The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976/1978)

Posted on June 30, 2014 by badblokebob

aka The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Short Version)

Ever since I read the blurb for Masters of Cinema’s DVD of Maurice Pialat’s Police, I’ve been casually enticed by The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Said blurb asserts that “Police is a genre-defying excursion rivaled only by John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie in the pantheon of cinema’s most idiosyncratic thrillers”, which is both a nice turn of phrase and an intriguing one. The thriller is very much a Genre — that is to say, it’s a label loaded with rules and expectations, and to be idiosyncratic within such a form is an interesting notion. Both “thriller” and “idiosyncratic” are pretty accurate labels for Chinese Bookie, though, even in its re-cut (by the director) ‘short version’.

The plot sees strip club owner Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara) lured in to killing the titular bookie as payment for his gambling debts to some gangsters. The title kind of gives away whether he does it or not (though an ever-doubtful Cassavetes reportedly considered having him not go through with it), but nonetheless the film doesn’t lack the genre’s requisite tension and suspense. However, it’s more of a character study. How aware is Cosmo of the mess he’s getting himself in to, and how far is he prepared to go? What drives the man? There are no easy answers, unsurprisingly, but that doesn’t make the questions unworthy of consideration.

According to the notes accompanying the BFI’s Blu-ray release, the ‘short version’ — which Cassavetes created after his original cut was “almost universally panned [and] yanked from the theatres within days” — not only makes the film shorter, but also more focused, clarifying various plot points. The style of much independent ’70s cinema — naturalistic to the point of being almost documentarian, with half-caught snatches of dialogue and sequences that seem trimmed to (almost) the relevant moments from much longer filming — still begs that you pay attention, but it seems this cut gives you more of a hand: it gets to the killing quicker (“63 vs 82 minutes”), a meeting with gangsters is “longer, more coherent and explicit”, and so on.

Perhaps the biggest change is early on: the short version implies Cosmo takes his girls out to celebrate (then gets into debt); the original cut implies he’s been invited to the gambling den so he can be set up. That’s quite a shift in emphasis, turning the lead character from a picked-on ‘mark’ in the long version to a sort-of-coincidental brought-about-his-own-downfall type in the re-edit. In his 1980 review (included in the BFI booklet), John Pym asserts that Cosmo is “clearly” a patsy, a fact obscured in the short cut by the removal of that scene where he’s invited to gamble. Is he an easily-lulled patsy, then, as the gangsters think? Or is it more as I interpreted: here’s a man who acts the fool, who pretends to be easily tricked, in order to keep people happy; but who is actually much more competent and aware of what’s going on? Look at his speech near the end about being what others want. This is a man determined to keep others happy and thinking well of him; not in a superficial way, but as some fundamental character trait. Is that how he gets lured into the killing, then — purely because they asked nicely? But then later, when he escapes and gets some kind of revenge or freedom… well, that’s not so friendly. Is he finally doing something for himself? Or was he selfish all along — not much of a leap, especially considering the world he operates in.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is not a neat little thriller in any respect. As Tom Charity puts it (in the BFI booklet again), “if the scenario sounds generic, the film is something else”. It reminded me of Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, a film I didn’t particularly like (but which did inspire Cassavetes), but I had more time for this. Perhaps that’s just me ageing (it’s the best part of seven years since I saw Mean Streets) and becoming more attuned to this kind of movie; the kind that uses “hesitations, repetitions, and longueurs as tools of disruption and misdirection”, by a director so “mistrustful of anything that smacked of tidy resolution, he regularly turned his movies around in the editing to more ambiguous and purposefully aggravating effect.”

That’s the kind of movie Chinese Bookie is: ambiguous, purposefully aggravating, without a tidy resolution. It requires the audience to work a bit. Is it worth the effort? You know, I’m never quite sure (see Bicycle Thieves for another example), and whether I appreciate it or not probably depends as much on the mood a particular film catches me in as much as its inherent quality (see also Rage). This one, while as awkward as any, engaged me just enough.

Wallander: The Troubled Man (2013)

Posted on June 21, 2014 by badblokebob

aka Mankell’s Wallander: Den orolige mannen

Krister Henriksson returns as the Swedish detective for a third and final series of mysteries, starting with this final theatrically-released episode, based on the final Wallander novel. Yes, there is a sense of finality here — albeit one not reached just yet.

The central mystery revolves around a foreign submarine being discovered in Swedish waters back in the ’80s — inspired by real events that caused a national scandal, something which (if I remember rightly) was also an element in the plot of The Girl Who Played With Fire. Thirty years on, the body of a diver who disappeared during that event is discovered, kicking off a whole political brouhaha. Wallander’s son-in-law’s father was a high-ranking official at the time, and when he disappears, Wallander gets unofficially roped in to investigate.

