Tag Archives: Oscar Isaac

Triple Frontier (2019)

16 Saturday Mar 2019

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D: J.C. Chandor / 125m

Cast: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal, Adria Arjona, Sheila Vand, Reynaldo Gallegos, Maddy Wary, Juan Camilo Castillo

While working as a private military advisor combating a drug cartel in Colombia, Santiago “Pope” Garcia (Isaac) learns that the head of the cartel, Lorea (Gallegos), keeps all his money at a safe house in the middle of the jungle. Instead of passing on this information to the authorities, Pope returns to the US to recruit four friends, all ex-Special Forces, for a mission to grab the money for themselves. Each of his friends has a reason for going: Tom “Redfly” Davis (Affleck) is a realtor with financial problems; William “Ironhead” Miller (Hunnam) is a motivational speaker who misses being a part of the military; his brother, Ben (Hedlund), is an MMA fighter who’ll follow wherever Ironhead goes; and Francisco “Catfish” Morales (Pascal) is a pilot whose licence has been withdrawn. They reconnoitre Lorea’s jungle hideout, and determine to raid the place on a Sunday morning when his family and most of his men will be at church. Although Ironhead is wounded, the raid is a success, and they get away with around $250 million in cash. Now all they have to do is stay alive long enough to make it back home…

Triple Frontier‘s production history is in some ways more interesting than the finished movie. Originally set to star Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp, and with Kathryn Bigelow directing, delays since 2010 meant that it wasn’t until 2015 that Chandor came aboard and added his own input to Mark Boal’s original screenplay. With Channing Tatum and Tom Hardy having replaced Hanks and Depp at that stage, Mahershala Ali was added to the cast before all three dropped out, and Affleck et al signed on (Affleck even quit the project himself for a while before shooting began). With all this in mind, it’s interesting to re-imagine the movie with those actors in the main roles – and realise that the right choices were made in the end. For though Triple Frontier is ultimately an uneven movie that puts itself in danger of losing its audience’s interest in the final third, its the strength of its final casting that makes the movie so effective. With impressive performances from all concerned – Affleck is particularly good as the morally ambiguous Redfly – the movie plays well when it’s concerned with issues of camaraderie and masculinity (both supportive and toxic), and in showing the levels of trust these men have in each other, even when things are going wrong and blaming each other is a natural response.

The relationships the five men have form the core of the movie, and give it an emotional resonance that most action thrillers never attempt let alone achieve. And Chandor ensures that it’s not all about the money, but more about how all of them except Pope miss being a part of the action. These are men who’ve lost their sense of purpose, their identities now they’re back in the real world, and when the movie focuses on this, it does so perceptively and persuasively. But this is also an action thriller, and for the first two thirds a very accomplished one, with Chandor staging an opening attack on a cartel building with verve and skill, and the raid on Lorea’s house like a chess match with rifles instead of pieces. But then comes the getaway, and though there’s already the sense that it won’t be as smooth and well planned as hoped for, where Chandor and Boal take Redfly and the others leads to a number of surprisingly flat scenes that lack energy and pace, and which feel like the dictionary definition of padding. As a result, a moment of tragedy lacks the impact it should have, and the movie struggles through to an ending that doesn’t carry the dramatic weight that’s expected. Still, it’s a good movie, for the most part, and Chandor continues to show why he’s one of the best directors working today, but this has to be regarded as something of a disappointment.

Rating: 7/10 – as a three-act narrative with both prologue and epilogue, Triple Frontier is only effective up until the end of the second act, when different forces come into play and the focus shifts from being about five men regaining their sense of purpose in the world, and becomes a generic tale of survival against low odds; with ambitions beyond the standard heist movie, it’s a shame then that those ambitions weren’t as well thought out and worked through as they needed to be.

At Eternity’s Gate (2018)

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

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D: Julian Schnabel / 111m

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Neils Arestrup, Anne Consigny, Amira Casar, Vincent Perez

In 1888, and with his work not gaining the attention he feels it deserves, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (Dafoe) decides to leave Paris for the rural town of Arles, where he can sketch and paint without all the distractions of city life to hinder him. Backed by his brother, Theo (Friend), Vincent lives in the Yellow House, and soon begins producing a prodigious amount of work. An extended stay by Paul Gauguin (Isaac) is, at first, welcomed by Vincent, but it soon becomes clear that the two men have very different ideas about art, and that the friendship Vincent is looking for – along with Gauguin’s respect – isn’t going to develop. Eventually, Gauguin leaves, and in a fugue state, Vincent severs his left ear. Now more isolated than ever, Vincent spends time being assessed as to the suitability of his being released from hospital, and though his behaviour, and the possibility of more manic episodes can’t be dismissed, he appears rational enough to return to Arles. But Vincent is still plagued by doubts and worries, and he eventually moves to Auvers-sur-Oise, where a tragic fate awaits him…

Covering the last two years of van Gogh’s life, At Eternity’s Gate (the title is taken from a painting the artist made during his last year) is not your average portrait of a suffering, unappreciated artist. Instead it’s a movie that does its best to make the viewer understand the depth of van Gogh’s passion for painting, and which does so thanks to a combination of Benoît Delhomme’s glorious cinematography, and director (and co-screenwriter with Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg) Julian Schnabel’s own artistic sensibilities. Here, the viewer is allowed to immserse themselves in the details of van Gogh’s paintings and sketches, and to gain a sense of the passion that drove van Gogh to create such a unique body of work. Whether it’s a still life, or a landscape, van Gogh’s commitment and drive is readily apparent, and Schnabel uses a number of visual and aural tricks to help us get inside the head of a man who wasn’t always comfortable with his own thoughts. This makes our engagement with van Gogh a little intrusive but also highly instructive: he’s a man tormented by his personal demons, but also an artistic genius because of them.

