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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

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Tag Archives: Liam Neeson

British Classics: Love Actually (2003)

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Comedy, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, London, Love, Provence, Review, Richard Curtis, Romance, Xmas

D: Richard Curtis / 135m

Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Colin Firth, Gregor Fisher, Martin Freeman, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Laura Linney, Heike Makatsch, Kris Marshall, Martine McCutcheon, Lúcia Moniz, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Joanna Page, Alan Rickman, Rodrigo Santoro, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton

In the weeks leading up to Xmas, several friends and relatives who are all connected to each other find themselves dealing with love in (almost) all its various forms. David (Grant) is the newly elected Prime Minister who finds himself attracted to Natalie (McCutcheon), a junior member of the staff at 10 Downing Street. Mark (Lincoln) is the best friend of Peter (Ejiofor), who has just married Juliet (Knightley) – who Mark is secretly in love with. Writer Jamie (Firth), after being cheated on by his girlfriend, heads to Provence to write his latest novel, and falls in love with his housekeeper, Aurélia (Moniz). David’s sister, Karen (Thompson), begins to suspect that her husband, Harry (Rickman), is having an affair with someone at his work. Meanwhile, one of his other employees, Sarah (Linney), has feelings for her colleague, Karl (Santoro), but doesn’t know how to broach them. Daniel (Neeson), a friend of Karen’s, is a recent widower who’s stepson Sam (Brodie-Sangster) reveals his own life for a girl at his school. John (Freeman) and Judy (Page) are body doubles working on a movie, while Colin (Marshall) dreams of visiting the U.S. where he believes his being British will attract lots of women.

The glue that binds all these characters together, even more so than writer/director Richard Curtis’s excessive generosity in connecting them in the first place, is the character of Billy Mack (Nighy), an aging singer making a comeback with a cover version of The Troggs’ Love Is All Around, retitled Christmas Is All Around. Whenever the movie is spending time with the other characters, Billy is often there in the background, his cheesy monstrosity of a Xmas record and louche behaviour a much needed antidote to the surfeit of sentimentality and saccharine romanticism that peppers the narrative from start to finish. Even the less “happy” storylines – Harry and Karen, Sarah and Karl, Juliet and Mark – are bittersweet entries that are layered with poignancy and hopefulness. But that’s the point of the movie: it’s a positive message of love for everyone. Even if a marriage founders for a moment (Harry and Karen), or love is a case of wrong place, wrong time (Mark and Juliet), or even if it never gets off the ground at all (Sarah and Karl), all the clichés are in place: love will find a way, love is all you need, love conquers all… That Curtis holds it all together and still manages to make it work despite all the plot contrivances and rampant wish fulfillment that threaten to derail it several times over, is a testament to his confidence in the material.

Of course, he’s aided by an accomplished ensemble cast who rise to their individual challenges with gusto and no small amount of charm. Grant’s dance routine, Rickman’s hangdog expressions, Nighy’s inappropriate smirking – all of these character beats and more help to make the movie a feast of feelgood moments that linger like treasured memories long after it’s ended. Curtis may have laid on the romance with a trowel (sometimes it’s like being battered over the head with a dozen red roses), but this is a very, very funny movie with endlessly quotable lines (Colin: “Stateside I am Prince William without the weird family”), visual gags aplenty, and the ability to spring a number of clever narrative sleights of hand when you’re least expecting them. It’s an appealing, but unsophisticated slice of romantic fairy tale excess that’s bolstered by pin-sharp humour, terrific performances, and a refreshing awareness that it all takes place in a fantasy-based “reality” of Curtis’s devising (where else would the US President get such a public dressing down for his behaviour?). Fifteen years on, it remains a perennial favourite at Xmas, and despite an initial lack of enthusiasm on the part of critics, a movie that has transcended any criticism – deserved or otherwise – to become one of those rare movies that can be enjoyed over and over again, and which never seems to grow old or stale with repeated viewings.

Rating: 8/10 – a movie that tells nine separate stories and which does justice to all of them, Love Actually is a moving, thoughtful, and emotional look at love itself and what it means for a variety of people in a variety of situations and circumstances (though notably, not anyone who’s LGBT); comic and romantic in equal measure, it’s a movie you can fall in love with easily and unreservedly (and any movie that contains Jeanne Moreau in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo has got to be getting things more right than wrong).

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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

17 Saturday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Comedy, Drama, Ethan Coen, Gold prospector, James Franco, Joel Coen, Liam Neeson, Outlaw, Review, Tim Blake Nelson, Tom Waits, Wagon train, Western, Zoe Kazan

D: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen / 133m

Cast: Tyne Daly, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Zoe Kazan, Harry Melling, Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jonjo O’Neill, Chelcie Ross, Saul Rubinek, Tom Waits

Six tales from the Old West: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, in which the titular singing outlaw (Nelson) rides into a small town and finds himself threatened with being shot at almost every turn; Near Algodones, in which a would-be bank robber (Franco) underestimates the difficulty of robbing his latest target, and winds up on the verge of being lynched; Meal Ticket, in which a grizzled impresario (Neeson) travels from town to town in a wagon that converts into a small stage that allows an armless and legless young orator called Harrison (Melling) to perform; All Gold Canyon, in which an aging gold prospector (Waits) discovers a valley that may just provide him with the strike he’s being hoping for; The Gal Who Got Rattled, in which a young woman (Kazan) travelling to Oregon by wagon train with her brother, finds herself alone and at the financial mercy of an unscrupulous trail hand; and The Mortal Remains, in which a group of travellers on a stage coach discover that their destination may not be exactly the one they’re expecting…

The Coen brothers have apparently been writing Western short stories for years, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs showcases some of those stories, plus one based on a story by Jack London (All Gold Canyon), in a handy compendium sized movie that offers a variety of pleasures for the interested viewer. Each tale or segment is different from the others both in terms of content and approach, though the Coens’ trademark humour can be found in all of them, and each is self-contained and thematically restrained. With no overlaps or need to wonder if a character from one story will pop up in another one, the various tales are linked only by a framing device that depicts each story as part of a volume entitled The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the American Frontier. With this conceit established, the Coens proceed to have a lot of fun with their opening story, with Scruggs breaking the fourth wall and taking part in a series of shootouts that are ingeniously and very cleverly staged (the confrontation between Scruggs and Clancy Brown’s poker player is simply genius). There’s more physical humour to be found in Near Algodones, and though it is funny to watch, it’s the slightest of the six tales on offer.

The tone changes completely with Meal Ticket, and the story ends on a dark note that is a little uncomfortable, as commerce and altruism make for uneasy bedfellows (kudos too to the special effects work that makes Harrison’s limbless nature so convincing). Another switch is provided by All Gold Canyon, practically a solo performance by Waits and supported by some of the most stunning natural scenery seen in any movie this year. It speaks towards determinism and self-will, and like its predecessor, provides a wry commentary on the hardships of frontier life. Perhaps the most fully realised and affecting of all the stories is The Gal Who Got Rattled, which skillfully blends comedy and romance into its narrative, and which features a terrific performance from Kazan as an innocent abroad whose naïvete eventually gets the better of her (be warned: there are illustrations that accompany the stories in the framing device, and this one hints strongly at the story’s outcome). And lastly, The Mortal Remains sees the Coens ending the movie with a tale that strictly speaking isn’t related to the Old West or the frontier, but will be familiar to anyone who enjoys tales of the macabre or supernatural. All in all, the Coens have taken a chance in combining so many disparate stories within one movie, but such is their control over the material, and their confidence in their abilities as writers and directors, that as a result, it’s a movie that works exceptionally well throughout, and has much to offer – even for those who don’t like Westerns.

