Sometimes I surprise myself. I remember starting a blog about film some years ago, and then giving up on it shortly afterwards due to lack of interest. Both my own and yours. It made sense to me that less of you would be interested in reading about what I think of various films than in reading about me slipping down the slope through Thatto Heath Park and falling on my arse.
But I didn't give up quite as quickly as I'd thought. There are 15 or 20 reviews on the clumsily named Film Musings Of A Fire Hazard, spanning a two-year period. Not all of them are any good but they were interesting to look back on. Having made a tentative return to the subject of film with last week's utterings on Mockingjay Part 2 on my regular Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard I thought I'd take another dip at it. You know? Just for my own interest if nothing else.
So finally arriving at the point the subject of this piece is The Theory Of Everything, the Oscar-hogging biopic of physics boffin and miraculous motor neurone disease survivor Professor Stephen Hawking. Emma never fancied this one, so I never got along to the cinema to see it. I had to wait until just the other day to find the time to watch it at home. Not that I'm always busy particularly, but more that there is always some sports-related material clogging up my planner which needs watching before it becomes history material fit only for Yesterday or Sky One. I'd actually recorded The Theory Of Everything a few months ago, but those Bundesliga highlights continued to take precedence until now.
The other reason I hadn't got to it if I'm totally honest is that I'd kind of been putting it off. I'm always very wary of any film dealing with the subject of disability. So often they are either a massive let down or just downright offensive. I get enough of that in the real world without escaping to it. Yet The Theory Of Everything pleasantly surprised me. It's moving without being mawkish, funny without being patronising, and clever without bamboozling the viewer.
Hawking, played by posh gong gatherer Eddie Redmayne, is perhaps best known for his research into the origins of time and the universe and well.....everything........but it is his almost 30 years of marriage to his first wife Jane that provides most of the narrative here. Lazy people like myself might have assumed that Jane, played beautifully here by Felicity Jones, got the rock out of dodge pretty quickly when the full implications of Hawkings' illness took hold. She did no such thing. Hawking was given just two years to live at the time of his diagnosis in the mid 1960's, yet is still with us some 50 years later. Jane continued to be devoted to Hawking, attending to his every need until 1990 when they eventually divorced. And that wasn't to do Hawking any favours or to show a united front in public. She genuinely loved the great man and yes.....continued to enjoy a physical relationship with him. The youngest of their children was born in 1979, over a decade after his diagnosis and way beyond the point at which his body had failed him. True, she eventually drifted in to the arms of Jonathan Hellyer (played here by Boardwalk Empire and Stardust's Charlie Cox) who she met at choir practice and who had helped with Hawking's care for years, but only after Hawking had taken a shine to his therapist Elaine (Maxine Peake). She had been hired by Jane to help with Hawking with his communication after a bout of pneumonia finally robbed him of his speech. Eventually he would develop the now distinctive speech synthesiser which led a generation to believe he is an American. British accents are available with that technology now, but the shrewd astro-physician knows a saleable trademark when he sees it and has left well enough alone.
What the film fails to explore is just how the blazes Hawking has managed to survive for so long with a disease that does for most of its unfortunate sufferers in less than two years. Perhaps medical science has not deciphered that conundrum yet, or perhaps it really is down to his indomitable spirit and ludicrous work ethic. He's just been too busy to be ill for very long over these last few years. He continues to inspire, and to be 7,000 times more capable than most folk who would offer their pity. To that end, if we really want to educate people about what can be achieved by people with disabilities we should do away with disability awareness courses and international days of disability and just get people to watch films like Inside I'm Dancing and this excellent addition to the debate.
Sunday, 6 December 2015
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Lawless
The way I go about choosing which films to see at the cinema is pretty basic, truth be told. I look at the cast, decide if I can stand two hours of the participants without wanting to ram a screw-driver through my head, and go from there.
This is how I arrived at Lawless, a mobster flick set in early 1930's Virginia and apparently based on a true story. Historians among you will not need me to tell you that this means Prohibition, the banning of the sale of alcohol in the United States during that era. Trying to get around this and thus make a stack of cash are the Bonderant brothers, Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) and Jack (Shia Laboeuf). They rule the Franklin County moonshine trade with the proverbial iron fist, which is both the most memorable thing about the film and one of it's major weaknesses.
