Tag Archives: Mark Wahlberg

Mile 22 (2018)

20 Thursday Sep 2018

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D: Peter Berg / 94m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais, John Malkovich, Ronda Rousey, Carlo Alban, Terry Kinney, Emily Skeggs

If you’re thinking of going to see Mile 22 at your local cinema, please bear in mind the following:

Option 1: Seeing the movie (not recommended).

Option 2: Seeing something else.

Option 3: Staying at home and seeing something else.

Listing the ways in which Mile 22 is bad is waaaay too easy, so here’s a challenge: if you do go and see it, see how many ways you can come up with – you’ll run out of fingers and toes long before the end.

Rating: 3/10 – an appalling waste of time and money and effort, Mile 22 is so shallow and conceited it actually thinks it’s making a statement, though if you can work out what that statement is, you’re better than Berg and screenwriter Lea Carpenter, who clearly don’t have a clue between them; Wahlberg’s performance is excruciating (and probably his worst yet), while once again, the action/fight scenes have been so badly stitched together in the editing suite as to make no visual sense whatsoever, and the whole thing is as convincing as the brush strip stuck to Malkovich’s head.

Daddy’s Home Two (2017)

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

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D: Sean Anders / 100m

Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, John Lithgow, Linda Cardellini, Alessandra Ambrosio, Owen Vaccaro, Scarlett Estevez, Didi Costine, John Cena

Is it only two years since we were “treated” to Daddy’s Home (2015), the lacklustre real dad versus step-dad movie that was banal and uninspired except on a handful of occasions (bet you can’t name any of them now, though)? Well, the sad answer is yes, it is, and if this entirely expected (but unnecessary) sequel achieves anything, then it’s being blander and less funny than its predecessor. It’s actually quite impressive: the lengths to which the makers of Daddy’s Home Two have gone to ensure this sequel is a snoozefest on an epic level. This is a movie that makes the original look and sound like a multi-award winning cult classic. It’s also one of the dreariest movies to come along in a very long while. If you manage to get through this from start to finish, give yourself a pat on the back and a gold star.

Deciding that making a sequel means bringing in bigger names to bolster the cast, this has somehow managed to attract the likes of Mel Gibson, John Lithgow, and most bizarrely of all, Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, the pilot responsible for the 2009 Miracle on the Hudson plane landing. There are always projects where you wonder if anyone read a finished script before shooting began, and what appears to be obvious here is that if they did they didn’t worry about the lack of laughs, the terrible dialogue, the predictable arc of the story, or the OTT feelgood ending that sees most of the main cast “singing” Do They Know It’s Christmas by Band Aid (why? Don’t ask). Comedy sequels usually aim higher, bigger, broader, or sometimes opt to be more extreme. However, this is a comedy sequel that eschews all that and goes all out to be the cinematic equivalent of beige; as a result, it’s unrelentingly tedious. The movie lasts for one hundred minutes but watching it feels like it takes twice as long.

The main problem is that the script – by director Sean Anders and John Morris – doesn’t have a purpose other than to make the audience wait until Gibson’s horny old goat, Kurt, finally succumbs to the idea of peace and goodwill to all men and kisses his son, Dusty (Wahlberg), on the mouth (and yes, you are reading that right). Before then, the movie takes an age to undermine the friendship and mutual understanding that was established between Dusty and Brad (Ferrell) in the first movie, and only around the hour mark does it finally pit them against each other. Cue lots of moody looks between the two characters, and both of them engaging in the kind of low-key antagonism that is best expressed by Brad’s fake-pumping a snowball throw: there’s a minimum of intent and no follow through. Throughout, Dusty tells Brad that Kurt is looking to undermine their co-dad status, and while Kurt is certainly dismissive of their friendship – and questions their masculinity at every opportunity – again there’s more intent than action. This is a sequel that talks a lot about what’s going to happen, and what did happen, but has a hard time focusing on the present.

