Viceroy’s House (2017)

22 Wednesday Mar 2017

Tags

Drama, Gillian Anderson, Gurinder Chadha, Hindus, Historical drama, Hugh Bonneville, Huma Qureshi, India, Manish Dayal, Michael Gambon, Muslims, Pakistan, Partition, Politics, Review, Sikhs, True story

D: Gurinder Chadha / 106m

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Michael Gambon, Om Puri, Simon Callow, Lily Travers, Tanveer Ghani, Denzil Smith, Neeraj Kabi, Darshan Jariwala

The awkwardly titled Viceroy’s House opens with a quote by Winston Churchill: “History is written by the victors.” Bearing in mind the story that follows, it’s hard to see why this particular quote has been chosen to open the movie. Perhaps director Gurinder Chadha is using it in an ironic fashion; any winners borne out of the terrible circumstances and outcomes surrounding the partition of India in 1947 may not have been aware of their having “won” anything at the time – even those who wanted the creation of Pakistan.

One thing that soon becomes apparent from watching the movie is that it’s going to be a politics-lite experience, with little depth beyond that given to an adaptation being shown on UK Sunday evening television. This means that some viewers, especially those with little awareness of the period when the British withdrew from India, and the terrible consequences that followed, will take much of what the movie tells them to heart. What should be made clear from the start is that Viceroy’s House is better viewed as an impression of those events than as a recreation.

The problem here is that one of the most traumatic upheavals of the 20th Century that involved a country and fifteen million of its inhabitants – those who were displaced – is given an unremarkable soap opera sheen that paints the British as saviours, and the Indian people as the authors of their own downfall. As an interpretation of what actually occurred on the Indian sub-continent, the movie takes several factual liberties with the events surrounding partition, and panders to the idea that the frustration experienced by Lord Louis Mountbatten (known more familiarly as “Dickie”) (Bonneville) is somehow more affecting and deserving of our sympathy than the political and social upheavals being experienced by India’s Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities. As a dramatic approach to the material, it’s akin to asking an audience to be more sympathetic towards someone with a slight case of sunburn than someone who’s lost a limb.

The obvious comparison here is with the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs (or Downton Abbey for that matter, which also stars Bonneville). By attempting to focus on both the political machinations going on above stairs and the social upheavals occurring below stairs, Viceroy’s House tries to show the effect of partition on the British and the Indians alike. But the script – by Paul Mayeda Berges, Moira Buffini, and Chadha – takes an uncomfortable approach to the historical material, and tries to add a standard Romeo and Juliet-style romance to proceedings through the attraction between valet Jeet Kumar (Dayal) and lady’s attendant Aalia Noor (Qureshi). Alas, and despite the best efforts of Dayal and Qureshi, their romance is a tepid affair that occupies too much screen time, and lacks the kind of epic passion that could be seen as a compelling reflection of the violent passions of a country expressing itself through mounting conflict.

Other members of the Viceroy’s staff have arguments and cause problems from time to time, and Mountbatten is seen to berate them as if they were all naughty children. It’s a condescending attitude that extends to Mountbatten’s meetings with India’s leading politicians. Whether it’s Nehru (Ghani), Jinnah (Smith) or Ghandi (Dabi), the movie has “Dickie” treating them as if they should all just get along because he needs them to. And as a sop to the current need for strong female characters in pretty much every movie being made, Lady Edwina Mountbatten (Anderson) is portrayed as the “brains of the outfit”, while at the same time falling victim to the idea that their predicament is worse than that of the Indian people (“How can it be getting worse under us?”).

As the inevitability of partition looms ever nearer, and outbreaks of violence become the norm, Mountbatten is pushed into a corner and forced to accept that there can’t be a united India. With Pakistan now a certainty, he’s required to divide India into two, and enlists British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe (Callow) to carry out the task. But it proves too difficult, until he’s advised by General Ismay (Gambon), Mountbatten’s advisor on all things Indian and political, that there is a solution. It’s here that the movie cements its appreciation and sympathy for the Viceroy by showing him as having been tricked by the British Government and set up for a fall if the violence continues and/or escalates out of control. It’s a moment that should elicit a good deal of compassion for “poor old” Mountbatten, but instead makes the viewer realise that Chadha feels more for him than she does for the Indian people.