Alongside this runs a more personal story for our hero: he’s free to go off on this personal inquiry because he’s been suspended from the police after leaving his gun in a cafe while drunk. It’s moderately clear to the viewer, however, that Wallander wasn’t drunk, but that he’s perhaps getting forgetful more generally… A major part of the first couple of British Wallander series was Kurt’s father’s battle with dementia, something which I don’t think has been touched on in this Swedish series, but that knowledge makes it all the more clear where this is headed.

It’s here that Henriksson gets to show off his acting chops the most. At a dinner party with his family, Wallander largely sits quietly with a drink rather than interact with others, occasionally staring aimlessly into the distance, or only remotely engaging with what the others are doing. He witters about a painting of a goat. Later, he has a disproportionately angry response when his friend brings news that he’s been suspended. He dotes on his granddaughter, but one day loses her and her buggy when he pops into a shop — but finds her quickly enough that no one will be any the wiser. Little signs like this are scattered around, clueing us in to where Wallander will presumably end up: retired from the force, and possibly retired from his life. Whether Mankell brought the issues to a head in his novel or not, I don’t know, but here I can only imagine it will build throughout the series.

As a fan of the character, it can be a little difficult to watch at times, I suppose similar to the way I imagine it must feel to watch a loved one begin to struggle so (not that I mean to equate the life of a fictional character to real-life suffering, but you know what I mean). That’s really another credit to Henriksson, for making a character we identify with who is now in trouble. He’s never been a maverick or a whizz kid or any of those flashy things that make some characters obviously identifiable as The Hero that we’re supposed to love, but his steadfastness created a character many admire and are attached to, and it’s disquieting to see that begin to slip away.

The one thing that really cuts through Kurt’s newfound confusedness is when he gets a nose for a case. Quietly, by himself, he sets about digging in to what’s going on, unearthing evidence that’s been missed by others, piecing it together to complete a picture of long-kept secrets and new crimes committed in the name of keeping them. It resolves into a complex conspiracy, one that touches the lives of altogether innocent people. Is there justice at the end of it? Of a sort, but how satisfying that justice is… well…

Incidentally, this story is on the slate to be filmed as part of Branagh’s final series of Wallander tales, whenever he gets round to it. He’s said in interviews that he feels it requires two full 90-minute episodes to tell, which is interesting because here it’s completed in just one — and not one that feels rushed. Quite the opposite, if anything: this has all the slow pace of gradually unfurled storytelling that you’d expect from European Drama. Perhaps there’s some personal stuff that’s been bumped to the rest of this series; perhaps subplots were ditched. I’d like to have seen more of the female detective Wallander encounters in Stockholm, Ytterberg, who seemed like a great character given too little to do — perhaps she has a bigger role? We’ll find out, eventually. (Or I could just read the book now, of course.)

The Troubled Man is not the greatest of Wallander tales, in the end, and as the opening act of a final movement it lacks conclusions that will, one can only assume, ultimately come in a few episodes’ time. But, like our titular hero, even when not at his best, he’s still a force to be reckoned with.

The last-ever episode of Wallander, The Sad Bird, is on BBC Four tonight at 9pm.

Elysium (2013)

Posted on June 13, 2014 by badblokebob

The year is 2154 (the same year as Avatar, apparently. No idea if that’s meant to signify anything). The wealthy have left Earth to live in a giant space station of luxury called Elysium, rendering Earth (or, at least, Los Angeles) one gigantic ethnic slum. It’s in the latter we meet Max (Matt Damon), an ex-con who winds up in a factory accident that leaves him with just five days to live — unless he can get to Elysium, where their Magical Medical Machines could heal him in minutes. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the cash to buy transport from his criminal connections; and even if he did, the station’s over-zealous security chief (Jodie Foster) has a habit of blowing up approaching illegal immigrants. Fortunately, there may be a more revolutionary option…

That said, this isn’t a film about a principled revolution, something it seems a few viewers have unfairly judged it for because that’s what they expected or wanted. It is an issue-driven film (to an extent), but rather than present a mass revolt motivated by the desire to Change Things, it follows the effects brought about when people — even one man — are pushed to extremes just to survive. Whether the world this occurs in is a wholly plausible SF future is debatable, but I’m not sure that’s the point. Elysium is a parable; one related to current hot-button topics (in the US especially) like immigration and access to healthcare for the poor. I’m sure some would therefore characterise it as Left Wing, for good or ill, but I think its underlying message is more fundamental than that: it’s just humanitarian.