Some of the violent events in this film are so grotesque that even the director (John Hillcoat) seems to have balked at the idea of actually showing them and instead resorts to strong implication. The censors might have had their say on that also, to be fair to Hillcoat. Amid the carnage is Jack's coming of age tale and big brother Forrest's struggles to hold on to both his power and his life, while Howard runs riot and provides more than his fair share of the psychopathy on offer. Of which there is lots. Chipping in is Guy Pearce as Charlie Rakes, a corrupt police officer trying to geg in on the financial gain and keep the Bonderants in his pocket. The normally reliable Pearce whips up the mania and hysteria a little too much, especially in the film's heavily sign-posted denouement. From the very first scene I had a reasonable idea of what might happen at the end, and I wasn't wrong.
It's not that Pearce can't play a baddie. His turn as Fernand Mondego in The Count Of Monte Cristo was among the most memorable villainous stints I can recount. It just doesn't quite work here. He seems to be trying to emit the same suave, charming nature of Mondego before surprising you with a shockingly murderous act or some foul piece of torture. But Rakes lacks the humour of Mondego aswell as the propensity for betrayal which made the latter so compelling. Betrayal trails in the wake of revenge, greed and thirst for power in Lawless.
Quite what the makers of this film were thinking when they wasted the time of Gary Oldman I am still struggling to work out. He appears as Floyd Banner, a feared mob leader who seems to have nothing much to do with anything. He does business with the Bonderants and the film hints at his violent nature and his feared reputation without ever really making him a factor in the stories of the main protagonists. Following Tinker-Tailor and The Dark Knight Rises I am wondering whether somebody just wanted to keep Oldman and Hardy together for a while longer. Maybe they just really, really enjoy each other's company.
Love interest for Forrest and Jack is provided by Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain complete with gratuitious nude scene if you like that sort of thing) and Bertha (Mia Wasikowska) respectively. Maggie is a dancer from Chicago who has run away from trouble and found a whole lot more, while Bertha is the daughter of a preacher who is less than excited about Jack's interest in his little girl. Yet these characters are not much more developed than Oldman's and seem to serve only to distract you from what is really going on.
Lawless is a capable but underwhelming mobster story with some heavyweight actors seemingly below their best form. Which is what I get for choosing my cinematic pleasures by looking at cast lists and virtually ignoring synopses.
This is how I arrived at Lawless, a mobster flick set in early 1930's Virginia and apparently based on a true story. Historians among you will not need me to tell you that this means Prohibition, the banning of the sale of alcohol in the United States during that era. Trying to get around this and thus make a stack of cash are the Bonderant brothers, Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) and Jack (Shia Laboeuf). They rule the Franklin County moonshine trade with the proverbial iron fist, which is both the most memorable thing about the film and one of it's major weaknesses.
Some of the violent events in this film are so grotesque that even the director (John Hillcoat) seems to have balked at the idea of actually showing them and instead resorts to strong implication. The censors might have had their say on that also, to be fair to Hillcoat. Amid the carnage is Jack's coming of age tale and big brother Forrest's struggles to hold on to both his power and his life, while Howard runs riot and provides more than his fair share of the psychopathy on offer. Of which there is lots. Chipping in is Guy Pearce as Charlie Rakes, a corrupt police officer trying to geg in on the financial gain and keep the Bonderants in his pocket. The normally reliable Pearce whips up the mania and hysteria a little too much, especially in the film's heavily sign-posted denouement. From the very first scene I had a reasonable idea of what might happen at the end, and I wasn't wrong.
It's not that Pearce can't play a baddie. His turn as Fernand Mondego in The Count Of Monte Cristo was among the most memorable villainous stints I can recount. It just doesn't quite work here. He seems to be trying to emit the same suave, charming nature of Mondego before surprising you with a shockingly murderous act or some foul piece of torture. But Rakes lacks the humour of Mondego aswell as the propensity for betrayal which made the latter so compelling. Betrayal trails in the wake of revenge, greed and thirst for power in Lawless.
Quite what the makers of this film were thinking when they wasted the time of Gary Oldman I am still struggling to work out. He appears as Floyd Banner, a feared mob leader who seems to have nothing much to do with anything. He does business with the Bonderants and the film hints at his violent nature and his feared reputation without ever really making him a factor in the stories of the main protagonists. Following Tinker-Tailor and The Dark Knight Rises I am wondering whether somebody just wanted to keep Oldman and Hardy together for a while longer. Maybe they just really, really enjoy each other's company.
