Beast of Burden (2018)

23 Friday Mar 2018

Tags

Daniel Radcliffe, DEA, Drama, Drug mule, Grace Gummer, Jesper Ganslandt, Mexico, Pilot, Review, Thriller

D: Jesper Ganslandt / 90m

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Grace Gummer, Pablo Schreiber, Robert Wisdom, Cesar Perez, David Joseph Martinez

Ex-US Air Force and Peace Corps pilot Sean Haggerty (Radcliffe) has a bit of a problem: he’s making a clandestine flight from Mexico to the US, and he’s carrying twenty-five kilos of drugs for a Mexican cartel. The plane he’s flying sounds like it’s going to fall apart at any moment, his Mexican handlers clearly don’t trust him for a minute, and as if either of these things wasn’t bad enough, he’s also being squeezed by the DEA into fetching them a laptop that (presumably, because we’re not actually told) contains incriminating evidence about the cartel. And when the flight plan is changed mid-flight, and a certain Mr Mallory (Wisdom) starts calling Sean and asking if he loves his wife, Jen (Gummer), it’s clear that it’s going to take a lot to keep Sean out of further trouble, and Jen safe. With Mallory and DEA agent Bloom (Schreiber) both calling him to keep him in respective line, and Jen calling him with an agenda of her own, Sean finds himself being painted into a corner that he’s unlikely to escape from.

Essaying yet another character dealing with an extreme physical and emotional dilemma, Daniel Radcliffe is Beast of Burden‘s principal asset, its MVP if you will. As Sean, Radcliffe spends most of his screen time in the plane’s cockpit, but it’s a tremendously focused performance – vivid, compelling, forceful and driven. Sean is effectively a loser trying one last time to get ahead, to boost his waning sense of self-worth and to show Jen (though she doesn’t know just how) that he can make things right in the wake of their finding out that she has ovarian cancer and may never have children. Yes, we’re in “one last big score” territory, but thanks to Adam Hoelzel’s sometimes wayward yet effective script, Radcliffe’s committed performance, and Ganslandt’s tough, muscular direction, it doesn’t always feel so clichéd or so derivative that it reminds you too often of other similarly themed movies. Instead, it grabs the attention and doesn’t let up as Sean’s position becomes increasingly threatened, and the machinations of both Bloom and Mallory ensure that whatever happens, if he comes out of it all alive, then he’ll be one very lucky drug mule indeed. Shot in close up for the most part, Radcliffe’s expressive features run the gamut from despair to anger to paranoia to fear to bewilderment to anguish and all the way back to despair again.

But while Sean is in the air and the movie sticks to its one singular purpose, to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller, two narrative decisions mar the movie as a whole. One is the involvement of Jen. At first she’s the wife trying to cope with the possibility that she and her husband are drifting apart in the wake of her illness, but then the script catapults her into the action and she has to be rescued. There are no prizes for realising that this has to happen once Sean is on the ground, and that’s the second problem with the narrative: once Sean inevitably crash lands, the script crashes with him. The last ten minutes or so lack the focus of the previous seventy-five minutes, and what transpires is a huge disappointment in relation to what’s gone before. Thanks to Hoelzel and Ganslandt both taking their eye off the ball, the tension and the claustrophobia that’s been carefully built up, evaporates in the blink of an eye. It’s a shame, as up until then, this is a very entertaining thriller indeed.

Rating: 7/10 – anchored by another tremendous performance from Radcliffe, Beast of Burden is a thriller that gleefully – and effectively – tortures its central character, and then does an about face in favour of a messy, contrived ending; the movie also benefits from Sherwood Jones’s astute editing skills, a stirring and portentous score from Tim Jones, and the oppressive nature of seeing one man confined in such a relatively small space and trying to deal with much larger problems.

