Tag Archives: Viola Davis

Widows (2018)

08 Thursday Nov 2018

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D: Steve McQueen / 130m

Cast: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Carrie Coon, Garret Dillahunt, Lukas Haas, Kevin J. O’Connor, Jacki Weaver, Matt Walsh, Adepero Oduye, Robert Duvall, Liam Neeson

In the wake of her husband’s death in a heist gone wrong, Veronica Rawlings (Davis) finds herself in a whole lot of trouble. Her husband, Harry (Neeson), along with three of his friends – all career criminals – stole two million dollars from gang boss Jamal Manning (Henry), and though his money is gone, he expects Veronica to pay him back within a month. With no money of her own, and only a notebook Harry left her that gives details of his previous heists – and the one he had planned next – Veronica decides her only option is to contact the wives of the other men in Harry’s gang, and persuade them to help her carry out his next robbery, which will net them a cool five million. Two of the women, Linda Perelli (Rodriguez) and Alice Gunner (Debicki), agree to help, but the fourth, Amanda (Coon), isn’t interested. Needing four of them to carry out the heist, Linda recruits her babysitter, Belle (Erivo). They move forward with the plan, but are unaware that they’re being watched…

An adaptation of Lynda La Plante’s novel, Steve McQueen’s latest movie is an odd beast indeed, quite formal in its approach, but with occasional directorial flourishes to remind the viewer that this isn’t just a heist movie, it’s a serious heist movie, unlike, say, Ocean’s Eight (2018). Here, lives are at stake, and the cost of failure is unthinkable. It’s a dour, earnest movie that explores notions of sexism, political expediency (care of a subplot surrounding a ward campaign involving Farrell’s reformist alderman versus Henry’s aspiring gang boss), proto-feminism, spousal betrayal, and personal legacies. The script, by McQueen and author Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects), is adroitly constructed, but though the pair have worked hard to bring the characters to life and present them against a credible backdrop (well, as credible as these kinds of movies can manage), there’s not much here that will either come as a surprise, or which doesn’t follow in an expected order. Even if you’re not familiar with La Plante’s novel, or the original British TV series, the few twists and turns in the narrative won’t have much of an impact, and getting through the movie almost becomes a tick box exercise.

That’s not to say, however, that the movie is bad, or disappointing, just oddly straightforward and dramatically sincere without ever rising above the expectations of the genre. Perhaps this kind of story has been told too many times before for McQueen to provide us with anything fresh or new. And there’s the small matter of Davis’ and Debicki’s characters having more screen time than Rodriguez’ and Erivo’s. This lop-sided approach to the main quartet seems a little counter-intuitive in a movie that seems to be promoting female solidarity, and often, some character beats are cut short in order to move on to the next phase of the heist and its planning. On the agnate side, the likes of Duvall, Kaluuya and Dillahunt are saddled with perfunctory, under-developed secondary roles, while Farrell does his best to make sense of a character whose ambivalent motives rarely make sense. Thankfully, Davis and Debicki are on hand to provide two excellent performances. That Davis is so good is a given, but it’s Debicki who shines the most, imbuing Alice with a steely survivor’s determination to make life better for herself that is both complex and credible; whenever she’s on screen, she holds the audience’s attention in a vice-like grip. That the rest of the movie doesn’t manage to do this, is again, something of a surprise, but in playing out as expected, it doesn’t disappoint entirely. Instead it’s a respectable effort that isn’t as memorable as we all might have hoped.

Rating: 7/10 – despite all the effort and all the talent involved, Widows lacks the kind of verve needed to make the thriller elements thrill, and the dramatic elements resonate; McQueen directs as if his brief was to be a pair of safe hands, and though it’s technically well put together, somewhere along the way, any idea of elevating the material doesn’t appear to have been acted on.

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Fences (2016)

23 Thursday Feb 2017

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D: Denzel Washington / 139m

Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, Saniyya Sidney

Movie adaptations of stage productions, especially hugely successful stage productions, don’t come along too often. The two mediums don’t always make for good bedfellows, with one medium’s strengths rarely translating well to the other. For every Casablanca (1943), there’s a Boom! (1968); conversely, for every Hairspray (1988) there’s an Evil Dead: The Musical (2003). But sometimes a stage-to-screen adaptation comes along that has a built-in advantage, a guarantee of quality that ensures it’s going to be as impressive on screen as it was on stage. And Fences is such an adaptation.

Set in 1950’s Pittsburgh, the movie opens with best friends Troy Maxson (Washington) and Jim Bono (Henderson) working as refuse collectors for the city. Troy is facing the possibility of losing his job because he’s challenging the idea that only white men can drive the garbage trucks. But Troy is unperturbed; he reckons he has right on his side, and that’s all he needs. They also talk about a woman that Troy has been spending time with, Alberta. Troy denies there’s anything wrong in what he’s doing, but Bono remains unconvinced. At Troy’s home, Bono and Troy’s wife Rose (Davis), listen to Troy relive a time when he almost died from pneumonia. He tells them he fought the Devil and beat him while he was sick, and he’s ready to take him on again. Rose and Bono laugh at his bluster, and so does Troy, but there’s a distinct feeling that he believes what he’s saying.

