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Monthly Roundup – February 2018

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

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‘C’-Man (1949) / D: Joseph Lerner / 77m

Cast: Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Lottie Elwen, Rene Paul, Harry Landers, Walter Vaughn, Adelaide Klein, Edith Atwater

Rating: 5/10 – a US Customs agent (Jagger) finds himself looking for the killer of his best friend (and fellow Customs agent), and the person responsible for the theft of a rare jewel – could they be the same man?; an odd noir crime thriller that betrays its low budget production values, ‘C’-Man is short on character but long on action, and is fitfully entertaining, though the performances vary wildly and the script contains some very po-faced dialogue, making it a movie you can’t really take your eyes from – and not in a good way.

When We First Met (2018) / D: Ari Sandel / 97m

Cast: Adam Devine, Alexandra Daddario, Shelley Hennig, Andrew Bachelor, Robbie Amell

Rating: 3/10 – Noah (Devine) falls for Avery (Daddario) and winds up in the friend zone, but thanks to a magic photo booth, he gets the chance to go back and change their relationship into a romantic one; a dire romantic comedy that struggles to be both romantic and funny, When We First Met can’t even make anything meaningful out of its time travel scenario, and is let down by a banal script and below-par performances.

The Phantom (1931) / D: Alan James / 62m

Cast: Guinn Williams. Allene Ray, Niles Welch, Tom O’Brien, Sheldon Lewis, Wilfred Lucas, Violet Knights, William Gould, Bobby Dunn, William Jackie

Rating: 3/10 – a reporter (Williams) tries to track down the titular criminal mastermind when he targets the father of his girlfriend (Ray), but finds it’s not as simple a prospect as he’d thought; an early talkie that shows a lack of imagination and purpose, The Phantom struggles from the outset to be anything but a disappointment, what with its unconvincing mix of comedy and drama, its old dark house scenario, and a clutch of amateur performances that drain the very life out of it at every turn.

Black Panther (2018) / D: Ryan Coogler / 134m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Florence Kasumba, John Kani

Rating: 7/10 – the king of outwardly poor but inwardly technologically advanced Wakanda, T’Challa (Boseman), faces a coup from an unexpected source (Jordan), while trying to work out whether or not his country’s scientific advances should be shared with the wider world; though Black Panther does feature a predominantly black cast, and speaks to black issues, this is still a Marvel movie at the end of the day and one that adheres to the template Marvel have created for their releases, making this an admittedly funny and exciting thrill ride, but one that’s also another formulaic entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Atomic Blonde (2017) / D: David Leitch / 115m

Cast: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, James Faulkner, Roland Møller, Sofia Boutella, Bill Skarsgård, Sam Hargrave, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Til Schweiger

Rating: 6/10 – in the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, a spy (Theron) must find a list of double agents that are being smuggled into the West, a task complicated by the involvement of the Americans, the Russians and a number of other interested parties; an attempt to provide audiences with a female John Wick, Atomic Blonde does have tremendous fight scenes, and a great central performance by Theron, but it’s let down by a muddled script, an even more muddled sense of the period it’s set in, and by trying to be fun when a straighter approach would have worked better.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) / D: Bill Condon / 129m

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Nathan Mack, Audra McDonald, Stanley Tucci, Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Rating: 5/10 – the classic fairy tale, and previously a classic animated movie, is given the live action treatment by Disney; if the latest installment of a certain space opera hadn’t been released in 2017, Beauty and the Beast would have been the number one movie at the international box office, but though the House of Mouse might point to this as a measure of quality, the reality is that Watson was miscast, the songs lack the emotional heft they had in the animated version, and the whole thing has a perfunctory air that no amount of superficial gloss and shine can overcome.

