instead he continues to act like an avenging angel, but one with no clear conception of why he’s behaving the way he does, and so becomes a character who’s too far-fetched even to boo or hiss.

Cuarón began writing the script around 2006, and then took time off from it to help his father make a little movie called Gravity (2013). He’s on record as saying that the problem of illegal immigrants (and not just those crossing the US-Mexico border) was always intended to be a part of the story, but watching the movie it seems clear that somewhere along the way that particular subtext got lost in translation, and in such a way that it never really appears at all. And Cuarón has also stated that he didn’t invest in any back stories because he didn’t feel they were necessary, and that viewers could – and should – have the choice to make up their own minds about things like motivation and personal choice. It seems very much as though Cuarón had several ideas for the movie, and what it was about, but somehow forgot to follow through on any of them.

In the end, and despite some stunning cinematography by Damian Garcia, Desierto is muddled and insubstantial. The performances are average, with only Morgan trying to do anything to salvage the mess he’s found himself in, and there’s an air of “that’ll do” about scenes that doesn’t help either. Fans of this kind of movie will be dismayed, while casual viewers may well wonder how on earth Desierto managed to win the FIPRESCI Prize for Special Presentations at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Rating: 4/10 – it looks good, and there’s a germ of a good idea here, but Desierto is a misfire that never recovers from its writer/director’s indecision as to what kind of a movie it should be; file under “I coulda been a contender”.