American Made (2017)

04 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Adventure, Barry Seal, CIA, Comedy, Domhnall Gleeson, Doug Liman, Drama, Drugs smuggling, Medellin Cartel, Nicaragua, Pilot, Review, Sarah Wright, Tom Cruise, True story

D: Doug Liman / 115m

Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Jayma Mays, Lola Kirke, William Mark McCullough, Alejandro Edda, Mauricio Mejía, Benito Martinez

Yet another true story where the emphasis is on reinventing the story, American Made arrives in the wake of possibly Tom Cruise’s worst movie ever, a movie so bad it may just have killed off an entire franchise before it’s even begun. In many respects, The Mummy (2017) was a little outside of Cruise’s comfort zone, and the movie’s attempts to shoehorn Cruise’s increasingly broad style of acting into its mix foundered after his first scene. But the true story of Barry Seal, however much it’s rewritten and reinvented, is a project that does give Cruise the chance to redeem himself for recent mistakes. So – does he?

Predictably, the answer is both yes and no. When given a script and a character that stretches him as an actor, Cruise always finds a way to meet the requirements of the role, but in the past decade the only movie that’s come anywhere near to pushing him as an actor has been Valkyrie (2008), where he played another real life person. Otherwise, Cruise has been content to, well, cruise his way through a number of high concept features that may have cemented his credentials as an action hero, but have also allowed people to forget that, once upon a time, he was an actor who took quite a few chances with his career. Now, he works to protect his action hero status, while taking the occasional time out to play the likes of airline pilot turned drugs smuggler Barry Seal. Here, Cruise gets to turn on his megawatt smile, have a lot of fun, and give his fans exactly what he thinks they want to see: a man in his mid-Fifties behaving as if he was twenty years younger (thank goodness there’s only Seal’s wife, Lucy (Wright) to worry about on the female side).

While Cruise is still able to play the fun-loving ne’er-do-well with a heart of gold and a winning smile, here it’s in service to a real-life person who wasn’t exactly the charming good ole boy which is Cruise’s – and the script’s – interpretation. But like a lot of movies “based on a true story”, the makers are only concerned with getting it right when they do so accidentally, and where the “spirit of the thing” is more important than telling a factual story (which would have been more interesting). Barry is outed early on by outwardly diffident CIA agent, Monty Schafer (Gleeson), when he’s a TWA pilot smuggling Cuban cigars into the country for peanuts. Faced with an offer he doesn’t want to refuse, Barry goes to work for the CIA using one of their planes to take reconnaissance photographs over South America. When the Medellin Cartel becomes aware of Barry’s activities, they persuade him to transport drugs back to the US. Thus the next few years of Barry’s life involve him trying to ensure that neither side finds out about what he’s doing, while he stashes away his ill-gotten gains by the trunkload.

Of course, things begin to get out of hand, whether it’s the cartel’s demands for more smuggled product, or the arrival of Lucy’s wastrel younger brother, JB (Jones), whose light fingers eventually cause Barry more problems than he’s worth. Soon, a whole raft of law enforcement departments descend on Barry and they all try to claim jurisdiction. But in a twist that nobody, let alone Barry, could have anticipated, certain jail time is replaced by community service, and the chance to juggle gun-running with drugs smuggling and money laundering proves too much of an opportunity for Barry to pass up, and though there’s the small matter of providing evidence against the cartel – one of whose members is the easily irritated Pablo Escobar (Mejía) – Barry goes along with whatever he’s asked.

The tone of American Made is one that says it’s okay to be a criminal if you’re having fun while you’re doing it, and as long as you’re providing for your family then that’s okay too. It’s hard to take a movie like this seriously when it won’t take the basis of its real-life story seriously either. It’s a movie that wants to have its cake and eat it… or in this case fly its drugs and snort them. It’s a cavalier approach that wants to attract audiences with its freewheeling approach and carefree attitude, and though there’s nothing wrong with a bit of harmless escapism from time to time, this is ultimately a movie that glamourises crime for the sake of it, and which encapsulates its approach to the material in the scene where a recently arrested Barry promises Cadillacs to a group of law enforcement officers before being allowed to go free. “Should have taken the Caddies,” he quips as he leaves, and in doing so, reveals for anyone who wasn’t sure, just how serious the movie is about celebrating its hero’s misdeeds and moral laxity.