The Case of the Black Parrot (1941) / D: Noel M. Smith / 61m

Cast: William Lundigan, Maris Wrixon, Eddie Foy Jr, Paul Cavanagh, Luli Deste, Charles Waldron, Joseph Crehan, Emory Parnell, Phyllis Barry, Cyril Thornton

Rating: 6/10 – a newspaper reporter (Lundigan) gets involved in a case involving a master forger (the Black Parrot), an antique cabinet, and a couple of mysterious deaths; an enjoyable piece of hokum, The Case of the Black Parrot gets by on a great deal of understated charm, a whodunnit plot that doesn’t overplay its hand, and by having its cast treat the whole absurd undertaking with a sincerity that is an achievement all by itself.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) / D: Kenneth Branagh / 114m

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Derek Jacobi, Marwan Kenzari, Leslie Odom Jr, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sergei Polunin, Daisy Ridley

Rating: 5/10 – the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) is faced with a complex mystery: which one of a dozen passengers killed an infamous kidnapper, and more importantly, why?; yet another version of the Agatha Christie novel, Murder on the Orient Express strands its capable cast thanks to both an avalanche and a tepid script, leaving its director/star to orchestrate matters less effectively than expected, particularly when unravelling the mystery means having the suspects seated together in a way that clumsily replicates the Last Supper.

The Boss Baby (2017) / D: Tom McGrath / 97m

Cast: Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Tobey Maguire, Miles Bakshi, James McGrath, Conrad Vernon, ViviAnn Yee, Eric Bell Jr, David Soren

Rating: 6/10 – when seven year old Tim (Bakshi) finds he has a new baby brother, Theodore (Baldwin) – and one dressed in a business suit at that – he also finds that Theodore is there to stop babies from being usurped in people’s affections by puppies; a brightly animated kids’ movie that takes several predictable swipes at corporate America, The Boss Baby wants to be heartwarming and caustic at the same time, but can’t quite manage both (it settles for heartwarming), and though Baldwin may seem like the perfect choice for the title character, he’s the weakest link in a voice cast that otherwise sells the performances with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Game Night (2018) / D: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein / 100m

Cast: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Danny Huston, Michael C. Hall

Rating: 5/10 – when a group of friends led by Max (Bateman) and Annie (McAdams) are invited to a game night at the home of Max’s brother, Brooks (Chandler), the evening descends into murder and mayhem, and sees the group trying to get to the bottom of a real-life mystery; like an Eighties high concept comedy released thirty years too late, Game Night has a great cast but little direction and waaaay too much exposition clogging up its run time, all of which makes a couple of very funny, very inspired visual gags the only reward for the viewer who sticks with this to the end.

mother! (2017)

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

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D: Darren Aronofsky / 121m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson, Stephen McHattie, Kristen Wiig, Jovan Adepo

Tucked away near the bottom left hand corner of the poster for mother! is the tagline, seeing is believing. Like much of the movie itself, it’s a phrase that’s open to interpretation, while at the same time, it can also be dismissed quite readily. If what we’re seeing is to be believed, then principal production company Protozoa Pictures have handed writer/director Darren Aronofsky $30 million in order for him to go off and make a movie that reaches for great heights but which fails to achieve those heights because somewhere along the way – and apologies for the clumsy analogy – Aronofsky forgot to bring along the ladder that would allow him to get there. It’s a brave, fearless movie, reckless even, and one that challenges its audience on many levels, not least as to whether or not they’ll like it. But it’s not the great success that some critics are avowing, and it’s not the complete disaster that others are saying of it. Instead it’s a movie that reveals a truth about artistic vision that often gets overlooked: it’s the vision of one individual, and as such, isn’t likely to be shared or appreciated by everyone.

For the most part, mother! is a religious allegory, with the main characters – mother (Lawrence), Him (Bardem), Man (Harris), and Woman (Pfeiffer) – recycling moments from the Old Testament that trade on our familiarity with them in order to help the viewer process the world they’ve been thrust into. The house where mother and Him live is a veritable Garden of Eden; beyond it is blasted ground and decaying flora. It’s an oasis that mother wants to perpetuate, and while Him is having trouble writing (he’s known also as the Poet), mother busies herself in renovating the large, spacious house they live in. But into every paradise must come discord, and soon the arrival of man, someone who appears to know Him (though how is never decided on), leads to the beginning of a great unhappiness for mother, as Him puts their guest before both Himself and mother. mother can’t understand it, and her attempts to return things to how they were before man’s arrival, all of which are unsuccessful, are further overturned by the arrival of man’s wife, woman.

