Garyswordz

A Superb Period Drama, 12 November 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A stunning drama, based on true events, which swallows up the 2 hour 20 minute running time.Director Clint Eastwood is now building up a body of work which surely already establishes him as amongst the finest Directorial talents of his generation.

The tale is simple enough, that of an ordinary woman whose son goes missing, and her quest to be reunited with him.Angelina Jolie plays the leading role as crusading mother Christine Collins. Previously her parts have been dominated, and no doubt won, by her beauty. Here Eastwood ekes out a career defining acting performance in which her looks are conspicuously dressed and toned down, resulting in the unleashing of a very fine acting performance.

But hers is not the only stellar performance.Jeffrey Donovan is unremittingly sly and evil as corrupt Captain Jones. Michael Kelly is superb as Detective Ybarra who stumbles across the gruesome activities at a remote farmhouse, a beacon of decency in a generally dark story.

As a Director, Eastwood could not be further removed from his taciturn, largely one-dimensional but well crafted acting roles and image .His eye for 1920’s detail in Los Angeles is both acute,and sumptuous.But it is his grasp of character and story which set him apart. Every part is believable and this enables him to win over the viewer to the story intellectually, and emotionally.

Sub-plots of Police corruption, the role of women in 1920’s American Society and contemporary Mental Health Care are starkly, awkwardly, observed, but not overplayed. The content, and intensity of performance makes this sometimes uncomfortable to watch, but what unfolds is never less than compelling.

A modern classic, where story, dialogue, performance and setting combine to produce cinematic magic.

Dreadful, dreary, nonsense, 11 November 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The British Gangster film has a noble tradition, this does not add to it.The Liverpool setting has great potential both as a backdrop, and as an opportunity to explore some real regional character. Both are squandered.

Director Adrain Vitoria’s credentials sit with soaps like The Bill,Hollyoaks and Brookside. he is totally out of his depth with a full feature, his only previous effort “Capital Punishment” having sunk without trace.Kevin Sampson wrote the novel on which this is based, but the screenplay was written by Ian Brady who shows a spectacular inability to write convincing dialogue and paint colour into character. How he needs to hire Martin McDonaghs “In Bruges” to discover how to write dialogue and use settings.

What we are offered is lazy, clichéd fare, with a formula plot, you know, the “one last job” plot.When a gratuitous lesbian clinch is shown between gangsters molls, Debs and Marie it is hard to tell whether their smiles are of acted pleasure, or of stifled laughter at the absurdity of the script.Stephen Graham and Scot Williams sleep walk through proceedings which are interspersed with episodes of extreme violence designed to inject some interest into a strangely flat production.

Best forgotten, which will not be difficult

Bland Bluster, 21 October 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

Big budgets and sci-fi tend to be uneasy bedfellows, and so it proves here.The idea, of surrogate robots “living” human lives for them is a decent one, and touches on ground explored in “I Robot”, “Westworld” and “Total Recall”. The cast is strong built around the dependable Bruce Willis.But disappointingly the Studio and Director Jonathan Mostow are content to allow the film to run as strictly formulaic big-budget fare.Car chases, a crash which reprises the seminal “Dirty Harry” fire hydrant scene, helicopter chases and choreographed crowd scenes are all presented forensically and as dispassionately as a robot artificial intelligence.

Mostow has an interesting background.As Director of T3, he showed a command of mega bucks productions and futuristic CGI, as executive producer of “The Game” he showed an understanding of how to tell a good story. Neither talent is much in evidence here.The characters are underwritten, and the story itself, of “rogue robots gone bad” lacks drama with a bizarre ending.Normally I praise a 90 minute running time, in this instance it appears that they simply gave up after an hour and a half.

If you like a blaring soundtrack to artificially create drama and sanitised chase sequences then this will suit just fine.But an “alternative” encampment, directly lifted from”Escape From New York” which Mostow is in the middle of remaking is risible and there is little else to amuse and entertain, certainly not the script which is about as functional as it is possible to imagine

A Masterpiece, 11 October 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

This film’s birth pangs as a failed TV pilot make the end result even more remarkable. Over a year later, Director David Lynch picks up the pieces (literally), shoots new scenes and then produces not only his finest film to date but one of the all – time greats of modern cinema.

Detailed analysis, and a fine double disc DVD set with abundant interviews, can be found elsewhere.But for the uninitiated, the story opens with a beautiful woman who staggers away from a car wreck with memory loss and the tale of how her subsequent fortunes intertwine with those of the young woman whose temporary home she stumbles across.