As a comedy, it relies on a series of pratfalls that happen to Don (Lithgow), Brad’s father, and Brad himself; a number of uninspired one-liners; the blossoming attraction of pre-teen Dylan (Vaccaro) for his pre-teen step-sister, Adrianna (Costine); and… that’s about it. There are an awful lot of scenes that occur purely in order to set up the next scene, and then that scene sets up the next scene, and so on, until finally a scene comes along that has a specific purpose. By then, however, any sense that the script knows what it’s doing, or that Anders has any intention of loading the movie with any appreciable energy, is long gone, and as the movie drags itself along like a sick animal looking for a place to curl up and die, any sympathy that arises is entirely for the viewer, and not for the cast and crew who took part in it. They should have known better. (And it all takes place at Xmas, for no better reason than to provide an excuse for Kurt and Don to be involved, as if family get-togethers don’t happen at any other time of year.)

In the end, it’s a lazy movie with lazy performances and a hazy sense of its own quality. Ferrell has made too many similar “comedies” for anyone to be surprised at his involvement, while Wahlberg keeps everything on the same level throughout. Their performances are as perfunctory as possible, and they’re encouraged by Anders’ desultory approach to directing; going through the motions is all that’s required of them. Gibson is hamstrung by his character’s one-note attitude to parenting, while Lithgow’s dad-with-a-secret tries for pathos in one scene but is let down by the comic shifts that occur right alongside his tragic reveal. Cardellini and Ambrosio are the token women putting up with Brad and Dusty’s shenanigans, and with barely a word of protest (hey, whatever happened to strong female characters in comedies?), while the child actors are used for maximum cuteness, something that soon wears thin.

Forbearance is a wonderful thing, and so is patience, but if you absolutely have to see Daddy’s Home Two, then be prepared to wait around for long stretches for anything to have an impact, or provide a genuine laugh, or provide you with anything that will make the experience worthwhile. If this is the best that everyone can do, then it’s a further damning example of the parlous state of mainstream movie making in America today. With a budget of $69 million, it’s hard to work out where the money was spent, but easy enough to see why it was greenlit in the first place. That doesn’t excuse the poor quality of the script, though, or the lack of commitment from all concerned, all of which makes the movie not just a disappointment but a dire retread of themes and ideas that have been done to death already. You could argue that a movie like this one isn’t expected to be great, or a must-see, but with the talent involved it is reasonable to expect a greater effort made in making the movie as good as can be. That it doesn’t look like anyone could be bothered is both appalling and, worse, unsurprising.

Rating: 3/10 – sequels are an easy source of revenue (this has already made its money back and more), but they needn’t be an excuse for a shoddy finished product; Daddy’s Home Two is both of those things, and is also laboured, boring, unimaginative, and a slap in the face to viewers hoping to be entertained, something this movie gives up on with alacrity.

Patriots Day (2016)

22 Sunday Jan 2017

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D: Peter Berg / 133m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan, Alex Wolff, Themo Melikidze, James Colby, Michael Beach, Rachel Brosnahan, Christopher O’Shea, Jake Picking, Jimmy O. Yang, Vincent Curatola, Melissa Benoist, Khandi Alexander, Adam Trese, Dustin Tucker

At 2:48pm on 15 April 2013, the 117th annual Boston Marathon was taking place, and was proceeding as smoothly as in previous years. It was already nearly three hours since the winner had crossed the finish line, and the remainder of the runners – some 5,700 – were still to complete the course. A minute later, at 2:49pm, a bomb exploded in the crowd of onlookers near the finish line; approximately thirteen seconds after, a second bomb exploded one block further away. Between them, the blasts claimed the lives of three people, and injured hundreds of others, including sixteen people who lost limbs. It was a terrorist attack that no one saw coming, and such was the confusion at the time of the blasts that runners still crossed the finish line for another eight minutes.

This is the core event of Patriots Day, a recreation of the bombings that occurred that fateful day, and the subsequent manhunt that took place over the next four days. It begins with Boston Police Department Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Wahlberg) and moves on to introduce a variety of individuals whose lives will be affected by the bombing and subsequent events. These include Tommy’s wife, Carol (Monaghan), Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (Goodman), young couple Jessica Kensky (Brosnahan) and Patrick Downes (O’Shea), Chinese student Dun Meng (Yang), MIT police officer Sean Collier (Picking), district of Watertown police Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (Simmons), Boston Police Superintendent Billy Evans (Colby), naturalised U.S. citizen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Wolff), his brother Tamerlan (Melikidze), and Tamerlan’s American-born wife, Katherine (Benoist).