Rating: 8/10 – a compendium of stories that each hold their own, and which offer different narrative rewards, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an affectionate tribute to the Old West from a couple of writers/directors who clearly have a fascination for the period and its hardships; very funny in places, and with a dramatic flair to match, the movie sees the Coens back on form after the perceived stumble of Hail, Caesar! (2016), and showing that there’s still life in the Old West if you know where to look.

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Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Adrian Molina, Alexander Payne, Animation, Anthony Gonzalez, Awakening the Zodiac, Chadwick Boseman, Christoph Waltz, Coco, Comedy, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, Drama, Dylan Minnette, Fabrice du Welz, Family Fever, Gael García Bernal, Gary Oldman, Germany, Hallie Meyers-Shyer, History, Home Again, Horror, Jaume Collet-Serra, Joe Wright, Jonathan Wright, Kathrin Waligura, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lee Unkrich, Leslie Bibb, Liam Neeson, Matt Angel, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Message from the King, Mexico, Michael Sheen, Nico Sommer, Peter Trabner, Pixar, Reese Witherspoon, Reviews, Romance, Serial killer, Shane West, Steven Spielberg, Suzanne Coote, The Commuter, The Open House, The Pentagon Papers, The Post, The Washington Post, Thriller, Tom Hanks, True story, Vera Farmiga

Awakening the Zodiac (2017) / D: Jonathan Wright / 100m

Cast: Shane West, Leslie Bibb, Matt Craven, Nicholas Campbell, Kenneth Welsh, Stephen McHattie

Rating: 4/10 – no one knew it at the time but the notorious (and uncaptured) Zodiac killer filmed the murders he committed, something cash-strapped couple Mick and Zoe Branson (West, Bibb) discover when they come into possession of one of the reels, and then find themselves and those around them targeted by the Zodiac killer himself; there’s the germ of a good idea lurking somewhere in Awakening the Zodiac, but thanks to a sloppy script, wayward direction, and an indifferent approach to the Zodiac killer himself (by the end he’s just a generic movie-made serial killer), this never gets out of first gear, and settles for trundling along and signposting each narrative development with all the skill and style of a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Home Again (2017) / D: Hallie Meyers-Shyer / 97m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Candice Bergen, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitzky, Nat Wolff, Lake Bell

Rating: 7/10 – when middle-aged fledgling interior designer Alice (Witherspoon) splits from her unreliable husband (Sheen), the last thing she expects to do is allow three young men trying to break into the movie business to move into her guest house – and then become romantically involved with one of them (Alexander); it’s hard to criticise Home Again because despite it being almost drama-free and the very definition of innocuous, it also just wants to give audiences a good time, and on that very basic level it succeeds, but it’s still possibly the most lightweight romantic comedy of 2017.

Downsizing (2017) / D: Alexander Payne / 135m

Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Rolf Lassgård, Udo Kier, Søren Pilmark, Jason Sudeikis

Rating: 5/10 – the answer to the world’s population crisis is revealed to be shrinking people to the point where they’re five inches tall, something that sad-sack occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Damon) agrees to with alacrity, but being small proves to be no different from being normal-sized, and soon Paul is having to re-think everything he’s ever thought or believed; a closer examination of Downsizing (under a microscope perhaps) reveals a movie that contains too many scenes that pass by without contributing anything to the overall storyline, and a satirical approach to the idea itself that lacks purpose, and sadly for Payne fans, his trademark wit, making it all a dreary, leaden experience that goes on for waaaaaay too long.

Family Fever (2014) / D: Nico Sommer / 71m

Original title: Familien fieber

Cast: Kathrin Waligura, Peter Trabner, Deborah Kaufmann, Jörg Witte, Jan Amazigh Sid, Anais Urban

Rating: 7/10 – when two sets of parents get together for the weekend at the request of their respective children (who are a couple), none of them are able to deal with the fallout that comes with the revelation of a secret that threatens the security of both marriages; a German comedy/drama that doesn’t always go where the viewer might expect it to, Family Fever revels in the awkwardness and frustration felt by its quartet of main characters, and though it sadly runs out of steam in the last fifteen minutes, by then it’s done more than enough to provide plenty of wicked laughs and affecting drama.

Coco (2017) / D: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina / 105m

Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau

Rating: 8/10 – Miguel (Gonzalez) is a young boy whose family has rejected any kind of music in order to focus on selling shoes, which leads him into all sorts of trouble in the Underworld on Mexico’s Day of the Dead, trouble that could also mean his never returning to the land of the living; right now you’re never quite sure how a Pixar movie is going to work out, but Coco is a treat, its mix of clever character design, beautifully rendered animation (naturally), heartfelt storylines, and memorable songs making it one to savour time and again… though, be warned, you will be in tears towards the end.

Darkest Hour (2017) / D: Joe Wright / 125m

Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Stephen Dillane, Ben Mendelsohn, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West

Rating: 8/10 – it’s 1940 and Great Britain is faced with a challenge: who is to lead them against the fast-approaching menace of the Nazis, and if it has to be Winston Churchill (Oldman), then what can be done to undermine him and his authority?; the answer is quite a bit – for the most part – but history is firm on Churchill’s success, and so Darkest Hour, while featuring a superb performance from Oldman, has no choice but to succumb to retelling events that have already been retold numerous times before, and in doing so doesn’t offer the viewer anything new except for a number of very good performances and assured, and surprisingly sinewy direction from Wright.

Message from the King (2016) / D: Fabrice du Welz / 102m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez, Arthur Darbinyan, Lucan Melkonian, Diego Josef, Tom Felton, Chris Mulkey, Jake Weary

Rating: 5/10 – when his younger sister dies in suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles, South African cab driver Jacob King (Boseman) travels there to find out who caused her death and why – and exact revenge; a throwback to the kind of blaxploitation movies made in the Seventies, Message from the King at least refers to King as an angry brother in the traditional sense, but the movie’s plot is hollow, and the likes of Evans and Molina are wasted in roles that might have seemed fresh (again) in the Seventies, but here feel like caricatures for the movie to focus on in between bouts of King exacting his violent revenge.

The Commuter (2018) / D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 105m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Florence Pugh

Rating: 4/10 – ex-cop turned insurance salesman Michael MacCauley (Neeson) is approached by a mysterious woman (Farmiga) on his train home and tasked with finding a complete stranger who’s also on the train – what could possibly go wrong?; everything as it turns out, with The Commuter going off the rails soon after, and never getting back on track, something confirmed (if there was any doubt before then) when the script throws in an “I’m Spartacus/I’m Brian” moment (take your pick), as well as reminding everyone that Neeson really is too old for this kind of thing.

The Post (2017) / D: Steven Spielberg / 116m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healy

Rating: 9/10 – the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the level of deceit the US government had perpetrated on its citizens about its involvement in Vietnam, is explored through the days leading up to the Washington Times‘ courageous decision to publish despite the threat of imprisonment for treason that the White House was prepared to enforce; Streep is publisher Kay Graham, Hanks is legendary editor Ben Bradlee, and Spielberg is on excellent form, giving The Post a sense of immediacy and potency that other historical dramas can only dream of (and the relevance to today’s US political scene doesn’t even need to be made obvious).

The Open House (2018) / D: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote / 94m

Cast: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune, Sharif Atkins, Aaron Abrams, Edward Olson, Katie Walder

Rating: 3/10 – a recent widow (Dalton) and her mopey son (Minnette) get away from their grief and their problems at a house that’s up for sale – and find strange things going on there right from the start; an awful thriller that just refuses to make any sense or make either of its two main characters sympathetic, The Open House does everything it can to make you look away… and not in a good way.

