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Free Fire (2016)

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

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D: Ben Wheatley / 90m

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Michael Smiley, Sam Riley, Enzo Cilenti, Babou Ceesay, Noah Taylor, Patrick Bergin

It’s 1978 (not that it really matters), and at an abandoned warehouse in Boston, two groups come together to conclude an arms deal. Chris (Murphy) and Frank (Smiley), are members of the IRA, and they’re accompanied by two local career criminals, Bernie (Cilenti) and Stevo (Riley). They’re attempting to buy M-16’s from arms dealer Vernon (Copley) and his associate, Martin (Ceesay); they in turn have back-up in the form of Harry (Reynor) and Gordon (Taylor). Also present are facilitators Justine (Larson), who has brought the two groups together, and Ord (Hammer) who is there to ensure the deal goes through without any problems.

But as night follows day and action comedies demand conflict followed by murderous gunplay, the deal almost falls through when Vernon reveals a case containing AR-70’s and not the M-16’s Chris ordered. Ord helps pacify things and the deal goes ahead, with Chris accepting the guns and Vernon happy with his payment. But the inevitable fly in the ointment occurs when Stevo recognises Harry as the person who beat him up earlier over Stevo’s treatment of Harry’s seventeen year old cousin. Harry sees him and is incensed, and the deal is in jeopardy again. Chris tells Stevo to apologise, but though he does, he can’t resist bragging about what he did to Harry’s cousin. Harry responds by shooting Stevo in the shoulder, and the next moment everybody is shooting at each other, and fanning out across the warehouse.

What follows sees everybody shot and wounded in some way, but in particular it’s Martin who becomes everyone’s focus as he suffers a head wound that leaves him unconscious and lying next to the briefcase with the money inside it. Efforts are made to retrieve it on both sides, but it proves more difficult than anyone could have expected, and further injuries/wounds occur, leaving pretty much everyone struggling to stay alive – and when two further men turn up and shoot at them all, the whole situation goes from bad to worse to ridiculous.

The Closing Night Gala at last year’s London Film Festival, Free Fire is a movie that further cements writer/director Ben Wheatley’s reputation, but does so in a way that will have some viewers wondering what all the fuss is about. This doesn’t mean that Wheatley isn’t a talent to watch, or that his movies aren’t worth watching either, but Free Fire arrives in cinemas with a wealth of expectation behind it following its successfully received screenings at various festivals. Whether or not that level of expectation is warranted will depend on your acceptance of Wheatley being a movie maker with a distinctive visual style, and something to say. Because even though Free Fire is certainly distinctive, and directed with no small amount of flair by Wheatley, it’s not his most accomplished movie to date, and after the misfire that was High-Rise (2015), prompts the question, When will he make another movie that really confirms the talent we all know he has?

This isn’t to say that Free Fire is necessarily a bad movie, but it does appear to have been made with the intention of being entertaining, and it’s here that the movie gives cause for concern. For a director of Wheatley’s talent and rising stature, Free Fire feels too forced too often to be effective, or win over its audience. Some viewers, if they take the movie at face value, will find it enjoyable, but in a kind of loud, dumb fun kind of way. Wheatley, and his co-writer (and wife) Amy Jump, have gone for a crowd-pleasing black comedy action thriller that focuses heavily on the “fun” to be had from seeing a group of villainous individuals shoot each other, and which then sits back and watches them suffer even further.

This is where the notion that the movie is “fun” loses traction the longer the movie goes on. By letting all of its motley assortment of characters drag themselves around to less and less dramatic effect – Stevo’s demise is a particular example, a moment that makes no sense given his capacity thus far for survival – the problem of what to do with them all becomes increasingly more difficult for Wheatley to solve. In the end, he signposts the movie’s final scene, attempts to wrap it all up neatly, and confirms that any originality has been spent long before. For all its likeability, the movie hopes to beguile its audience into thinking that it’s fresh, sharp and funny, and though it does raise a smile quite often, this is more to do with the performances than Wheatley and Jump’s script.