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Troy has two sons: one, Lyons (Hornsby), from a previous relationship, and Cory (Adepo), whose mother is Rose. Lyons is in his thirties, an aspiring musician who only visits when he needs money. Cory is a teenager who wants to play football, but when Troy finds out he’s not working after school as agreed, but is going to football practice, Troy rails against it. Convinced that his own career in baseball was cut short by racial prejudice (and not his age at the time), and that the same will happen to his son, Troy refuses to support Cory’s ambitions. Meanwhile, Troy’s younger brother, Gabriel (Williamson), who has a metal plate in his head from serving in World War II and is mentally impaired, talks about knowing St Peter and needing to be ready when the Gates of Heaven will be opened.

Troy and Cory fight over Cory’s ambition to play football, while Rose takes her son’s side. But Troy is adamant, and when he learns that Cory isn’t working at all, he refuses point blank to sign any permission documents. Their animosity over the issue also leads Troy to visit the school and get Cory kicked off the team. With tensions flaring between the two, Troy’s inability to read or write backfires on him when he has to sign papers that leave Gabriel institutionalised. Fate takes further aim at him when Bono confronts him over his now having an affair with Alberta. Urged by Bono to do something about it, Troy has to face up to Rose and tell her the truth – not only about the affair, but that he’s going to be a father again…

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Fences, first performed on stage in 1983, was revived on Broadway in 2010 to major acclaim and won a stack load of awards. It starred Denzel Washington and Viola Davis (who both won Tony’s for their performances), and also featured Henderson, Williamson and Hornsby in the roles they would eventually reprise on screen. With its creator, August Wilson, having passed away in 2005, a movie version rested on one proviso: that the director be an African-American. Step forward Washington, who took a script that August had prepared, and remained faithful to every word of it. There’s a quote from Shakespeare, “the play’s the thing”, and in Washington’s, and Davis’s, and everyone else’s more than capable hands, Fences is a perfect example of that quote.

The problem with a lot of stage to screen adaptations is the dialogue. There’s just too much of it, and while monologues and lengthy speeches are the lifeblood of many a theatrical production, on screen it’s a vastly different matter. Movies are a visual medium, and who wants to watch a bunch of people standing or sitting around talking to each other the whole time? But Fences is, to borrow from the movie’s vernacular, a whole different ball game. Wilson has created such a distinct, precise, rhythmic way of speaking for his characters that it also becomes poetry when listened to long enough. It flows and eddies in ways that ordinary speech never quite manages, but on stage or screen alike, this is dialogue that captivates and mesmerises, and keeps you hanging on every word. Wilson’s dialogue has weight, and a depth that carries such levels of meaning that you could spend hours dissecting each line and find new aspects of it every time. Washington the director knows this, and his fidelity to the words each character speaks is one of the reasons the movie works. They’re simply so well crafted that nobody else could improve on them.

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With the dialogue locked in, the performances follow. The cast know their characters inside out, and it shows. Washington is on superb form as Troy, angry and bitter at the way his life has worked out, and unable to see that the respect he demands from his family is given out of intimidation and fear. Troy isn’t anywhere near likeable for the most part, and Washington isn’t afraid to show just how selfish and controlling he is, daring his wife and sons to challenge him at every turn, a bullish man whose arrogance wears down everyone around him. But if Washington is superb, what can be said about Davis’s performance? Amazingly, she’s on a whole different level. In any two-hander with Washington, it’s Davis that the viewer will be focused on. She gives meaning to Rose’s sacrifice and wounded pride and makes her the strongest character in the whole movie. At one point, Troy asks her to do something that you hope will see Rose turn on him, a final straw for all the pain he’s caused her. But she doesn’t, and her change of heart is both achingly sad and completely understandable all at the same time. Davis is winning lots of awards for her performance, but they’re all justified; she’s simply that good.

The rest of the cast, including newcomers Adepo and Sidney, all add to the acting masterclass that Washington has created, and though some of the staginess of the original is inevitably present, thanks to some careful framing and the editing skills of Hughes Winborne, the movie soon becomes its own thing. Ultimately, Fences is about people – these people – and we learn more and more about them as time goes on, and through the outside influences that have an effect on all of them. Troy talks a lot about duty and responsibility, but these are issues that have affected him, and driven his life for too long, until now he feels trapped. Rose has stood by him, realising that neither will achieve their dreams but counting on their love to help them get by. And Cory is his father’s son, a younger version of Troy who wants his own life and not his father’s, just as Troy tried to emerge from under the shadow of his own father. Emotions run high, battles are fought, and lives are changed. It’s all there in Wilson’s fastidious dialogue, impeccably drawn out and presented by Washington, and all ending on a moment of magical realism that offers a surprisingly positive, and yet apt conclusion to a tale that isn’t afraid to show people at their most vulnerable, and how the notion of family can be both fluid and rigid at the same time.

Rating: 9/10 – a powerhouse of a movie, Fences is emotionally draining for long stretches, and thanks to Washington and Davis, a must-see for anyone even remotely interested in seeing raw, sincere emotions depicted honestly and realistically; naturally the fences of the title are allegorical, but it’s easy to see the boundaries enforced by Troy against the people around him, and though he’s ultimately a tragic figure, one truth the movie espouses is that, within the four walls of his home, he’s not alone.