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By the time the race starts we know that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar will be the people who place the bombs. And as the race begins, and we see them moving amongst the crowds, what has been a fairly straightforward, and somewhat leisurely approach to the events of 15 April 2013 begins to become something altogether more focused, and darker. When the bombs do go off – and we know they will – the explosions, and the devastation they cause, are still shocking. And it’s as this point that Patriots Day, which could have so easily been a tale of jingoistic heroism sprinkled with Hollywood-ised action beats, becomes something even richer and more surprising: a movie based on true events that incorporates an incredible level of detail, and better still, includes actual footage from the time. It’s this aspect of the movie, the mixture of real and realised that impresses the most, as it makes the verisimilitude that much more potent.

In adapting the book, Boston Strong by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge, director Peter Berg has made his most accomplished and impactful movie to date. Reuniting with Mark Wahlberg for the third time after Lone Survivor (2013) and Deepwater Horizon (2016) – also true stories – Berg has finally crafted a movie that resonates on more than one level, and which doesn’t rely on the jingoistic heroism mentioned above. It does celebrate the way in which the residents of Boston came together in the wake of a terrorist attack, but Sergeant Pugliese’s incredibly brave confrontation with Tamerlan Tsarnaev aside, there aren’t any moments of gung ho courage, just an acknowledgment of how determined everyone – law enforcement and public alike – were in making sure the bombers were captured. It’s not often that a movie gives you a true sense of a community coming together in such a way, but this is definitely one of them, and it does so powerfully and succinctly.

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The various storylines are cleverly interwoven as well, with each character given a relevant amount of screen time, and their lives, even Wahlberg’s composite policeman, explored with a tremendous surety of touch. Admittedly, some of the investigators – Bacon’s overly experienced FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, Goodman’s shocked and angry Police Commissioner – fare less well in this respect due to the nature of their involvement, but otherwise, people such as Downes and Kensky, who had reached the finish line when the first bomb went off, are afforded due recognition because of what happened to them not only then but subsequently. The same is true of Steve Woolfenden (Tucker), who was injured and separated from his young son, Leo. Away from the injured, the fates of people such as Dun Meng and MIT police officer Sean Collier are played out with sincerity and a lack of sensationalism, or the kind of made-for-TV banality that offsets any strived-for veracity.

Once the manhunt is under way and an initial identification of the suspects has been made (one of the movie’s cleverest moments), the movie steps up a gear, and becomes intensely exciting. The scenes involving Dun and the Tsarnaevs are mini-masterclasses in how to keep an audience on the edge of their seat, and all this is achieved by precision editing (courtesy of Gabriel Fleming and Colby Parker Jr) and an emotional undercurrent that permeates the movie as a whole. Berg makes you care about the people in this movie, these people who experienced so much and came out the other side so much stronger (albeit not all of them). The same can be said of the shootout on Watertown’s Laurel Street, a literally explosive confrontation between the police and the Tsarnaevs that stands head and shoulders above most movie shootouts, and which again, thanks to Fleming and Parker Jr, leaves the viewer gasping at how insane it all was, and how frightening it must have been to be a part of it all.

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Berg’s commitment to telling this story as honestly and passionately as possible, while not sensationalising it in any way, is the reason why it works so well, and why it deserves every possible accolade. He’s helped tremendously by a cast so committed to meeting his vision of the story that there’s not one performance that’s out of place or not operating in service of the material. Wahlberg, who always seems to feel more comfortable playing blue collar workers, puts in his best work since The Fighter (2010), while the likes of Goodman, Bacon, Monaghan and Simmons all deliver solid, credible supporting performances that enhance the narrative whenever they’re on screen. As the Tsarnaevs, Wolff and Melikidze are an impressive teaming, establishing both the bonds and the boundaries between the two brothers with almost nonchalant ease; it’s an adversarial relationship in many ways (as with so many brothers), but you never once question their commitment to their cause and each other. But if there has to be one actor or actress who stands out for any reason, then that is unquestionably Melissa Benoist, TV’s current Supergirl. Watch the scene where Katherine is interrogated by a nameless “spook”: it’s an exemplary display of a character’s doubt, fear, loathing, and blinkered self-assurance, and is as surprising for its conclusion as it is for the iciness of the scene as a whole.