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

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

aka The Secret Man

D: Peter Landesman / 103m

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Monster Calls (2016)

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cancer, Drama, Fantasy, Felicity Jones, Grief, J.A. Bayona, Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Literary adaptation, Patrick Ness, Sigourney Weaver, Stories, Toby Kebbell, Yew tree

monster_calls_ver2

D: J.A. Bayona / 108m

Cast: Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, James Melville, Geraldine Chaplin

Thirteen year old Conor O’Malley (MacDougall) is experiencing nightmares. In them, the church near his home collapses when the ground around it splits open, and Conor has to try and save his mother (Jones) who is in danger of disappearing into one of the fissures this devastation has wrought. When he wakes from these nightmares each night it is always 12:06. But the nightmares aren’t the only problem Conor has to deal with. His mother is suffering from cancer, and she’s not responding well to her treatment. His grandmother (Weaver) keeps mentioning that at some point, Conor will have to come and stay with her, but he doesn’t want to leave his mother; he still clings to the hope that she’ll get better. His father (Kebbell) lives in the US and is generally unsupportive, using the physical distance between them as an excuse. And at school, he’s the victim of bullying by one of the other boys in his class, Harry (Melville).

One night, at 12:07, Conor is drawing a picture of the view from his bedroom window when the large yew tree that is situated in the nearby graveyard transforms into a monster (Neeson) made from the tree’s trunk and branches. It approaches the house and after grabbing Conor from his bedroom, tells him that he’ll receive further visits from the monster, and that the monster will tell him three stories, after which Conor will then tell a fourth story, the truth behind his nightmares, which only he can tell. The monster is true to his word. On the first visit, he tells Conor the story of an old king who marries a young woman who many regard as a witch. When he dies she rules as regent until his grandson comes of age. She rules fairly but doesn’t want to relinquish her position, intending to marry the grandson instead. But the murder of the grandson’s true love leads to her being convicted of the crime, and she is only saved by the monster at the last moment.

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The second story concerns an apothecary whose livelihood is condemned by the local parson. When a terrible sickness breaks out, the parson’s two daughters fall ill, and he begs for the apothecary”s help, and swears he will do anything in order for his daughters to live, but the apothecary refuses, and the girls die. The monster appears and demolishes the parson’s house as a further punishment for his lack of faith. The third story concerns a man who feels himself to be invisible because no one ever takes notice of him, but when the monster aids him in this, it doesn’t solve things, merely adds further problems for him to deal with. These stories help Conor to deal with the various emotions he’s struggling with, and to make sense of them, leading inevitably, as the monster predicted, to his telling the fourth story, the truth about his nightmares…

At its heart, A Monster Calls is about impending loss and the grief that comes with it, both before and after. Adapted by Patrick Ness from his own novel, the movie is a dark, compelling, visually innovative tale of personal redemption in the face of overwhelming emotional distress. It’s a children’s tale about adult themes and how they can affect someone who is “too old to be a kid, too young to be a man”. By making Conor and his struggle to manage the full implications of his mother’s illness – her terminal illness – the focus of the story, Ness and director J.A. Bayona allow the movie to express the kind of feelings and emotions that we forget children can and do experience in these kinds of circumstances. It’s an obvious lesson, but presented in such a clear, immediate manner that Conor’s plight is readily acceptable, and convincingly played out.

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There may be some who will query why Conor’s road to the acceptance of his mother’s impending demise needs the presence of a fantasy giant made out of a yew tree. But allegory has always been a pertinent and effective way of dealing with, and expressing, the kinds of emotions that we keep buried inside us because of how painful they are. Conor’s emotions spill out through his nightmares, and in his search for an answer he calls on the monster, albeit unwittingly. When they first meet, Conor makes it clear he’s not scared, and nor should he be; after all, the monster is a creation formed from Conor’s own subconscious. But the stories the monster tells are far more than stories – they’re explanations of the various emotions and feelings that Conor is struggling with. And they pave the way for the truth, the real hurdle he must overcome in order to move forward. All this is relayed in such a plausible, non-sensationalist, and poignant fashion that any doubts as to the efficacy of such an approach is dismissed moments after the movie has begun.

The look of the movie is very important too, and here Bayona mixes a variety of styles to potent effect. There’s an almost documentary feel to the scenes where Conor is at school, as if the camera is eavesdropping on him. Then there are the scenes at home, the modest environment that looks like an inviting update on homes from the Seventies, what with Eugenio Caballero’s production design making everything look that just a little bit lived in, and Pilar Revuelta’s sterling set decoration as well. And then there are the animated interludes, the stories themselves, rendered in a mixture of styles, and each one enhancing the story it portrays. The movie is at its most confident in these sequences, taking the viewer away from the grim real world, and painting portraits of worlds where life is even harsher and less likely to offer the kind of solace Conor needs – at first glance, that is. It’s a brave decision, but one that pays off handsomely, as each sequence is captivating in its own right.

amonstercalls_trailer

The look of the monster is endlessly fascinating as well, with Neeson’s mo-capped features and physique a perfect fit for such an iconic creature. Despite not being “real”, the monster’s presence in the movie serves as a reminder that fantasy doesn’t have to mean an absence of credibility, and thanks to Ness’s tightly developed screenplay, this isn’t an issue the movie has to deal with at all. As the monster, Neeson delivers a perfectly modulated vocal performance, one replete with emotional nuances and textures that support the drama and justify his role in the production. As the two mothers connected by their shared love for each other, Weaver and Jones both give heartfelt performances that avoid unnecessary sentimentality, while Kebbell’s role calls for him to be affectionate yet callow, sympathetic yet distant, and emotionally obtuse. But it’s MacDougall’s performance that stands out, a complex, yet honest portrayal of a young boy’s struggle to acknowledge his own deep-rooted and frightening feelings about his mother, and what those feelings might do to him if he faces up to them. It’s a quietly bravura performance, generously encouraged by Bayona and the rest of the cast, and is as good as any performance by an adult actor in 2016.

There will be accusations that A Monster Calls is unremittingly bleak, and that its subject matter is not best suited to the so-called Young Adult market that many people will believe this is aimed at. Though Ness wrote the novel with that particular audience in mind, this version transcends notions of age and worldly experience by making Conor’s feelings universal, and for children and adults alike. Yes, it is bleak at times, and yes, it’s not an openly optimistic movie, but it is an uplifting, inspiring movie that celebrates maternal love, the sacrifices adults sometimes have to make to ensure that children remain children for just that little bit longer, and the resilience that we often forget children have when it comes to dealing with the darker aspects of growing up. This is a movie that does something completely unexpected: it challenges us to look at ourselves and ask, if we were in Conor’s shoes, would we beahve any differently? We might not call upon a monster to help us, but then, would it be such a bad idea?

Rating: 9/10 – an impressively mounted exploration of identity, hidden grief, and growing emotional despair, A Monster Calls is a crushingly honest look at how it feels to be losing someone you’re incredibly close to, and how those feelings can affect everything else around you; brilliantly realised, and with a tremendous performance from MacDougall, this is exceptional stuff indeed, and proof that intelligent, thought-provoking movies can also be beautiful and moving at the same time.

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Silence (2016)

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, Buddhism, Christianity, Drama, Historical drama, Issei Ogata, Japan, Liam Neeson, Literary adaptation, Martin Scorsese, Religion, Remake, Review, Shûsaku Endô, Tadanobu Asano

silence-poster

D: Martin Scorsese / 161m

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Issei Ogata, Liam Neeson, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Yoshi Oiza, Yôsuke Kubozuka, Ciarán Hinds

Seventeenth century Portugal: news has reached the Jesuit ministry that a missionary to Japan, Father Ferreira (Neeson), has renounced his faith and embraced not only the Japanese way of life, but their Buddhist teachings as well. Two of his pupils, Father Rodrigues (Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Driver), believing the news to be unsubstantiated rumour, are tasked with travelling to Japan and learning for themselves if the news is true. Needing a guide to help keep them safe once in Japan – the Japanese are persecuting anyone who promotes or follows the Christian faith – the two priests enlist the aid of Kichijiro (Kubozuka), a man whose contact with Christianity in his homeland has left him with a variety of personal demons.