Unfortunately, it seems writer-director Neill Blomkamp (of the acclaimed District 9) got distracted by his Point and slipped up in other areas. There are various bits and pieces of the plot that don’t quite hang together — so many quibbles, in fact, that I’m not even going to attempt to go into them. Some are hand-wavable under the “it’s a parable” excuse, others just seem sloppy; how much they impact your enjoyment will vary.

Characters get short shrift too. Every one is more sketched than drawn, which is problematic for the leads: Damon is left with little to do other than fight things and try to inject pathos in to what scraps of personality are there. It’s the same for sort-of love interest Alice Braga, who alternates between looking concerned and looking caring. An early tease of a romantic subplot all but evaporates: Damon persuades her to meet him for coffee at eight, but then he doesn’t seem to turn up and neither of them mention it again. You what?

Supporting characters are commonly less detailed anyhow, so at least the remaining cast are not so poorly served. Sharlto Copley is in a deliciously scowling-panto-villain mode as the primary physical antagonist, almost seeming to be from a different movie because he’s having such fun. Diego Luna and, in particular, Wagner Moura offer able support on the side of our hero, even if it is sometimes a bit “white person with person-of-colour sidekicks”. Goodness only knows what Jodie Foster is doing, though. It sounds and looks like she’s struggling with a bizarre accent, while always being American. A similar problem seems to afflict William Fichtner to a lesser extent, so perhaps it’s some incomprehensible deliberate decision to differentiate the wealthy from the normal folk? I’ve read one report that Foster’s entire performance had to be dubbed, which might be a better explanation.

Ultimately, there’s little that can undermine its social point (even if the solution here is perhaps not as splendiferous as it first appears), but if you’ve decided to not be cognisant of that in favour of The Plot, they might grate more. Conversely, if you want to watch people in cool future spaceships wearing cool future armour shoot at each other with cool future guns, not much is going to trouble you. There’s a fair degree of that, because Blomkamp has (wisely?) slipped in his moral points under the aegis of an action movie. In that regard it’s fine — there’s nothing exceptionally memorable, and there’s some borderline-distracting hoop-jumping to keep threats both coming and suitably dangerous, but it’s efficient enough.

There’s also something viscerally pleasurable about seeing a decently-budgeted R-rated effects movie these days. You’d think that classification would keep the budget down, but it reportedly cost over $100 million — and it looks it, with epic must-be-CGI situations that are faultlessly rendered. I suppose when the biggest PG-13 blockbusters are seeing their costs spiral towards triple that, a budget that only nudges into nine figures doesn’t look so bad. Hopefully that’s good news for those of us who would like to see more grown-up (whether that be intellectually or violently) effects-requiring movies.

In fact, the film’s strongest element all-round is almost certainly its production design. Some of it is of the “nothing new” variety (the robot police, the ‘ship designs, the see-through future computers — all good work, but broadly familiar), but then you have pieces like the mission control-style command room of Elysium’s security services: large, multi-level, glossily black, but with vine-like plants crawling up the surfaces. It’s a bit different; it works. Everything is crafted or augmented with that flawless CG work, providing a drip-feed of enjoyable or intriguing sights.

Blomkamp is a writer-director clearly committed to doing bold work in a film genre that is increasingly about spectacle over story, action over allegory, popcorn-selling over point. Elysium may not be the fully-realised vision he was likely hoping for, and more work on the screenplay would clearly have been a benefit, but top marks to the man for trying to do something worthwhile. Surely he remains one to watch.

Elysium is new to Sky Movies this week, starting today on Premiere at 4pm and 8pm. It’s also on Now TV, of course.

The Punisher (2004)

Posted on June 10, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #32
Jonathan Hensleigh | 118 mins | DVD | 2.35:1 | USA & Germany / English | 18 / R

Adapted from a Marvel comic, though you can’t really call this a superhero movie: undercover cop Frank Castle’s family are murdered, so he goes after the crime organisation responsible. This is action-thriller territory, not guys in tights fighting.

Smushing R-rated violence against silly housemate humour, writer-director Hensleigh’s film is either a refreshing change of pace or tonally awkward. I’d argue it’s mainly the latter with a smattering of the former. If you can accept that, it’s solidly entertaining.

This is the second of three live-action Punishers, all unconnected. Now the rights are back with Marvel, how long before another reboot?

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long.

Mad Max (1979)

Posted on May 29, 2014 by badblokebob

The man who would go on to helm Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet here delivers the best-known Ozploitation movie, an occasionally scrappy B-level production that’s primarily concerned with violent gang antics and road chases. It stars everyone’s favourite Hollywood madman Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a road cop in what might be a slightly dystopian post-apocalyptic Australia or might just be a bleakly-considered version of ‘now’, where he and his colleagues are targeted by a biker gang after one of their members is killed during a pursuit.