Twin female leads,Naomi Watts and Laura Harring offer tour de force performances as beautiful, mysterious, sexy and dangerous women seemingly skitting between reality and a strange, ethereal world which we cannot quite place.Nothing is quite what it seems, clues and false trails abound, ad the viewer is kept guessing till the end, and beyond.

A majestic music score,and stunning, lush, beautiful cinematography combines with a literate script and obtuse plot to create atmosphere, excitement and uncertainty.The girl’s make-up and dress is invariably immaculate strenghtening the ambiguity of the story line.The irony that a film so removed from Hollywood convention should be set in Hollywood is sweet indeed.A masterpiece which will be appreciated by film students and aficionados for years to come.

A Minor Gem, 11 October 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Director and writer Mark Herman already has very fine writing credentials,arguably his best work to date being “Brassed Off”, set amidst the Miners strike. Herman’s humanity shines through again in this compelling tale of a concentration camp seen through a child’s eyes.

The power of this work lies in the fact that it is told, and shot, as a children’s film, yet the story covers the darkest period in modern Western History. The central figure is eight year old Bruno, son of the Camp Commandant.He builds up an innocent youthful friendship with child internee Shmuel against a dark backdrop of implied and overt maltreatment of the other Jews.

This light, simplistic tale on the one hand is as lightly told as “The Sound of Music” but comes with a twist as dark and profound as you could wish for.I found the plummy English accents grating set in an all German environment. Yet sub-titles would have massively reduced the film’s marketability and cod – German accents could have been just as irritating.

Vera Farmiga delivers a marvellously nuanced performance as Bruno’s mother,and David Hayman’s Pavel, the Jewish Servant is achingly tragic. This film is a wonderful introduction to any child to the grim reality of this part of human history.At times it teeters close to being too twee, pandering to the kids audience on one hand, then doesn’t quite swing the hammer blows that the story deserves, yet still triumphs through understatement.

A classic that will be shown for years to come

Bloody Brilliant, 19 August 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A glorious return to form for maverick Director Qunetin Tarantino. It’s not perfect, but firmly puts him back in the A list of hot cinematic property.His vision for the whole film teeters on the preposterous occasionally, but always steps back from the brink. But the real strength of this film is what QT does best, brilliantly envisioned scenes, with superb dialogue. And that is what the film opens with. A scene as good, if not better, than anything he has ever realised before. The war time set piece of an SS Officer visiting a Partisan hiding Jews has been done many times before, with bear traps of cliché waiting to spring at any moment. But in the hands of Tarantino’s marvellous, quirky script, strong Direction, and superb acting from Christophe Waltz as SS Colonel Hans Landa, we are treated to a cinematic tour de force.

Indeed Landa is the pivotal figure throughout.Measured, urbane and systematic, the exact opposite of Brad Pitt’s Aldo Raine and his renegade crew of Nazi exterminators. A feature of the film is a core of actors giving fine, straight performances whilst the periphery deliver cameo and pastiche.

Although the trademark violence is gruesomely dished out another trademark is in evidence. Tarantino loves women. Check out the vertical ,moving overhead shot of Melanie Laurent as she strides along with her beautiful red dress flaring out as she walks as Jewess Shusanna, or Julie Dreyfus as Goebbels translator / Courtesan with killer clothes and heels, or the gorgeous Diane Kruger as German film star and double agent Bridget Von Hammersmark, the epitome of 40’s Movie Star chic. He has this gift for allowing women and scenes to exude sex, without being explicit. Think Thurman / Travolta in the “dancing competition” scene in Pulp Fiction, or Jackie Brown as Pam Grier sashays along in her smart, skirted Air Hostess uniform.

At two hours twenty minutes ,the action skips along with surprisingly little violence, but when it does feature, it is gruesome. The action sequences are as effective as those in Paul Verhoeven’s, “Black Book”, THE finest modern WW2 film to date. And although about killing Nazis, the most compelling character is SS officer Landa. Laurent and Kruger make the most of meaty roles which transcend the “Love interest” parts so typical of contemporary work.

Faults? The final knife wounding scene and explicit baseball bat murder were too extreme for my tastes. His decision to include caricatures of the German Top Brass, including Hitler,came close to verging on comedy sometimes. This quasi-comic quality was also present in the pompous puffed up English Officers but was also dished out to the “Inglorious Basterds” as a whole.