The movie ends as most movies attempting to tell a true story often do: with an update on some of the people whose lives were affected on that terrible day in April 2013. And then it goes one step further, and you hear the voice of the real Patrick Downes, and then you see both him and Jessica Kensky as they talk about that day and what it’s meant to them since. You see officials such as Ed Davis and Richard DesLauriers, and as they talk about the notion of Boston Strong, the unifying concept that sprang up in the wake of the bombings, the idea that Boston and its people would not be intimidated by acts of terrorism – listening to them you understand just why Berg and his team were so determined not to make this an exercise in hyperbole or the cinematic equivalent of yellow journalism. Because if they had, then the movie’s final image – its message if you like – would have meant nothing. It would have lacked context, and it would have lacked the emotional jolt that the movie leaves you with. And what was that image? Ah, now that would be telling…

Rating: 9/10 – a superb retelling of the Boston Marathon bombings and the manhunt that followed over the next one hundred and five hours, Patriots Day is a movie devoid of frills, unnecessary plot devices, or political finger-pointing; a tribute to all those who survived the bombings, and the extraordinary levels of cooperation between a city and its law enforcement – a de facto curfew was in place following the shootout in Watertown – the movie focuses on telling its story matter-of-factly and audaciously, and by concentrating on the people who were caught up in it all, an approach that many other movies “based on real events” should try adopting as well.

Mini-Review: Deepwater Horizon (2016)

21 Monday Nov 2016

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D: Peter Berg / 107m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Kate Hudson, Ethan Suplee, Dylan O’Brien

Arriving at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig site in the Gulf of Mexico to learn that certain safety checks haven’t been carried out, general operational supervisor “Mr Jimmy” Harrell (Russell) and chief electrical engineer Mike Williams (Wahlberg) find themselves at odds with BP executive Donald Vidrine (Malkovich) who is advocating that drilling continue despite the absence of these checks. With many more of the crew of the rig expressing their concerns, Vidrine pulls rank and the drilling resumes. Pressure begins to build in the pipeline, and further signs point to a dramatic, and likely, system failure. When it does, a massive blowout ensues, and the resulting explosion causes tremendous damage to the rig, threatening the lives of everyone on it.

As fires rage all around them, the workers’ attempt to evacuate the rig. Williams finds himself rescuing several of his colleagues, including “Mr Jimmy” who has been badly injured. With the Coast Guard racing to the rescue, and with no guarantee that the fires won’t cause the rig to sink, Williams et al must rely on their own ingenuity in order to get to safety, while the world looks on at what will become the worst environmental disaster in US history.

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Watching Deepwater Horizon‘s first forty minutes, with its depictions of bubbling air pockets within the drill shaft, and the pipe itself shifting in protest against the pressure being exerted on it, it’s not hard to find a degree of anxiety about what’s going to happen creep up on you. It’s during this stretch that director Berg, aided by editors Gabriel Fleming and Colby Parker Jr, ratchets up the tension as he sets the scene for what we all know will be a nightmarish tale of survival. He also does a good job of introducing the main characters – along with principal supporting character, “Mr Jimmy”‘s moustache – and making us care about them. But once the oil hits the fan and fire takes a hold of the rig, the movie takes a strange left turn and becomes a standard men-in-peril movie where it’s hard to distinguish who’s doing what, where and how.

Inevitably, the movie regales us with moments of sacrifice, heroism and incredible fortitude, but it also features various stock elements, such as Hudson’s anxious wife stuck at home watching it all unfold on TV, and Malkovich’s suitably oleaginous BP executive looking sheepish as he gets in a lifeboat. While it’s easy to see why Berg has included these moments, it’s the way in which they help dissipate the tension established earlier on that proves problematical. It’s equally unhelpful that despite all the pyrotechnics and practical effects on display, Deepwater Horizon feels at times like an extreme, sea-based version of The Towering Inferno (1974). It makes for a distracting viewing experience (even if it wasn’t Berg’s intention). That said, the performances are uniformly good (though Malkovich’s accent is distracting), and the script manages to avoid too much foreshadowing (e.g. “I can’t wait to get home and see my newborn child”, from someone who’s clearly going to snuff it).