Van Gogh is played with a masterly brio by Dafoe, the actor displaying a rare skill in inhabiting the character, and in doing so, bringing him to life in ways that are surprising and profound. It’s as if Dafoe has found a way of channelling van Gogh’s own spirit and energy (and his mania), and as a result, it’s a performance that is often mesmerising for its empathy and understanding of just how tortured and driven van Gogh was. Dafoe is ably supported by Friend and Isaac, and there’s a tremendous supporting turn from Mikkelsen as the priest who gets to decide if van Gogh can be released from hospital (their one scene together is the movie’s highlight), but even with all these pin sharp interpretations, it’s Schnabel’s distinctive handling of the material that stands out the most. This is Schnabel’s own idea as to how van Gogh existed in the last two years of his life, and though it’s based on fact, the movie remains an imagining, an artistic depiction of how Schnabel views the van Gogh of that period – just as van Gogh depicted what he saw and made it his own. Often very, very beautiful to watch, and with much to say about the nature of art and its relation to us as individuals, this is easily Schnabel’s best movie since The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), and a fitting tribute to van Gogh and his work.

Rating: 9/10 – with a peerless performance from Dafoe, and Schnabel providing a masterclass in how to depict artistic expression on film, At Eternity’s Gate is a small miracle of arthouse movie making; moving and sincere, it’s the kind of endeavour that will always struggle to reach a wider audience, but for those who are willing to give it a try, it’s one of the most rewarding movies of 2018.

Operation Finale (2018)

15 Monday Oct 2018

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D: Chris Weitz / 123m

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Mélanie Laurent, Lior Raz, Nick Kroll, Haley Lu Richardson, Joe Alwyn, Michael Aronov, Greta Scacchi, Pêpê Rapazote, Peter Strauss, Simon Russell Beale

In Buenos Aires in 1960, a young woman called Sylvia Hermann (Richardson) begins dating a young man, Klaus (Alwyn), who tells her he lives with his uncle, who has been looking after him since his father died in World War II. The kindly uncle actually is his father, Adolf Eichmann (Kingsley), long wanted for war crimes, and now the focus of an Israeli attempt to kidnap him and bring him to trial. Mossad assembles a team that includes Peter Malkin (Isaac), a brash, opportunistic agent who was involved in a previous attempt to capture Eichmann that ended tragically; Rafi Eitan (Kroll), an intelligence specialist; and Hanna Elian (Laurent), a doctor and former agent. The team travels to Buenos Aires where they organise a safe house, and plot Eichmann’s abduction. Once captured, though, they find themselves with a problem: the only way they can get Eichmann out of the country is on an El Al plane that’s scheduled to leave in ten days’ time. But first, El Al wants a signed affidavit from Eichmann that he is willing to travel to Israel to stand trial…

The capture and subsequent “extradition” of Adolf Eichmann from Argentina to Israel in May 1960 has all the hallmarks of an exciting adventure story, with the Mossad team working in secrecy, and under the very real threat of being captured by the Argentinian police and finding themselves put on trial for espionage. And that’s without the substantial number of Nazis and Nazi sympathisers living in Buenos Aires at the time, who would most likely have had them killed on the spot. Eichmann’s capture was a huge coup for the Israelis, and though Operation Finale conflates much of the background detail – e.g. Sylvia Hermann began dating Klaus Eichmann in 1956 – it remains true to the spirit and the general sequence of events that saw one of the principle architects of the Final Solution finally brought to justice. However, Matthew Orton’s screenplay only provides an occasional sense of the danger Malkin and his colleagues were facing, and director Chris Weitz doesn’t seem able to make the movie as tense and exciting as it should be. Instead, we’re treated to a number of scenes where the team debate whether or not to kill Eichmann there and then (even though that’s not the mission), and several repetitive scenes where they endeavour to get him to sign El Al’s affidavit, but to no avail.

It’s a shame, as though this is a distinct improvement on The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996), it never really gels as the historical thriller that was so clearly intended. The performances are uniformly good, with Kingsley subdued yet calculating as Eichmann, and Aronov matching him for intensity as chief interrogator Zvi Aharoni, but they’re in service to material that is often dry and unimaginative. Dramatic flourishes such as flashbacks to the death of Malkin’s sister (which put Eichmann unconvincingly at the scene), and a party where the entire gathering shouts “Sieg Heil!” and gives the Nazi salute over and over, stand out because they are more emotive, but elsewhere the movie treads an even keel and rarely strays from feeling perfunctory and ever so slightly mannered. Even the last minute race against time to get to the airport with the police on the team’s tail is less than exciting, just another cog in the story’s wheel that the makers feel obliged to turn for the audience’s sake. It’s another moment of restrained pretence in a movie that lacks the kind of emotional impact such a dramatic story truly deserves.