Once the action and the shooting begins, some viewers will be left wondering who’s shooting and wounding who, and why co-writers Wheatley and Jump couldn’t have hired someone other than themselves to edit the movie. In the initial melee, it’s hard to work out just exactly what’s going on, and while it may serve to highlight the chaotic nature of the action, the spacing and the staging of the various protagonists isn’t made clear enough for viewers to accurately gauge where everyone is and how anyone can shoot anyone else. As a result, characters are hit – some more than once – and often it seems as if it’s the random choice of the screenplay. The effect this has is to distance the viewer from what’s happening – and to whom – and to reduce the characters to little more than that of ducks in a shooting gallery.

Thankfully, the cast know what they’re doing, from Copley’s quick to take offence arms dealer, to Hammer’s smooth-talking facilitator, to Riley’s drug-addled liability. As the lone female in the cast, Larson quickly becomes “one of the lads” as Justine has no option but to fight for her own survival just like everyone else. Strangely though, it’s Murphy’s IRA man who is the movie’s nominal hero, but the movie doesn’t do anything with this, and like its period setting, lacks any relevance to the action. But then relevance doesn’t appear to be in Wheatley’s remit. Instead, he wants to bludgeon us with a movie whose ambition is to be a wildly anarchic, blackly amusing thrill ride that will have audiences wincing and laughing in equal measure. He succeeds with the wincing, and occasionally with the laughing, but overall, this is dispiriting stuff from a director who can do so much more. Perhaps this is a movie Wheatley had to do in order to “get it out of his system”, and if so, then hopefully his next project will showcase his real talents as a movie maker.

Rating: 6/10 – on a basic level, Free Fire is a movie that will attract a lot of fans, and for some, reinforce their opinion of Wheatley’s skill as a director; however, even as a slice of depth-free entertainment, it fails to hit the mark fully, and stumbles too often in its execution to offer more than an occasionally diverting experience, leavened only by the occasional humorous twist, and an equally occasional sense of its own absurdity.

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The Hollars (2016)

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

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D: John Krasinski / 89m

Cast: John Krasinski, Richard Jenkins, Sharlto Copley, Margo Martindale, Anna Kendrick, Charlie Day, Josh Groban, Randall Park, Ashley Dyke, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Mary Kay Place

Dysfunctional families – where would indie movie makers be without them? A staple of indie movie making, the dysfunctional family has provided us with some great movies over the years, from The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) to Little Miss Sunshine (2006) to August: Osage County (2013). Now it’s John Krasinski’s turn to shine a light on a family for whom “normal behaviour” isn’t exactly customary practice.

Krasinski plays John Hollar, a struggling graphic artist whose self-confidence is almost exhausted. As if that wasn’t enough, his girlfriend, Rebecca (Kendrick), is expecting their baby. Feeling the pressure from both sides, things get even more stressful for him when he learns that his mother, Sally (Martindale), is in the hospital and needs an operation to remove a brain tumour. Returning to his hometown after several years away, John reconnects with his father, Don (Jenkins), and his older brother, Ron (Copley). With a few days to go before the operation, John comes face to face with the problems and issues that occupy his family members’ time. Ron is screwing up his divorce from Stacey (Dyke) by spying on her and her new partner, Reverend Dan (Groban), as well as acting inappropriately in order to spend time with his two daughters. Meanwhile, Don’s plumbing business is on the brink of going under.

Adding to John’s worries is one of his mother’s nurses, an old high school classmate called Jason (Day) who has married John’s old girlfriend Gwen (Winstead). At first, Jason is concerned that John is going to try and sleep with Gwen while he’s back. John reassures him that he won’t, and receives an invitation to dinner. But though his intentions are honourable, Gwen’s aren’t and he has to rebuff her advances. Wanting to be open and honest about the encounter, he tells Rebecca about it, but in such a clumsy way that she becomes worried and travels to his hometown to be with him. Once there, she reveals a few truths that John has been avoiding admitting, while he too reveals a truth that she has been unaware of. Meanwhile, Ron finds an unlikely supporter in Reverend Dan, Don takes a job at a wine store to bolster his business’s finances, and soon, the day of Sally’s operation is at hand.