The BAFTAs 2017

12 Sunday Feb 2017

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As the song has it, “And here we are again…” Another distinctly British affair that avoids the razzle-dazzle of Hollywood and settles for more of a kind of comfy armchair approach to awards ceremonies. Hosted once again by Stephen Fry at London’s Royal Albert Hall – and in the presence of royalty no less – the show opened, very strangely, with a routine from the Cirque du Soleil troupe (and complete with a moment where Meryl Streep couldn’t look). As the TV broadcast continued, Fry gave shoutouts to Emma Stone, Ken Loach, Amy Adams, Hugh Grant, Meryl Streep (mugged for a kiss by Fry), Michelle Williams, Casey Affleck, Emily Blunt, and Andrew Garfield, before the awards ceremony got under way properly.

Outstanding British Film
American Honey – Andrea Arnold, Lars Knudsen, Pouya Shahbazian, Jay Van Hoy
Denial – Mick Jackson, Gary Foster, Russ Krasnoff, David Hare
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – David Yates, David Heyman, Steve Kloves, J.K. Rowling, Lionel Wigram
I, Daniel Blake – Ken Loach, Rebecca O’Brien, Paul Laverty
Notes on Blindness – Peter Middleton, James Spinney, Mike Brett, Jo-Jo Ellison, Steve Jamison
Under the Shadow – Babak Anvari, Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill, Lucan Toh

No surprise here, though it would have been nice to see American Honey win the award instead. Loach accepted and said it “was extraordinary”, and made a predictable anti-Government speech, and a plea for social equity. Presented by Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman.

EE Rising Star Award
Laia Costa, Lucas Hedges, Tom Holland, Ruth Negga, Anya Taylor-Joy

A fairly open field yielded a fairly unsurprising result, but Holland gave a rambling yet sincere acceptance speech. Presented by Viola Davis.

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Adapted Screenplay
Luke Davies – Lion
Tom Ford – Nocturnal Animals
Eric Heisserer – Arrival
Andrew Knight, Robert Schenkkan – Hacksaw Ridge
Theodore Melfi, Allison Schroeder – Hidden Figures

A surprise win for Davies who seemed unprepared as he gave a less than stellar speech. Presented by Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt.

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis – Fences
Naomie Harris – Moonlight
Nicole Kidman – Lion
Hayley Squires – I, Daniel Blake
Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

There really couldn’t be any other winner, and it was a win that was endorsed by the audience. Davis gave an impassioned speech about how unsung black lives do matter, and gave thanks to August Wilson and Denzel Washington. Presented by Hugh Grant (who revealed his previous life as an actress).

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Animated Film
Finding Dory – Andrew Stanton
Kubo and the Two Strings – Travis Knight
Moana – Ron Clements, John Musker
Zootropolis – Byron Howard, Rich Moore

A great win for Kubo… and Laika Entertainment. Knight quoted several pop culture quotes, thanked his crew and what seemed like everyone else in the world – and called the BAFTA statuette a “cudgel”. Presented by Bryce Dallas Howard and Riz Ahmed.

Special Visual Effects
Arrival – Louis Morin
Doctor Strange – Richard Bluff, Stephane Ceretti, Paul Corbould, Jonathan Fawkner
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them – Tim Burke, Pablo Grillo, Christian Manz, David Watkins
The Jungle Book – Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones, Adam Valdez
Rogue One – Neil Corbould, Hal Hickel, Mohen Leo, John Knoll, Nigel Sumner

Not the best choice here – Doctor Strange really should have got the win – but at least the winners’ speeches were short and to the point. Presented by Daisy Ridley and Luke Evans.

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
The Girl With All the Gifts – Mike Carey (Writer), Camille Gatin (Producer)
The Hard Stop – George Amponsah (Writer/Director/Producer), Dionne Walker (Writer/Producer)
Notes on Blindness – Peter Middleton (Writer/Director/Producer), James Spinney (Writer/Director/Producer), Jo-Jo Ellison (Producer)
The Pass – John Donnelly (Writer), Ben A. Williams (Director)
Under the Shadow – Babak Anvari (Writer/Director), Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill, Lucan Toh (Producers)

Not an easy one to predict – though Notes on Blindness would have been an equally worthy winner – it’s great to see a low-budget horror movie win such a prestigious award. Presented by Jamie Dornan and Rafe Spall.

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali – Moonlight
Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water
Hugh Grant – Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel – Lion
Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Nocturnal Animals

Another win for Lion came out of the blue, but Patel gave a short speech that was halting and yet sincere. Presented by Felicity Jones.

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Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema (The Michael Balcon Award)

Awarded to Curzon, the cinema chain most known for bringing foreign movies to the UK, as well as creating the Artificial Eye DVD catalogue, and launching the Curzon Home Cinema streaming service in 2010. Accepted by Phillip Knatchbull, Curzon’s CEO, he gave a speech that referenced Brexit and the threat to the funding Curzon receives from the EU. Presented by Isabelle Huppert (the most promising newcomer of 1978).

Original Screenplay
Damien Chazelle – La La Land
Barry Jenkins – Moonlight
Paul Laverty – I, Daniel Blake
Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea
Taylor Sheridan – Hell or High Water

The only choice and absolutely the right decision. Lonergan looked genuinely shocked by his win, and he thanked his cast in particular for the wonderful work they did. He also related a personal anecdote about his fifteen year old daughter – who’s attended five protest marches since Trump became President! Presented by Thandie Newton.

Leading Actor
Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling – La La Land
Jake Gyllenhaal – Nocturnal Animals
Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic

The only choice and absolutely the right decision (again). Affleck gave a beautifully poignant speech that revealed why he acts, and thanked Kenenth Lonergan for his “sublime script”. Presented by Penélope Cruz.

