Monthly Roundup – August 2018

31 Friday Aug 2018

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Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Action, Adventure, Alicia Vikander, Alyson Walker, Animation, Antoine Fuqua, Benicio Del Toro, Brad Bird, Clay Kaytis, Clown, Comedy, Coralie Fargeat, Craig T. Nelson, Damien Leone, Dark Web, Denzel Washington, Dominic West, Doug Murphy, Drama, Drugs, Dylan O'Brien, Erdal Ceylan, Fergal Reilly, Frank Welker, Game adaptation, Gore, Grey Griffin, Holly Hunter, Horror, Incredibles 2, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Kanell, Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, John Boyega, Josh Brolin, Josh Gad, Kaiju, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin Janssens, Mandie Fletcher, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Mexican cartels, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Paranormal, Pedro Pascal, Revenge (2017), Roar Uthaug, Samantha Scaffidi, Sci-fi, Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost, Scott Eastwood, Selfie from Hell, Sequel, Sicario 2: Soldado, Stefano Sollima, Steven S. DeKnight, Terrifier, Terrorists, The Angry Birds Movie, The Death Cure, The Equalizer 2, The Flare, The Mystery Gang, Thriller, Tomb Raider, Tony Giroux, Violence, WCKD, Wes Ball

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016) / D: Mandie Fletcher / 91m

Cast: Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks, June Whitfield, Kathy Burke, Celia Imrie, Robert Webb, Lulu, Emma Bunton, Rebel Wilson, Barry Humphries, Wanda Ventham, Kate Moss

Rating: 3/10 – fashionistas Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Lumley) flee to the south of France after thinking they’ve killed supermodel Kate Moss; making this yet another British TV comedy success story that goes badly, horribly wrong when transferred to the big screen, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is another reminder that humour needs context in which to work, and rehashing the same old jokes over and over is less about giving fans what they want and more about lazy screenwriting.

Revenge (2017) / D: Coralie Fargeat / 108m

Cast: Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Kevin Janssens, Vincent Colombe, Guillaume Bouchéde

Rating: 7/10 – a married CEO (Janssens) takes his mistress (Lutz) along with him on a hunting weekend with two friends (Colombe, Bouchéde), but things go badly wrong, and all three men find themselves being hunted instead; a visceral and very, very bloody thriller, Revenge is relentlessly nihilistic, and with characters so broadly drawn they might as well be archetypes, but Fargeat makes good use of the desert landscapes, and Lutz is a resourceful and unapologetically violent heroine.

Incredibles 2 (2018) / D: Brad Bird / 118m

Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Bird, Isabella Rossellini, Jonathan Banks, John Ratzenberger

Rating: 9/10 – when a successful businessman (Odenkirk) approaches the Parr family with a plan to have Supers allowed to use their super powers again, it proves to be good timing as a new super villain, the Screenslaver, makes himself known; following directly on from the original, Incredibles 2 retains the Sixties vibe, visual ingenuity, and genuine laughs from before, and continues to focus on the Parr family first and foremost, making this a hugely entertaining sequel – even if the villain (as in a lot of superhero movies) is the movie’s weakest link.

Sicario 2: Soldado (2018) / D: Stefano Sollima / 122m

Original title: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan, Catherine Keener, Manuel Garcia-Ruffo, Matthew Modine, Shea Whigham, Elijah Rodriguez

Rating: 7/10 – Federal agent Matt Graver (Brolin) is tasked with taking the fight to the Mexican drug cartels when evidence points to their helping terrorists get into the US; an odd sequel that goes off in an unexpected direction partway through (and which sets up what’s likely to be a banal third chapter), Sicario 2: Soldado is still head and shoulders above most action thrillers thanks to returning scribe Taylor Sheridan’s taut screenplay, Del Toro’s singular performance as the Sicario of the title, and a handful of well choreographed action scenes.