This is no “Americans as Heroes” picture. Subversively, Daniel Bruhl as enlisted marksman and Celebrated War Hero Frederick Zoller is given a far more rounded and sympathetic treatment.The judicious use of sub-titles gives proceedings a credibility so absent from,genre stablemate , “Valkyrie” with Brad Pitt easily trumping Tom Cruise in choice of roles, and film.

Easily one of the best releases of 2009, and worth seeing for the first 15 minutes alone.

Efficient, Effective but Uninvolving, 17 August 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Director David Twohy, who also wrote the screenplay, has writing credits of considerable distinction including hits such as Pitch Black, GI Jane and The Fugitive. Here he delivers a fast paced, neatly conceived story which would have looked good on paper and works well on the screen. A bit of a genre hybrid it plays to the slasher/ horror/ thriller markets without ever particularly committing to any of them.

The cinematography, filmed on location is Hawaii is simply stunning. Helipcopter shots provide a perfect excuse for those swooping panoramas which thrill, excite and delight in equal measure. The story unfolds around three couples and a mysterious murderous duo stalking the Island. A 97 minute running time is commendably tight, but the characters are offered as little more than stereotypes which devalues audience sympathies. There is a twist, which is effective, but genre aficionados will anticipate it because the options are so limited.

Twohy spends so much time planning for the “reveal” that when it comes we have little time to get alongside the real characters so that the last 20 minutes or so, whilst quite exciting, is also curiously uninvolving and soulless.Ironically, whilst he is happy to offer us the staple female nudity, the feisty female roles offer nothing in the way of damsels in distress.

So, a job well done within its own terms of reference, but nothing out of the ordinary, and, murders aside, a good advert for Hawaii’s spectacular coastline.

Efficient, Visceral but Cold and Humourless Remake, 31 July 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

As a stand alone heist movie this is perfectly adequate. But if you are going to remake a genre classic you either have to succeed in doing it better, or differently, and this does not. The plot is straight forwards. A criminal gang hijacks a New York subway train and starts killing hostages whilst a $10m ransom is delivered. John Travolta stars as Ryder the psychopathic gang leader, Denzel Washington plays the train controller who takes his call.

A one hour deadline in a two hour running time provides plenty of opportunity for real time excitement. But Director Tony Scott delivers exaggerated peripheral action at the expense of the intensity of the story. The ransom delivery run is converted into a chance to play out some ludicrous car crash stunts, and the obligatory closing shoot out involves a circle of gun toting cops blazing away at the bad guys in the middle – and each other.

Ryder is played as a profane, mad thug,in the manner of Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsleys performances in “Sexy Beast” and “In Bruges”. This has the downside that he has no redeeming features. A “back story” for controller Gruber ultimately goes nowhere and adds little to plot development. The addition of a two way laptop interface as a nod to the 21st century has great dramatic potential, but is wasted.

The original shone for two reasons. Firrstly grainy, gritty, realistic cinematography, and secondly a compelling chemistry between the two leads. Director Tony Scott produces glossy “action hero” dramatic sequences and Ryder’s character allows no space for empathy.But what is also missing is the dry, laconic humour which underpinned the original. The Mayor’s part is cruelly underwritten in this regard.

An intrusive, raucous hip hop sound track sits awkwardly with the strings that signal a rare “mellow moment”. But the story unfolds at a cracking pace and those unfamiliar with the superior original will not walk away disappointed.

A Minor Gem, 31 July 2009

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A bold topic, confidently handled for the era. The plot essentially unfolds around an unmarried vicar,Howard Phillips, played by Anthony Quayle,who falls foul of a local tearaway youth who maliciously claims to have been sexually assaulted by the Churchman. Terence Young, with dozens of Directing credits behind him, crams quite a lot into 87 minutes.

Set in 1959 suburban London, Quayle’s ambiguous reserve initially hints at latent homosexuality as the attractions of his young maid, and the lure of his female suitor,Hester Peters, played by Sarah Churchill,who tries to get him into bed, are spurned. His work with the local youth provides a window into Cafe culture and affords Cliff Richard his screen debut performing “Livin’ Doll” in a neatly conceived scene.The portrayal of rebellious youth seems a bit twee by modern standards but the mob turning on the innocent vicar is rawly depicted.

The conniving youth who frames the Vicar,Larry Thompson played by Andrew Ray, is a foppish character increasing the sexual ambivalence of the piece. Hester eventually resolves to ensnare Thompson with her own honey trap in a mock seduction scene which then turns into one of sexual violence.

Solidly plotted, and proceeding at a brisk pace, Young went on to Direct two early Bond titles, “Dr No” and “From Russia With Love”. The supporting cast unfailingly shine in a brave, successful, production.