Said pursuit opens the film in style. It’s a surprisingly-lengthy white-knuckle sequence that introduces us not only to Max, but to what director George Miller is capable of. Even 35 years on it remains a mightily effective set piece, with more punch than the average over-choreographed CGI-addled chases of the last decade-and-a-half of moviemaking.

Unfortunately it’s so good that the rest of the film struggles to match its adrenaline-pumping level, which must leave some viewers particularly underwhelmed. After meandering through something approaching a plot, the film really comes alive again when Max takes a holiday. No, really. Even though Miller can’t again match the excitement of his opening salvo, he at least offers sequences of tension and shock, including the pivotal moment where Max is driven Mad.

The film’s finale is surprisingly fast, a brief explosion of revenge that doesn’t provide your standard Action Movie thrills, but can muster some memorable stunts and lines. It’s here Max goes from average super-cop to full on movie hero. In reading up on the film, a few pieces analyse the ending as Max going to the dark side — becoming as bad as those he was fighting against; or, at the very least, becoming an anti-hero. I didn’t see it that way at first, which I think is the difference between 1979 and what’s happened in movies since. Now we routinely have heroes who do bad things: look at Jack Bauer’s love of torture in 24, or everything Liam Neeson does in Taken. Those characters are never presented as anything other than the good guy; there’s no (or very little) question that what they’re doing is right, and that we should root for them. Maybe we should be questioning Max’s actions at the end, and considering the possibility that he may have become a villain himself. Maybe people did that, once. Now, I think the majority of viewers (especially for this genre) would uncomplicatedly cheer him on.

On the bright side, such moral considerations at least lend some extra depth. Even without it, Mad Max delivers a fitfully exciting car-action movie. It’s probably best known today thanks to its sequels, but still has much to offer those who like, or would like to discover, the almost-grindhouse-esque gritty thrills of ’70s independent exploitation movies.

The Wolverine: Extended Cut (2013)

Posted on May 22, 2014 by badblokebob

aka The Wolverine: Unleashed Extended Edition

Rather than a sequel to the poorly-received X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I mistakenly gave four stars back when it was in cinemas — hey, everyone else was too harsh), Fox’s X-Men film franchise here jumps back to the present day (after a ’60s aside for the excellent First Class) for the first time since 2006, to see what happened to fan-favourite Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) after he (spoilers!) killed the love of his life to save the world in poorly-received (though, again, it’s not as bad as most people think) X-Men trilogy-closer The Last Stand.

We catch up with Logan as a recluse in the wilds of his native Canada. He’s soon sought out by swordswoman Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who has been sent to bring him to Japan. There, a man whose life Logan saved in World War II (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) has become a technology giant, and wants to offer Wolverine the one thing no one else has: the removal of his healing factor, and with it the chance to finally die a normal death. Of course things aren’t all they appear, with numerous threats emerging to the old man, to his family — including his daughter, and Logan’s love interest, Mariko (Tao Okamoto) — and, of course, to everyone’s favourite beclawed mutant.

For the most part, The Wolverine feels refreshingly different to other superhero movies. That’s largely thanks to its Japanese setting and supporting cast, the primary element inherited from the acclaimed Chris Claremont/Frank Miller comic book miniseries that loosely inspired the film (not that anyone gets a credit for that). Those might sound like superficial differences, but the change of faces, scenery and culture seems to have infused the film’s attitude. Couple that with a plot that is more of a thriller than one of the usual three Superhero Movie storylines, and the end result is a moderately unique movie. OK, it doesn’t ooze originality, but nor does it feel quite like your run-of-the-mill powered-people-punch-each-other comic book yarn.

Indeed, in places it threatens to become a proper character study. Although almost all of the X-Men movies have focused on Logan, it’s debatable how much they’ve dug in to him as a person before now — they’ve not dwelt on what his mutation means for his life or personality, merely used his memory loss as the chance for a mystery. There’s lots more exploration of the former here, at least by the standards of a summer blockbuster; and alongside that, the plot incorporates issues of honour and familial responsibility, which are suitably echoed by the Japanese setting and culture.

While it may be Jackman’s film — something only emphasised by a sprawling array of new characters that there isn’t quite enough time for — he’s not the only one who stands out. It’s Fukushima and Okamoto who are memorable in particular, and having such effective female characters once again distances the film from the majority of its genre brethren. It seems a shame neither feature in Days of Future Past — not that there’d be room for them, I suppose — but if the mooted third Wolverine solo outing comes to pass, I hope one or both are back.