Once in Japan, Rodrigues and Garupe soon discover how dangerous it is to be associated with Christianity. They witness the torture and murder of several villagers who have taken up the Christian faith, and are kept in hiding so that they don’t fall victim as well. They decide it will be safer for both of them if they split up, and make it easier to continue their search for Father Ferreira. But Rodrigues is soon captured. He’s assigned an interpreter (Asano), and is kept under the watchful eye of the local Inquisitor, Inoue-sama (Ogata). It soon transpires that Inoue wants Rodrigues to apostatize (renounce his belief in God) by stepping on an image of Christ. By this token, any Japanese who have been practicing Christianity will be allowed to live, and so will Rodrigues. Despite witnessing more atrocities, Rodrigues holds firm in his belief, even though his prayers remain frustratingly unanswered.

liam-neeson-explains-frail-appearance-says-he-lost-20-pounds-for-scorseses-silence

Rodrigues’ faith is tested time and again, and Inoue continually informs him of the obstacles that Christianity will always face in becoming established in Japan. Despair begins to set in when Garrpe is also found and his fate determined by an act of valour. For Rodrigues it’s the first of several turning points, all designed to bring him to the point of apostatizing, but when he finally comes face to face with Father Ferreira, instead of the encounter reaffirming his faith and his weakening determination to stand firm against the violence perpetrated by his captors, the priest finds himself even more stranded, both in terms of his faith and his emotions. With Inoue’s tactics beginning to finally wear him down, Rodrigues finds himself having to decide which is more important: his life and the lives of others, or his faith.

An adaptation of the novel by Shûsaku Endô (and previously made in 1971 by Masahiro Shinoda), Silence has been a project that Martin Scorsese has been looking to make for around thirty years. Passion projects don’t always turn out so well for their makers, their closeness to the material producing a kind of tunnel vision that filters out any flaws, but with this, Scorsese has made a riveting movie about faith, religious idealism, and agonising self-doubt. It’s a measured, deliberately paced movie that is unlikely to satisfy everyone who sees it, but if you give yourself over to it, then it’s a movie that will reward you over and over again.

It opens with a blank screen and a cacophony of natural sounds including insects that builds to a crescendo before we see the title displayed briefly, and then the picture cuts to a medium shot of two severed heads resting on a piece of wood. It’s an arresting opening, and what follows isn’t for the faint hearted as Christian converts are tortured and left to die, with Neeson’s anguished priest looking on. This is the backdrop the movie keeps returning to, the resolute dispassion with which the Japanese treat all Christians in their country unless they apostatize themselves. And this is the very cauldron of hate that Fathers Rodrigues and Garrpe throw themselves into thanks to their naivete and, it must be acknowledged, no small degree of religious arrogance. And it’s not long before they, and the viewer, realise that they’re out of their depth.

SILENCE

A major part of the narrative is taken up with the argument that Christianity has no place in the Japan of the seventeenth century, that the country’s Buddhist principles, although sharing many similar facets and ideas with the Christian faith, will never be superseded. Scorsese and co-writer Jay Cocks make much of this battle for hearts and minds, and the script is often eloquent on the subject, highlighting not the differences between Christianity and Buddhism, but their similarities. And the Japanese argument for religious isolationism has its merits when stood up against the arrogant assumption that the Japanese need Christianity to make their lives better. But while all this makes the argument sound quite a simple one, Scorsese and Cocks are also aware that faith – which can apparently move mountains – can also be stubbornly resistant to notions of change. Thus, Rodrigues endures physical torture and mental anguish, and has to be broken psychologically by Inoue (aided by the interpreter’s cruel barbs).

It’s always a difficult matter showing religious faith on screen without the characters seeming like zealots. Thanks to Scorsese’s meticulous direction, and Garfield’s magnificent central performance, Silence isn’t burdened by any notions of extreme religious belief, and nor is it hampered by too much exposition. Rodrigues’ and Garrpe’s mission is, on the face of it, a simple one, but as strangers in a strange land they underestimate their ability to make a difference. All they have is their belief in God, and it strengthens them. But when Rodrigues begins to doubt that God is even listening to his prayers, then it’s only a matter of time before that belief will be tested, and how strong that belief really is. Scorsese keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat, piling on the pressure, but in such a way that you don’t know which way Rodrigues will fall: back into renewed faith, or forward into religious exclusion.

silence-2016-scorsese

With the religious and cultural backdrops firmly established throughout, Scorsese refrains from adding the political upheaval Japan was experiencing at the time, and which played such a heavy part in the country’s rejection of the Christian faith. It’s a wise move, as the narrative isn’t about politics per se, but Inoue makes an important point at one stage, likening Spain, Portugal, Holland and England to the four courtesans of a king who wisely sends them away to guarantee himself a quiet life. The question is, why should Japan open its borders to other countries and see its lifestyle and traditions trampled upon? Again, Scorsese keeps the material focused on the battle for the hearts and minds of the Japanese people, and the audacity of the Jesuits for believing they could, and should, undermine a foreign culture.

Away from ideas of faith and religious fundamentalism, Silence is also a quietly beautiful movie to watch, with almost painting-like vistas and compositions delicately brought to the screen by the extraordinary combination of Rodrigo Pietro’s exquisite cinematography, Thelma Schoonmaker’s matchless editing skills, and Dante Ferretti’s outstanding production and costume designs. This is organic movie making at its best, a never-ending feast for the senses that’s rounded off by a lilting, elegant score courtesy of Kathryn and Kim Allen Kluge. And then there’s the performances. Garfield – maybe not everyone’s first choice for the lead role – impresses at every step, giving a passionate, despairing portrayal of a man facing a seemingly impossible choice: renounce God (and himself), or be complicit in the deaths of potentially thousands of people. Garfield is growing in stature as an actor, and with this and Hacksaw Ridge (2016) under his belt, is heading for the A-list at a rate of knots. He’s ably supported by Driver (though he doesn’t have a lot of screen time), a slyly vindictive turn from Asano, and Ogata’s distinctive, hypnotic, somewhat casual portrayal of a man who uses physical and psychological torture to ensure his country’s religious status quo. As for Neeson, his presence is necessarily limited, but when he is on screen, his appearance serves as a reminder that, outside out of certain recent movies he’s appeared in, he’s more than capable of giving a nuanced and intuitive performance.

As mentioned above, and at 161 minutes, Silence and its subject matter will no doubt put off some potential viewers, and it’s likely that many who do see it will not be swayed by its content, or Scorsese’s approach to the material. But this really is the work of a director operating at a very high level indeed, and his confidence and expertise is there in every scene and every shot. It’s a rare movie that examines religious morality and personal faith with such authority and poise, but Scorsese has pulled it off, and with no small measure of style.

Rating: 9/10 – superb on just about every level (only Garfield’s wandering accent is any cause for annoyance or concern), Silence is a demanding yet rewarding watch made by a director whose engagement with the material is masterful; a devastating movie about ideas that is intelligent and precise in its meanings, this is a very (very) early contender for Movie of the Year.