Director
Damien Chazelle – La La Land
Tom Ford – Nocturnal Animals
Ken Loach – I, Daniel Blake
Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villeneuve – Arrival

If you were watching the television broadcast, then this was the first time that La La Land won an award, and with Manchester by the Sea having won the previous two awards, it seemed more like a surprise than the odds-on favourite to win that was expected. Presented by Mark Rylance.

Leading Actress
Amy Adams – Arrival
Emily Blunt – The Girl on the Train
Natalie Portman – Jackie
Emma Stone – La La Land
Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins

And the late rush for La La Land continued. Stone was gracious in her speech and thanked almost everyone who worked on the movie. And then added a heartfelt coda about the state of the world today and the need for positivity. Presented by Eddie Redmayne.

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Best Film
Arrival – Dan Levine, Shawn Levy, David Linde, Aaron Ryder
I, Daniel Blake – Rebecca O’Brien
La La Land – Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt
Manchester by the Sea – Lauren Beck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore, Kimberly Steward,
Kevin J. Walsh
Moonlight – Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adele Romanski

The biggest non-surprise of the evening, La La Land‘s win capped off a great night for the movie, and reinforced the idea that a joyous movie can be just as important as  some of the more “serious” or “downbeat” movies that generally win at awards ceremonies. Presented by Noomi Rapace and Tom Hiddleston.

The Fellowship Award

Awarded to Mel Brooks. Brooks was as funny as you’d expect, and quite humble in his speech, and told the audience how he felt that England wasn’t a foreign country, but just “a larger Brooklyn where they speak better”. Presented by Prince William, Simon Pegg and Nathan Lane.

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The following awards weren’t shown during the broadcast:

Costume Design
Colleen Atwood – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Consolata Boyle – Florence Foster Jenkins
Madeline Fontaine – Jackie
Joanna Johnston – Allied
Mary Zophres – La La Land

Film Not in the English Language
Dheepan – Jacques Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux
Julieta – Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar
Mustang – Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Charles Gillibert
Son of Saul – László Nemes, Gábor Sipos
Toni Erdmann – Maren Ade, Janine Jackowski

Original Music
Justin Hurwitz – La La Land
Jóhann Jóhannsson – Arrival
Abel Korzeniowski – Nocturnal Animals
Mica Levi – Jackie
Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka – Lion

Documentary
13th – Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick, Howard Barish
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years – Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Scott Pascucci, Nigel Sinclair
The Eagle Huntress – Otto Bell, Stacey Reiss
Notes on Blindness – Peter Middleton, James Spinney
Weiner – Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

Cinematography
Greig Fraser – Lion
Seamus McGarvey – Nocturnal Animals
Giles Nuttgens – Hell or High Water
Linus Sandgren – La La Land
Bradford Young – Arrival

Editing
Tom Cross – La La Land
John Gilbert – Hacksaw Ridge
Jennifer Lame – Manchester by the Sea
Joan Sobel – Nocturnal Animals
Joe Walker – Arrival

Production Design
Doctor Strange – Charles Wood, John Bush
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Stuart Craig, Anna Pinnock
Hail, Caesar! – Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh
La La Land – David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Nocturnal Animals – Shane Valentino, Meg Everist

Make Up & Hair
Doctor Strange – Jeremy Woodhead
Florence Foster Jenkins – J. Roy Helland, Daniel Phillips
Hacksaw Ridge – Shane Thomas
Nocturnal Animals – Donald Mowat, Yolanda Toussieng
Rogue One – Amanda Knight, Neal Scanlan, Lisa Tomblin

Sound
Arrival – Sylvain Bellemare, Claude La Haye, Bernard Gariépy Strobl
Deepwater Horizon – Dror Mohar, Mike Prestwood Smith, Wylie Stateman, Renee Tondelli, David Wyman
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Niv Adiri, Glenn Freemantle, Simon Hayes, Andy Nelson, Ian Tapp
Hacksaw Ridge – Peter Grace, Robert Mackenzie, Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright
La La Land – Mildred Iatrou Morgan, Ai-Ling Lee, Steve A. Morrow, Andy Nelson

British Short Animation
The Alan Dimension – Jac Clinch, Jonathan Harbottle, Millie Marsh
A Love Story – Khaled Gad, Anushka Kishani Naanayakkara, Elena Ruscombe-King
Tough – Jennifer Zheng

British Short Film 
Consumed – Richard John Seymour
Home – Shpat Deda, Afolabi Kuti, Daniel Mulloy, Scott O’Donnell
Mouth of Hell – Bart Gavigan, Samir Mehanovic, Ailie Smith, Michael Wilson
The Party – Farah Abushwesha, Emmet Fleming, Andrea Harkin, Conor MacNeill
Standby – Jack Hannon, Charlotte Regan

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IN CONCLUSION: It was La La Land‘s night with five wins, a respectable haul from its eleven nominations, and good results for Manchester by the Sea and Lion (two apiece). Otherwise the awards were spread about evenly amongst the other nominees, but the oddest moment was Son of Saul winning Film Not in the English Language, odd in that the movie was released back in 2015, and it stopped Toni Erdmann from winning (as it should have done). The ceremony grew increasingly predictable as it headed for the finish line, but on the whole the categories and the range of the nominations made it more difficult to determine most of the eventual winners – something that’s unlikely to happen at the Oscars.