Rating: 5/10 – despite the good use of Argentinian locations, and David Brisbin’s detailed production design, Operation Finale feels more like the cinematic equivalent of a first draft than a finished product; with a handful of soap opera elements that further dilute the drama, the movie is too broad and too uneven in its approach to be anywhere near successful, but on its own terms it will suffice until the next interpretation comes along.

10 Stars Who Weren’t Born in the Country You Think They Were

13 Monday Jun 2016

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When we see certain stars in their movies we’re prone to making subconcious conclusions about them: what they’re like off-camera (how nice or how nasty), what they might like to do in their spare time, and sometimes, if they’re single, that we’d be the perfect partner for them (creepy yes, but in a non-stalker kind of way, you know?). Some stars have been around long enough for most people to know that they’re not originally from the country we associate them with. For example, Mel Gibson is generally regarded as Australian but was actually born in the good old US of A. And Audrey Hepburn – American? British? – was born in Belgium. In the spirit of full disclosure, here are ten stars who weren’t born in the country you think they were. See how many of them you knew already.

1 – Emma Watson – the star of the Harry Potter movies, and more recently, Regression (2015), looks and sounds like the quintessential English rose, but guess again. Although both her parents are English, Miss Watson was actually born in Paris, France.

Emma Watson

2 – Eva Green – the mercurial, fearless star of movies such as Casino Royale (2006) and 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) has a classical beauty that could have originated in any of a dozen countries around the globe, but like Emma Watson, Green was born in Paris, France.

3 – Keanu Reeves – with his Hawaiian Christian name and chiselled good looks, you could be forgiven for believing Reeves to be as American as they come, but in fact the star of The Matrix (1999) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

4 – Bruce Willis – the tough-as-nails star of Die Hard (1988) and The Sixth Sense (1999) – like so many others in this list – is generally regarded as American through and through but again, appearances can be (and are) deceiving, as Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein in the former West Germany.

Bruce Willis

5 – Rose Byrne – an actress whose career began back in 1994 as the unfortunately named Rastus Summers in Dallas Doll, Byrne has made a name for herself in recent years in a number of R-rated comedies, and while she seems as American as the next actress, she was actually born in Balmain, Australia.

6 – Oscar Isaac – with his dark, brooding looks, Isaac has a cosmopolitan aura about him that, like Eva Green, could mean he was born just about anywhere, but while he’s played a Russian in Pu239 (2006), and a Mexican in For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada (2012) – amongst others – Isaac actually heralds from Guatemala.

7 – Michael Fassbender – despite having grown up in Northern Ireland and having made a name for himself in a handful of well-received British movies, including Hunger (2008) and Fish Tank (2009), the younger incarnation of Magneto in the X-Men movies actually hails from Heidelberg in the former West Germany.

Michael Fassbender

8 – Joaquin Phoenix – while most of his siblings were born in the US, including his brother River, the star of Walk the Line (2005) and Her (2013) was born in a country where his parents were serving as Children of God missionaries at the time. The country? None other than Puerto Rico.

9 – Amy Adams – as quintessentially American in appearance as Emma Watson is quintessentially British in appearance, the actress who was billed as Gorgeous Woman in Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (2006), and who is now Clark Kent/Superman’s go-to gal, was actually born in Vicenza, Italy.

10 – Kim Cattrall – the star of Sex and the City and, going further back, Big Trouble in Little China (1986), looks American, sounds American, and appears steeped in all things American, but again, appearances are deceiving as the truth is she was born in Liverpool, England.

Kim Cattrall

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

22 Sunday May 2016

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X-Men Apocalypse

D: Bryan Singer / 144m

Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Lucas Till, Olivia Munn, Ben Hardy, Alexandra Shipp, Josh Helman, Ally Sheedy

It’s okay.

Rating: 6/10 – an average sequel that offers a muddled storyline complete with yet more disaster porn, the best thing you can say about X-Men: Apocalypse is that it’s competently made; without a strong emotional core to help the audience care about the characters, or a real sense of impending apocalypse to make the stakes all the more gripping, this is a sequel that fails to build on the good work achieved in the previous two instalments.

A Most Violent Year (2014)

09 Saturday Jan 2016

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A Most Violent Year

D: J.C. Chandor / 125m

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks, Elyes Gabel, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Maher, Alessandro Nivola, Peter Gerety, Catalina Sandino Moreno

New York, 1981. In the midst of one of the most violent years in the city’s history, local businessman Abel Morales (Isaac) is looking to expand his fuel distribution company with the acquisition of a bay-front storage facility, and to do it all legally and above board. He’s supported by his wife, Anna (Chastain), but the deal he’s making for the facility is dependent on his being able to make the final payment. With his trucks being hijacked on a regular basis, and with his drivers afraid to make deliveries, Abel struggles to make sense of who’s behind it all.

Matters aren’t made any better by his having to contend with an investigation into his company by District Attorney Lawrence (Oyelowo). Lawrence is convinced that Abel’s business must be crooked in some way, despite his protestations. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, one of his drivers, Julian (Gabel), is involved in a shootout with robbers during an attempted hijacking. Julian goes on the run, and Abel has to track him down and convince him to give himself up. But Julian refuses and remains at large.