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Mini-Review: Taken 3 (2014)

13 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Dougray Scott, Famke Janssen, Forest Whitaker, Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Murder, Olivier Megaton, Review, Sequel, Thriller

Taken 3

D: Olivier Megaton / 109m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, Sam Spruell, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Don Harvey, Dylan Bruno, Andrew Howard, Jonny Weston

When Bryan Mills (Neeson) receives a visit from his ex-wife Lenore, it’s because she wants to let him know she still has feelings for him, and that her marriage – to Stuart St John (Scott) – is on the rocks. Bryan tells her that they can’t be together while she’s still married. Stuart pays him visit as well and asks Bryan to stay away from Lenore while they try to sort out their marriage; Bryan tells him he will.

The next day, Lenore asks to meet Bryan at his place. When he gets there he finds she’s been murdered. The police arrive and try to arrest him but he escapes. He tells his daughter, Kim (Grace) what’s happened and vows to find Lenore’s killer. The police, led by Inspector Franck Dotzler (Whitaker), pursue Bryan while he tries to figure out the reason for Lenore’s death. He learns that Stuart has hired personal bodyguards and, fearing Kim is in danger from Lenore’s killer and Stuart is somehow involved, he abducts Stuart and learns that he owes a lot of money to a Russian gangster named Oleg Malankov (Spruell), and that Lenore’s death was probably to make Stuart pay up. With the help of his ex-CIA colleagues (Orser, Gries, Warshofsky), Bryan goes after Malankov, intending to kill him.

Taken 3 - scene

And so, the law of diminishing returns rears its predictable head and helps bury yet another action franchise. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, as this was a movie that wouldn’t have been made if 20th Century Fox hadn’t wanted it in the first place. With that decision made, and with Neeson unwilling to star unless no one was actually “taken”, you can see how the project was doomed from the start. As it is, no one could have been prepared for just how little effort was going to be put in by all concerned. From the lazy, credibility-free script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, to the wayward, unfocused direction by Megaton, to the headache-inducing, rapid cross-cutting of the action scenes, to the (mobile) phoned-in performances from a cast that should know better.

Just how bad is it? Two examples: Lenore is killed by having her throat cut, but when Stuart has to identify her at the morgue she clearly has a scar where the cut should be. And despite being “trapped” in an underground car park full of police, Bryan escapes with ease by driving through them all and exiting the car park – which the police haven’t thought to cordon off or block. There are plenty of other moments where the unfortunate viewer will be shaking their head in disbelief, and plenty of other moments where they’ll be wondering if it can get any worse – the answer is yes, it can.

Rating: 3/10 – a sad conclusion to an otherwise entertaining if always far-fetched action franchise, Taken 3 is a spectacular misfire that often defies explanation; if there is to be a fourth movie – and Neeson appears to be keen on the idea – then maybe the tag line will be It Really Does End Here… Probably.

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Taken (2008)

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Albanians, Drama, Famke Janssen, Human trafficking, Kidnapping, Liam Neeson, Luc Besson, Maggie Grace, Paris, Pierre Morel, Review, Thriller

Taken

D: Pierre Morel / 93m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Olivier Rabourdin, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Holly Valance, Katie Cassidy, Gérard Watkins, Xander Berkeley

Retired government agent (or “preventer”) Bryan Mills (Neeson) is divorced from his wife Lenore (Janssen) and struggling to re-connect with his daughter, Kim (Grace). He’s over-protective, which works against him, and never more so when, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Kim tells him she’s been invited to stay in Paris during the summer. He’s against the idea at first, but eventually gives his permission for her to go. Travelling with her friend, Amanda (Cassidy), Kim arrives in Paris and they settle into the apartment where they’re staying. But on the first night, intruders break in to the apartment, and Kim, who’s on the phone to her father, watches as she sees them grab Amanda, and then come looking for her.

Bryan learns that her abductors are Albanians who specialise in human trafficking, kidnapping young female tourists to be sold as sex slaves to the highest bidder. He travels to Paris, and with the help of old friend, Jean-Claude (Rabourdin), devises a plan to find Kim and get her back. He learns about a construction site where there is a problem with “new merchandise”, but Kim isn’t there; instead he finds a woman who has Kim’s jacket. He leaves with her and holes up in a hotel room where she tells him about a house in the Rue de Paradis. The house proves to be where the Albanians have their base. Bryan kills all but one of them, whom he tortures for more information.

The Albanian tells Bryan about a man called Saint Clair (Watkins), who hosts parties that act as cover for the buying and selling of any kidnapped women. Brian sees Kim there, but before he can rescue her, he’s knocked unconscious. When he comes to, Saint Clair and his henchmen have Bryan tied up, and are about to kill him…

Taken - scene

Back in 2008, the idea of Liam Neeson playing a full-on action role was regarded as a bit unusual, partly because few of his previous roles had been in the action genre, and partly because of his age (he was fifty-six at the time). But despite the preposterous, gung-ho approach taken by writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, Neeson’s über-serious portrayal of Mills somehow offset the movie’s cocksure silliness, and made Taken a huge success at the box office (the movie took around $225 million worldwide).

The idea of a man with “a special set of skills” running riot in Paris with a flagrant disregard for the law or due process, while not exactly new, benefits hugely from Neeson’s performance. His single-minded pursuit of his daughter’s kidnappers grounds the movie so effectively that even when Mills is directly in the line of fire of a man with a semi-automatic weapon and he doesn’t receive so much as a scratch, it’s almost like an entitlement; he’s a father, and what he’s doing is right (godammit).

This leads to a lot of indiscriminate killing, and in one sequence casual maiming, as Mills sense of justice borders on the psychopathic (he shoots one Albanian in the back, something our cinematic heroes are very rarely seen to do). This unapologetic violence is what gives the movie its edge, as Mills’ unfettered brutality keeps the audience wondering just how far he will go to rescue his daughter. Neeson is completely focused and convincing, and when you realise just how committed he is, you almost begin to feel sorry for the bad guys – they really don’t stand a chance (even with the nature of the script and the storyline, they really don’t stand a chance).

Away from the continual bloodshed, the earlier scenes where we first meet Bryan and Kim are more compulsory than enthralling, while the idea that Bryan sees his daughter as being younger than she is and in need of more “protection” is never fully developed (when he tells Lenore Kim’s been abducted you half expect him to say, “I told you so”). This is less a kind of over-developed fatherly concern and more of a deep-rooted paranoia, which might have had a more effective pay-off if Kim had been kidnapped because of something he did in the past. As it is, it still leaves Bryan Mills as one seriously screwed-up ex-government agent, and his morally dubious approach to “working” makes him more interesting than most armed avengers.

This extra-added depth to the main character, allied with Neeson’s compelling performance, makes Taken a bit of a guilty pleasure. Benson and Kamen’s script does its best to plug up any plot holes when they crop up, but it doesn’t always succeed – Bryan’s friend, Sam (Orser), identifies the kidnapper Bryan speaks to over the phone with only two words to go on (that’s some voice recognition software they’ve got there!) – and outside of Bryan, Kim and Lenore, characterisations are kept to a minimum, with broad brush strokes used throughout. As the bad guys, the Albanians could have been Russian or Croatian or any other Eastern European ethnic minority, and lack an identity as a result: they’re just there to be despatched as quickly as possible.

The fight scenes are cleverly constructed and choreographed to make Neeson look like he’s doing most of his own stunts (though when he’s not it’s a little too obvious), and it all looks appropriately bone-crunching and painful (the sound effects guys must have a field day on these kinds of movies). And as if to pour scorn on the idea that French stunt drivers aren’t the best in the world, there’s a short sequence involving Bryan chasing a boat that is as brazenly exciting and well edited as any in, say, The Transporter movies, or Ronin (1998). Having cut his teeth on The Transporter (2005), Morel directs with confidence and knows enough to let Neeson take the reins and do what he does best, while injecting a fierce intensity into the action scenes. Janssen and Grace provide adequate support (though Grace does overdo the squeals of delight when Kim gets something she wants), while a sub-plot involving a pop star (Valance) comes and goes so quickly that you wonder why it was included.