Trailers – Fences (2016), Mean Dreams (2016) and The Free World (2016)

01 Saturday Oct 2016

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In 2010, a production of Fences, August Wilson’s award-winning play, won Tony’s for Best Revival of a Play, Best Actor and Best Actress. The two leads in the revival were Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, so if you think after watching the trailer that their performances look incredibly good – well, there’s the reason why. Set in the 1950’s, the movie examines the effects changes in race relations in the US have on an average African-American family, and in particular the dynamic between Washington’s struggling husband and father Troy, and his teenage son Cory (played by relative newcomer Jovan Adepo). With Washington making his first feature since The Great Debaters (2007), it will be interesting to see just how much of Wilson’s tale of bitter regret and personal despair is retained, and if the movie retains the play’s episodic structure. But from the trailer alone it does look as if Washington has made a challenging, powerful movie, and perhaps a sure-fire awards winner further down the line.

 

In Mean Dreams, Bill Paxton is the kind of backwoods sheriff we’ve seen quite a lot of recently: outwardly charming, seemingly decent, but beneath all that, as callous and conniving as any regular bad guy (and probably more so). But this is a small-town sheriff bordering on the psychotic, which makes his treatment and eventual pursuit of his daughter (Sophie Nélisse) and her wrong-guy-in-the-wrong-place boyfriend (Josh Wiggins) all the more gripping. Given the right role, Paxton is an actor you should never underestimate; he can take a viewer to some very dark places indeed, and often at the drop of a hat. This has all the hallmarks of such a role, and while the movie has a wintry feel to it that appears to suit the mood and tone of the movie, it’s still going to be Paxton who grabs all the attention – and he looks good and ready to do so.

 

There are always actors who pop up in movies and make an impression, but who still manage to retain an air of mystery and have audiences scratching their heads and asking themselves, “Didn’t I see him/her in that other movie?” Boyd Holbrook is one of those actors. He’s been quietly amassing a body of work that’s also been increasingly impressive ever since he first appeared in Milk (2008). Now, it looks as if The Free World, a taut thriller about second chances and personal redemption set against the backdrop of a domestic murder case, could be the movie to catapault Holbrook into the big(ger) leagues. If it doesn’t, then it’s unlikely Holbrook will be too worried. He’ll just carry on giving good performances in whatever movies he makes.

Suicide Squad (2016)

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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Suicide Squad

D: David Ayer / 123m

Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, David Harbour, Common, Alain Chanoine, Ben Affleck, Ezra Miller

At the beginning of 2016, DC Comics fans had two movies to look forward to in the coming year: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Anticipation for both these movies was almost stratospherically high. But Batman v Superman proved to be a messy affair that lacked coherence and couldn’t even give audiences a rousing showdown between the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel. Critically pounded, and causing a division between fans that in some quarters got way too heated, the movie fell short of making a billion dollars at the box office, and was judged a disappointment. Earlier this month, an extended cut of the film was released on home video, and though the extra footage tidied up a few things left adrift in the theatrical cut, the general consensus was that the additional thirty minutes didn’t make it a better movie.

Fans quickly turned their attention to Suicide Squad to save the day, and the hype began all over again. In development since 2009, the movie arrives now with all the fanfare of a Second Coming. Promoted and advertised and pushed for all it’s worth (IMAX screenings feature a new, Suicide Squad-inspired countdown that’s a nice but unnecessary gimmick), this was Warner Bros.’ chance to prove that they were listening when critics and fans alike said Batman v Superman was too dark and sombre. Director David Ayer promised there would be humour, and the tone would be lighter. Has he delivered? Predictably, the answer is yes and no.

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Suicide Squad is, first and foremost, just as messy as it’s DC Extended Universe predecessor. Its plotting is murky and frustratingly lacking in detail, character motivations vary wildly (sometimes in the same scene), there’s the usual over-reliance on a surfeit of destruction-porn, and no one to root for or care about, even though the script does try its best to make Deadshot (Smith) and El Diablo (Hernandez) at least halfway sympathetic. What fun there is to be had can be found in the opening twenty minutes as we’re introduced to each member of the squad, from the assassin who never misses with a gun, Deadshot, to meta-humans such as Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and El Diablo, wicked witch Enchantress (Delevingne) and her human host June Moone (also Delevingne), thief extraordinaire Captain Boomerang (Courtney), and brain-fried Daddy’s Lil Monster, Harley Quinn (Robbie). Watching these characters interact with and defy authority at every turn gives hope to the direction the movie is heading in, but that hope is short-lived.

Assembled by government spook Amanda Waller (Davis), the squad is a fail-safe option if someone were to come along with Superman’s abilities and use them for evil. With explosive devices implanted in their necks to stop them absconding, the squad, led by Colonel Rick Flag (Kinnaman), are tasked with a mission in Midway City when Enchantress and her brother Incubus (Chanoine) begin building a machine that will destroy all other weapons on the planet and – well, this is one of those plot points that sounds great but is actually quite lame and badly thought out. With Flag and the squad further augmented by expert swordswoman Katana (Fukuhara), escape specialist Slipknot (Beach), and two teams of soldiers, they venture into the randomly destroyed city in search of a High Value Target to rescue. But Waller and Flag have been less than honest about the mission, and the squad must decide if working together is a more appropriate way forward than going their own ways.