Terrifier (2017) / D: Damien Leone / 84m

Cast: Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, David Howard Thornton, Catherine Corcoran, Pooya Mohseni, Matt McAllister, Katie Maguire

Rating: 4/10 – one night, two young women (Kanell, Scaffidi) find themselves being pursued by a killer clown (Thornton) intent on murdering them and anyone they come into contact with – and as gruesomely as possible; old school practical gore effects are the order of the day here, with Terrifier using every trick in the book to make viewers wince or look away, while building a fair amount of tension, but it’s let down by the usual non-investment in credible characters, lacklustre direction, and making its villain indestructible.

Tomb Raider (2018) / D: Roar Uthaug / 118m

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristen Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Hannah John-Kamen

Rating: 6/10 – Lara Croft (Vikander) sets off in search of her missing father (West) when she discovers a clue to where he went missing, while looking for an ancient artefact that could have devastating consequences for the modern world; another unnecessary reboot, Tomb Raider tries hard – sometimes too hard – to make its by-the-numbers storyline exciting, but too many perfunctory action sequences, allied to so-so performances and Uthaug’s corporate directing style makes this an unlikely contender as the opener for a whole new franchise.

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) / D: Steven S. DeKnight / 111m

Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Callee Spaeny, Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Tian Jing, Jin Zhang, Adria Arjona, Rinko Kikuchi

Rating: 5/10 – a new threat to Earth’s defences brings the Jaeger force back into operation, but they soon find themselves fighting against a foe whose plans don’t just involve the Jaeger force’s destruction, but the return of the Kaiju as well; there’s an element of dumb fun about Pacific Rim: Uprising that keeps things ticking over, but though DeKnight is able to provide a decent amount of energy to proceedings, the looming threat to Earth lacks the first movie’s effectiveness, and the Kaiju arrive too late to improve things.

The Death Cure (2018) / D: Wes Ball / 141m

aka Maze Runner: The Death Cure

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden, Will Poulter, Jacob Lofland, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Patricia Clarkson, Aidan Gillen, Barry Pepper, Walton Goggins

Rating: 8/10 – with their friends imprisoned in the Last City, a WCKD stronghold, Thomas (O’Brien) and his fellow Gladers must find a way of freeing them, and of finding a cure for the Flare, before it’s too late; the final part of the Maze Runner trilogy, The Death Cure ensures the series goes out with a bang, with high octane action sequences, a strong emotional undercurrent to proceedings, and though it’s a little bit too long, it does provide each of the main characters with a suitable and satisfactory conclusion to their story arcs, and doesn’t leave things hanging on the possibility of there being any further chapters.

The Angry Birds Movie (2016) / D: Clay Kaytis, Fergal Reilly / 97m

Original title: Angry Birds

Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Peter Dinklage, Sean Penn, Keegan Michael-Key, Kate McKinnon, Tony Hale, Hannibal Buress, Ike Barinholtz, Tituss Burgess

Rating: 6/10 – trouble comes to an island of (mostly) happy birds in the form of green pigs who aren’t quite as friendly as they seem, leaving the unlikely trio of Red (Sudeikis), Chuck (Gad), and Bomb (McBride) to save the day; a brightly animated game adaptation that will appeal to children far more than adults, The Angry Birds Movie is acceptable fun within the confines of its basic storyline, but the humour is inconsistent, the plot developments seem designed to pad things out instead of feeling organic, and the whole thing becomes less interesting as it goes on.

The Equalizer 2 (2018) / D: Antoine Fuqua / 121m

Cast: Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo

Rating: 6/10 – ex-spy Robert McCall (Washington) goes after the people responsible for the murder of his ex-boss (Leo), and finds himself up against a cadre of mercenaries with a similar skill-set; Washington’s first sequel, The Equalizer 2 is unremarkable at best and unnecessary at worst, with a banal storyline and cookie cutter character motivations that are offset by Fuqua’s authoritative direction, Washington’s commanding performance, and several very effective fight sequences.