Rating: 8/10 – a thudding, crunching, pumped-up action movie shot mostly at night for maximum atmosphere, Taken is a supremely confident addition to the lone avenger sub-genre of action movies; with a commanding central performance by Neeson that re-energised his career, this should be filed under “Gratuitous Violence – for the enjoyment of”.

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A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014)

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crime, Dan Stevens, David Harbour, DEA, Drama, Kidnapping, Lawrence Block, Liam Neeson, Literary adaptation, Matt Scudder, Murder, Ransom, Review, Scott Frank, Thriller

Walk Among the Tombstones, A

D: Scott Frank / 114m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, David Harbour, Boyd Holbrook, Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Adam David Thompson, Mark Consuelos, Sebastian Roché

New York, 1991.  Matt Scudder (Neeson) is a cop with a drink problem.  When armed robbers hold up the bar he’s in, he chases them outside and shoots all three of them, fatally.

Eight years later, Scudder is an unlicensed private detective, still working in New York, and a recovering alcoholic.  When a fellow AA member, Peter (Holbrook) tells him his brother, Kenny (Stevens) wants to offer him a job, Scudder isn’t really interested at first, but he decides to see what the job is about.  Kenny offers him $20,000 to find the men who kidnapped and killed his wife.  Kenny’s reluctance to involve the police tips off Scudder that he’s a drug dealer, and he declines the offer.  When Scudder returns to his apartment later, he finds Kenny waiting for him.  Kenny tells him about the kidnapping, and how he was left to find his wife dismembered in the trunk of a car.  He also leaves a tape recording the kidnappers made of them torturing his wife.  Scudder decides to take the case.

Sensing that Kenny’s wife may not have been the kidnappers first victim, Scudder visits the library to go through the newspaper records.  He strikes up a conversation with a young boy, TJ (Bradley), and together they discover two other murder victims where abduction and subsequent dismemberment have occurred.  Scudder visits the cemetery where the second victim’s body was discovered, and talks to one of the groundskeepers, Jonas (Ólafsson).  Jonas behaves suspiciously, and when he leaves work, Scudder follows him to his apartment.  While there he discovers that the partner of the second victim lives in the building opposite.  Beginning to see a connection, Scudder goes up onto the roof of Jonas’s building and finds a shed that contains evidence of Jonas’ involvement in her kidnapping and murder.  When Jonas returns, he gives Scudder a name – Ray – then jumps off the roof to his death.

Later, Scudder learns that the first victim was a DEA agent, and that the kidnappers may be rogue or ex-DEA agents themselves, as the second victim and Kenny’s wife were both linked to drug dealers.  When they kidnap a fourth victim, the daughter of a Russian drug dealer, Yuri (Roché), he calls on Kenny and Scudder’s help.  Scudder negotiates a ransom drop in the same cemetery where he met Jonas, but the drop goes badly, and the kidnappers get away… with TJ hiding in their van.

Walk Among the Tombstones, A - scene

Adapted from the tenth book in the series of Matt Scudder novels written by Lawrence Block, A Walk Among the Tombstones is a grim, atmospheric crime thriller that features a brooding, melancholy performance from Neeson, and suitably gloomy New York locations.  It’s a look at the darker, seedier side of Life that is impressively realised by writer/director Frank, and draws the viewer in from its opening shootout (which has tragic consequences), to its blood-soaked denouement in the basement of the kidnappers’ house.  Brief moments of levity do occur but they’re few and far between in a movie that anchors itself so effectively in the underbelly of criminal life that some viewers may be put off by its downbeat, distressing approach to the source material.

Carrying the movie like a well-worn overcoat is Neeson, his battered visage telling the audience all they need to know about Scudder and the kind of life he’s lived.  The scenes where he’s attending various AA meetings, while appearing as no more than standard character development, are instead chances for Neeson to show a more reflective, considered approach to the character.  These add subtly to the overall performance, grounding Scudder while the other characters aren’t quite so well fleshed out.  Neeson is a strong, credible actor, and when he’s the focus of a movie (as he is here), then the audience will follow him anywhere, even in something as nonsensical as Non-Stop (2014).

And it helps, because while A Walk Among the Tombstones is determinedly dour, this is a movie that does itself no favours when addressing its bad guys and what they do.  It’s dark, edgy stuff, and made all the more potent by the performances of Harbour and Thompson, who make Ray and his accomplice Albert two of the nastiest villains seen for a while, with the more garrulous Harbour making some truly horrifying dialogue sound even worse by virtue of Ray’s emotional and moral detachment.  These guys are evil, pure and simple, and as the black heart of the movie, are incredibly effective and completely justify Jonas’s decision to jump off the roof.

With a strong, capable hero and two loathsome villains in place, it’s disappointing that the remaining characters don’t quite resonate as much.  As Kenny, Stevens is oddly distant, his anger at his wife’s murder coming across as what’s expected of him rather than a real emotion (even after he’s gone through what happened).  TJ is the annoying would-be sidekick with a poignant back story that threatens to derail the movie – isn’t it enough that Scudder is looking to personally redeem himself, without the added responsibility of a homeless child as well (and one who, when hospitalised, isn’t handed over to social services)?  That said, Bradley does have a screen presence, and he makes the most of a potentially irritating character.

Morally complex it may be, and with drug dealers painted more sympathetically than usual, nevertheless the movie is a crime thriller, and as it ramps up the violence towards the end, the slow deliberate pace of the first half is ramped up as well, and gives the audience another chance to see Neeson in action hero mode (watch though for the table that breaks before it’s landed on).  There’s a satisfying conclusion, and if another Matt Scudder movie doesn’t get made, Frank’s polished, considered outing will stand on its own as an above average entry in the private eye genre.

Rating: 8/10 – stronger and more powerful than the average crime flick, this benefits from a committed turn by Neeson and has a funereal approach that works far better than perhaps it should; confident, absorbing and persuasive, A Walk Among the Tombstones is stirring stuff and shouldn’t be missed.

 

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A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amanda Seyfried, Charlize Theron, Comedy, Gunfights, Liam Neeson, Neil Patrick Harris, Old Stump, Outlaw, Review, Romance, Seth MacFarlane, Sheep farmer, The Old West, Western

Million Ways to Die in the West, A

D: Seth MacFarlane / 116m

Cast: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, Christopher Hagen, Wes Studi, Matt Clark, John Aylward, Evan Jones

It’s 1882, and on the edge of the wild frontier is the town of Old Stump, a place that epitomises the daily fight for survival, where “everything that isn’t you, wants to kill you”.  So believes Albert Stark (MacFarlane), a sheep farmer with low self esteem and a girlfriend, Louise (Seyfried) who dumps him after he chickens out of a gunfight.  Hurt, angry and depressed, Albert hides away at his farm until his best friend, Edward (Ribisi) persuades him to come back into town and try and win back Louise.  It soon becomes clear though that Louise has moved on, and she’s now seeing smarmy moustache salesman Foy (Harris).  Meanwhile, vicious outlaw Clinch Leatherwood (Neeson), riding nearby on his way to rob a stagecoach with his gang, decides to keep his wife, Anna (Theron) out of harm’s way and tells her to hide out in Old Stump until he can come back for her.