Rating: 7/10 – curiously uninvolving once things go from bad to staggeringly worse, Deepwater Horizon is a visually impressive retelling of an incident that BP would probably like to forget about completely; but spectacle without a human element to guide us through it is just that, spectacle, and the movie never finds an answer to the way in which it shifts down a gear after such an effective opening.

Daddy’s Home (2015)

07 Thursday Jan 2016

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Daddy's Home

D: Sean Anders / 96m

Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini, Thomas Haden Church, Scarlett Estevez, Owen Vaccaro, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Cannavale

Sometimes it’s easy to dismiss a movie when it appears formulaic and predictable, or has the same actor portraying the same kind of character they always do. And sometimes that’s okay because it’s the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. One such actor is Will Ferrell, who’s made a very successful career playing a man-child in a succession of comedies that have made a lot of money if never quite gaining critical approval (in short, the public likes him so the critics don’t matter). Ferrell rarely strays from playing this kind of character, and if he does it’s not very often; the last time Ferrell tried anything different was in Everything Must Go (2010).

And so he’s back in Daddy’s Home, as Brad Whitaker, a stepdad desperate to win his stepkids’ love and affection, and putting in the extra time and effort to do so because he can’t have kids of his own. Facing an uphill battle – his stepdaughter, Megan (Estevez) keeps drawing family pictures where Brad is shown either dead or dying – he begins to earn their respect and a confirmed place in their lives when, out of the blue, their biological father, Dusty Mayron (Wahlberg), calls up and Brad finds himself inviting Dusty to visit. Despite several warnings from his wife, Sara (Cardellini), that this isn’t a good idea, Brad assures her everything will be fine.

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Now, up until this point, Ferrell does manage to portray a slightly different variation on his usual character, and Brad is a more confident (albeit naïve) person who knows what he’s doing. But with the arrival of Dusty, it’s back to normal as Brad’s confidence goes out the window, and Ferrell ramps up the childish and confused behaviour as Brad attempts to outdo Dusty for being cool. Of course, his efforts mostly backfire – moving Dusty’s motorbike allows for a quick succession of visual jokes – and he receives less and less support from the people around him as Dusty’s friendly nature and willingness to help others makes Brad look second-rate.

It’s obvious that Dusty is there to break things up between Brad and Sara, and the issue of Brad’s infertility is brought up time and again as a potential wedge between them, while bedtime stories about the king who returns to his castle to find an evil step-king ruling his people is stretched beyond its natural lifespan. Dusty’s efforts to undermine Brad’s role are purely of the “great gift” variety, such as the treehouse he builds in a day along with a skate ramp (he’s not averse to bribing his kids with cash to earn their loyalty, either). Against this, Brad’s efforts appear paltry and ill-advised. But when he tries to play Dusty at his own game, it leads to public humiliation and estrangement from Sara. Now it’s up to Dusty to prove he can be the kind of father that Brad is.

The Ferrell movie template is adhered to pretty closely as his character’s initial security is well established, only to be undermined or reversed with predictable ease. As Brad struggles to regain his position as head of the family, Ferrell can’t resist slipping back into the kind of character motifs he’s used over and over again in the past, from inherent cowardice to inappropriate boasting to emotional shallowness. By now, each feature Ferrell makes is like a greatest hits movie, allowing the audience to tick off familiar moment after familiar moment.

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But does it all work with Daddy’s Home? The answer (predictably) is yes and no. The movie does have its moments, with Brad’s alcoholic meltdown at a basketball match proving a particular highlight, but there are still too many times when the humour is slowed down by muddled attempts to advance the (very slight) storyline, or to indulge in the kind of verbal sparring that drags on for far too long and to increasingly little effect – here it’s in a scene at the radio station where Brad works and features the man himself, his boss Mr Holt (Church), and a secondary character called Griff (Buress). The idea is there but the execution lacks both pacing and humour, leaving the viewer to wait patiently until it’s over.