But while Cruise is clearly having fun, the same can’t be said of the rest of the cast. Gleeson’s spook pops up every now and then to drive the plot forward and give Barry his next set of Government-sanctioned shenanigans, while Wright plays his long-suffering wife with some style, but remains as vapid at the end as she is at the start (and she adapts to her husband’s new “career path” with undue haste). Jones is the only other character to make an impact, and strangely, his pale, lank-haired appearance gives the narrative a much-needed boost whenever he’s on screen. In comparison with the rest of the cast, Jones is practically a major supporting character, and everyone else does a perfunctory job of playing to the script’s demands for a host of generic role players. Liman, reuniting with Cruise after Edge of Tomorrow (2014), keeps things moving, and tries to imbue Gary Spinelli’s script with an energy that he believes can only be achieved in fits and starts. And with so much of Barry’s story remaining at odds with official versions, it remains a frustrating movie to watch, and not just for the awkwardly structured narrative, but for the compelling notion that Barry Seal’s story would have been better served as a straight-up drama than as a low-key comedy.

Rating: 6/10 – another movie built around Cruise’s action comedy persona (but with the action dialled right down), American Made is a lightweight, easily forgettable look at a period in US law enforcement where deals were struck with almost anyone if it provided even the slightest benefit to the US; with too many scenes that pad out the already generous running time, the movie has a tendency to coast when it should be sprinting, and it never really puts its central character through the wringer – until the end, that is.

Sully (2016)

04 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Aaron Eckhart, Airbus A320, Bird strike, Chesley Sullenberger, Clint Eastwood, Flight 1549, Hudson River, Laura Linney, NTSB, Pilot, Tom Hanks, True story

aka Sully: Miracle on the Hudson

D: Clint Eastwood / 96m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O’Malley, Jamey Sheridan, Anna Gunn, Holt McCallany, Ann Cusack, Molly Hagan, Jane Gabbert, Sam Huntington, Michael Rapaport

On 15 January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 from LaGuardia, New York to Charlotte, North Carolina, suffered a catastrophic bird strike that left both engines disabled. It had been in the air for approximately three minutes, and its pilot, Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Hanks) had to make a decision: to turn back and attempt an emergency landing at either LaGuardia or nearby Teterboro Airport, or make a forced water landing on the Hudson River. Sullenberger was certain he wouldn’t make it back to either airport and so adopted the latter option. With one hundred and fifty-five people on board, it was a manoeuvre that could have ended in tragedy, but thanks to Sullenberger’s forty year-plus experience, he was able to land the plane safely. And with the emergency services and local commercial vessels quickly on the scene, the passengers and crew were rescued in under twenty-five minutes. Later, a representative of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that it “has to go down [as] the most successful ditching in aviation history.”

Such an event was always likely to be transferred to the big screen, and in the hands of veteran director Clint Eastwood, the story of Chesley Sullenberger and Flight 1549 has been granted a sober re-telling that suits both the man and the nature of the landing. On the surface, Sully is a movie that seems far removed from the intensity and heightened emotion of the event itself, as much of what occurs is played out against a wintry visual patina in keeping with the time the forced landing took place. But like Sullenberger himself, Eastwood – in terms of directing – has over forty years’ experience behind him, and in bringing Todd Karmanicki’s script to the screen he adopts a straitlaced, measured approach to the material that avoids any possibility of sensationalism or unnecessary hyperbole.

This is important because while the story of Flight 1549 is one of heroism on an unprecedented level – as Sully himself says at one point: “Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the first time” – the forced water landing isn’t the focus of the movie, even though we see it from two different perspectives. The focus is Sullenberger himself, a self-contained, humble man who found himself questioning his actions in the wake of the forced landing. It may seem counter-intuitive to examine the mindset of a hero suffering doubts in the aftermath of the very act that defines them as a hero, but it’s what makes Sully a much more rewarding experience than you might expect.