Talking of women, you can’t overlook Logan’s lost love, Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey. Considering the build-up pitched The Wolverine as a standalone film, with perhaps the occasional nod to the wider X-universe, including rumours of a Jean cameo, the final film is surprisingly tied-in to previous events: there’s actually loads of Jean (how? Well…), and Wolverine’s personal journey is very much grounded in the events of The Last Stand. I’m sure you could watch this without having seen or remembered a previous X-movie, because the bulk of the plot is indeed standalone, but the emotional journey is invested in what came before.

Unfortunately, a couple of things spoil the party — for starters, another woman: as Viper-lady, Svetlana Khodchenkova camps it up too much. When the rest of the film is more serious, almost plain dramatic in places, her OTT comic book stylings jar uncomfortably. It doesn’t help that the movie is bizarrely overstuffed with villains. Considering the general dramatic emphasis, it needs them even less than usual; plus, when it’s been observed for over 15 years (i.e. since Batman & Robin) that a superhero movie suffers under the weight of too many antagonists, there’s no excuse for it anymore.

More of a let down is the regular-superhero-schtick climax. A mix of muddled storytelling (things go unexplained, then are suddenly clarified in a rush of exposition) and a trashy “make the villain stronger, then punch him lots” escalation of action, it’s a disappointing end to a film that has otherwise felt on course for “genre classic”-level distinctiveness. Without seeing all the behind-the-scenes goings-on it’s difficult to know whose fault this was, but it’s equally difficult to imagine the screenplay that Darren Aronofsky (far from your regular blockbuster director) described as “a terrific script” could have concluded this way; and knowing that his replacement, James Mangold, fiddled with the script before shooting commenced… well, draw your own conclusions.

Still, other technical elements shine: there’s beautiful cinematography from Ross Emery, and Marco Beltrami’s score is nice — no bit particularly sticks in my mind, but it felt suitably evocative. Even if the climax disappoints, there’s a smattering of entertaining action sequences before that, including some great claws-on-sword duelling. Some of this has been amped for the twelve-minutes-longer extended cut, though a lot of that additional time actually goes to the dramatic side of things, as detailed here. There are 65 alterations in all, which frankly I couldn’t be bothered to read through. (However, I noticed at least three uses of the F-word, a number which I believe America’s tick-box classification system grants an automatic R. In the UK it seems such antics can be allowed to slide at a 12.)

The Wolverine isn’t quite the movie it could have been; nor, I think, quite the one the makers hoped they were producing. Jackman has intimated since that it’s studio interference that pushes for silly-big action sequences and the like, but that fan feedback might slowly be winning them around to the things viewers actually care about. Whether that’s true or not, I guess we’ll see in the next instalment…

X-Men: Days of Future Past is released in the UK today, the US tomorrow, and pretty much everywhere else at some point this week. The next Wolverine movie is currently scheduled for release on 3rd March 2017.

The Box (2009)

Posted on April 8, 2014 by badblokebob

The writer-director of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales applies that same schtick to a combined adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story Button, Button (previously adapted into an ’80s Twilight Zone episode), and the life story of his parents.

It’s almost Christmas, 1976, when a mysterious package is left on the doorstep of teacher Norma (Cameron Diaz) and her NASA employee husband Arthur (James Marsden). It contains a box with a button, and that afternoon Arlington Steward (Frank Langella, with a chunk of his face missing thanks to CGI) visits to explain what it means: if they press the button, someone they don’t know will die, and Norma and Arthur will receive $1 million cash; or they can not press it, and nothing happens. They have just 24 hours to decide.

It’s an intriguing “what would you do?” premise, which Matheson apparently lifted from a psychology class discussion scenario. I believe that’s about the extent of the short story too, which is all of six pages long — not exactly feature-length. Kelly has bulked it up by expanding the characters, who are now based on his parents to an almost freakish degree, and a massive back-end extension (the short story accounts for 30 to 40 minutes of the two-hour film) that heads deep into the same “what the…?” territory that he mined in his previous directorial efforts.

In the case of the former, Kelly’s dad really did work at NASA, his mum really was a teacher, and she really did have a foot disability, for which Mr Kelly Sr. and his NASA chums really did engineer a kind of prosthetic to help her resultant limp. What a nice tribute to his supportive parents and their devotion to one another, eh? At the start, perhaps, but by the end of the film you may be wondering what the writer-director’s subconscious wants to do to his ma and pa…

As for what that plot entails… I shan’t spoil it. Suffice to say it’s better explained than the ending of Donnie Darko and infinitely more comprehensible than Southland Tales, even though mysteries and questions remain. That’s fine in my book (I loved Donnie Darko), but the story that leads to said inconclusions isn’t all that. To boil it down, it takes a story that was fine at its short length, and attempts to add all kinds of explanations and expansions that just feel needless. It’s B-movie schlocky.