There’s also a subplot involving Dylan (Vaccaro), Brad’s other stepkid, and his being bullied at school. It leads to a scene where Brad and Dusty compete to give him the best advice about dealing with the situation, but it drags on too long and loses all sense of momentum (or purpose). There is a payoff later on in the movie, and it is one of the funnier moments, if only for how unapologetically inappropriate it is, but even then, the script by Brian Burns, Anders and John Morris, follows it up with a scene that looks and feels strained and tired. It’s the movie’s curse: for every good scene that raises a chuckle or even a belly laugh, there’s at least two more scenes that cancel it all out.

With Ferrell on auto pilot for most of the movie, and the basic scenario not requiring too much effort from anyone to sell it, the rest of the cast breeze through their scenes as if they were on a break from more serious acting chores. Reuniting with his co-star from The Other Guys (2010), Wahlberg coasts along as Dusty, while Cardellini has the less than enviable task of playing the inevitably underwritten lead female. Church is frankly annoying as Brad’s boss, and is stuck with some of the worst “inspirational stories” ever relayed on screen; and Buress wanders in and out of the movie in order that Brad can be accused of racism at odd moments (and yes it is as awkward as it sounds).

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If there’s a purpose to Daddy’s Home, other than to propagate the idea that one man’s sexual potency can reverse the infertility of another man, then it quickly gets lost in the telling. This is a movie whose central idea would have been better suited to a half hour short, or perhaps an episode of Modern Family. Anders directs with all the flair of someone who prints the first take, and the movie is blandly shot and edited so as not to stand out from the blandness of the material. All in all, it’s another knock-off Will Ferrell movie, and with all the disappointment that that entails.

Rating: 5/10 – more of an effort all round would have made all the difference to Daddy’s Home, but sadly it didn’t happen, and large stretches of the movie go by without making any kind of impact whatsoever (though it might encourage a degree of apathy in the casual viewer); but when it does get it right, on approximately half a dozen occasions, then its very good indeed (surprisingly), and makes you wonder what could have been achieved if the cast and crew hadn’t settled for “just good enough”.

Monthly Roundup – July 2015

31 Friday Jul 2015

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Behind Office Doors (1931) / D: Melville W. Brown / 82m

Cast: Mary Astor, Robert Ames, Ricardo Cortez, Catherine Dale Owen, Kitty Kelly, Edna Murphy, Charles Sellon, William Morris

Rating: 6/10 – at a paper supply company, personal assistant Mary Linden (Astor) is in love with rising young salesman Jim Duneen (Ames), but has to watch from the sidelines as he  plans to marry a socialite (Owen), completely unaware of how she feels about him; a broadly entertaining drama that was probably as predictable to watch in 1931 as it is today, Behind Office Doors benefits from a good performance from the always watchable Astor, and a breezy approach to social affairs that – pre-Hays code – allows Astor to kiss Cortez without being introduced first.

Behind Office Doors

Minions (2015) / D: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda / 91m

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Geoffrey Rush, Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin

Rating: 8/10 – the origin of the Minions takes us all the way back to the first stirrings of life on earth and then catapults the viewer to 1968 and the efforts of three intrepid Minions – Kevin, Stuart and Bob – to find a new evil master; as absurdist and mayhem-filled as the Despicable Me movies, Minions promotes the little yellow sidekicks to centre stage, and has all sorts of fun riffing on the Sixties, even though some of the voice talents are far from recognisable (Hamm, Keaton, Janney).

Minions

Paris á tout prix (2013) / D: Reem Kherici / 93m

aka Paris or Perish

Cast: Reem Kherici, Cécile Cassel, Tarek Boudali, Philippe Lacheau, Shirley Bousquet, Salim Kechiouche, Stéphane Rousseau

Rating: 7/10 – Moroccan-born fashion designer Maya (Kherici) finds herself in the running for a promotion but is deported back to Morocco when it’s discovered her visa has expired, leaving her with no choice but to pretend she’s off sick until she can find a way back to Paris and win her promotion; Kherici’s likeable, frothy comedy has its poignant moments too, and takes an affectionate stab at the fashion industry, but in the end, Paris á tout prix suffers by being too predictable and slow to get off the ground while using very broad brush strokes on the secondary characters.