Krasinski has said that the one-liner for The Hollars is something that we’ve heard before: a guy goes home to his family and finds out about himself. And he’s spot on. But while it’s true that it’s a theme that’s been done several times before, and that the movie doesn’t really offer us anything new in terms of characterisation or the narrative, what the movie does do is to introduce us to a new, disparate bunch of people who are all trying to deal with their own individual problems, while also trying to support each other as best they can. But that’s the basis of any movie about a dysfunctional family. The question to ask is: within its own terms and its own ambitions, does The Hollars work?

Inevitably, the answer is yes and no. There is much to recommend The Hollars, and Krasinski plays to the strengths of Jim Strouse’s screenplay at every opportunity. The characters are well-drawn, and the interaction between them is sympathetic and knowing, allowing the cast to display each character’s vulnerabilities and strengths to good effect. From Krasinski’s self-doubting, slightly adrift John to Copley’s manic, short-sighted Ron, from Jenkins’ overly emotional, self-deluding Don to Martindale’s anxious yet eternally supportive Sally, and Kendrick’s mostly confident, comforting Rebecca, the movie is populated by characters who are easily recognisable and a pleasure to spend time with. Strouse keeps the various inter-relationships on the simple side, with few complications to upset or muddy the waters. This allows the viewer to engage with them more easily, and though this also leads to a feeling of unnecessary mawkishness that develops as the movie goes on, Krasinski’s skill as a director ensures it doesn’t overwhelm the material as a whole.

Krasinski is helped by a clutch of great performances, and he exploits each member of his talented cast in justifiable fashion. Jenkins does bewildered to very good effect, making Don seem as if he’s barely in the room. Copley’s take on Ron is to mix a committed father with an ADD sufferer, and he provides a good deal of the movie’s easy humour. Kendrick tenders another slight variation on the type of character that she always plays in this kind of thing, but Rebecca is very much a supporting role whose job it is to show John the way forward when he needs it. Krasinski slips easily into the central role, and plays the gauche, somewhat perplexed John with a good deal of charm. But if anyone stands out from the ensemble cast then it’s Martindale, who once again, reaffirms her status as one of the best character actors currently working in movies. As the affable, good-natured Sally, Martindale gives a delicate, thoughtful performance that is entirely natural and heartfelt.

But while the performances are the movie’s main draw, some of the subplots fail to take hold in – perhaps – the way they were meant to. Ron’s often childish behaviour, particularly in the presence of Reverend Dan, is a little over-the-top and far from credible, even for a character who appears, for the most part, to be a man-child. And Don’s business problems, which at first seem like they’re going to have a lasting impact on the family as a whole, waste a whole scene where he’s refused credit, only for a solution to come along that fails to address the issue of depleted funds entirely. The inclusion of John’s ex-girlfriend, Gwen, has even less impact, as beyond the dinner scenes, she doesn’t reappear, leaving the viewer to wonder if she was meant to have an effect on John’s life in some way. But if that’s so, then it seems it was either left out at one of the draft stages, or on the cutting room floor. These failings help to make the movie feel uneven at times, and there’s a definite sense that more time would have been needed to address them properly.

Overall, Strouse’s screenplay and Krasinski’s direction combine to make The Hollars an enjoyable comedy with serious moments, and a poignant drama with humorous stretches. A lot of it is predictable, but that’s not a bad thing as this is one of those occasions where familiarity breeds fondness and uncomplicated indulgence instead of contempt. With a suitably indie soundtrack made up of original songs by Josh Ritter, and a winning, relaxed feel to proceedings, The Hollars provides viewers with an offbeat, captivating experience that adds up to a warm-hearted, generous good time for anyone that seeks it out.