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It’s clear from the start that Suicide Squad wants to be edgy and smart, caustic and irreverent, and provide a great time for its audience. But as the movie progresses, and once the introductions are over, it soon becomes clear that these so-called supervillains are going to be trapped by the demands of a script that wants to show that, deep down, they’re all really good guys at heart. As a result, this leads to a watering down of the original concept – Worst.Heroes.Ever. – that should be revised to read Best.Antiheroes.Ever. Yes, they’re largely antisocial, and yes they have their issues with authority, and yes they haven’t got a problem with killing people (mostly), but by the end they’ve all bonded and are like one big happy dysfunctional family. It’s enough to tug at the heart strings.

And then there’s the Joker (Leto). Much has been made of Leto’s insistence on staying in character for the duration of the shoot – Smith has quipped that he didn’t meet Leto until after filming was completed – and the Joker’s heavily tattooed look. But it’s all immaterial as Leto is on screen for around fifteen to twenty minutes in total, in a subplot that sees him try to rescue Harley Quinn from being part of the squad. With the Joker reduced to a supporting role it’s hard to qualify Leto’s performance. Yes it’s mannered, heavily so, and completely different from any previous interpretations, but the script depicts him as a lunatic gangster figure rather than the Clown Prince of Chaos. The character has room for development, then, but right now his need to rescue Quinn keeps him working to a standard plotline and any antic diversions seem forced.

Suicide Squad - scene3

In what is fast becoming the one area in which Warner Bros. seems unable to act on the recommendations of others, Suicide Squad ramps up the destruction on offer, with endless gunfights and property devastation the order of the day. It’s all accompanied by one of recent cinema’s more overwhelming and intrusive scores (courtesy of Steven Price), a blaring cacophony of dramatic musical cues and declamatory passages that reinforce just how much the movie is like being hit repeatedly over the head (and by Harley Quinn’s mallet at that). Ayer can’t stop things from getting too overwrought in the movie’s final half hour, and inevitably any subtlety is made to hide in the shadows where it can’t interfere with anything.

Against all this the cast do their best, with Smith atoning for some recent poor choices by making Deadshot likeable and charismatic. Robbie has the most fun, and is the most fun to watch, but after a while the chirpy attitude and cheesy wisecracks begin to grate, and Ayer does away with any development the character has made as if it never happened, leaving her no different from how she was at the start. Davis essays the real villain of the piece, but once that particular “surprise” is established the character stops being interesting, as does her motivation, and she’s wisely sidelined. Kinnaman does stolid with ease but fails to make Flag memorable, while Hernandez makes El Diablo a surprisingly well-rounded character, less of a supervillain, and more Hulk-like in terms of his anger issues.

The movie is further hampered by Ayer’s insistence on giving the movie a noir feel instead of a comic book feel, and John Gilroy’s haphazard, wayward approach to the editing. Other odd moments/decisions stand out: Deadshot looking like a pimp when he’s out with his daughter; Enchantress swaying like a woman trying to keep up an invisible hula hoop; several flashbacks that slow the movie’s rhythm; a scene where El Diablo reveals a tragic consequence to his ability that feels out of place; and an origin story for Quinn that involves falling into a chemical vat for the sake of it.

Rating: 5/10 – slightly better than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (but only slightly), Suicide Squad still has enough problems to stop it from becoming the first DC Extended Universe movie to overcome the series’ usual pitfalls; shedding its claim to being edgy and different with every minute that passes, the movie is further proof that Warner Bros. and DC need to work harder on their game plan, and that copying Marvel isn’t necessarily the right idea.

Mini-Review: Lila and Eve (2015)

27 Thursday Aug 2015

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Lila and Eve

D: Charles Stone III / 94m

Cast: Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Shea Whigham, Julius Tennon, Aml Ameen, Ron Caldwell, Andre Royo, Chris Chalk, Michole Briana White, Yolonda Ross

Following the death of her eldest son Stephon (Ameen) in a drive-by shooting, single mother Lila (Davis) finds herself at a loss as to how to continue with her life. She puts on a brave front for her youngest son Justin (Caldwell), and struggles with the lack of progress the police are making in finding her son’s killer. When she attends a local support group she meets Eve (Lopez), who lost her nine year old daughter. Eve persuades Lila to look into Stephon’s death herself, and they start by looking into why the intended victim of the drive-by shooting was the target. They learn that the victim was dealing drugs where he shouldn’t have been and his death was just a matter of “business”. In the process of learning this, Eve shoots and kills the drug dealer who gives them the information, but not before he’s given them the names of the men who supplied him.

The detectives investigating Stephon’s death, Holliston (Whigham) and Skaketti (Royo), are assigned to this new shooting. While it looks like another gang hit, Holliston isn’t so sure. Lila, meanwhile, having been shocked by Eve’s actions, tries to put it behind her. A burgeoning romance with her neighbour, Ben (Tennon), keeps her occupied until Eve pressures her into finding the men who supplied the dead dealer. They follow them to the roof of a car park; once there, Lila pulls a gun on them and when they try to resist she shoots and wounds one and kills another (as well as another dealer). This time the wounded man gives them the name of the man who carried out the shooting, Alonzo (Chalk), then Lila kills him. Holliston begins to piece together what’s happening and becomes suspicious of Lila. And then she and Eve find Alonzo, and Lila prepares to take her revenge…

Lila and Eve - scene

A female-driven murder/revenge movie that features a bravura performance from Viola Davis, Lila and Eve has a fatalistic 70’s feel to it that suits the mood and the tone of the narrative, and keeps its tale of hate-filled revenge refreshingly simple and straightforward. It does stretch credulity at times in terms of how easily Lila and Eve find out who’s responsible for Stephon’s death, and how inept it makes the otherwise quite astute Holliston look in comparison, but this corner-cutting by screenwriter Patrick Gilfillan keeps the movie from meandering, and allows the pace to aid in keeping the audience involved.