Paris a tout prix

Ted 2 (2015) / D: Seth MacFarlane / 115m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Giovanni Ribisi, Morgan Freeman, Sam J. Jones, Patrick Warburton, Michael Dorn, John Slattery, John Carroll Lynch

Rating: 6/10 – when Ted (MacFarlane) marries his sweetheart Tami-Lynn (Barth) and they want to have children, their adoption application leads to Ted being declared to be property rather than a person, and his only chance of reversing the decision is to employ the services of eminent lawyer Patrick Meighan (Freeman); a sequel was always in the works and to his credit MacFarlane hasn’t strayed too far from the first movie’s formula, but it also makes Ted 2 seem more like a rehash than a genuine sequel, and while some of it is as outrageous as expected, there’s a little too much unnecessary plotting getting in the way of the jokes.

Ted 2

Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery (2015) / D: Spike Brandt, Tony Cervone / 79m

Cast: Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Jennifer Carpenter, Garry Marshall, Penny Marshall, Doc McGhee, Jason Mewes, Pauley Perrette, Rachel Ramras, Darius Rucker, Kevin Smith

Rating: 5/10 – at the KISS World amusement park, the appearance of the Scarlet Witch and her search for a legendary rock leads to the Mystery Gang and KISS teaming up to unmask the Witch and save the park from closing; not the best of Scooby-Doo’s recent outings, Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery is overlong – an extended fantasy sequence soon becomes tedious – and doesn’t play to either group’s strengths, while the actual mystery is sadly, quite weak, all of which leaves the movie both disappointing and unrewarding (unless you’re a die hard KISS fan, in which case you’ll probably love it).

Scooby-Doo! and KISS

The Demonology of Desire (2007) / D: Rodrigo Gudiño / 22m

Cast: Bianca Rusu, Tudor Plopeanu, Jewelia Fisico

Rating: 6/10 – a teenage girl (Rusu) torments a younger boy (Plopeanu) who professes his love for her, and leads him into a nightmare of death and madness; regarded as art-core, The Demonology of Desire is less art and more waspish commentary on the futility of young love, but it does feature some strong visuals and a performance from Rusu that makes a virtue of some very poor line readings.

Demonology of Desire, The

The DUFF (2015) / D: Ari Sandel / 101m

Cast: Mae Whitman, Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne, Bianca A. Santos, Skyler Samuels, Romany Malco, Nick Eversman, Chris Wylde, Ken Jeong, Allison Janney

Rating: 5/10 – ordinary-looking Bianca (Whitman) discovers she’s her two best (attractive) friends’ DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), but finds her way through the necessary social adjustments thanks to best friend Wesley (Amell); pleasant enough, though featuring too many stretches where the audience is likely to lose interest, The DUFF is yet another Cinderella makeover movie that adds little to its old-time scenario.

DUFF, The

Lone Survivor (2013)

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Lone Survivor

D: Peter Berg / 121m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Eric Bana, Alexander Ludwig, Yousuf Azami, Ali Suliman, Sammy Sheik

Based on the book by Marcus Luttrell, a serving Navy SEAL in Afghanistan in 2005, Lone Survivor tells the story of how Luttrell and three fellow SEALs found themselves under attack from the Taliban when a mission, Operation Red Wings, went horribly wrong.

Sent to locate and if possible, terminate the life of high-ranking Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Azami), four SEALs, Luttrell (Wahlberg), Murphy (Kitsch), Dietz (Hirsch) and Axelson (Foster), find their target but at a camp where they would be heavily outnumbered if they engaged with Shah and his men. With their comms down, the group fall back to a position of safety before they attempt to reach higher ground for a better chance of their comms working.  There they are discovered by a trio of goat herders.  Stopping them from getting away, Luttrell and the rest of the team are faced with the dilemma of what to do with them.  The SEALs can either let them go, tie them up and leave them (with a good chance that the goat herders would perish after time), or kill them outright there and then.  Dietz and Axelson are keen for the third option to happen but Luttrell argues against it, until Murphy, as the team leader, decides they must be let go, despite knowing that the trio will tell the Taliban their location.  With the goat herders released, the four men have to get to higher ground and try and contact their base so they can be rescued.