Rating: 7/10 – genial and obliging, The Hollars doesn’t waste a second in its attempts to get you to like it, and once you do, you can forgive it when the material stumbles over itself from time to time; buoyed by a great ensemble cast, and a good sense of its own strengths and weaknesses, it tells its story succinctly and without any undue fuss – and that’s not always when there’s a dysfunctional family involved.

Monthly Roundup – May 2015

31 Sunday May 2015

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There’s a phrase that everyone will be familiar with: “Too many [insert item here], too little time”. When it comes to the number of movies that I watch in any given month, that phrase is apt in relation to the ones that get reviewed here on thedullwoodexperiment. I would love to have the time to post reviews of all the movies I see, but it’s just not practical; and besides which, some movies just don’t merit the attention (Annabelle (2014), for instance). Sometimes it’s a case of choosing one movie over another, sometimes Life gets in the way of blogging and a movie falls by the wayside. To combat this, and to give these “other” movies their due, I’ve decided to present, at the end of each month, a brief “review” of all the other movies I’ve seen. There won’t be any synopsis, or proper full-length analysis, just the title, director, running time, cast, and then the traditional two sentence ratings summation. So, let’s see which movies didn’t quite make the cut in May 2015.

The Forger (2014) / D: Philip Martin / 96m

Cast: John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Abigail Spencer, Anson Mount, Marcus Thomas, Jennifer Ehle, Travis Aaron Wade

Rating: 5/10 – Travolta’s art forger comes out of prison to spend time with his dying son (Sheridan) and pull off an audacious robbery; a derivative, occasionally unappealing crime drama that tries to do something different with its dying child angle, The Forger is nevertheless a movie whose “one last heist” scenario has been done to death elsewhere, and with far better results.

Forger, The - scene

The Gunfight at Dodge City (1959) / D: Joseph M. Newman / 81m

Cast: Joel McCrea, Julie Adams, John McIntire, Nancy Gates, Richard Anderson, James Westerfield, Walter Coy, Don Haggerty, Wright King, Harry Lauter

Rating: 6/10 – Western legend Bat Masterson (McCrea) tackles corruption supported by Haggerty’s devious sheriff in Dodge City and faces romantic problems as well from minister’s daughter Adams and saloon owner Gates; a middling, mildly diverting Western, The Gunfight at Dodge City benefits from McCrea’s solid, no-nonsense performance and Newman’s underrated abilities behind the camera.

Gunfight at Dodge City, The - scene

Comet (2014) / D: Sam Esmail / 91m

Cast: Justin Long, Emmy Rossum

Rating: 7/10 – Long and Rossum are the soulmates whose on-again-off-again relationship is examined over the course of six years; with the narrative continually fractured and reassembled, Comet is replete with the kind of “serious” romantic musings that sound alternately pretentious and profound, but the two leads have a definite chemistry and this helps immensely in making the movie as enjoyable as it (largely) is.

Comet - scene

Murder at Glen Athol (1936) / D: Frank R. Strayer / 67m

Cast: John Miljan, Irene Ware, Iris Adrian, Noel Madison, Oscar Apfel, Barry Norton, Harry Holman, Betty Blythe, James P. Burtis

Rating: 5/10 – two murders and a dying confession confuse matters for a detective (Miljan) who’s just trying to take a vacation – next door to where the murders have taken place; packed full of seemingly endless exposition and no shortage of suspects, Murder at Glen Athol is a sprightly murder mystery that packs a lot in but not always to its best advantage.

Murder at Glen Athol

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) / D: Paul Tibbitt / 92m

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Mr. Lawrence, Carolyn Lawrence

Rating: 7/10 – when the formula for Krabby Patty is stolen by the notorious Burger Beard (Banderas), SpongeBob (Kenny) is forced to team up with Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) to get it back… and venture above the surface; freewheeling fun with the denizens of Bikini Bottom that features lots of gags and the usual bright visuals, but takes an awfully long time in getting to the “sponge out of water” part.