In fact, The Box is at its best when it almost embraces that genre side. There are some fantastically creepy sequences; genuinely discomforting lo-fi scares. They’re not inherently undermined by the plodding dramatic sections or the kooky sci-fi wobbly bits (or even the bizarre, oddly dated, slightly uncomfortable thematic reading suggested by who always presses the button), but they leave the unnerving parts to function as isolated instances of quality horror moviemaking rather than a consistent mood or tone.

What could function well as an indie-level thriller is further undermined by abundant, therefore costly, CGI. Whether that’s Langella’s facial disfigurement (what could’ve been make-up is actually a complex array of tracking dots, green face-paint, motion-control cameras, and so on; all used merely to place him in simple dialogue scenes), or wide shots of ’70s Virginia, with a computer-adjusted skyline, computer-animated cars, and computer-painted snow. It’s not that the effects work is poor (though don’t look too closely at those cars), but that it screams “this must be special effects!” when you don’t want such distractions.

For all that can actually be ignored, Diaz’s performance sadly can’t be missed. On the evidence of this, she should stick to the lowest-common-denominator comedies and comedy-action movies that made her the one-time highest-paid Hollywood actress (she may still be for all I know, but films like this aren’t the reason why). Maybe it’s not her fault, maybe it’s the inconsistent and inexplicable Southern accent she’s been landed with. The only reason for it is that Kelly’s mother has one, but the only favour it does Diaz is as an excuse for her generally poor acting. At least the rest of the cast are up to scratch — in fact Marsden, who I can only recall as stick-in-the-mud Cyclops in the first three X-Men movies, is practically a revelation.

The Box should have been a film we all discussed for years to come, its “what would you do”-ness providing an Indecent Proposal for the 21st Century (as other reviewers have suggested). Sadly the water is muddied by a series of crazy twists and out-there revelations, which sometimes pay off in atmospheric individual sequences, but overall feel… wrong. With Donnie Darko Kelly showed an overabundance of promise. He’s still not fulfilled it, but does present moments of brilliance that suggest we shouldn’t give up hope yet, and which render The Box at least watchable. For that, my score errs on the side of generosity.

The UK TV premiere of The Box is tonight at 11:20pm on BBC One.

The Next Three Days (2010)

Posted on April 6, 2014 by badblokebob

If someone you loved was locked up for decades for a crime you were sure they didn’t commit, how far would you go to get them out? That’s the premise of this methodical thriller from writer-director Paul Haggis (of Crash, of course), based on the French film Pour Elle.

Those with even a very basic grasp of French (like me) may spot that translates literally as “For Her” (though the English releases call it Anything for Her), which is why Russell Crowe does what he does: his middle-class idyll is shattered one day when police storm into his house and violently arrest his wife (Elizabeth Banks), in front of their small child, for the murder of the boss she argued with the night before. (This, incidentally, is the least plausible part of the entire movie — there’s no need for the police to storm the house like that, and in real life they wouldn’t. Well, American police might, I suppose. But I still don’t believe it.) The evidence is stacked against her, and her explanations for it sound a little far-fetched. She’s convicted, sent down… and when all legal means of appeal are exhausted, Crowe sets about planning a prison break.

This setup is, in my opinion, a really good one — though I feel kind of biased as the basics have crossed my mind as a good basis for a plot long before this or Pour Elle existed. Thing is, it’s inherently quite a daft concept: prisons are (rightfully) incredibly secure places — no ordinary Joe is breaking anyone out of there in a couple of weeks. By rights, a film of this ilk should probably be a Taken-esque slightly-OTT action-thriller, with a protagonist who either already has a “particular set of skills” or implausibly learns them (maybe over a longer period of time) before putting in motion their crazy scheme.

Haggis’ film is a mix of that, in its final act, and an attempt at depicting a serious, plausible, realistic version of what might happen if a regular, intelligent guy set his mind to such a task. Except it’s not really plausible that he’d get very far. Nonetheless, the film takes its time going through the motions of how Crowe might learn and practice the skills required, fund the enterprise, formulate his plan… Some have described this as dull, but I think it actually works. It’s a different kind of film to a pacey prison-break actioner, but if you were crazy enough to try this in the real world, of course you’d start by looking up “how to” articles online, by finding the authors of “how I escaped” books, by trying to buy a gun on the black market and messing it up, and so on.