It helps that the viewer also remains involved thanks to Davis’s emotive, fearless portrayal of Lila, a woman pushed to the edge by the sense of injustice she feels regarding her son’s death, and who finds the strength within herself to navigate the moral maze revenge throws up in her path. For a movie that looks to have been made on a fairly low budget, and which aims for a gritty realism (which it achieves for the most part), Davis’s presence elevates the material and makes the movie much more than a simple revenge drama. As her friend and confederate in revenge, Lopez is much more effective here than she was in The Boy Next Door (2015), bringing a coiled, steely energy to her role that fits comfortably with Lila’s hesitant, uncertain belief in what they’re doing. Whigham is equally good as the detective who cites Columbo as a role model for cops, and Tennon (Davis’s real life husband) adds a layer of humility and gentleness that provides the movie with some necessary breathing room.

Rating: 7/10 – directed with confidence and unassuming flair by Stone III, Lila and Eve is a spirited, enjoyable crime drama that isn’t afraid to show the human consequences of random violence; a pleasant surprise amongst all the other crime dramas out there and well worth watching for the performances alone (even Royo’s, whose character is written as an idiot, and is subsequently played like one).

Mini-Review: Get on Up (2014)

28 Saturday Mar 2015

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Get on Up

D: Tate Taylor / 139m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Lennie James, Fred Melamed, Craig Robinson, Jill Scott, Octavia Spencer, Josh Hopkins, Brandon Smith, Tika Sumpter, Aunjanue Ellis

Get on Up recounts the life and career of James Brown (Boseman), but does so in a painfully non-linear way that sometimes makes it difficult to work out just when a scene is meant to be taking place; often it’s only Brown’s hairstyle that gives the viewer a clue. Opening with a scene set in 1988 where Brown accidentally fired a shotgun in a business property he owned and which lead to his arrest (shown much later in the movie), the script by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth skips back and forth in Brown’s life, from his abandonment by his mother (Davis) and then also his father (James), to his early start in the music business as part of the Famous Flames alongside Bobby Byrd (Ellis). With still further flashbacks and changes in direction, his rise to fame is examined, as well as the lengths he went to to maintain that fame.

What arises from all this is the notion that Brown was an intensely driven man who expected unwavering loyalty from the people around him, and whose talent hid an angry narcissism. He regularly treats people with disdain, particularly supposed best friend Byrd, and seems only to have had a “relationship of equals” with his manager, Ben Bart (Ackroyd), while preferring to be called Mr Brown rather than James by everyone else. It’s a trait that’s returned to again and again throughout the movie, and seems to be the only aspect of Brown’s character and personality that Get on Up is concerned about. And with the continual chopping and changing of the narrative, we learn little else about the man, or what motivates him; this has the effect of leaving the viewer adrift for much of the running time, as the movie veers away from exploring his personality in greater depth or detail.

Get on Up - scene

What does work, thankfully, is Boseman’s towering performance as Brown. The actor captures Brown’s sheer physicality and presence superbly, and although efforts to make him look like the singer in his later years don’t quite work, it’s still an amazing portrayal, fuelled by an energy that fizzes off the screen. On stage, recreating Brown’s movements, Boseman captures perfectly every crazy dance step and pirouette with ease. And he carries that intensity with him away from the stage or studio, giving as complete a performance as he can manage, even when the script isn’t completely supporting him. The same can be said for the likes of Davis, Ackroyd and Ellis, who all make more of their roles than you might expect.

Taylor focuses more on the musical numbers, recreating Brown’s live performances at every opportunity and using these sequences to inject some much needed zing into the movie, and to keep it from stalling. They are the best things in the movie, and the pace picks up every time one comes along. Otherwise, Taylor gives us a somewhat bland retelling of Brown’s life and one that, despite the lengthy running time, still feels rushed. The movie also has too many scenes lacking any resonance or connection to the other scenes around them (one moment of domestic abuse comes out of nowhere and feels included just for the sake of it). With this lack of focus, the movie proves only fitfully rewarding.

Rating: 6/10 – vibrant and alive when it “plays the hits!”, Get on Up falters when it tries to show Brown’s life away from the limelight; with Boseman’s astounding performance rescuing things time after time, it’s a movie that only does partial justice to the life and times of the self-proclaimed Godfather of Soul.

Blackhat (2015)

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

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Blackhat

D: Michael Mann / 133m

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, Andy On, Ritchie Coster, Christian Borle, John Ortiz, Yorick van Wageningen

When a nuclear plant in Chai Wan, Hong Kong is targeted by a hacker (van Wageningen) and the cooling pumps made to explode and cause a radiation leak, the Chinese authorities hand over the investigation to cyber warfare officer Chen Dawai (Wang). When the same hacker infiltrates Chicago’s Mercantile Trade Exchange, causing soy futures to rise, it becomes clear that he’s using a Remote Access Tool (RAT). Dawai insists that that he be allowed to work with the FBI on a joint investigation, and he travels to the US where he joins forces with Agent Carol Barrett (Davis). Once there he reveals that the original code for the RAT was written by himself and another hacker named Nick Hathaway (Hemsworth). Hathaway is currently in prison for committing computer crimes; Dawai wants him released to help with the investigation.