Much else in the movie is perfunctory stuff designed to move the story forward with the least amount of effort or acknowledgment as to how dry and uninvolving it all is. Chadha directs with a minimum of fuss or apparent enthusiasm, leaving some scenes feeling cursory and superficial. Against this, the cast can only do their best, though Anderson manages to imbue Lady Mountbatten with a supportive, agreeable nature that makes her feel like more of a fully rounded character than anyone else. Bonneville is a good choice for “Dickie” (though he doesn’t look anything like him), but even he’s held back by a script that paints Mountbatten, somewhat plainly, as a good man in a bad situation (though if you need someone to portray “pained frustration” then Bonneville’s your man).

For someone whose family were involved in the partition and the subsequent resettlement of so many people, Chadha doesn’t always seem interested in telling a coherent, responsible story. Muslims are unlikely to be happy about the way in which they are shown to be the main instigators of the violence depicted, while the religious enmities between Muslims and Hindus are reduced to petty squabbling, a direction that is extended to the encounters between Nehru and Jinnah – if you believe the movie, then neither man could be in the same room as the other without resorting to childish bickering. By reducing the key players’ importance in this way, and by playing up the ineffective nature of Mountbatten’s tenure as Viceroy, the movie ends up paying lip service to a terrible period in India’s history, a period that deserves a much more focused and intelligent approach than is featured here.

Rating: 4/10 – sporadically effective as a heritage picture, Viceroy’s House is let down by its one-sided consideration of British colonialism, and by its insistence on depicting Indians of the time as quarreling malcontents; nowhere is freedom from oppression expressed as forcibly as needed, and the movie’s tacit exoneration of Great Britain’s often brutal occupation makes for an uncomfortable viewing experience throughout.

Dad’s Army (2016)

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bill Nighy, Blake Harrison, Captain Mainwaring, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Comedy, Corporal Jones, Drama, German spy, Home Guard, Invasion plans, Michael Gambon, Oliver Parker, Private Pike, Review, Sergeant Wilson, Toby Jones, Tom Courtenay, Walmington-on-Sea, War, World War II

D: Oliver Parker / 100m

Cast: Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon, Blake Harrison, Daniel Mays, Bill Paterson, Mark Gatiss, Sarah Lancashire, Felicity Montagu, Alison Steadman, Emily Atack, Holli Dempsey, Julia Foster, Annette Crosbie, Ian Lavender, Frank Williams

Those of a certain age will remember the original UK TV series that ran from 1968 to 1977. It was immensely popular, with episodes regularly hitting the eighteen million mark for viewers, and it spawned a radio version, a stage version, and in 1971, there was even a movie featuring the original cast. Even today, repeat showings of Dad’s Army garner viewing figures in the low millions. It’s a national institution, and one of the few shows in the UK that pretty much everyone either likes or has a soft spot for. In short, it’s that good.

And now we have a remake to contend with, an updating (of necessity) of the cast – though series’ veteran Frank Williams does return as the vicar – and an attempt at recreating past glories with a slightly modern slant attached. When the project was first announced in 2014, the reaction amongst fans wasn’t as enthusiastic as the makers would have hoped, and when the trailer was first shown in cinemas in late 2015, some audiences gave it a less than warm reception. The general consensus seemed to be: this can’t be any good… can it?

The short answer is no. This version is so disappointing that for much of its running time, viewers will be wondering how the makers could have got it so badly wrong, and with such consistency. It’s obvious from the opening scenes that find the platoon attempting to capture a bull, and which lead to their running scattershot across a field while the camera adopts the POV of the bull, that this isn’t going to be the warmly humorous affair that the series was, or as cleverly constructed. And as the movie continues, introducing its tired plot centred around the Allied invasion in 1944 and the search for a German spy, it becomes abundantly clear that whatever merits Hamish McColl’s screenplay may have had, they’ve not been transferred to the screen.

In this version, as opposed to the series, Captain Mainwaring (a game but badly undermined Toby Jones) is portrayed not as the officious prig that he was on TV but as a bumbling idiot. Sergeant Wilson (Nighy) was always the quiet Lothario, but now we’re asked to believe that he would fall so easily and in such a headstrong way for a woman from his past, the worldly-wise journalist Rose Winters (Zeta-Jones) (he was her tutor at Oxford, which raises all sorts of questions that thankfully the script doesn’t want to explore). And then there’s the rest of the platoon: nervous Corporal Jones (Courtenay, going from the sublime 45 Years to this farrago), addled Private Godfrey (an admittedly well cast Michael Gambon), doomy Private Frazer (Paterson), upbeat spiv Private Walker (Mays), and dopey Private Pike (The Inbetweeners’ Harrison). If nothing else, it’s a great cast, but it’s also a cast who are given so little to do in real terms (other than to keep advancing the plot – there’s an incredible amount of exposition here) that one ultimately wonders what was the point of hiring them.