If you know your Old Testament then you’ll know that the further arrival of their two sons, known as younger brother (Brian Gleeson) and oldest son (Domhnall Gleeson), will lead predictably to the movie’s first outbreak of violence. The wake that follows sees the guests take advantage of Him’s hospitality, but while Him isn’t bothered by it all, mother becomes more and more angry and annoyed, and eventually throws them all out. mother confronts Him about his willingness to embrace the love he’s shown by others, while in turn he ignores the love she has for him. Her anger sparks passion in Him and they have sex; the next morning, mother announces she’s pregnant. At that, Him’s writing block vanishes and he sets to work again with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. Time passes (though perhaps not in the same fashion as we are aware of it). mother is heavily pregnant, and Him has finished writing his first poem. mother takes steps to celebrate their good fortune, but the arrival of fans of the Poet at the house soon makes the events of the wake seem trivial in comparison…

Written (apparently) in five days, mother! sets out its stall quite early on, and builds from an intimate character piece to a cautionary tale, and finally, to a riotous excursion into the apocalypse. For all the religious allegory that litters and upholds the screenplay, as well as its occasional forays into the consequences of much sought after celebrity, when it’s brought fully into play it lacks any subtlety, and Aronofsky seems determined to batter his audience over the head with the intensity of it all. An extended sequence that sees mother battling for her home and her life provides little respite as the director of the much more polished Black Swan (2010) gives us a potted history of the world and its fall from grace, and its adoption of original sin as a mission statement for pursuing life (or should that be death?). It’s a heavy-handed though technically stunning section of the movie, but it also proves numbing, as violence is meted out at every turn and each atrocity depicted has less and less effect on the viewer. There may be a point being made here about the way in which we’ve become inured or desensitised to violence, but if there is it’s buried beneath Aronofsky’s bludgeoning approach and the combination of Matthew Libatique’s careering cinematography and Andrew Weisblum’s frenetic editing.

Whatever message Aronofsky might be trying to get across, what hampers the movie most in enabling that message to be received by audiences, is the singular lack of sympathy or empathy that the viewer could have for any of the characters. mother may seem like the most obvious choice for the viewer to connect with – after all, the camera follows her around capturing close ups of her for most of the movie – but for the most part it’s a passive role that requires Lawrence to react rather than participate, and she’s forced to shuttle through a variety of expressions that range from unpleasantly surprised to easily confused and back again. It’s a good performance from Lawrence, but somehow it’s against the odds, as if Aronofsky was more concerned with the physical surroundings of his characters – the house is like a maze of unconnected rooms and dislocated floors – rather than any interior life they might have. Bardem is equally good and in the same fashion, making two good performances that help make the movie more accessible than perhaps Aronofsky was prepared to agree to.

In the end, mother! is a movie that is likely to prove divisive for some time to come. Some will like it immensely, others will be repulsed by it (and especially by a scene that has a less literal parallel in real life). It would be wrong to claim it as a masterpiece, as there are long stretches where the pace is becalmed, and mother’s persistent inability to control what’s happening around her soon becomes increasingly frustrating to watch. It would also be wrong to claim it as a catastrophe as it’s a movie that’s striving to be ambitious on its own terms, and in that sense it is successful; it’s unlikely you’ll see another movie this year that is so uncompromising and unapologetic in the way it’s being presented. On balance then, there’s more that’s good about the movie than bad, though it’s a narrow margin that separates the two. But whatever anyone may think about its successes or failings, this is bold, visionary storytelling from a director who has made a movie that is both experimental and formal in its design, and thought-provoking for much of its demanding running time.

Rating: 6/10 – a movie that may well develop a better reputation in years to come, mother! is a frustrating, relentless, impressive, and yet reproachful assault on the senses; emotionally oblique and intellectually compromised it may be, but this is still a visually and aesthetically astounding feature that flirts with the kind of regressive ideas that other movie makers wouldn’t even begin to contemplate taking on.