Selfie from Hell (2018) / D: Erdal Ceylan / 76m

Cast: Alyson Walker, Tony Giroux, Meelah Adams, Ian Butcher

Rating: 3/10 – strange paranormal events that have a connection to the Dark Web begin to affect a young woman (Walker) when her cousin (Adams) comes to visit; even for its modest running time, Selfie from Hell soon outwears its welcome, thanks to its confused plotting, wayward acting, leaden direction, and meaningless frights, all of which add up to yet another horror movie where things happen because they can instead of because they make sense within the terms of the story.

Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost (2018) / D: Doug Murphy / 77m

Cast: Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci, Bobby Flay, Giada De Laurentiis, Marcus Samuelsson, David Kaye, Dana Snyder, Jason Spisak

Rating: 7/10 – the Mystery Gang travel to Bar Harbour to help Fred’s Uncle Bobby deal with a ghost that’s jeopardising the opening of a culinary resort; the format and the jokes are all present and correct, making Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost another satisfying entry in the series, but it’s also one that highlights just how predictable these movies are becoming.

Eye in the Sky (2015)

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Aaron Paul, Al-Shabaab, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Drama, Drone warfare, Gavin Hood, Helen Mirren, Kenya, Review, Suicide bombers, Terrorists, Thriller

D: Gavin Hood / 102m

Cast: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Phoebe Fox, Aisha Takow, Jeremy Northam, Richard McCabe, Monica Dolan, Iain Glen, Babou Ceesay, Vusi Kunene, Kim Engelbrecht, Laila Robins, Michael O’Keefe, Armaan Haggio, Gavin Hood, Lex King

The poster for Eye in the Sky correctly identifies the range of personnel that are involved in its story of a military operation to capture several high profile terrorists from a property in Nairobi, Kenya. The commander is Colonel Katherine Powell (Mirren), the drone pilot is Lieutenant Steve Watts (Paul), and the terrorist is radicalised British woman Susan Danford (King). But the range doesn’t end there. There’s also military facilitator Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Rickman) overseeing things from a briefing room in London’s Whitehall, a target recognition analyst, Lucy Galvez (Engelbrecht), based in Hawaii, and the Kenyan military forces, led by Major Moses Owiti (Kunene), and also in Nairobi. Throw in the British Foreign Secretary, James Willett (Glen), who’s in Singapore, and the American Secretary of State, Ken Stanitzke (O’Keefe), who’s on a trip to Beijing, and you have a movie that relentlessly globe trots in its efforts to up the tension as the original mission to capture Danford and her terrorist allies mutates unavoidably into a strike mission.

The set up is a simple one: intel puts Danford, a member of terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab, her husband, and two recently radicalised young men at a house in Nairobi. Powell’s job is to coordinate the various strands of a US/UK/Kenyan operation to capture them. But things become more complicated when the intended targets move to another Nairobi location, one that’s heavily fortified by Somalian militia. With the drone flying twenty-three thousand feet above the action and unable to see inside the building the terrorists have moved to, the decision is made to send in an FPV, operated remotely by Jama (Abdi), a Somalian member of the Kenyan military forces. With the targets inside the building confirmed, the mission can go ahead, but then the FPV sees something no one was expecting: a room full of explosives and two suicide bomb vests. Now the reason for the terrorist meeting becomes clear: the two young men have been chosen to commit further terrorist outrages.

For Powell it’s an open and shut case. With two separate terrorist acts being prepared, the mission has to change, and the drone used to send a Hellfire missile into the building. But Powell finds that getting permission to change the operation’s parameters is harder than she thought. Benson, overseeing things with members of the British government, explains the need for a kill strike but no one wants to make a decision without it being referred to someone further up the chain of command. And when a young girl, Alia (Takow), arrives outside the compound to sell bread, the moral and political issues surrounding collateral damage come into play – and the terrorists continue their plans.