Love interest for Forrest and Jack is provided by Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain complete with gratuitious nude scene if you like that sort of thing) and Bertha (Mia Wasikowska) respectively. Maggie is a dancer from Chicago who has run away from trouble and found a whole lot more, while Bertha is the daughter of a preacher who is less than excited about Jack's interest in his little girl. Yet these characters are not much more developed than Oldman's and seem to serve only to distract you from what is really going on.
Lawless is a capable but underwhelming mobster story with some heavyweight actors seemingly below their best form. Which is what I get for choosing my cinematic pleasures by looking at cast lists and virtually ignoring synopses.
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
The Dark Knight Rises
It seems that Christopher Nolan has dispensed with any notions of calling The Dark Knight a Batman film, and that is not surprising given the relative lack of screen time afforded to the caped crusader (or is that Superman?) in this the third of what is hopefully only a trilogy.
It's not that I didn't like it, more that three films is enough and usually two too many in most cases. Despite this and other minor quibbles, The Dark Knight Rises (not Batman) is an enjoyable yarn which sees our hero called back into action after several years in recluse at his enormous house. This is because Tom Hardy has turned up playing the part of a quite manic villain called Bane. At this point I couldn't get the term Bane v Wayne out of my head, but I pressed on manfully. Even when I heard Bane's voice I bravely refused to give up on proceedings. Bane wears a mask which helps him breathe, owing to some facial injury which may or may not have been very well explained in the lengthy establishing phase of the film. Yet the voice, coupled with the mask, make him sound and look a bit like a Darth Vader parody, and if there is one thing in film that I don't have a sense of humour about it is Darth Vader. Vader is the greatest baddie in film history bar none. You can keep your Michael Corleone aswell. And the Star Wars theft doesn't end there, as Liam Neeson turns up at one point as a wise old sage offering insight to someone about something. Mercifully, there are no light sabres.
But Bane isn't looking to rule the galaxy far, far away anyway. His mission is two-fold but rather conflicting and therefore possibly self-defeating. On the one hand he wants to stuff it up the rich people of Gotham City for their decadence, overthrowing them in the process, but on the other hand he wants to detonate a nuclear device which would blow the whole city to Buggery and back. If he has a plan for how he is going to escape the carnage himself then I'm not totally clear on what it is. And besides I just can't get past the voice and the mask. Get your own villain Nolan.
Romantic interest is provided by Anne Hathaway as Catwoman (she's actually a burgler called Selina who's sole motivation is to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible with as much cash as possible) and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, a rich bitch who helps keep Bruce Wayne afloat when his company more or less collapses following an unlikely raid on the stock exchange by our man Bane. He is also able to arrange for an entire American football field to crumble piece by piece in a brilliantly over the top scene, the best thing about which is that the man carrying the ball merely carries on running, reaches the endzone and turns around to investigate what all that noise behind him might have been.
And another thing about Bane, while we're on the subject, I couldn't help but think of McBain from The Simpsons every time he came on screen. You know the one, the Arnie parody? If only Bane (and Wayne once he dons the cape, for that matter) was as easy to understand as Arnie I might have got a little more to grips with the finer points of the plot.
Batman (sorry Christopher) regulars Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman provide their usual steady turns also, as we move towards a quite breathtaking and undeniably exciting climax. Can Bane's demented plot be stopped or are the citizens of Gotham (including the poor children) doomed to either explode or die slowly from radiation poisoning? You'll have to go and see it if you want to find out but I can, despite my disparaging tones, heartily recommend that you do so. The Dark Knight is fun, frantic, folly, and what could be better than that for a Tuesday night?
It's not that I didn't like it, more that three films is enough and usually two too many in most cases. Despite this and other minor quibbles, The Dark Knight Rises (not Batman) is an enjoyable yarn which sees our hero called back into action after several years in recluse at his enormous house. This is because Tom Hardy has turned up playing the part of a quite manic villain called Bane. At this point I couldn't get the term Bane v Wayne out of my head, but I pressed on manfully. Even when I heard Bane's voice I bravely refused to give up on proceedings. Bane wears a mask which helps him breathe, owing to some facial injury which may or may not have been very well explained in the lengthy establishing phase of the film. Yet the voice, coupled with the mask, make him sound and look a bit like a Darth Vader parody, and if there is one thing in film that I don't have a sense of humour about it is Darth Vader. Vader is the greatest baddie in film history bar none. You can keep your Michael Corleone aswell. And the Star Wars theft doesn't end there, as Liam Neeson turns up at one point as a wise old sage offering insight to someone about something. Mercifully, there are no light sabres.