AMVY - scene2

Meanwhile, the due date for the final payment is fast approaching and Abel has to negotiate loans from as many people and places as he can, but he’s still short. When he learns that one of his trucks is in the process of being hijacked he pursues the robbers, eventually catching one of them. To his surprise he finds that the hijackings aren’t all that they seemed, though it does lead to a discovery about one of his competitors that he uses to his financial advantage. But with time running out he’s forced to approach Mafia-affiliated Peter Forente (Nivola); Forente agrees to loan Abel the money he needs but the terms are not very favourable. But when Abel tells Anna about the deal he’s made, she reveals something she’s done which has an impact on everything.

It’s been said on many previous occasions by many other people that the title A Most Violent Year is misleading. The movie contains little actual violence, despite including a bridge shootout and Abel chasing down one of the robbers, and there’s none of the tense showdowns we’ve come to associate with gangster movies. Instead, writer/director Chandor has chosen to focus on how difficult it is to operate in a criminal environment and remain honest. To look at Abel, and to see how close he’s getting to securing his company’s future, you do expect temptation to be placed in his way, and you expect him to struggle with each temptation, but what Chandor does instead is replace temptations with a series of setbacks. Abel’s a good man, solid and trustworthy through and through, and it’s how he maintains his innate honesty when faced with these setbacks – when he could be excused for taking a short cut or looking the other way for a moment – that defines him.

AMVY - scene3

As played by Isaac, Abel is a strong, determined individual who always seems a little out of his depth, despite his commitment. It’s his wife, Anna, played with spirited guile by Chastain, who is really the driving force and overseer of the business’s fortunes, and so we have a Lady Macbeth for the Eighties, as she cajoles and prompts and on occasion, bullies her husband into doing what’s needed. It’s a subtly constructed conceit – behind every successful man is an even more ambitious woman – but in the hands of Chandor and Chastain, the movie is all the more intelligent and engrossing when Anna is forced to take centre stage.

The period setting is entirely apt, with the cold, wintry conditions of the time reflecting purposefully on the narrative, as Abel’s fuel distribution business, mostly gas, is seen as a saviour not only for him, but for the city and its battle with the elements (Isaac is seen throughout in a big mustard-coloured coat that looks as warming as it does heavy). The movie wants Abel to succeed and so do we, and as he navigates the treacherous waters of “low” finance, each time he doesn’t quite achieve what he sets out to get, it has the effect of impressing on the viewer that he too will be fighting the elements if he fails completely. Bradford Young’s cinematography is a highlight, the wet, shiny, chilly streets of New York given a light sheen of glamour that makes for some impressive shots throughout the movie.

AMVY - scene1

By focusing on the trials and tribulations of someone seeking to firmly establish themselves in their chosen area of commerce, and by keeping the stakes firmly in the foreground, Chandor achieves a directness of style and narrative that keeps the viewer intrigued as to the outcome, and committed to following Abel’s story to its conclusion. It may not be a movie that features a swift pace and dazzlingly executed photography, but its measured approach to the material allows the viewer to become embroiled in the machinations and leverages that Abel becomes involved in. And if there aren’t any standout action beats or revenge style melodramatics then it’s entirely to the benefit of the movie, and stands as a testament to the quality of Chandor’s writing and directing.

Rating: 8/10 – a modest yet effective crime drama, A Most Violent Year is yet another example of just how good writer/director J.C. Chandor is, and why he’s one of the best movie makers working today; perceptive, extremely well acted, and lacking only in its inclusion of the DA subplot (which doesn’t add anything), this is the kind of movie that shouldput audiences in mind of the kind of thrillers that were being made in the early Seventies: assured, classy, and with a lot to say.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

21 Monday Dec 2015

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Star Wars The Force Awakens

D: J.J. Abrams / 135m

Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Carrie Fisher, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Max von Sydow, Gwendoline Christie, Greg Grunberg, Warwick Davis, Simon Pegg, Harriet Walter, Iko Uwais

The Lucasfilm logo appears. The screen fades to black. Then the opening crescendo of the Star Wars theme in perfect sync with the Star Wars logo sends a welcome shiver down the spine. And then the subtitle: Episode VII The Force Awakens appears, followed by a summary of recent events that tells us Luke Skywalker is missing and Princess (now General) Leia has sent her best man to find him. With everyone up to speed we see a familiar sprinkling of stars against the inky blackess of space. The camera begins its equally familiar pan down until a planet comes into view. Then an ominous sound can be heard, and a dark shadow falls across the planet, only this is no shadow, it’s a huge starship; this can’t be good.

And it isn’t. But we all know it isn’t. This is Star Wars, and huge starships are always bad news, because it’s a sure sign the bad guys are up to no good. But wait – haven’t the bad guys been defeated? Wasn’t the evil Emperor, Palatine, killed by Darth Vader at the end of Episode VI? And didn’t the Rebel Alliance take charge of the galaxy, and restore order where previously there had been tyranny and unfair trade embargoes? Isn’t this a brave new future we’re looking at?