Make no mistake, Eye in the Sky is a taut, gripping thriller that throws in enough twists and turns to keep viewers on the edge of their seat (or holding their breath) from the moment the terrorists’ plan becomes evident and the politicians start backing away from making a decision that involves the potential death of a young girl. With ethical and moral considerations being thrown around in support of both pushing ahead and stepping down, Guy Hibbert’s script treads a fine line between political expediency and military necessity, and in doing so, provides audiences with a tense, anxious experience that is both intelligently handled and uncomfortably topical.

In doing so though it paints a portrait of UK politicians as indecisive and media-cowed, afraid of making tough decisions unless they’re authorised by someone nearer the top of the political food chain than they are (this is why the UK Foreign Secretary and the US Secretary of State become involved). It’s a little unnerving to see these characters vacillate so much in the face of an established threat, and some viewers may well find themselves feeling frustrated by their behaviour to the point of wishing they were the victims of the drone strike instead. But it still makes for compelling viewing as each round of political manoeuvring fails to solve the problem on the ground, namely, how can the little girl be moved on, and how can any collateral damage be minimised to an acceptable level.

The answers to both these dilemmas are not as cut and dried as some viewers might expect. An attempt to buy up the girl’s bread goes awry, and the level of collateral damage varies depending on where the missile strike hits, but in any case it’s obvious the girl will suffer some form of injury. Knowing this, the back and forth between Powell and the politicians Benson has to deal with becomes an arduous, unpleasant, exasperating stretch of the movie’s running time, and despite feeling contrived for the most part, still maintains the tension needed to keep viewers glued to the screen.

Away from the Brits, Watts’s increasing unhappiness at the way things are developing leads to a further delay in proceedings, but the movie presents this as a positive turn of events, with the plucky Yank standing up to the formidable British Colonel. Whether this would happen in “real life” is debatable – Watts and his co-pilot, Carrie Gershon (Fox) appear far too emotionally affected to be entirely credible – but as another example of the script’s ability to make things as uncomfortable for the audience as possible it also gives the audience a way in in terms of how upsetting this must really be for two characters who will be expected to be back on duty twelve hours later. Alternatively, Powell and Benson’s feelings are best summed up by Benson’s assertion, “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.”

With drone strikes becoming an increasingly hot topic in terms of modern warfare against terrorists, the movie is both timely and uncompromising. It paints a convincing portrait of the hardware used and the complicity that comes with it, and if the movie ultimately comes down on the side of using it for the greater good – the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few – then it’s still a convincingly made argument. And thanks to a very well chosen cast, both sides of that argument are given due attention, with Mirren and Rickman giving standout performances, while being ably supported by the likes of Abdi, Northam and Ceesay. In coordinating all this, Hood makes up for Ender’s Game (2013) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) by keeping things deadly serious throughout, and with the help of regular editor Megan Gill, creates a febrile atmosphere for the mission to exist in.

Rating: 8/10 – a few narrative niggles aside, Eye in the Sky is a provocative, unnerving cinematic experience that never once falters in its intention to keep viewers on the edge of their seats; tense and dramatic, the movie shines a light on the kind of ethical and moral dilemmas that only a select few have to deal with, and reinforces the notion that warfare, whether modern or ancient, is not for the faint of heart.

Monthly Roundup – August 2015

23 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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A Capella, Action, Anna Kendrick, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bank robbers, Barden Bellas, Bloody Mary 3D, Brighton Mob, Cathryn Michon, Charlie Vaughn, Christian J. Hearn, Comedy, Crime, David Arquette, David Siegel, Derek Jameson, Documentary, Elizabeth Banks, James Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jaqueline Siegel, Lauren Greenfield, Lavalantula, Literary adaptation, Los Angeles, Max Day, Mike Mendez, Movies, Muffin Top: A Love Story, Musical, Nia Peeples, Pitch Perfect 2, Ray James, Real estate, Rebel Wilson, Reviews, Sci-fi, Self esteem, Spiders, Steve Guttenberg, Terrorists, Thriller, Tom Arnold, True Lies, Undercover cop, Veronica Ricci, Versailles, Volcanoes, Weight loss