When a fight breaks out in Old Stump’s saloon, Albert saves Anna from being injured and a friendship develops between them.  He tells her about Louise and Anna agrees to help Albert win her back.  At the County Fair, Albert’s attempts to make Louise jealous by pretending Anna is his new girlfriend backfires when he ends up challenging Foy to a gunfight in a week’s time.  Albert has never fired a gun before and proves to be the worst shot in the world, but with Anna teaching him he slowly improves.  As the week progresses, Albert grows in confidence, and he and Anna begin to fall in love.  When Clinch comes to Old Stump he learns that Anna has been seen kissing another man, and he makes it clear that unless the man in question meets him at high noon the next day, he’ll keep killing the townspeople until he does.

Anna is forced to reveal Albert’s identity to Clinch.  She gets away from him and warns Albert who runs away.  An encounter with Cochise (Studi) and some serious peyote reveals Albert’s true courage and he returns to town to face Clinch and go through with the gunfight.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

As you’d expect from a movie starring, and written and directed by, Seth MacFarlane, A Million Ways to Die in the West does its best to raise big laughs, and there are plenty of laugh out loud moments that are either inspired or just plain funny (the movie’s best gag is also its most contentious, the Runaway Slave Shooting Gallery).  But there are also too many occasions when the humour falls flat, though to be fair it’s the attempts at injecting modern, gross-out gags into the mix that generally don’t work (except for one priceless combination of sound effect and line of dialogue that sounds like an outtake from Family Guy).  Albert’s claim that the West is a horrible place to live in is reinforced by some great sight gags, and Foy’s need for a hat at one point is a joy to watch.  And then there’s Edward’s girlfriend Ruth (Silverman), a prostitute who believes they shouldn’t have sex until they’re married, but who sleeps with around ten men each day (when things are slow).  All these aspects help to make A Million Ways to Die in the West one of the most entertaining comedies of recent years (though your appreciation for MacFarlane’s line in humour will go some way to determining that).

What does come as a surprise is MacFarlane’s handling of some of the other elements.  The romance between Albert and Anna is well thought out and handled with care, making it quite affecting, and MacFarlane ups his game during these scenes, matching Theron for soulfulness and charm.  Their romance is the heart of the movie and MacFarlane takes more care with these scenes than he does with most of the comedy, and proves himself a better director here than elsewhere.  He’s matched by Theron – who’s clearly enjoying herself – and even though the movie slows down a bit to accommodate this particular subplot, there’s no harm done.  There’s also some beautiful location photography, with the glories of Monument Valley on display throughout, and the score encapsulates nods to all the great Western musical themes without descending entirely into pastiche.  MacFarlane obviously has a love of the genre, and even though he spends as much time spoofing it as he does celebrating it, that appreciation shines through and provides the soul of the movie.

He’s helped by a great cast.  Theron, as noted above, has a whale of a time.  She hasn’t made a comedy since Waking Up in Reno (2002) – though the uncharitable of you out there might opt for Æon Flux (2005) – but on this evidence casting directors need to be looking at her anew.  She has a lightness of touch that makes her comic timing quite subtle.  Seyfried, unfortunately, is given very little to do except hang on Harris’s arm, though the sight of Louise giving head to Foy’s moustache is definitely an image not to be forgotten.  Harris is an appropriately hissable secondary villain, while Neeson plays it straight as the dastardly Clinch.  As the “virginal” lovers, Edward and Ruth, Ribisi and Silverman are given plenty of opportunities to shine as all good sidekicks should be, and there’s a number of cameos that add to the overall feel good vibe that MacFarlane engenders from start to finish (one in particular, featuring a character from another movie series altogether, is an unexpected delight).

On the minus side, and despite all the positives, MacFarlane’s script is in need of some judicious pruning, and as a result the movie is uneven and the various elements don’t always gel.  Scenes overrun, while others feel in need of further development, as if MacFarlane has thought of a great idea but isn’t sure where to take it; the end result is an addition to the movie that doesn’t feel right (the hallucination sequence toward the end is a good case in point).  Again, there are too many jokes that don’t work, or seem forced, and while the cast all acquit themselves well, there are too many occasions when they’re foundering trying to make a joke work.  Also, the last third plays much as if MacFarlane hadn’t quite worked out the ending, and there’s an air of settlement about the whole thing, as if it was the best conclusion he could think of.  Considering the attention given to the build-up, it’s a major disappointment (and to make matters worse, MacFarlane adds an unnecessary explanation into the mix as well).

Rating: 7/10 – there’s more to like here than not, but a lot will depend on your tolerance for MacFarlane’s sense of humour; not quite the edgy, smut-filled laugh-fest you might be expecting, and with a bigger heart as well, and topped off by a great cast clearly entering into the spirit of things (and we need more Westerns anyway).

 

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Non-Stop (2014)

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Air marshal, Bomb, Hijacking, Iceland, Jaume Collet-Serra, Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Michelle Dockery, Ransom demand, Review, Scoot McNairy, Secure network, Transatlantic flight

Non-Stop

D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 106m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Nate Parker, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o, Omar Metwally, Jason Butler Harner, Linus Roache, Shea Whigham, Anson Mount

Non-Stop – or the continuing adventures of Liam Neeson in action movie land – starts off promisingly enough with air marshal Bill Marks (Neeson) preparing to board a flight to London from New York.  He looks a mess, he’s drinking, he’s obviously got problems, and he has a gun.  Once the flight is underway, Marks begins to get text messages over the air marshal network, which should be secure.  If the mystery person sending the texts isn’t paid $150 million dollars then someone on the plane will die every twenty minutes until it is.  Marks thinks it’s probably some kind of elaborate practical joke, and challenges the other air marshal on the plane, Hammond (Mount) about it, but it’s soon made clear Hammond didn’t send the messages.  He alerts the captain and the cabin staff as a precaution, and also his boss at the Transport Security Administration (TSA).  Only Marks takes the threat seriously.  As the first twenty minute marker nears, Marks finds himself attacked by Hammond (who, it turns out, is being coerced by the texter) and is forced to kill him, thereby doing the texter’s work for him.  Marks also discovers that Hammond was carrying a briefcase full of cocaine.

With Marks attempting to keep Hammond’s death from the crew and passengers – and no one making any attempt to use the toilet Hammond’s body is in – the plot thickens as it’s revealed that the account the texter wants the money transferred into is in Marks’ name.  With suspicion mounting against him, Marks attempts to discover the texter’s identity by checking the passengers’ cell phones.  Some of the passengers take umbrage at this, particularly NY cop Reilly (Stoll), and communications tech White (Parker).  When another murder takes place after forty minutes, Marks’ behaviour becomes increasingly more desperate as he attempts to locate the texter, alienating both the crew and passengers further, and as events unfold, putting himself in the frame for what is now being seen by the outside world as a hijacking.  Even the TSA believe he’s gone bad.  And when he discovers there’s a bomb on the plane, Marks must do all he can to save the plane and himself.

Non-Stop - scene

A movie like Non-Stop can be taken (no pun intended), in one of two ways: as a leave-your-brain-at-the-door-and-go-with-it type of movie that could end up being a fun ride, or as yet another dire attempt by Hollywood to provide thrills and spills but without any kind of focus on logic or credibility – still a fun ride perhaps, but one that coasts on its high concept and promise of seeing Neeson doing what he (currently) does best: kick ass.  In either circumstance, though, Non-Stop is a let-down, a polished yet soulless piece of work that is, seriously, a real piece of work.