SWTFA - scene3

Well, actually, no, it isn’t. Thirty years have passed since the Emperor’s death, thirty years in which a lot has obviously happened, but for some reason the Rebels are still fighting, this time against a pernicious new regime, the First Order, and they don’t seem to have been in charge of anything, or made any difference to the galaxy they fought so hard to free from oppression. Just what have they been doing all this time? (We learn what Luke has been doing, and Han Solo, but Leia? That’s a little less clear.) So with no one having ensured peace and prosperity are the “first order” of the day, we’re back to a frighteningly familiar situation: the bad guys are running things and a small group of rebels are the only thing standing between them and – wait, that’s a little less clear as well. Just what are the First Order planning to do, other than show off their fancy new weapon (or the Mark III as it might be known)?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I really liked Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It’s a fantastic thrill ride, for fans new and old, but instead of The Force Awakens it should be titled Another New Hope, because this is what writers J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have given us, a retread of Episode IV with some fancy new trimmings. The similarities between the two movies are unavoidable, and are sometimes as unavoidable as the crashed star destroyers we see in the deserts of Jakku. Where we might have hoped that this new trilogy would strike out in a bold, new direction, instead it retreats back into the previous trilogy and gives us a kind of Star Wars Greatest Hits movie, with storylines lifted clean out of Episode IV, dusted down and given a shiny retooling, and references galore to the earlier episodes (“Is there a trash compactor?”).

As there may still be some people who haven’t seen the movie yet, I’m not going to spoil things by listing all the ways in which Abrams et al have cribbed from George Lucas’s original vision (not in this post anyway), but it’s relevant to say that he is very much present throughout, almost as if Abrams and his co-writers have continually asked themselves, what would George come up with next? So we have a movie that looks new but feels old at the same time, and it’s a tribute to Abrams – can the mantle of franchise viagra be stripped from Dwayne Johnson and given to Abrams now? – that despite this the movie feels as invigorarting as it does. It fizzes and pops in all the right places, and if it doesn’t quite have anything that really gets the audience saying “Wow!”, then you can put that down to the number of big-budget sci-fi spectaculars we’ve become overly familiar with since 1977 (and that includes the other five Star Wars movies).

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What it does have that raises the bar for the franchise as a whole, are three new characters who audiences can relate to, and who have been developed with great care by… yes, Abrams et al. First there’s Rey, waiting for her parents to return to the planet of Jakku where she ekes out a living trading scrap for food. Then there’s Finn, a stormtrooper whose conscience won’t allow him to serve the First Order any more. And lastly, there’s this trilogy’s über-bad guy, Kylo Ren, a follower of the Dark Side who boasts Darth Vader as an inspiration. These three characters’ fates become intertwined, and it will be interesting to see how their storylines play out over the course of Episodes VIII and IX.

Thanks to some very astute casting – Ridley as Rey, Boyega as Finn, and Driver as Ren – these characters should prove to be as popular as Luke, Han and Leia, and its their diversity which is a major plus for the franchise as a whole. Rey is fearless and largely unimpressed by the testosterone she’s surrounded by (including Han Solo), and it’s great to see a female character so unencumbered by stereotypical programming at the forefront of such a huge movie. The same can be said for Finn, his character torn between doing the right thing and getting as far away as possible from the First Order. As for Ren, well, let’s just say he has issues and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and it’s good to see a level of emotional complexity that you don’t normally see in what’s effectively a space opera.

With the new cast members proving so effective – except for Isaac, alas, whose role as Leia’s “best man” Poe Dameron is sidelined for much of the movie – what of the old guard? Without giving too much away, it’s only Ford and Mayhew who grab much screen time, but it’s good to see them back, and there’s a moment in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon that should bring a tear to the eye of every diehard fan of the series. This feels very much like a transition movie, and though one “old” character should be at the forefront of Episode VIII, it’s the new ones who’ve already proved they can connect with fans and it’s their journey that (hopefully) will drive the trilogy to its conclusion (and even if it seems clear already where those journeys will converge and end).

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A good job, then, and imbued with the sense of wonder that made Episode IV such a breath of fresh air back in 1977. It has a modern day sheen to it, and is effortlessly funny in places, with Abrams’ trademark sense of humour applied liberally throughout, but it’s unmistakably a Star Wars movie, from John Williams’ magical score to the inclusion of so many different alien races and species, to the exhilarating aerial battles between T.I.E.’s and X-Wing fighters. And of course there’s the Force, so integral to everything that happens, and still the guiding factor for everyone concerned. It’s so good to know that it’s woken up at last.

Rating: 8/10 – not entirely the joyous celebration everyone wanted it to be, but still standing head and shoulders over every other sci-fi series, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a welcome return to form after the po-faced seriousness of the prequel trilogy; with more than enough on display to make fans feel that the remaining two episodes are in good hands, this is easily the best feelgood movie of 2015, and if you don’t come out of the cinema with a big smile on your face, then you shouldn’t have gone in the first place.

The Two Faces of January (2014)

14 Saturday Feb 2015

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Two Faces of January, The

D: Hossein Amini / 96m

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, Oscar Isaac, David Warshofsky, Daisy Bevan, Omiros Poulakis

Athens, 1962. Rydal Keener is an American working as a tour guide. He meets an American couple on holiday there, Chester and Colette McFarland (Mortensen, Dunst). They invite him to dinner and he accepts, mainly because he’s attracted to Colette. Later, after dropping them off at their hotel, Rydal discovers Colette has left a bracelet behind in the taxi. He decides to return it. Meanwhile, the McFarland’s have another visitor, a private detective named Vittorio (Warshofsky). It transpires that Chester has defrauded several people in an investment scam, and it’s this money that is allowing the McFarlands to travel around Europe. Vittorio and Chester scuffle and the private detective is killed. As he attempts to get Vittorio back to his own room in the hotel, he’s discovered by Rydal. Chester convinces Rydal that the man is merely out cold from drinking too much, and together they get him into his room.