With Nick on board – though security tagged and accompanied by US Marshal Jessup (McCallany) – and with Dawai’s US based sister, Lien (Tang) helping as well, they discover that the soy futures hack was designed to siphon off nearly $75 million, but they don’t know why. When they discover the hacker has had a mole in the Trade Exchange, Nick and Lien find he’s been killed but was supposed to meet his boss at a restaurant. Nick finds a clue to the hacker’s identity, while the money is traced to a mercenary named Kassar (Coster). An attempt to apprehend him in Hong Kong fails and several of Dawai’s men are killed.

A break in the investigation comes with the retrieval of a data drive from the nuclear plant. Although it’s been corrupted by the radiation leak, Barrett tells Hathaway about a program the NSA uses called Black Widow which assesses corrupt data and is then able to reconstruct it by “filling in the blanks”. Her request to use it is denied however, which prompts Hathaway to use it anyway, hacking into the programme and using it to discover that the hacker’s server is based in Jakarta. At the same time, Lien discovers that the hacker has an interest in a remote site in Perak, Malaysia.

Hathaway’s use of Black Widow is detected, and Barrett is ordered to bring him back to the US. Dawai alerts him about this, and Hathaway and Lien (who have started a relationship) attempt to flee Hong Kong with her brother’s help. But Kassar ambushes them. Hathaway and Lien manage to get away and they travel to Perak to see what is so interesting about the site. It’s there that they discover the hacker’s true motives, and devise a way in which they can stop him.

Blackhat - scene2

It’s always a pleasure to watch a Michael Mann movie. You know going in that it’s going to look beautiful (especially if there are scenes shot at night – and there’s always scenes shot at night), there’ll be a level of machismo that few other directors can attain, some pulse-pounding action sequences, and a storyline that will have been researched for the utmost authenticity. And so it proves with Blackhat, Mann’s first movie since Public Enemies (2009), and a return to the world of modern day criminals for which he has such a proven affinity. However, while Blackhat‘s plot and storyline are drawn from recent events – in this case the Stuxnet computer worm that apparently ruined one fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2010 – and it paints a convincing portrait of cyber crime and how systems can be breached, it badly falls down in its attempts to show just how cyber crime can be detected and defeated.

There are several problems with the overall plot that don’t add up, and it’s these problems that stop the movie from being as effective – or gripping – as Mann intended. The first is the coincidental nature of the relationship between Dawai and Hathaway and they’re having written the RAT code. It’s an unnecessary, and clumsy contrivance that asks the viewer to believe that they wrote this code as a test of their abilities and then they just left it on the Internet, apparently unaware of what it could be potentially used for. The second problem is the idea that a felon, serving time for computer crimes, would be allowed out of the country in order to help with the investigation. Hathaway is even allowed to take part in the attempt to capture Kassar in Hong Kong; how was that allowed to happen? All he needs is a desk and a computer – he doesn’t need to be globe-trotting with everyone else.

The third and most glaring problem is the way in which senior agents such as Barrett and Jessup allow Hathaway so much leeway in his efforts to catch the hacker. At the point where the Black Widow program is introduced, the speed and the ease with which Barrett goes along with Hathaway’s plan to hack into it is breathtaking for the way it undermines any authority she had up to that point. It would have been a better idea for Hathaway to have done it behind her back, thus making the need to bring him in once his hack is detected that much more dramatic, but Morgan Davis Foehl’s script instead takes the opportunity to throw all further attempts at credibility into the trash bin.

And like so many of his colleagues before him, Mann is unable to make looking at computer screens and tapping on keyboards anywhere near exciting. To offset this he focuses on the characters and their reactions to what’s happening on the computer screens, but this is even less exciting, and the viewer is subjected to endless reaction shots that are meant to convey various emotions but ultimately mean nothing as most reactions are ones of surprise or moments when a light bulb goes on over someone’s head.

Against all this, the cast do their best but Hemsworth is miscast, his performance only convincing when he’s required to physically go up against the bad guys. Wang and Tang both give earnest performances, but struggle with the script’s insistence on making their characters crime movie stereotypes: he the diligent cop battling professional prejudice, she the hero’s girlfriend (despite being independent and having a mind of her own the script still requires her to “stand by her man” when the going gets tough). Davis flits in and out of the narrative, while you could be forgiven for forgetting that McCallany was there at all, his character’s job to babysit Hathaway at all times conveniently ignored when the script requires it.

As with any Michael Mann movie, Blackhat does at least look impressive, DoP Stuart Dryburgh providing the kind of hyper-stylised, glossy feel to the night-time exteriors that we’ve come to expect from Mann’s movies. The scenes set in Hong Kong have a wonderfully organic, shiny aspect to them that makes the backgrounds and the locations the most effectively shot for a Mann movie since Collateral (2004), while the lighting throughout offers enough mood and intensity for a dozen other thrillers. But, ultimately, it’s not enough to rescue a movie that is let down by a poorly constructed script and its sympathy-free characters. (In fact, the movie has been so badly received that one of its distributors, Universal Pictures International, has decided not to release it theatrically in Australia at all.)

Rating: 4/10 – while Mann is a clever and experienced enough director to keep things moving, there are too many cracks to paper over no matter how quickly he does so; a major disappointment, Blackhat is a reminder that even the most talented of directors don’t always get it right (sadly).