But Bane isn't looking to rule the galaxy far, far away anyway. His mission is two-fold but rather conflicting and therefore possibly self-defeating. On the one hand he wants to stuff it up the rich people of Gotham City for their decadence, overthrowing them in the process, but on the other hand he wants to detonate a nuclear device which would blow the whole city to Buggery and back. If he has a plan for how he is going to escape the carnage himself then I'm not totally clear on what it is. And besides I just can't get past the voice and the mask. Get your own villain Nolan.
Romantic interest is provided by Anne Hathaway as Catwoman (she's actually a burgler called Selina who's sole motivation is to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible with as much cash as possible) and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, a rich bitch who helps keep Bruce Wayne afloat when his company more or less collapses following an unlikely raid on the stock exchange by our man Bane. He is also able to arrange for an entire American football field to crumble piece by piece in a brilliantly over the top scene, the best thing about which is that the man carrying the ball merely carries on running, reaches the endzone and turns around to investigate what all that noise behind him might have been.
And another thing about Bane, while we're on the subject, I couldn't help but think of McBain from The Simpsons every time he came on screen. You know the one, the Arnie parody? If only Bane (and Wayne once he dons the cape, for that matter) was as easy to understand as Arnie I might have got a little more to grips with the finer points of the plot.
Batman (sorry Christopher) regulars Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman provide their usual steady turns also, as we move towards a quite breathtaking and undeniably exciting climax. Can Bane's demented plot be stopped or are the citizens of Gotham (including the poor children) doomed to either explode or die slowly from radiation poisoning? You'll have to go and see it if you want to find out but I can, despite my disparaging tones, heartily recommend that you do so. The Dark Knight is fun, frantic, folly, and what could be better than that for a Tuesday night?
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
The Debt
John Madden's ambitious thriller 'The Debt' spans two time periods 30 years apart using six actors to tell the story through the eyes of it's three main characters.
Did you get all that? It may seem like a lot of numbers but for the most part, 'The Debt' is perfectly engaging. It suffers from a contrived, stick-on ending and some dubious pacing but the acting is strong and the action is plentiful.
It's 1965 and David, Stefan and Rachel are three Israeli Mossad agents given the unenviable task of capturing Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel, the so-called Surgeon of Birkenau, and bringing him to justice. Vogel has earned his nickname with the mutilation and murder of thousands of people at wartime prison camps but we first encounter him as Dr Bernhardt, trying to go it straight as the gynaecologist helping Rachel overcome her apparent fertility issues. As you might expect it is not long before the not so good Doc has Rachel's legs wrapped tightly around his neck as she delivers the near lethal shot of whatever is required to facilitate his capture.
But before all that we find ourselves in 1997, with Rachel (Helen Mirren) busy taking the plaudits from what everyone believes to have been a roaringly successful mission. Their version of events has even been turned into a book by Rachel's daughter, but what really happened in the days after Vogel's capture? Whatever it was is enough for David (Ciaran Hinds) to step in front of a bus rather than face up to it, while Stefan (Tom Wilkinson) seems equally keen to hide the truth.
And so the film sets about telling the tale. It is during the kidnap of Vogel that the three young actors show us their best. Fans of Avatar and Clash Of The Titans (if there are any of you out there) will have enjoyed the work of Sam Worthington before but Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas will be less familiar. Worthington plays the young David who it seems has the greatest chemistry with the young Rachel (Chastain), but it is somehow Stefan (Csokas)who gets to the goods first. I hate to nit-pick but I must take issue with this. Moments earlier David had pulled away when he and Rachel were about to kiss, but if she has to jump on the next available bus after every knock-back then she has serious problems. For now it is David and Stefan who have problems, but this being the movie business they were always going to while there was a girl in the room.
Far more interesting are Vogel's attempts to pschologically destroy his captors. His gag is only removed at meal times but that seems to be all he needs to drive a further wedge between the two men and to get under the skin of an increasingly nervous Rachel. Though they may have benefitted from a little more editing, these scenes are the film's strongest. Jesper Christensen is highly convincing as Vogel and the young actors seem to bounce off him during these tense, dramatic moments. But then we find out what really happened to Vogel and things start to head downhill from there for 'The Debt'. Driven so well by it's plot and it's ability to throw up some interesting moral questions, the film's strength gets perilously close to becoming it's weakness as things get decidely implausible and the whole things starts to feel like it has been on for far too long,
If only Madden had known when to stop.