This decision is aided immeasurably by Hanks’s performance as Sullenberger. Anyone who’s seen Captain Phillips (2013) should remember the final scene where Phillips is being tended to by a navy medic, and the shock of what he’s been through begins to hit home. It’s a bravura moment, with Hanks’ expression telling you everything you need to know about how he’s feeling. He does the same here, brilliantly revealing the tremendous doubts Sullenberger experiences immediately following the landing and later during the NTSB investigation. As he imagines what could have happened, such as the plane crashing into the centre of Manhattan, Hanks is completely convincing as a man whose instinctive response to impending disaster saved the lives of so many. As he struggles to accept his own role in the forced landing, and what it means not just for himself and everyone else aboard, but for a wider public for whom plane crashes in New York have a whole different meaning, Hanks ensures that Sullenberger’s humility and humanity remain to the fore throughout. This is a man who wouldn’t rest until he knew everyone on board was safe and alive.

Hanks’ performance anchors the movie in a way that allows the script to explore the complex relationship between a man and his view of himself in exceptional circumstances. The actor adequately portrays the effect of the enormity of what happened on Sullenberger, and the lingering, pessimistic anxiety that threatened to undermine his self-confidence. For the purpose of the movie, that anxiety is allowed to overshadow his heroism, and through the one-sided machinations of the NTSB investigation, to be brought into question. But while Sullenberger’s heroism is never in any doubt, the NTSB investigation reveals a tactless insincerity about the nature of corporate responsibility, as it puts more faith in computer simulations that say the plane could have landed safely at LaGuardia, than the experience and knowledge of one of the best pilots around.

This is not the script or the movie’s finest hour. Demonising the Board and its representatives is the movie’s one truly sour note, a decision no doubt arrived at to offset a perceived lack of drama elsewhere. In these instances, there aren’t any bad guys, but Karmanicki ensures that the Board in this movie are emotionally hostile, professionally obtuse, and working to an unspecified agenda. It’s like watching a McCarthy hearing all over again, and Eastwood doesn’t make any attempt to downplay the Board members’ hostility to Sullenberger and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles (Eckhart), until the error of the Board’s ways can be confirmed once and for all as both unrealistic and a poor narrative choice.

Hanks aside, this isn’t a movie where the performances are required to be more than perfunctory, although Linney as Sullenberger’s wife, Lorraine, is memorable thanks to the odd cadence of her portrayal and an underlying, yet unconfirmed, sense that all isn’t well in their marriage. As Skiles, Eckhart sports a moustache that seems to have been flown in from the Seventies, while the three-headed “monster” that is the Board (O’Malley, Sheridan and Gunn) is treated so unfairly – and so at odds with what really happened – that all three border on caricature, an unfortunate choice that doesn’t do the movie any dramatic favours.

The movie concludes with Sullenberger achieving a victory over the Board that allows for a moment of narrative grandstanding, and which is at odds with Sullenberger’s introspective nature. It also appears to offer a feelgood moment when the feelgood moment of the movie has already passed: the moment when it’s confirmed that everyone got off the plane and everyone has survived. But Eastwood uses these moments to highlight just how much of a big deal Sullenberger’s actions actually were. And why shouldn’t he be feted and applauded? To everyone outside the Board, he’s a bona fide hero, doubts and all. He’s an heroic individual, and the movies love those kind of characters (possibly) above all else. And they love them even more if they don’t automatically embrace that heroism.

Rating: 7/10 – memorable more for its examination of a man uncomfortable with the notion of being a hero than the actions that gained him that title, Sully is a muted drama that never quite “soars” in the way that audiences may expect, but which hits home in several unexpected ways instead; bolstered by a terrific, awards-worthy performance from Hanks, this is a quietly impressive movie that benefits from not embracing the standard tropes of the “hero” drama, and proves surprisingly rewarding as a result.