According to Haggis, the French film is actually quite American-styled, a fast-paced thriller, which he chose to expand out. I’ve not seen the original so can’t say how he’s done that, but the implication is that the detail of the planning, and of the characters’ regular lives, has received more attention. A subplot with Olivia Wilde is a pointless aside that only explains itself once it throws a spanner in the works during the climax, but the scenes with Crowe’s parents pay off thanks to an excellent near-wordless supporting turn from Brian Dennehy. Best thing in the film, easily.

Running him a close second is the all-action final half hour or so, when Crowe (spoilers! but not really!) finally stages the actual escape. It’s a long time coming, but we’re paid off with a pretty fantastic long-form action sequence. There’s genuine tension about whether they’ll pull it off or not, and along the way we’re treated to a few nice flourishes in his plan. There’s a fair degree of silliness still, though, so at least that’s in-keeping with the rest of the movie.

Thing is, for all my love for the idea, it’s ultimately quite a silly concept. As much as we might dream of rescuing our innocent loved one from a life of torment behind bars, if it came to pass in reality, the vast majority of people would immediately realise it was an impossible dream. By trying to treat it plausibly, The Next Three Days is on a hiding to nothing — for all the realism of how Crowe begins his research and planning, there’s the downside that this slow-paced plausibility turns some viewers off; and when we do get the eventual escape, it’s an “in movie’s only” adrenaline-provoker that said viewers wanted all along. The film pretty much can’t win.

Finally, there’s an attempt to keep uncertain the truth about Banks’ culpability. Haggis never wanted that question to be answered — Crowe believes she’s innocent, even when she confesses to his face, and that’s what matters. I don’t think Haggis is a filmmaker who can resist answers, however, and for all his assertions that her innocence/guilt is left ambiguous, by the end I think you can be pretty darned certain which it is… which kinda makes all the previous attempts to leave it open feel hollow, especially the ones that side with the untrue.

The Next Three Days ends up as a solid thriller, with a methodical pace that will kill some viewers’ interest, but which conversely provides a depiction of detail that will hold the attention of anyone who’s ever pondered what they’d do in such a situation. The finale is largely worth the wait, at least, even if everyone will wish Haggis had skipped over a few longueurs while getting there.

The Next Three Days is on Channel 5 tonight at 10pm.

Trance (2013)

Posted on April 4, 2014 by badblokebob

Ambiguous endings used to be anathema to film audiences. They wanted things tied up in a pretty little bow, thank you very much; all the conflicts resolved and all their questions answered. Then the likes of Mulholland Drive and Donnie Darko came along and made vague join-the-dots-yourself endings fashionable — to the point where I’ve read several reviews of Trance that criticise it for having a final act that answers too many questions and clears things up too thoroughly. There’s no pleasing the masses, is there.

In fairness, people perhaps had a right to expect a head-scratcher. The plot description sounds like one: following an art heist, the guy who took and hid the painting (James McAvoy) has amnesia, so his gang’s leader (Vincent Cassel) takes him to a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) to try to dig its location out of his subconscious. Cue a mindbending blend of what’s real and what’s hypnotically induced, right? Kinda like an art house Inception. Mix that with the fact this is an indie-scaled production (though it’s released by 20th Century Fox and Pathe), from a director known to push boundaries, with a choppily-edited self-consciously-confusing trailer, and the bizarre “this isn’t for you, multiplex-goer” poster, and you can see why people expected something that was left-field to the bitter end.

In the Blu-ray’s special features, Boyle comments that “it’s more classical than you might expect.” He’s talking specifically about the cinematography (and he’s right, but more on that later), but he could equally be talking about the entire movie. Though it has a storyline that blurs the line between what’s actually happening and what’s happening inside a character’s head (or is that characters’ heads?), the overall tone and style — particularly of the climax — is actually quite Hollywood. It’s Hollywood jazzed up with storytelling trickery, a quirky score, dashes of extreme gore and surprising nudity (that it’s not an 18 is somewhat surprising); but underneath all that it’s not a million miles away from your run-of-the-mill thriller.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with taking something standard and dressing it up all fancy-like. The film I often cite as my favourite ever, Se7en, is actually a bog standard police thriller when stripped to its storyline’s base elements, but the skill applied to it by filmmakers like David Fincher, Andrew Kevin Walker and Darius Khondji — not to mention the cast! — puts it on another level.

Trance is a tricksier film than that, though. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be, but that’s assuming you only want a film to be about its story. Here, it’s also about the games that are played in telling the story. As Dawson tries to access McAvoy’s memories through a kind of guided meditation, the film switches between the real world, the ‘dream’ world, and the character’s memories at will. Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle made a conscious decision not to denote these different states in any way — there’s no switching to black and white for dreams, for instance; nothing to definitively tell you which state you’re in. And this is a good thing, because when you need to know you can tell, and the rest of the time… well, the film’s playing with you. That’s the point. What is real and what is a scenario McAvoy’s being talked through? Are these memories what happened or the product of an addled mind?