When the best you can do with actors of this calibre is have them stand around in a church hall for no better reason than to see how terrible they are as a Home Guard – which we already know – and then repeat the same three or four more times, it shows up the paucity of ideas on display. The rivalry between Mainwaring and Wilson, so beautifully enacted by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier on TV, is retained, but with Mainwaring appearing so petulant and bullying in his responses to Wilson that all the subtlety of their relationship is lost, abandoned possibly from the first draft. Corporal Jones’s nervous anxiety in the face of danger is poorly channelled by Courtenay (who never seems comfortable in the role), while Private Pike’s innate stupidity is bolstered for some reason by his quoting famous lines from the movies of the period and being made to look like Errol Flynn (and all to little effect). Only Gambon succeeds in beating the odds, making Godfrey endearingly silly in his dotage, but then the character isn’t given anything else to do other than be endearingly silly, so Gambon can’t go wrong.

And then there’s the plot, the kind of hackneyed attempt at combining contemporary concerns with light humour that the series would have done more justice to, and more effectively, in under half an hour. The original scripts by Jimmy Perry and David Croft were tightly constructed, beautifully observant of their characters’ foibles, and the humour always arose from those foibles; everything was in service to the characters. Here it’s the opposite, and the characters are shoehorned into a plot that never gets off the ground (unlike a certain number of tanks). Thankfully, the script doesn’t attempt to hide the identity of its German spy (and their identity is easily deduced from the trailer), so that’s one hurdle it doesn’t have to stumble over in the dark, but it does lay a massive egg in the form of Mark Gatiss’ Major Theakes, a martinet senior officer with an unexplained limp and a penchant for fitting the war in around his leisure activities. It feels like Theakes is there as a satirical nod to the incompetencies of the command structure, but if so, he’s out of place and would be better off appearing in a World War I tale instead.

The movie is also one of the blandest, most visually depressing movies to watch in some time, its dour colour palette and compromised colour range doing little to engage the senses beyond the red dress worn by Zeta-Jones. Even the outdoor scenes seem to have been filmed only on days when the skies were overcast and/or gloomy. And the final shootout is so devoid of tension and excitement that you can only hope it’s all over with as quickly as possible.

If it seems unfair to judge Dad’s Army 2016 with the original show, then it’s because the original was so good, and this isn’t. This is laboured, uninspired, woeful stuff in places, and not a tribute to the enduring qualities of the TV show in any way, shape or form. Even the attempts to squeeze in the various catchphrases from the show are awkwardly handled, and some you might even miss as you fight to maintain a decent level of attention. With the show having gained such a level of respect and admiration and affection over the years, to have this released now, and to be so badly put together, begs the question that’s asked here quite often: why didn’t anyone realise how bad this was when they were making it, or was it all too late if they did?

Rating: 3/10 – another example of a UK TV sitcom given a lacklustre cinema outing, Dad’s Army should stand as a warning to other movie makers looking to adapt a small screen favourite; with a script that forgot to include any jokes, or anything that an audience that could react to by laughing out loud, this should be avoided by anyone who loves the series and who doesn’t want that love tarnished by what’s been attempted here.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

30 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken, Hammer homage, Headless horseman, Ichabod Crane, Johnny Depp, Literary adaptation, Michael Gambon, Review, Tim Burton, Washington Irving, Witchcraft

D: Tim Burton / 105m

Cast: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Gough, Christopher Walken, Marc Pickering, Lisa Marie, Steven Waddington, Claire Skinner, Christopher Lee, Martin Landau

New York State, 1799. Young policeman Ichabod Crane (Depp), viewed as an embarrassment by his superiors due to his interest in unorthodox investigation techniques such as fingerprinting and forensic testing, is dispatched upstate to the small hamlet of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a spate of murders where the victims have been found headless. When he arrives he finds the town’s elders, led by Baltus Van Tassel (Gambon), have no doubt as to the murderer’s identity: a vengeful spirit known as the Headless Horseman (Walken).