Mini-Review: Good Kill (2014)

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Air Force, Andrew Niccol, Bruce Greenwood, Drama, Drones, Ethan Hawke, January Jones, Langley, Pilot, Review, Taliban, Terrorism, Thriller, Yemen, Zoë Kravitz

D: Andrew Niccol / 102m

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Bruce Greenwood, Zoë Kravitz, January Jones, Jake Abel, Dylan Kenin, Peter Coyote

With pilots no longer needed to fly as many missions thanks to the US Air Force’s reliance on drones, Major Thomas Egan (Hawke) is stuck in a dead-end post as a drone pilot at a base outside Las Vegas. Under the command of Lt. Colonel Jack Johns (Greenwood), Egan is disillusioned with his new role and wants to get back to real flying. His frustration begins to affect his marriage to Molly (Jones), and he doesn’t socialise much with his colleagues, newbie Airman Vera Suarez (Kravitz), M.I.C. Joseph Zimmer (Abel), and Capt. Ed Christie (Kenin). Targeting confirmed terrorists and Taliban members, Egan kills by remote control, and feels equally as remote from what’s happening thousands of miles away.

His role takes an unexpected turn when his unit is asked to work with the CIA in targeting and killing suspected terrorists and/or sympathisers, or anyone regarded as a potential threat to US security – but in Yemen, a country that the US isn’t at war with. When several drone strikes result in a “double tap” – the subsequent targeting and killing of anyone who goes to the aid of those injured in the first bombing – Egan, appalled by this development, begins to question the Air Force’s role in working with the CIA, and the ethics involved. Unable to influence the CIA’s thinking he attempts to thwart their plans by sabotaging the drone strikes, but when he’s found out it puts his whole future, including his marriage, in jeopardy.

Set in 2010, at the height of the US’s use of drones in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, Good Kill is another thought-provoking drama from writer/director Niccol. An astute observation of the ways in which technology is making modern warfare a matter of distance rather than engagement, the movie paints a chilling portrait of the callous approach to collateral damage that appears endemic in US thinking. By making Egan an unwitting – and unwilling – victim of abhorrent government policies, the movie concisely and intelligently shows the appalling effect such a responsibility can have on an individual.

Hawke gives one of his best performances outside of the Before… movies, his haunted features capturing the conflict going on inside him with studied precision. As he wrestles with his need to follow orders and his growing sense of outrage and shame at what he’s required to do, Hawke’s portrayal of Egan grounds the movie even further than the verisimilitude achieved by Niccol’s artful script. With great supporting turns from Greenwood and Kravitz, Good Kill tells its story with a great deal of subtlety and understanding of the issues involved. The Las Vegas backdrop serves to heighten the insanity of bombing people based on limited intelligence information, and the movie is immaculately shot by Amir Mokri. Niccol makes only two missteps: the character of Molly Egan, a more casually written role that Jones has trouble fleshing out, and the ending, which is too pat, but these aspects aside, the movie is a solid, engrossing thriller that shines a revealing light on yet another part of US foreign policy that ignores due process.

Rating: 8/10 – yet another contemporary, relevant drama from Niccol, Good Kill shows an unflinching, and uncompromising, approach to the material; with Hawke on top form, the human element is given a better focus than usual, and the movie persuasively challenges the idea that remote killing is less distasteful than killing someone in person.

Trailer – Aloha (2015)

13 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alec Baldwin, Bradley Cooper, Cameron Crowe, Comedy, Danny McBride, Emma Stone, Pilot, Rachel McAdams, Romance, Trailer

The latest movie from Cameron Crowe has a trailer that is all kinds of funny and smart and funny and witty and funny and romantic and did I mention funny? With one of the best openings to a trailer ever, there’s a good chance that Crowe’s got his groove back after the slight hiccup that was We Bought a Zoo (2011). Enjoy!