The Family (2013)

08 Sunday Dec 2013

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Family, The

D: Luc Besson / 111m

Cast: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron, John D’Leo, Jimmy Palumbo, Domenick Lombardozzi, Stan Carp, Vincent Pastore, Jon Freda

Having ratted on his bosses in the Mob, Giovanni Manzoni (De Niro) and his family – wife Maggie (Pfeiffer), daughter Belle (Agron) and son Warren (D’Leo) – are living in France under the Witness Protection Program.  Following an incident at their placement on the Riviera, the Manzonis are moved to a quiet Normandy town where their handler, CIA agent Robert Stansfield (Jones), hopes they’ll settle down and stay out of trouble. While the Manzonis (now the Blakes) try to fit in, a hitman (Freda) is trying to track them down.

Each member of the family does their best to adapt to their new surroundings but with varied results.  Giovanni begins writing his memoirs, Maggie takes an interest in a nearby church, Belle fends off the advances of the local teenage boys and falls in love with a mature student, while Warren takes over the various rackets at their school.  They all encounter problems along the way, and each deals with these problems in their own way: Giovanni with violence, Belle with violence, Warren with violence, and Maggie with violence but then followed by her making confession.  It’s their inability to fit in without reverting to their Mob ways that causes Stansfield to threaten them with yet another relocation, especially after he reads Giovanni’s memoirs and realises how dangerous they could be if anyone outside the family were to read them.  But then the hitman and his gang find them, and everyone has to pull together to keep the Manzonis alive.

Family, The - scene

Ostensibly a comedy, The Family is ultimately a bit of a mixed bag.  Besson, directing from a script co-written with Michael Caleo, adds drama, romance, action, a lot of casual violence, a wonderful moment for De Niro at a film screening, and a soupçon of domestic troubles.  The main characters are well-drawn: Giovanni is both naturally aggressive and yet also quite melancholy and thoughtful, while Maggie appears lonely and struggling to adjust; she’s a mother whose role is no longer as clearly defined as it was back in New York.  Belle is sophisticated and yet naïve at the same time: she misunderstands the situation with the mature student, and takes too much for granted.  And Warren finds he’s not quite the clever gangster he thought he was.  All four actors are on top form, De Niro providing a world-weary performance that belies the uncompromising mobster he’ll always be at heart; he’s a joy to watch.  Pfeiffer revisits her character from Married to the Mob (1987), and gives a shaded turn where her unhappiness at her family’s situation is offset by her obvious pride and love for them.  As the children, Agron (from TV’s Glee) is confident, poised and vulnerable, and D’Leo plays Warren with an equal confidence that is impressive for his age.

What spoils the movie though is the continuing shifts in tone.  Beginning with a hit on a family (and providing Freda with a great entrance) that is horribly violent, the movie shifts uneasily between moments of light humour – there are no really laugh-out-loud moments in the movie – and more and more extreme bouts of violence: Belle taking a tennis racket to a teenage boy’s face, Giovanni fantasising about pushing a man’s face onto a barbecue grill.  These episodes, meant to remind the audience perhaps that these people, after all, were part of the Mob and have done some horrible things in the past, serve only to show that, Giovanni’s writing aside, the experience of being in the Witness Protection Program hasn’t changed them at all; if anything, they are using their unique skill-sets to dominate their community just as they used to do.  It’s this lack of personal improvement or growth that undermines the characters and makes them appear close to stereotypes.  There’s also an unpleasant whiff of institutionalised racism that runs throughout the movie, with the Manzonis the target of some unvarnished cultural attacks (“they eat hamburgers morning, noon and night”); the family’s only response is to have a barbecue for their neighbours where they serve only American food, and of course, the French all go away very happy.

The movie also isn’t quite as funny as it thinks it is, and shifts in tone aside, fails to hit the mark too often.  It’s largely predictable and while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing with this type of movie, with the cast involved you’d hope for something a little richer, and with more surprises.  The final shootout is well-staged and shows Besson is still more than adept at shooting action scenes.  The preceding set-up is equally well-staged and quite gripping.  If only the previous hour and a half had been the same.  That said, Thierry Arbogast’s photography is deceptively fluid and gives certain scenes an almost painterly finish, and the score by Sacha and Evgueni Galperine subtly enhances things throughout.

Rating: 6/10 – only fitfully entertaining, and saved by strong performances; The Family won’t change your life, but then it hasn’t changed theirs either.