Soon, Shah’s militia have caught up with them and the SEALs find themselves in a running firefight.  Still trying to contact their base, one by one the men are either shot or suffer injuries – Axelson twists an ankle, Dietz loses two or three fingers – that hamper their escape.  And one by one, the SEALs lose their lives until only Luttrell remains.  Faced with the daunting task of making it out alive by himself, Luttrell’s luck changes when he is discovered by nearby Pashtun villagers led by Gulab (Suliman).  He is given shelter while the villagers arrange for the nearest US base to be contacted, and Luttrell’s rescue can be effected.  Before that can happen, though, Shah’s men, led by second-in-command Taraq (Sheik), learn of his whereabouts and attack the village…

Lone Survivor - scene

Luttrell’s story is a remarkable one, a true tale of heroism and courage set against tremendous odds, and one in which his determination to survive reinforces how powerful that determination can be in an individual.  It’s worth noting that when Luttrell was found by the Pashtun villagers he had a number of fractures, a broken back, and various shrapnel wounds; later he sustained a gunshot wound as well.  We should salute the man’s bravery.  Lone Survivor is a testament to that, and to the team’s bravery as a whole.

However, under Peter Berg’s direction, Lone Survivor doesn’t quite hit the mark.  The one thing that’s missing from the movie is, perversely, any real sense of who these men are, even Luttrell.  We get no back stories, just perfunctory mentions of family back home, and the by-now familiar hazing that goes on in probably every military unit around the world.  All four men are presented as there were at that point in time; there’s no depth, no understanding of why these men have become SEALs or what it means to them.  In many ways, the script – adapted by Berg from Luttrell’s memoir – avoids getting to know these men, and this has a desensitising effect when they’re ambushed later in the movie.  When they come under fire, and begin sustaining injuries, there’s no emotional connection for the audience to make.  There are two scenes where the men are forced to put distance between them and Shah’s men by hurling themselves down rocky hillsides.  Instead of wincing at the punishment being (self-)inflicted, the viewer is instead left admiring the stunt work involved.

The extended encounter between the SEALs and the Taliban is set up well and there is a degree of tension before the first shot is fired.  After that, though, the movie settles for becoming the cinematic version of a video game, with – for the viewer – increased confusion as to where each man is in relation to the other, and even to their enemy.  When Murphy reaches a ledge where he can use his satellite phone to contact the base, it seems too far from where his comrades are, at that point, pinned down.  The same applies when Axelson is separated from Luttrell; again he appears to have travelled some considerable distance (albeit to no avail).  It’s these little anomalies that undermine the narrative and keep the firelight from being as tense and exciting as it should be.  When Luttrell finally manages to elude his attackers and is found by his rescuers, you have no real idea of how far he’s travelled, or even how he’s managed to avoid detection.

With all the attention given over to the physical exploits on display, there’s little for Wahlberg et al to do but decry each successive injury and show how much pain they are in.  Even in the relatively quieter moments in the village, where Luttrell befriends a young boy, there’s little for Wahlberg to do except look fearful and in pain (although there is a wonderful moment involving the word ‘knife’).

Ultimately, Lone Survivor feels like a movie that has just missed out on its full potential.  Berg’s direction is more than adequate for the material and while his script doesn’t help his own efforts in that area, he still manages to elicit good performances from his lead players.  The photography is polished and shows off the rugged countryside where the action takes place to often beautiful effect, and the sound editing is appropriately exciting and immersive during the firefight.  With a couple of uncredited appearances by Luttrell – watch for the SEAL who knocks over the coffee that newbie Patton (Ludwig) then has to clear up – Lone Survivor may have that participant’s blessing, but its audience will feel they need a lot more before they can give theirs.

Rating: 7/10 – while the action sequences are expertly staged and executed, they’re still not as exciting as they should have been, and the performances are bogged down by a lack of depth; not a complete misfire, but one that needed to beef up the characters and engage the audience’s sympathy a whole lot more.