Chester convinces Rydal that he and Colette need to leave Athens as soon as possible, but their passports are being kept by the hotel. Seeing a way of scamming some money out of Chester, Rydal agrees to help them; it also gives him a chance to be nearer to Colette. He arranges for new passports to be given to them in Crete, where they all travel to next. Without identification papers they’re forced to wait on the quayside for the next day’s bus to Chania. While they are there, Colette visits Rydal in his room while Chester is sleeping. Back on the bus, Colette panics when she sees photos of her and Chester in a newspaper and thinks they’ve been spotted. At a rest stop, Colette gets off the bus and the two men chase after her. They walk on and eventually reach the ruins of Knossos.

Rain causes them to seek shelter in the ruins. Chester lures Rydal down into the lower levels and knocks him unconscious. When Colette realises what he’s done they argue and she falls to her death from some steps. Chester flees, leaving Rydal to come to the next morning and be seen by a group of schoolgirls and their teacher as he leaves. Rydal hurries to catch up with Chester, who has collected the new passports and is heading back to Athens on a ship. There is a confrontation between the two where each tries to outwit and out-threaten the other, but both come to realise that they are bound together by their actions over the past couple of days, and would find it easy to implicate the other if either informed the police. But when they get to Athens airport, Rydal finds that Chester has one more trick up his sleeve.

Two Faces of January, The -scene

Adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, The Two Faces of January is a ponderous, though well acted drama that never quite gets off the ground, despite an intriguing storyline and some glorious location photography. As written and directed by Amini – something he’d been working on for around fifteen years – there is a distance between the audience and the main characters that stops them from ever becoming likeable or sympathetic. We never get to really know them either. Chester is a cheat but it’s just accepted that he’s a cheat; there’s no back story to explain why. Colette is aware of his duplicity and has obviously chosen to stay with him but we never find out why either. It’s confusing as well when their previous happiness is so quickly overturned by the arrival of Rydal in their lives: does she really love Chester or is she too a fraud? And Rydal’s past, with his father issues and need for independence, is also glossed over, with the questions, “Why Athens?” and “Why a tour guide?” completely unanswered.

There is one clear motivation that drives them all however: escape. But it’s clumsily used as a device to keep the narrative and the characters moving, and while Amini uses it to show how each is trying to escape themselves (and more so than the authorities), this is also clumsily done. What we’re left with as a result is a mini-travelogue where it seems that the characters are constantly outwitting each other – or appear to be – but in actuality aren’t doing anything of the sort. Chester imagines all sorts of deviousness in Rydal’s behaviour (and Isaac’s performance goes a long way to suggesting this, even though it’s not true), and he’s continually on his guard for some new twist. But ultimately he’s the author of his own downfall, and has no one to blame but himself for what happens.

Amini never reconciles Rydal’s willingness to keep in with the McFarlands, even after he knows what they’ve done, and while his attraction for Colette is an understandable reason in itself, there are moments where he’s making decisions about carrying on but we never find out what his reasons are. It ends up being a problem for the narrative when it just feels that if he didn’t, the plot (and the movie) would grind to a halt.

In adapting Highsmith’s novel, Amini has jettisoned the homo-erotic subplot between Chester and Rydal in favour of a more conventional love triangle approach, and in doing so he robs the movie of a potential, and valuable, source of tension. For otherwise, the movie plods along looking good but feeling empty, its characters relying heavily on plot contrivances such as Rydal just happening to know someone who can provide forged passports, and Colette getting so easily frightened and leaving the bus.

As Chester, Mortensen puts in a good performance but even he can’t reconcile the character’s initial fearfulness and vulnerability with the more callous character he becomes. Dunst has a couple of emotional scenes that show off her skills as an actress, but again she can’t reconcile Colette’s initial happiness with her husband with the antipathy she shows toward him once they leave Athens (she already knows they’re on the run, why should this make her feel any different? And this is before she learns of Vittorio’s death). Rounding off the trio, Isaac portrays Rydal as a conspiring victim, unsure of himself as he gets in deeper and looking for a way out, even though he can’t see one. It’s a confident performance, not as conflicted as Mortensen and Dunst’s, but unfortunately, still a little shy of being satisfactory.

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With the scenery providing a welcome (and thankful) distraction from the unwieldy and undercooked melodramatics, the movie adds a particularly awkward scene at a customs hall where Chester and Rydal act so suspiciously it’s a wonder they aren’t picked out of their respective queues sooner. And the denouement, included to add some much needed excitement, is so poorly edited that any sense of vitality is diminished quite rapidly. There’s a great movie to be had from Highsmith’s novel, but alas, this isn’t it, and for that, Amini is the only one to blame.