A disbelieving Crane begins his investigation. He learns that one of the victims was pregnant at the time of her death and that there is a link between them all to a will made by the first victim, Peter Van Garrett (Landau). Further slayings take place, though Crane continues to believe the killer is made of flesh and blood. It’s not until he witnesses the death of Magistrate Phillipse (Griffiths) that he realises that the Headless Horseman is real.

During all this Crane becomes infatuated with Van Tassel’s daughter, Katrina (Ricci). Along with the son of one of the victims, Young Masbath (Pickering), she helps him find the Horseman’s grave; the skull is missing, convincing Crane that someone is using it to control the Horseman. Crane deduces that “someone” is Van Tassel as before Van Garrett changed his will, he stood to inherit Van Garrett’s fortune. Katrina, however, burns the evidence and renounces her feelings for Crane. Though, when Crane is wounded by the Horseman in a fight, she tends him until he is better.

Things escalate when the town’s notary, Hardenbrook (Gough) takes his own life. A town meeting is held in the church, during which both Dr Lancaster (McDiarmid) and the Reverend Steenwyck (Jones) are killed, before Van Tassel is claimed by the Horseman. With Crane’s chief suspect murdered, he begins finally to piece together the identity of the person who is really controlling the Horseman, and the reasons why they have employed him in such a fashion.

Justly celebrated at the time of its release for its remarkably effective on screen beheadings, Sleepy Hollow was something of a return to form for Burton, who hadn’t directed a movie since the less-than-well received Mars Attacks! (1996). Although he wasn’t originally scheduled to direct the movie – that was meant to be creature effects designer Kevin Yagher, who also constructed the story with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker – this is recognisably a Tim Burton movie right from the start, and his tribute to Hammer movies. With its muted colour palette, and grim rural setting, Sleepy Hollow is not perhaps the most attractive looking movie you’ll ever see, but it definitely suits the action, its steely blues and ghostly greys adding greatly to the often stifling atmosphere. There’s a real sense of foreboding about the hamlet and its surroundings, and the movie uses Rick Heinrichs’ excellent production design to impressive effect. And then there’s the Tree of the Dead, a superbly realised gateway to Hell that is almost a character all by itself.

If the screenplay ultimately is a pretty convoluted concoction, with the motivations of the Horseman’s controller proving to be unnecessarily tangled, there’s still tremendous fun to be had from a movie that invokes the spirit of 60’s Hammer movies with such obvious affection, and includes roles for horror icons Christopher Lee and Michael Gough (who was persuaded to come out of retirement for the movie). The movie’s mix of horror, humour, action and romance is intoxicating, and is helped by a clutch of performances that embrace the proceedings with gusto. Depp anchors the movie with a slightly prissy interpretation of Ichabod Crane that gives rise to much of the humour, while Ricci is more quietly proficient as Katrina, her role more in keeping with the independent heroine who still requires saving in the final reel. Gambon does nervous and guilty with aplomb, while Griffiths is a (brief) standout as the petrified Magistrate. And Walken, with his piercing blue eyes and sharply pointed teeth, impresses as the Hessian horseman, all snarling rage and bloodthirsty intensity. In smaller roles, Richardson, Jones, McDiarmid and Van Dien all have their moments, but it’s a measure of their collective abilities that they aren’t all lost in the mix.

There’s a lot packed into Sleepy Hollow, from the various well-mounted and staged killings (Van Tassel’s is a striking example), to the back story involving Crane’s mother (Lisa Marie), to the elements of witchcraft that underpin the Horseman’s return, to a thrilling three-way battle between Crane, Bram Von Brunt (Van Dien) and the Horseman (Ray Park, fresh from filming his role as Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and as equally menacing here), but under Burton’s expert guidance, all these disparate components come together to make a richly rewarding whole. The movie takes the more fantastical aspects of the story and grounds them effectively, and if there’s a few too many occasions where things are glossed over or rushed through in order to get to the Horseman’s next appearance, then overall it doesn’t hurt the movie’s drive. With its fiery windmill confrontation and stagecoach chase climax, the movie ends on a thrilling note, and provides a suitably horrible fate for both the Horseman and his controller.

Rating: 8/10 – a stylish exercise in period horror, Sleepy Hollow has yet to be equalled or bettered, and features one of the most memorable villains in recent movie history; with its excellent production design and convincing special effects, Burton’s homage to the horror movies of his youth is both memorable and exciting.