The fault here lies squarely with the script by John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach and Ryan Engle, which piles on absurdity after absurdity and never lets you forget that credibility isn’t an issue.  As Marks gets ever more desperate to discover the texter’s identity, and he violates the passengers’ rights with ever-increasing enthusiasm, the script never pauses to wonder if there might be any actual protocols involved in dealing with such an admittedly unusual situation.  When Marks tells everyone about the bomb and a “damage limitation” procedure, you’re not sure if the script has made it up or it does exist in the real world.  Two fighters are scrambled to fly alongside the airliner and with instructions to shoot down the plane if it drops to 8,000 feet or below because then it becomes a civilian threat.  But the plane is flying over the Atlantic and is being directed to land in Iceland, not exactly the most populous of locations.  Two of the victims are killed by poison dart; neither could have happened in the way they do and the script doesn’t even challenge itself to come up with anything more clever; it settles far too often for a “well, this happens, and then this happens, and it just does” kind of approach.

When the texter’s identity and his or her reasons for doing all this are revealed, it’s such a weak excuse the viewer can only shake their head in dismay and move on to the rapidly approaching finale.  It’s also a pretty woolly excuse, and delivered with all the earnestness and conviction of someone trying to explain why they’ve just done something so stupid they’re terminally embarrassed about it (like signing on to be the villain in Non-Stop).

As the script is so poor, and character motivations almost on the nearly extinct list, the cast fare badly, unable to do anything other than say the lines and hit their marks.  Neeson tries valiantly to make his role work but he’s hampered by having to be a hero when it would have been so much more effective if there had been some real doubt as to his involvement in the hijacking.  Moore is on hand to provide support as the passenger who never doubts Marks for a moment, while McNairy, Stoll, Parker, Metwally and others are trotted out as potential hijackers as the guessing game continues.  Dockery, escaping from Downton Abbey (and maybe changing agents at this very moment) is only required to look shocked and surprised at various moments, while Nyong’o, after her triumph in 12 Years a Slave, is saddled with the role of stewardess-most-required-to-scream-and-panic-a-lot.

Collet-Serra directs with ambition and a certain flair, keeping the visual side of things interesting, and making good use of the cramped conditions.  However, even he can’t make much of the dire script, and as a result, the cast suffer even further, some, like Dockery, seemingly cast adrift.  The action sequences are casually brutal yet effective, though the crash landing at the end won’t be the best use of CGI seen this year.  If there is to be a Non-Stop 2 – and we can only pray there won’t be – it will have to be a great deal better than this to warrant a return flight.

Rating: 5/10 – as a popcorn movie, Non-Stop just about makes it, but with serious reservations; laughable in places, frustrating to watch, and just too dumb for its own good.

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The LEGO Movie (2014)

08 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bad Cop, Batman, Building blocks, C-3PO, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Lando Calrissian, Lego, Liam Neeson, Master Builder, Morgan Freeman, Review, Superman, The Man Upstairs, Will Ferrell, Wonder Woman

Lego Movie, The

D: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller / 100m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Cobie Smulders, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill

When evil Lord Business (Ferrell) steals the Kragle from Vitruvius (Freeman), he plans to use it to destroy all the Lego worlds, including his own, in a bid to restore order where he sees only chaos. Before he does, though, Vitruvius warns Lord Business of a prophecy, that there will come a Special, a Master Builder who will find the Piece of Resistance that will, in turn, stop the Kragle from being used as a weapon. Lord Business is scornful of this idea and forges ahead with his plans.

Some time later, with Lord Business now ensconced as President Business, we meet lowly construction worker Emmet (Pratt), a smiling nobody who feels most comfortable when following instructions. At work he tries to fit in with the other employees but it’s almost as if he’s invisible. At the end of the day he discovers a young woman, Wyldstyle (Banks), searching through the ruins of the construction site (each day’s building work gets reduced to rubble again so the crews can start afresh each day – it’s a neat acknowledgement of how LEGO is used in “the real world”). She disappears, leaving Emmet to wonder what she was looking for. Falling through a hole he ends up discovering the Piece of Resistance before he’s knocked unconscious. When he wakes he’s in police custody, with the Piece of Resistance stuck to his back. Interrogated by Bad Cop (Neeson), Emmet struggles to prove his innocence. Rescued by Wyldstyle, they escape to The Old West where they meet up with Vitruvius.  Bad Cop follows them and they almost perish but for the intervention of Batman (Arnett).  Travelling on to Cloud Cuckoo Land where they meet Unikitty (Brie), Emmet, lacking the imagination of a true Master Builder, fails to impress a meeting of said same and they refuse to aid him against Lord Business.

The Master Builders are captured by Bad Cop while Emmet and some of the others manage to escape underwater.  Evading Bad Cop’s pursuit for a while, Emmet realises that the Master Builders need someone to mold them into a team, and he’s just the man for the job.  They hatch a plan to infiltrate Lord Business’s lair, rescue the Master Builders, neutralise the Kragle, and put a stop to Business’s plans once and for all.

Lego Movie, The - scene

Now that it’s here, the first thing to be said about The LEGO Movie is: why the hell has it taken so long to get here?  We could have been enjoying Emmet’s adventures ages ago.  For The LEGO Movie is a blast, a glorious riot of colour and sound and unfettered imagination that erupts from the screen – especially in 3D – and happy-slaps the viewer full in the face… and then does it again several times over.  There’s just so much to enjoy, it’s embarrassing.  From the establishing shot stretching out from Emmet’s apartment to the level of detail in almost every frame, The LEGO Movie astonishes as often as it impresses as it entertains.  Of course, the visuals are key, the Lego worlds given a stunning amount of depth and solidity.  There’s so much going on that the movie needs a second or third viewing to catch everything that’s happening, and even then things are still likely to be missed.

With so many visual riches on display, and a dizzying array of sight gags – some daft, some ingenious and some just sublime – it would be wrong to think of the movie as just a kind of animator’s wet dream.  There is the script by co-directors Lord and Miller, a fantastic achievement that recognises the one over-riding aspect of LEGO that has been a part of its appeal since its first appearance in 1949: literally, anything can happen.  Witness the changes to Bad Cop’s car when he flies off the top of the train in The Old West, or the dizzying array of adaptations and changes that happen to the vehicle Emmet and Wyldstyle escape on when fleeing the police station.  The fact that the script can fit these wild feats of imagination into its more straightforward central storyline, and still deliver on some brilliant lines of dialogue as well – Batman: “I only work in black, or sometimes very, very dark grey”; Cowboy: “Do you think zeppelins are a bad investment?”; and Bad Cop: “Darn, darn, darny darn!” – shows just how much effort has been invested in bringing The LEGO Movie to completion.

The cast rise to the occasion, with Ferrell, Arnett and Freeman standing out from the crowd, supplying pitch perfect vocal performances, and there’s some great cameos – yes, that really is Anthony Daniels as C-3PO and Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian (well, come on, who else was it going to be?) – that are fun to spot as well as goofily endearing.  And look out too for Superman (Tatum) being stalked by Green Lantern (Hill), a recurring gag that could be spun out into (at least) a LEGO short.  But the real, and completely unexpected vocal star, is Neeson, providing his usual gruff, tough-guy voice for Bad Cop, and alternating it when needed to a thin, whiny falsetto as Good Cop; it’s a wonderful performance and, well… who knew?

With a conclusion that veers close to being a little too sentimental – but is saved by a last-minute revelation that saves the day and sets up the sequel (due in 2017) – The LEGO Movie astonishes and amazes from start to finish.  It’s not often that an animated movie, ostensibly aimed at children, is this entertaining for adults as well but LEGO has been a part of so many people’s lives in the last sixty-five years that it should come as no surprise that adults will get as much out of the movie as kids will.  And it’s a rarer movie still that can cut across so many demographics and still retain its integrity.

Rating: 9/10 – a clever, impressive script married to a perfectly realised Lego environment makes The LEGO Movie an early contender for Animated Movie of the Year (and an earlier than expected challenge to Mr. Peabody & Sherman for that honour); sublime, exhilarating and pretty darn perfect.

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