True Lies (1994) / D: James Cameron / 141m

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Tia Carrere, Bill Paxton, Art Malik, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov, Charlton Heston

Rating: 8/10 – spy Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) must track down and thwart the plans of jihadists to detonate nuclear bombs on US soil – and keep it all secret from his unsuspecting wife (Curtis); even now, True Lies remains tremendous fun, even if it does get bogged down by its middle act domestic dramatics, and Cameron directs with his usual attention to detail and aptitude for kinetic energy.

The Queen of Versailles (2012) / D: Lauren Greenfield / 100m

With: Jaqueline Siegel, David Siegel, Richard Siegel, Marissa Gaspay, Victoria Siegel, Wendy Ponce

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the lives of self-made millionaire David Siegel and his wife Jaqueline, as their lives go from riches to rags thanks to the economic crisis in 2008; “how the other half lived” might be an appropriate subtitle for The Queen of Versailles, and the ways in which the Siegels try to deal with their reversal of fortune will bring a wry smile to viewers who aren’t millionaires, but ultimately this is a story about a couple for whom hardship means not being able to build their dream home: an enormous mansion that defies both taste and propriety.

Brighton Mob (2015) / D: Christian J. Hearn / 79m

Cast: Ray James, Max Day, Philip Montelli Poole, Stephen Forrest, Nick Moon, George Webster, Reuben Liburd, Amy Maynard

Rating: 2/10 – an inexperienced young policeman (James) is given the job of infiltrating a gang suspected of carrying out bank robberies across the South of England; a low-budget, amateurish effort, Brighton Mob features dreadful dialogue, awful acting, and the kind of direction that seems to have been carried out by someone who’s not actually watching any of the dailies.

Muffin Top: A Love Story (2014) / D: Cathryn Michon / 97m

Cast: Cathryn Michon, Diedrich Bader, Melissa Peterman, David Arquette, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Haylie Duff, Marcia Wallace, Gary Anthony Williams

Rating: 7/10 – when Suzanne (Michon) learns that her husband (Bader) is having an affair and wants a divorce, she goes on a voyage of personal discovery; with several pertinent (if obvious) points to make about self-esteem and body image, Muffin Top: A Love Story is a gently comedic, engaging movie that features an endearing performance from Michon, and doesn’t overdo its theme of female empowerment.

Lavalantula (2015) / D: Mike Mendez / 80m

Cast: Steve Guttenberg, Nia Peeples, Patrick Renna, Noah Hunt, Michael Winslow, Marion Ramsey, Leslie Easterbrook, Ralph Garman, Diana Hopper, Zac Goodspeed, Danny Woodburn, Time Winters

Rating: 4/10 – when volcanic activity strikes Los Angeles, it brings with it giant fire-breathing spiders, and only action movie hero Colton West (Guttenberg) can save the day; taking its cue from the Sharknado series’ combination of low-budget special effects and broad self-referential humour, Lavalantula is enjoyable enough if you just go with it, and benefits from having Mendez – who gave us the superior Big Ass Spider! (2013) – in the director’s chair.

Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) / D: Elizabeth Banks / 115m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Skylar Astin, Adam DeVine, Katey Sagal, Anna Camp, Ben Platt, Alexis Knapp, Hana Mae Lee, Ester Dean, Chrissie Fit, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Flula Borg, John Michael Higgins, Elizabeth Banks

Rating: 6/10 – after a show goes disastrously, embarrassingly wrong, the Barden Bellas are banned from competing in the US, but it doesn’t stop them from taking part in the World A Capella Championships and going up against the dominating Das Sound Machine; a predictable sequel that offers nothing new (other than a great cameo by Snoop Dogg), Pitch Perfect 2 will satisfy fans of the original but newcomers might wonder what all the fuss is about.