Mini-Review: Left Behind (2014)

02 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cassi Thomson, Chad Michael Murray, Drama, Lea Thompson, Literary adaptation, Nicky Whelan, Nicolas Cage, Pilot, Review, The Rapture, Thriller, Transatlantic flight, Vic Armstrong

D: Vic Armstrong / 110m

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Cassi Thomson, Nicky Whelan, Jordin Sparks, Lea Thompson, Martin Klebba, Gary Grubbs, Alec Rayme, Georgina Rawlings

Rayford Steele (Cage) is a transatlantic pilot planning an affair with stewardess Hattie Durham (Whelan) when they reach London. Caught off guard by his daughter, Chloe (Thomson), coming to see him at the airport, he sidesteps her suspicions while at the same time reassuring her that his relationship with Chloe’s mother, Irene (Thompson) is all okay, and despite her recently becoming a Christian believer. Chloe goes home but has a dispute with her mother over her Christian beliefs, and she takes her younger brother to the mall. While there, he vanishes into thin air, leaving only his clothing behind. At the same time, on Rayford’s flight, all the children and some of the adults – including his co-pilot – disappear in the same way.

It soon becomes apparent that this is a worldwide event. In the air, a collision with another flight leaves Rayford’s fuel line damaged. He makes the decision to turn back to New York but with the radio down he can’t alert anyone. Meanwhile, Chloe discovers her mother has disappeared also, and her local pastor can only tell her it’s God’s will. Believing her father to be dead as well, she decides to kill herself. With the help of a passenger, journalist Buck Williams (Murray), Rayford manages to call Chloe on her mobile phone; he tells her he’s running out of fuel and needs to land as an emergency… but the airport’s aren’t an option.

Yes folks, it’s the Rapture again, all tricked out with the barest of explanations and tagged onto an airplane disaster scenario that even Airplane! (1980) couldn’t spoof as well as Left Behind does. It’s absurdist stuff, chock-full of crushingly awful dialogue, wooden performances, absentee direction from famed stunt coordinator Armstrong, special effects that are one step up from those in a SyFy movie, and further proof (if any were needed) that Cage will commit to anything these days, no matter how bad it is.

To be fair, the movie’s first half hour isn’t so bad, as each character is introduced, and the basic premise is set up. But once Cage and co are in the air, it’s full speed ahead to Disasterville. When Chloe’s brother, and others, disappear at the mall, looting starts up right away (obviously this is a natural response to hundreds of people just vanishing). On the flight, one woman whose daughter has disappeared, pulls out a GUN and accuses the other passengers of being in cahoots with her ex-husband, who’s obviously trying to snatch her. And Chloe decides to climb to the top of a suspension bridge to kill herself – but really so that Buck’s mobile call will reach her (the networks are predictably scrambled). There are other faux pas made by Paul Lalonde and Jerry Patus’s dreadful script, and no attempt is made to justify any of them.

Rating: 2/10 – appalling stuff, and incredibly insulting to Christians (its target audience), Left Behind is a travesty of Biblical proportions; inept on pretty much every level, the prospect of two further movies to come will make viewers pray that a real Rapture comes around before they do.

Clowne (2014)

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Black comedy, Clown, Community Service, Drugs, Everywhen, Gary Clowne, Henrik Plau, Ina Maria Brekke, Jarand Breian Herdal, Jens Peder Hertzberg, Monkeys, Pilot

D: Jarand Breian Herdal / 34m

Cast: Henrik Plau, Ina Maria Brekke, Philip Bøckmann, Eirik Risholm Velle, Ruben Løfgren, Nicholas Rowley, Aksel Kolstad, Morten Müller

Having completed a two-year stretch in prison, Gary Clowne (Plau) is released, but there’s a catch: he must spend the rest of his sentence – three years – doing community service (he’s also tagged for his troubles). Once on the outside, Gary’s belief that he’ll be sweeping streets or cleaning toilets is cruelly dashed when his new employer, Vitaly (Løfgren) tells Gary he’s going to be a clown. Cue a selection of “gigs” (including a funeral) before Gary winds up at a hospital for patients with mental health issues. There he meets Jen Fliers (Brekke), one of the doctors; he’s immediately infatuated with her. To Gary’s surprise, Jen has sex with him in a supply cupboard almost immediately after he introduces himself. Finding themselves locked in, Jen calls on her boyfriend, Richard (Velle) to get them out. They leave the hospital together but get no further than Richard’s car; once inside they start having sex. Gary heads for home on foot, feeling sad and dejected.