SpongeBob Movie, The

Chappie (2015) / D: Neill Blomkamp / 120m

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema

Rating: 6/10 – with a robot police force firmly established in Johannesburg, the introduction of artificial intelligence leads to one robot, named Chappie, learning what it’s like to be human; disappointing outing from Blomkamp that never quite gels or seems sure of what it’s trying to do or say, but does feature an excellent performance from Copley.

Chappie

Impact (1963) / D: Peter Maxwell / 61m

Cast: Conrad Phillips, George Pastell, Ballard Berkeley, Linda Marlowe, Richard Klee, Anita West, John Rees

Rating: 5/10 – when newspaper reporter Jack Moir (Phillips) is framed for robbery by arch-nemesis “The Duke” (Pastell), he swears to get even when he gets out of jail; a low-key crime drama that seems busier than it is and which gets bogged down in the mechanics of Moir’s revenge plot, Impact does allow for a welcome appearance by Berkeley aka Fawlty Towers‘ Major, and an above average performance by Pastell.

Impact

The Loft (2014) / D: Erik Van Looy / 103m

Cast: Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Isabel Lucas, Rachael Taylor, Rhona Mitra, Valerie Cruz, Kali Rocha, Elaine Cassidy, Margarita Levieva, Kristin Lehman, Robert Wisdom

Rating: 6/10 – the discovery of a woman’s dead body in the loft apartment shared by five married men for their secret liaisons prompts them to suspect each other of the crime; alternately gripping and implausible, The Loft is a modern day cautionary tale that loses credibility with its solution then recovers with a great twist, but still has the air of a thriller that its writer never quite got to grips with.

Loft, The

Unfinished Business (2015) / D: Ken Scott / 91m

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, Nick Frost, James Marsden, June Diane Raphael, Britton Sear, Ella Anderson, Uwe Ochsenknecht

Rating: 5/10 – Swarf salesman Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) has to overcome all sorts of obstacles to land the contract that will save his fledgling company from going under, including a visit to a Berlin gay bar; a bit of a strange fish, Unfinished Business suffers from being two separate movies joined at the hip: one a raucous comedy, the other a thoughtful study of bullying, but together they don’t make for a cohesive whole, and it’s yet another movie where Vaughn coasts along on former glories.

Unfinished Business

Maleficent (2014)

03 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Maleficent

D: Robert Stromberg / 97m

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Sam Riley, Brenton Thwaites, Kenneth Cranham, Hannah New

A revisionist version of the Sleeping Beauty story, Maleficent begins long before the traditional tale begins, and tells of two neighbouring lands, one human, one fairy, that exist with animosity simmering between them.  As a young child, Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy) is curious about humans but doesn’t venture any further than the boundary of the fairy lands (known as the Moors).  One day a young boy, Stefan (Michael Higgins) is found stealing in the Moors.  Maleficent saves him from the forest guards and a friendship is born.  Stefan returns to the Moors from time to time and friendship blossoms into romance.  When Maleficent is sixteen, Stefan gives her a “true love’s” kiss, but he never returns after that day.

Years pass.  Now an adult, Maleficent (Jolie) is the de facto queen of the Moors.  When King Henry (Cranham) tries to invade the fairy lands she repels his army and the King is injured.  With no natural heir to succeed him, he offers the throne to whomever kills Maleficent.  Stefan (Copley) is a courtier but uses his relationship with Maleficent to get close to her.  Unable to kill her outright, instead he cuts off her wings; he brings them back to Henry and becomes King when Henry dies; he also marries Henry’s daughter, Leila (New).  Maleficent, meanwhile, saves a raven from being captured by a human and transforms him into a man who tells her his name is Diaval (Riley).  Diaval agrees to be Maleficent’s spy in the human lands, and brings news when Stefan and Leila have a daughter, Aurora.