Bloody Mary 3D (2011) / D: Charlie Vaughn / 77m

Cast: Veronica Ricci, Derek Jameson, Alena Savostikova, Bear Badeaux, Shannon Bobo, Michael Simon, Natalie Pero, Ryan Barry McCarthy, Shawn C. Phillips, Shay Golden

Rating: 2/10 – the ghost of Mary Worth (Ricci) targets the makers of a music video when her name is invoked and she finds the reincarnation of the man who killed her is the video’s star; dire in the extreme, Bloody Mary 3D is the kind of low budget horror movie that gives low budget horror movies a bad name, and criminally, takes too much time out to showcase Jameson’s limited talents as a singer (and the 3D is awful as well).

He Who Dares (2014)

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abduction, Action, Car park, Christina Bellavia, Paul Tanter, Review, SAS, Simon Phillips, Terrorists, Tom Benedict Knight

D: Paul Tanter / 82m

Cast: Tom Benedict Knight, Simon Phillips, Christina Bellavia, Ewan Ross, Zara Phythian, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Kye Loren, Lorraine Stanley

A ruthless gang of terrorists led by Holt (Phillips) kidnap the British Prime Minister’s daughter, Alice (Bellavia) and some of her friends from a nightclub. At a nearby multi-storey car park they barricade themselves in and wait for the authorities to find them. When they do, the officer in charge, Detective Carpenter (Ross) advises caution but an SAS unit led by Christopher Lowe (Knight) goes in without orders. They find each level rigged with explosives. Meanwhile, Holt waits for his larger plan to come to fruition, and when he becomes aware of the SAS, exhorts his gang to kill them. A cat and mouse game ensues as the SAS make their way through each level, while on the outside Carpenter tries to figure out how the gang can possibly make their escape, or if they really are intending to blow up the car park and themselves with it.

With so many independent, low budget gangster/crime movies having been made in the UK over the last ten years – often by the same people – you could be forgiven for thinking that with all that experience the movies would get better over time. But you’d be wrong. And He Who Dares is a perfect example of a genre that has nothing left to say, and even less to offer in terms of entertainment. It’s a grim, depressing movie that ranks as amateurish drivel; its below-par heroics and poorly choreographed action scenes are so bad that it makes even Steven Seagal’s run of Made-in-Romania movies look good.

There’s really no excuse for the appalling dialogue, the ridiculous and unconvincing set up, the woeful plotting, the atrocious acting, the clumsy direction, the lacklustre photography, the unimaginative fight scenes, and worst of all, the over-indulgent use of freeze frames, superimpositions and distressed image effects that passes for editing. Put all these things together and you have an appalling mess of a movie that seemingly has no idea of how stupid it is.

We have Phillips to thank for the risible story, and director Tanter, along with James Crow, to thank for the terrible dialogue and plotting. Tanter and Phillips are frequent collaborators – the White Collar Hooligan movies, Shame the Devil (2013) – and really should be kept apart from each other if this is the kind of movie they’re likely to come up with. What defeats the imagination is the possibility that these two men, with all their (limited) experience, can’t see that the movies they’re producing are so bad as to be almost unendurable. It’s worrying that movie after movie goes by and there’s no improvement in quality.

Rating: 1/10 – with nothing to recommend it, He Who Dares is an embarrassing, unintentionally hilarious movie that exposes the limitations of its makers, and would have gained more kudos if it had been a student movie; with a sequel – He Who Dares: Downing Street Siege – already completed (and which sees Knight, Phillips and Bellavia reprising their roles), it seems there’s no likelihood of things improving any time soon.