A passing motorist warns Gary that there are lots of monkeys in the area. Baffled by the man’s comment, Gary continues walking until he finds himself in an alley, convinced someone is following him. He’s not wrong. A man in a monkey suit (and carrying a flick-knife) tries to attack Gary but he manages to run away. The man in the monkey suit chases after him. Gary finds himself back at the hospital car park where Jen and Richard are still parked up (and still having sex). The three of them manage to get away from the man in the monkey suit but not before he’s fired a gun at them. Later, at the flat Gary shares with his pothead friend, Tim (Bøckmann), Gary allows himself to be persuaded to feel better by smoking a joint, despite his initial resistance (his jail term was drugs related). The next morning, Gary wakes up to find that Tim has taken a heroin overdose, and is close to death. With the flat full of incriminating, drug-related paraphernalia, Gary can’t call the emergency services. So…what can a tagged felon who happens to be dressed as a clown do to get himself out of such a predicament?

If you’ve seen Everywhen (2013), Herdal and moviemaking partner Jens Peder Hertzberg’s debut feature, then you may have wondered what they’d do next. Well, wonder no more. Clowne is the entirely unexpected answer, a short feature designed as a pilot for a potential television series. It’s a bold move by the young filmmakers, and shows a growing confidence in their abilities. As a director, Herdal displays a keen eye for composition and has an instinctive knowledge of where to put the camera, and with co-creator and director of photography Hertzberg, often chooses odd angles to heighten a scene or, on occasion, keep the viewer wrong-footed (a great example is the shot of a man in a bus shelter looking at a timetable, and then the camera pans left to reveal Gary with his clown face pressed against the glass). Between them, Herdal and Hertzberg have come up with an offbeat visual style, and level of creativity, that belies their ages.

The script, also by Herdal, is inventive and irreverent in equal measure, the humour often laugh-out-loud funny, with a good mix of one-liners (“Jen, focus, I might get rabies here”), visual gags (Richard’s underpants, Tim’s new girlfriend), and the kind of crazy situations that only one of Life’s real unfortunates could find themselves in. The characters, from poor put-upon Gary to conspiracy theorist Vitaly to Müller’s gay police officer, are clearly defined and, though sometimes prone to exaggerated personal traits, suit the material well. Plau is great as Gary, his hangdog expression beneath the clown make up all the viewer needs to understand how he’s feeling. He’s also more than adept at showing Gary’s more vulnerable, nice guy qualities (which go some way to explaining just how he ended up in jail in the first place). It’s an assured performance, and Gary is all the more likeable because of it. As Jen, Brekke proves more flaky than some of her patients, and Bøckmann invests Tim with the kind of naive tunnel vision that so many weed fiends exhibit. Velle is a hoot as the passive-aggressive Richard, always apologising in a slightly whiny way, while Løfgren (in a role that would have been tailor-made for Alexei Sayle in his heyday), does paranoia with enough nervous energy to light several apartment blocks – and confirms what many of us have suspected about the Jonas Brothers for some time.

Inevitably, given that this is a pilot after all, none of the various plot strands are resolved, but as a self-contained short, Clowne succeeds in introducing us to a most unlikely “hero”. At this stage the prospect of a series is one to look forward to, though a full-length feature might be the better option, but judged on its own merits, Clowne is an entertaining, often hilarious, black comedy that confirms the promise Herdal and Hertzberg showed with Everywhen. There are some continuity issues: Gary’s red nose vanishes and reappears at will, often from shot to shot, and Tim’s car trails a vast amount of smoke when he’s the only one with a joint (it’s an easy visual gag, true, but still…). And on the trivia front, fans of that movie may notice that its star, Harald Evjan Furuholmen, has moved behind the camera to serve as production designer and set decorator; perhaps he’s the one responsible for there being a 1931 Dracula poster in the supply cupboard.

Rating: 8/10 – an equally impressive follow-up to Everywhen, Clowne is a likeable, surreal treat of a movie; all that remains is for Herdal and Hertzberg to channel their considerable talents into making a spin off movie for Hunch Backed Man (Kolstad) – now that would be welcome.