It’s a complex experience that demands your brain power to navigate it successfully. Even when answers come, there are bits you might need to retrospectively piece together for yourself. There’s nothing wrong with a mystery film that answers its own mysteries, and I don’t think Trance disappoints in what those revelations are. Are they predictable? Everything’s predictable, if you predicted the right thing. Do you have to re-watch it to make sense of everything, or confirm it all for yourself? Not especially — it’s not The Sixth Sense, but I imagine there’d be value in watching it again knowing what every character is really up to.

That’s a credit to the actors as well as the filmmakers, incidentally. McAvoy and Dawson in particular give strong performances. The screenplay plays with our affections and opinions of them (and the other characters — no disrespect to third lead Cassel, who is also very good), but there’s a consistency to their portrayals, and an array of subtleties that are only properly revealed once we know everything, that is testament to a well-considered approach to the entire performance, as opposed to simply playing scenes in the way they seem to the first-time viewer.

Dod Mantle’s cinematography is also strikingly handsome. As noted, the film’s buzz had me expecting something akin to late-career Tony Scott, all jumpy and weirdly saturated and fragmented. Instead, as Boyle said, it’s actually very classical, but with a great eye. There are a number of shots which would look fabulous framed and hung on the wall, not least of the street outside Dawson’s flat at night, a restaurant next to intersecting train lines, and aerial photography of red-lit nighttime motorway junctions, looking like some kind of Rorschach test-esque psychiatrist’s tool.

By asking you to keep up through a plot and storytelling style that is deliberately twisty and confusing, but then giving you some pretty clear answers at the end, Trance seems to have pissed off a lot of people. Not so me. It’s an entertaining thrill ride and an intriguing psychological mystery wrapped up in one, provided you take it on its own terms.

Trance comes to Sky Movies Premiere from today at 9:35am and 9pm, and is also freshly available on demand through Sky Movies and Now TV.

Fast Five (2011)

Posted on March 28, 2014 by badblokebob

aka Fast & Furious Five / Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist

2014 #3
Justin Lin | 125 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

Like a Doctor Who anniversary special, the fifth film in the Fast and the Furious franchise brings together its previous eras in an attempt to reach new heights of… something. Box office, most likely. Which worked. Fortunately, it also paid off as perhaps the most entertaining film in the series to date.

In hiding following the events of the last film, Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster end up sucked into a bit more criminal activity, which goes wrong — in the process drawing the ire of a local crime boss (24 season three’s Joaquim de Almeida) and an FBI super-squad, led by Dwayne Johnson. Cue an audacious heist plan and more action than you can shake a (gear)stick at.

Although it started out as a series about street racing, with some light criminal activity on the side, the fourth film tried to move F&F on a bit — but failed, thanks to being distinctly crap. Five is what that film wanted to be. It’s still not clever, but it is big — a big, somewhat daft, perhaps too long in the middle, but ultimately fun, Action Movie. It contains as much fisticuffs, shoot-outs and foot chasing as it does bits with cars, though naturally the climax is one huge motor-based action sequence.

The plot is essentially “Ocean’s Eleven with cars”, which is a surprisingly good concept. It also facilitates both the “getting the band back together” tone and a drip-feed of adrenaline. The notion of bringing in characters from every previous film serves its (presumed) purpose of making this feel like a bigger movie, a kind of celebration of the series to date. Whether it deserves such a party is beside the point — it ties together an increasingly disparate run of movies, in the process creating a surprisingly likeable team dynamic.

The oddest thing is that, between the “one last hurrah” tying-together and an ending that I won’t reveal but is tidy, the whole thing feels very conclusive — and I say that’s “odd” because it was never intended to be the final one: the foreshortened title was meant to be an indication that there was a ‘second half’ to come (hence why the next film is sort-of called Furious 6), and there is indeed a last-minute cliffhanger (depending on your point of view, it’s either a good twist or a tiresome comic-book-y move).

The Fast & Furious series has no right to have survived as long as it has, nor as successfully — it seemed destined for failure as its recognisable cast slowly abandoned it and the box office faltered. Yet somehow it came back fighting, with both this and last year’s sequel proving huge hits, and a seventh instalment rushed into production so quickly it lost its director. Even though the series’ longevity to this point was largely unmerited, if the makers can continue to produce films as unpretentiously entertaining as Fast Five, it earns its current place in the cinematic landscape.

Fast Five is on Film4 HD tonight at 9pm. Fast & Furious 6 is currently available on Sky Movies and Now TV.

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