Maleficent attends the christening and bestows a gift on the child, a curse that on her sixteenth birthday Aurora will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall asleep for the rest of eternity; the only thing that can lift the curse is a “true love’s” kiss.  Stefan orders all the spinning wheels in the kingdom broken up and burned and sends Aurora away under the charge of three pixies, Knotgrass (Staunton), Flittle (Manville) and Thistlewit (Temple), to live in a cottage deep in the nearby woods; she is to live there until the day after her sixteenth birthday.

As she approaches that fateful date, Aurora (Fanning) becomes increasingly fascinated with the Moors.  Maleficent puts her under a spell and brings her into the Moors.  Aurora is enchanted by what she sees and she becomes determined to stay there (she has no idea of her background or history).  At the same time her relationship with Maleficent develops into a strong bond, and Maleficent softens in her attitude toward her.  On her way to tell the pixies of her decision, she meets Prince Philip (Thwaites) with whom there is an instant mutual attraction.  When she reaches the cottage, Knotgrass inadvertently mentions her father, whom Aurora has been told died long ago.  The pixies reveal the truth about her heritage and Aurora confronts Maleficent.  Distraught, Aurora returns to the castle on her sixteenth birthday, where Stefan is preparing for what he believes will be  Maleficent’s imminent arrival.  That night, Aurora escapes from her room but ends up in the basement where all the broken up and charred spinning wheels are.  As the curse decrees, Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into eternal sleep…

Maleficent - scene

With the look and feel of both Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) – and it’s no surprise, as director Stromberg was the production designer on both movies – Maleficent is a feast for the eyes and looks beautiful throughout.  The Moors has an air of whimsy about it and the various pastel shades employed to bring it to life are cleverly overlapped to create a ravishing whole.  Once Maleficent is betrayed, the colours are muted and the Moors is not quite as vividly rendered, but it’s still a wonderful place for a young girl to grow up in.

It’s a shame then that as much effort wasn’t put into the human kingdom, its stone walls and bland woodwork acting as a dreary counterpoint to the Moors.  It’s also a good reference point when discussing the characters.  Maleficent herself is a wonderful creation, given depth and pathos by Jolie, and graced with the sharpest cheekbones you’re ever likely to see on screen.  It’s a magnificent performance, and a reminder that Jolie, last seen in the less than wonderful The Tourist (2010), is an accomplished actress, but here she’s the sole focus in a movie that short changes its other characters, leaving the rest of the cast to fend for themselves while Jolie gets the lion’s share of the screen time and any character development.  Ultimately, this single-mindedness hurts the movie tremendously, and wastes the talents of Fanning, Copley, Staunton et al.  Copley, despite a minimal attempt to endow Stefan with a degree of guilt for his actions, is hamstrung by the lack of range his character is imbued with, and by the movie’s end he’s so close to providing a one-note performance as to make no difference (it doesn’t help that his accent wavers all over the place in his early scenes).

With Linda Woolverton’s script providing less meat than required, Maleficent suffers in other areas as well.  For such a handsomely mounted, cleverly revisionist tale, it’s also curiously flat throughout.  The early scenes – pre-adult Maleficent – seem in a hurry to get to the main bulk of the movie, and the remainder doesn’t excite or captivate in the way that it should.  Scene follows scene but not in any organic way; instead it’s as if the movie is more concerned with hitting each plot development in turn but not with how it gets there.  This leaves some scenes feeling redundant, often before the scene has ended.  And too much happens purely because the script needs it to: Stefan’s preparations for Maleficent’s return to the castle, for example, planned so far in advance of her actually needing to go there that it doesn’t make sense; and Maleficent’s wings, unmoving and apparently lifeless when Stefan removes them, but animated and responsive after more than sixteen years (and just when Maleficent needs them).