Rating: 5/10 – with its cast unable to elevate the material or make up for Amini’s lack of directorial control, The Two Faces of January fails to provide any tension or mystery; plodding, and with a weak resolution, the movie looks great throughout but offers little that’s arresting to occupy the viewer’s time.

Ex Machina (2015)

30 Friday Jan 2015

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Ex Machina

D: Alex Garland / 108m

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Sonoya Mizuno

Caleb (Gleeson) is a computer coder who works for a large corporation owned by Nathan (Isaac). He wins a company raffle that involves spending a week at Nathan’s home, which is located in the midst of a vast countryside estate. On arrival he is given a key pass by an automated door system, and finds Nathan inside working out. Nathan soon reveals that he has been working on an experiment and that Caleb is there to conduct the Turing test on a robot with artificial intelligence called Ava (Vikander). Caleb’s job is to determine whether or not Ava could pass for human.

That night Caleb discovers that the TV in his room is actually a monitor that allows him to view Ava in her room. There is a power failure and Caleb is unable, temporarily, to leave his room; when he does he finds Nathan has been drinking and not in the best frame of mind. The next morning, Caleb is awakened by a Japanese girl called Kyoko (Mizuno); she doesn’t speak English, a benefit for Nathan as he can speak freely about his work. Caleb spends time with Ava and as they begin to get to know each other it becomes clear she is flirting with him. During another power failure Ava warns Caleb not to trust Nathan, and that he has been lying to him. As Ava begins to make herself more attractive to Caleb, he begins to wonder if Nathan has made this part of her programming all along.

Nathan lets Caleb see his laboratory, where he made Ava and mapped out her brain function. He insists Ava’s responses must be genuine, and reminds Caleb that if they are then the results of the Turing test must be positive. Later, Nathan gets completely drunk and when Caleb takes him to his room, he spies some cupboards and what looks like an “observation” room. When Caleb asks what will happen if Ava fails the test, Nathan is blunt: she will be updated and her memory will be erased. Caleb is upset by this prospect, and when Nathan gets drunk a second time, Caleb uses Nathan’s key pass to enter the observation room. There he sees footage that shows Nathan has been building robots like Ava for some time. He also looks in the cupboards and finds the discarded robots hanging up like old suits. When Caleb has his next meeting with Ava he tells her he has a plan for both of them to escape, and asks for her help. She agrees, and the next night they put the plan into operation.

Ex Machina - scene

Working from an original script, writer/director Garland has fashioned an intriguing sci-fi thriller that asks the question, can an artificial being truly possess human qualities, particularly real emotions. In asking that question, Ex Machina quickly becomes a guessing game for the audience, or as an old advert used to put it: is it live or is it Memorex? The answer, despite some wrong-footing and a few twists and turns in the narrative, is no, but with a caveat: there’s no answer to the further question of how Ava comes to fake the emotions she does display.

It’s unfortunate for what is otherwise a skilfully constructed and intelligent science fiction drama that when we first meet Ava she’s as self-assured and poised as she is at the movie’s end. This leaves the audience feeling that she’s been playing Caleb all along, and that the whole notion of the Turing test is irrelevant; if Nathan is as brilliant as he seems to be, he’d know already how far her development has taken her. And why go to the trouble of getting Caleb to visit him (the raffle is rigged) when it’s also clear that as clinical trials go, the parameters are so loose? In the end it boils down to who is the most manipulative – Nathan or Ava.

This conundrum aside, Garland shows a keen appreciation for his subject matter, creating a robot concept in Ava that makes physical as well as an aesthetic sense, and which allows the viewer to be reminded that she is, ultimately, a construct, not real and not able to function in the same way as humans, and even if latex skin is applied where and when necessary. This keeps the audience at a distance from her, while making Caleb all the more curious about the possibilities should she pass the Turing test. It’s a neat balancing act, and one that Garland keeps up throughout, even if he’s forced by his own script to step down from it by the expected denouement.

The look and feel of the movie is very Seventies, the austere, below level laboratory complex a maze of plain walls and functional furniture. Only Nathan’s own personal living quarters look and feel like part of the “real” world. In the end, the coldness of the laboratory area reflects Ava’s personality, and at the same time acts as a catalyst for her and Caleb’s escape – in such drab surroundings and being so confined, is it any wonder she wants to leave?

The motivations of all three main characters remain constant throughout, with Caleb’s naive, white knight demeanour expertly exploited by both Ava and Nathan, while creator and created share an antipathy toward each other that borders on hatred (on Ava’s part) and disdain (on Nathan’s part). All three actors give excellent performances, with Vikander warranting particular merit for the fine line she treads as Ava, making her both remote and alluring at the same time. Gleeson handles a role that could have been completely vanilla in comparison, but his pale features generate a mass of conflicting feelings and thoughts throughout. Isaac is the blunt force object of the trio, his stocky, powerful frame proving as muscular as his mind. As with Ava it’s a shame that Nathan operates at the same level for the duration of the movie, but it’s a compelling performance nevertheless.