My Top 10 Movies – Part Ten

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Bruce Willis, Hans Gruber, John McClane, John McTiernan, Nakatomi Building, Review, Terrorists, Thriller

Die Hard (1988)

D: John McTiernan / 131m

Cast: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton, Alexander Godunov, Paul Gleason, Hart Bochner, James Shigeta

If, like me, you started watching action movies during the Seventies, then you had a plethora of riches. There was Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry series, the stunt-heavy movies of Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson’s vigilante excursions, and occasional gems such as Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) and Vanishing Point (1971). These movies were often gritty and darkly humorous. The violence in them was often brutal. They did their best to reflect the times in which they were made, and often there were political overtones that couldn’t be ignored or missed.

This attitude carried on into the Eighties but the introduction of broad humour in movies such as Commando (1985), and the sense of a genre trading on old glories became more prevalent. For every Southern Comfort (1981) and First Blood (1982) that kept the flame alive, there was a Stroker Ace (1983) or a Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985). Action movies were becoming stale and unimaginative. It seemed the doldrums had set in, and we would have to wait some time for the genre to see a resurgence, and to reinvent itself.

Instead of a long wait into the Nineties, we only had to wait until 1988, and the introduction of a character created by author Roderick Thorp, New York cop John McClane. Die Hard came along unheralded and with a star in Bruce Willis who had no proven track record as an action hero. In many ways it was a risky deal for 20th Century Fox, but it paid off handsomely (even with parts of the script not having been finalised by the time filming began).

For my part, I wasn’t that interested in seeing it. I knew Willis from TV’s Moonlighting, but had the same feeling about him as everyone else, and the concept didn’t seem to lend itself to an exciting, two-hour thrill ride. And so I didn’t see it straight away, even when I saw the positive reviews it garnered, and even when friends who’d seen it did nothing but rave about it. It wasn’t until three weeks had passed that I finally went to see it, expecting to be disappointed, and not looking forward to it at all.

Well, we’re all allowed to get it wrong sometimes, aren’t we?

In fact, I was riveted. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so impressed by an action movie, by the twists and turns, by the cat and mouse games played out between McClane and Hans Gruber (Rickman), by the skill of John McTiernan’s direction, and the sheer exuberance of the action sequences. Here was a movie that didn’t short change the audience in terms of intelligence, thrills and well-judged humour. Die Hard was exciting. I remember still that classic moment where McClane drops the C4 explosive down the lift shaft and blows up one of the lower floors (and a couple of Gruber’s henchmen): not only was it an incredible moment, but it was topped by smarmy reporter Richard Thornberg’s quip to his cameraman, “Tell me you got that”. I wanted to see that scene again so badly, I’d already decided I was going to stay on and see the movie again.

Over the next two weeks, I saw Die Hard a further three times, and enjoyed it more and more. I became a majorly annoying convert, extolling the film’s virtues to anyone who’d listen (and a few who wouldn’t). Aside from the appallingly ill-judged Deputy Chief of Police Dwayne T. Robinson (Gleason), the movie didn’t put a foot wrong. The relationships were well handled, the characters believable, and the cast were all on top form (even the unfortunate Gleason). I loved the fact that John McClane was an everyman character, and that Willis imbued him with a vulnerability that the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris would have found beyond their acting abilities. His self-doubt was a nice change of pace as well. And, of course, he had the perfect adversary in Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber, a villain so urbane and charming his very sneer could probably cut glass. (Rickman steals the movie, as he would three years later in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).

When I got my first surround sound system – and Die Hard on DVD – this was one of two movies I used to show how good the system was (the other was The Matrix). Over the years I’ve watched it countless times, and it’s still as fresh as ever. It’s also one of the most influential action movies of all time: even now, the Die Hard template is still being used – Olympus Has Fallen, anyone? And with one of the best catchphrases ever: “Yippie ki-ay, motherfucker”, it’s a movie that will keep on having a great reputation and winning over audiences with each new generation.

Rating: 9/10 – a tense, exciting, action movie that has a down-to-earth appeal amongst the gunfire and explosions; Willis and Rickman elevate the material and make it sing, just like Dean Martin.