Story and plot problems notwithstanding, Maleficent lacks the zest and energy needed to fully bring it’s reworking of Sleeping Beauty (1959) to life.  There’s also the issue of whether or not Maleficent is really the villainous character she is in Disney’s animated version of the story.  Here, she’s clearly a character who’s been tragically wronged, and despite attempts to make her “evil”, they’re never convincing, and Jolie’s approach to the character highlights the theme of female empowerment that permeates the movie throughout.  This leaves Stefan as the movie’s one true villain, and far more “evil” than Maleficent could ever be, even with the maniacal chuckling that Jolie strives for during the christening.  (It’s a shame as it would definitely have made the movie more interesting, but with the emphasis on rehabilitating the character for a modern audience – as if we really needed it – a completely evil Maleficent was never on the cards.)

Stromberg is not a strong director, either, and his lack of experience contributes to the overall shortcomings of the movie.  The action sequences lack the excitement expected from them, and the editing by Chris Lebenzon and Richard Pearson often contributes to the sense that there’s a more structured, deliberate movie back in the cutting room (a longer version might be interesting to watch).  In the end, this is Jolie’s triumph, not anyone else’s, but by herself she’s not able to rescue the movie from the doldrums it repeatedly finds itself in.

Rating: 5/10 – not entirely the success its makers would have hoped for, but not entirely a dud either, just a maddeningly disappointing movie that never takes off (as Maleficent herself does); plagued by too many bad decisions affecting its presentation, Maleficent keeps the viewer at arm’s length for long periods, and only occasionally tries to bring them any closer.

Mini-Review: Oldboy (2013)

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Oldboy (2013)

D: Spike Lee / 104m

Cast: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Pom Klementieff, James Ransone, Max Casella, Linda Emond

There are times when you just know that the phrase “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” is going to apply to an upcoming remake or sequel, and that what will eventually hit cinemas – if the movie’s that lucky (or has enough money behind it) – is going to be as disappointing as sunbathing during an eclipse.  It’s a very rare remake indeed that comes out as well as the original, and that’s mostly because those originals are lightning-in-a-bottle moments.  From Gus Van Sant’s ill-advised and unexpectedly dull shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1998) to the current vogue for remaking what seems like every horror movie from the Eighties, remakes are the lazy filmmaker’s way of keeping busy.  And so it proves with Oldboy, Spike Lee’s remake of Chan-wook Park’s modern classic.

Oldboy (2013) - scene

Even with Lee and writer Mark Protosevich saying they’ve gone back to the original manga that Park based his movie on, this version still fails on so many levels.  The main character, Joe Doucett (played with his usual intensity by Brolin) is unlikeable from the start, so any sympathy we might have for him is dispensed with before he’s even held captive.  There’s a cartoonish performance from Samuel L. Jackson as chief gaoler Chaney that comes complete with blond ponytail and which sits at odds with the rest of the performances, and the tone of the movie as a whole.  When Joe meets Marie (Olsen) she gives him her number almost straight away in case he needs any help; yes, she’s an aid worker but would she really do that (but then how would the rest of the movie develop if she didn’t)?

The villain of the piece is played with pantomime bravura by Copley, and the only thing that’s missing from his performance is a bit of moustache-twirling (his vocal styling is quite irritating too).  The sequence where Joe takes on Chaney’s goons with just a hammer now looks over-rehearsed and lacks any visceral quality.  And the revelation of why Joe has been released is given a mock-opera makeover that resists any emotional engagement by the viewer because, in the set up, it appears that Copley’s character is able to install surveillance equipment wherever Joe goes and in advance of his knowing he’s going there.

In short, the movie relies on contrivance after contrivance and gives the viewer nothing to connect with.  As a reinterpretation (which sounds more like prevarication than anything else), Oldboy ends up being like a mime interpreting a song: you wonder what was the point.

Rating: 5/10 – proficient on a technical level with excellent photography courtesy of Sean Bobbitt, Oldboy strips away the cultural depth of Chan’s version and gives us nothing in return; even judged on its own merits it’s still a movie that doesn’t work.