Ex Machina - scene2

Garland proves to be a confident, accomplished director, gauging the performances with aplomb, and staging each scene with an economy of style and movement that greatly enhances the somewhat stoic pace and increasing tension. He’s aided greatly by cinematographer Rob Hardy and production designer Mark Digby, creating a futuristic environment for the science fiction aspects along side the wider marvels of the outside world Ava is so keen to see. There is the occasional narrative stumble – at one point, Caleb becomes convinced he’s like Ava and takes a slightly extreme approach to finding out one way or the other; Ava’s need to recharge her batteries would seem to preclude a proper escape – but on the whole, the script avoids the usual pitfalls such material engenders and has enough sense not to push things too far in terms of what Ava can do. That she is recognisably human by the movie’s end (at least to look at) is the movie’s ultimate triumph, reminding us that how we look on the outside is not as important as how we feel on the inside.

Rating: 8/10 – a sci-fi drama fused with metaphysical elements, Ex Machina is the first time in ages where science fiction themes have been treated with respect and intelligence; still, it’s not for everyone due to its pace and lack of perceived action, but on an emotional level it’s definitely punching above its weight.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

26 Sunday Jan 2014

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Inside Llewyn Davis

D: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen / 104m

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, Adam Driver, Stark Sands, Jeanine Serralles, F. Murray Abraham

The Coen brothers have led a remarkably charmed cinematic life, making quirky, offbeat movies featuring all sorts of weird and wonderful characters in all sorts of weird and wonderful situations. Part of the fun to be had from watching a Coen brothers movie is that you never quite know what’s going to happen next; the Coens are so unpredictable there’s always that element of surprise in every movie, even something as outwardly formulaic as The Ladykillers (2004) or True Grit (2010). It’s a real surprise then, to find that the main character in their latest melancholy opus, Inside Llewyn Davis is, to put it mildly, a bit of a shit.

The movie is set in Greenwich Village, New York in 1961. Davis (Isaac) is a folk singer, eking out a career in clubs but without a clear idea on where he’s heading. He doesn’t have a place to live, so he sofa hops from place to place, trying the patience of friends and acquaintances, and never really repaying their kindnesses to him. He scoffs at the performances of others, including folk duo Jim (Timberlake) and Jean (Mulligan), but fails to see the weakness in his own abilities, weaknesses exacerbated by the recent death of his singing partner. Davis is horrible to just about everyone around him, foisting his unhappiness on them with all the fervour of a man trying to offload his troubles as fast as he gains them. His relationship with Jean becomes complicated when she tells him she’s pregnant and he might be the father. But Davis is so wretched she would rather have an abortion than give birth to a child that might be his. While he tries to deal with that issue, he’s also trying to deal with having lost his friends, the Gorfeins, cat. (When he takes a replacement cat back to them, it leads to one of the best lines in a Coen brothers movie ever.)  Taking a chance he can kick start his solo career in Chicago, Davis travels with proto-beat poet Johnny Five (Hedlund) and musician Roland Turner (Goodman) to audition for promoter Bud Grossman (Abraham). What he learns there has the possibility of changing his life.

Inside Llewyn Davis - scene

From its darkened, confessional-style opening at the Gaslight Café with Isaac proving himself to be a passionate vocalist, Inside Llewyn Davis is a fitting tribute to the era when folk music was at a turning point (see the singer who follows Davis on stage at the movie’s end). As well, though, it’s a clever, witty and engaging look at a man for whom Life is a constant struggle, but only because he hasn’t developed the ability to be happy. Thanks to a terrific performance by Isaac, Davis isn’t entirely the angry curmudgeon he appears to be. There are glimmers of hope throughout the movie that elicit the audience’s sympathy for him, and if he buries those glimmers almost as soon as they pop up, it’s still enough that they happen for him. Davis is like the black sheep of the family or the troubled friend you secretly like – despite all the times they upset you or let you down – and hope Life will eventually be kind to. For Davis it’s all about the music, the only thing he truly cares about, and around which his life revolves; without it he would be a truly broken man.

Once again, the Coens have chosen a strong supporting cast for their leading man, with Mulligan’s angry turn a standout, and Goodman close behind as the disabled, anecdote spouting Turner. It’s good to see the likes of Driver and Sands given the chance to shine in small, beautifully realised roles, and Abraham too, albeit in a smaller though more pivotal role (and obviously fitted in between episodes of Homeland). A wintry New York looks cold and yet somehow vibrant thanks to crisp, striking photography courtesy of Bruno Delbonnel, and the period detail is subtly evoked by Jess Gonchor’s production design and Deborah Jensen’s art direction.

What is less obvious from this review so far is the humour that permeates the movie. Davis may be an awkward, unlikely source of merriment, but the Coens weave comedy into the somewhat solemn proceedings with deceptive skill. There are laughs to be had, and they’re scattered here and there in the script like precious jewels. And then there’s the music. Perhaps closest to O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) in terms of dramatic importance, the music in Inside Llewyn Davis is extremely well chosen, both for reflecting the state of Davis’s life, and for providing a candid view of the folk music scene at the time (check out the wonderfully daft Please Mr. Kennedy, an ode to world peace performed by Isaac, Timberlake and Driver that amazes as much as it amuses). As already noted, Isaac has a commanding vocal style, and his deep, rich, melodic delivery suits the material well; it’s hard now to imagine anyone else in the role.

Rating: 9/10 – a richly detailed movie that delights and impresses in equal measure; confident, absorbing, and wickedly funny in places, Inside Llewyn Davis confirms once more that when it comes to off-kilter, the Coen brothers are in a class of their own.