Did you get all that? It may seem like a lot of numbers but for the most part, 'The Debt' is perfectly engaging. It suffers from a contrived, stick-on ending and some dubious pacing but the acting is strong and the action is plentiful.
It's 1965 and David, Stefan and Rachel are three Israeli Mossad agents given the unenviable task of capturing Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel, the so-called Surgeon of Birkenau, and bringing him to justice. Vogel has earned his nickname with the mutilation and murder of thousands of people at wartime prison camps but we first encounter him as Dr Bernhardt, trying to go it straight as the gynaecologist helping Rachel overcome her apparent fertility issues. As you might expect it is not long before the not so good Doc has Rachel's legs wrapped tightly around his neck as she delivers the near lethal shot of whatever is required to facilitate his capture.
But before all that we find ourselves in 1997, with Rachel (Helen Mirren) busy taking the plaudits from what everyone believes to have been a roaringly successful mission. Their version of events has even been turned into a book by Rachel's daughter, but what really happened in the days after Vogel's capture? Whatever it was is enough for David (Ciaran Hinds) to step in front of a bus rather than face up to it, while Stefan (Tom Wilkinson) seems equally keen to hide the truth.
And so the film sets about telling the tale. It is during the kidnap of Vogel that the three young actors show us their best. Fans of Avatar and Clash Of The Titans (if there are any of you out there) will have enjoyed the work of Sam Worthington before but Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas will be less familiar. Worthington plays the young David who it seems has the greatest chemistry with the young Rachel (Chastain), but it is somehow Stefan (Csokas)who gets to the goods first. I hate to nit-pick but I must take issue with this. Moments earlier David had pulled away when he and Rachel were about to kiss, but if she has to jump on the next available bus after every knock-back then she has serious problems. For now it is David and Stefan who have problems, but this being the movie business they were always going to while there was a girl in the room.
Far more interesting are Vogel's attempts to pschologically destroy his captors. His gag is only removed at meal times but that seems to be all he needs to drive a further wedge between the two men and to get under the skin of an increasingly nervous Rachel. Though they may have benefitted from a little more editing, these scenes are the film's strongest. Jesper Christensen is highly convincing as Vogel and the young actors seem to bounce off him during these tense, dramatic moments. But then we find out what really happened to Vogel and things start to head downhill from there for 'The Debt'. Driven so well by it's plot and it's ability to throw up some interesting moral questions, the film's strength gets perilously close to becoming it's weakness as things get decidely implausible and the whole things starts to feel like it has been on for far too long,
If only Madden had known when to stop.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
"Spy on our own spy as he searches for their spy? Yes, why not? -- sounds rather fun."
Some of you may recognise the above. It is a direct quote from General Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth. Irked as I am by prefacing sit-com episodes with the words 'the one where', I should explain that it is 'the one where' there is a spy among the troops and Blackadder is given the unenviable task of rooting him out.
Such is the task handed to Gary Oldman's George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, an adaptation of John Le Carre's apparently page-turning novel of the same name which was also turned into a successful television series starring Alec Guiness in 1979. Where Melchett fits in to all this is that frankly, I felt as utterly bewildered and clueless throughout the whole of this drab affair as Stephen Fry's brilliantly portrayed General is throughout much of the Great War. The Oscar talk has already begun regarding Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, so it is likely that I have got it all wrong and it is the masterpiece that all of the billboards tell you it is. However, I have to report that I lost interest well before the half way mark and by the end, well it is no exaggeration to suggest that I was on the verge of sticking a pencil up each nostril and sticking a pair of pants on my head, such was my delerium amid the tedium.
This film is apallingly, chillingly slow. The basic premise is that there is a mole (and he lives in a hole) among MI6. Oldman is charged with uncovering the wretched traitor before the audience wakes up. In doing this, he has a series of hopefully mysterious and tense conversations with the main players. One of whom is Mark Strong's Jim Prideux, sent to Budapest by 'Control' (John Hurt) to meet Polyakov, who is Russian not Hungarian and has something to do with spying somewhere along the line. Jim makes the schoolboy error of getting himself shot but instead of suffering the altogether more favourable fate of dying there and then, he is sent back to England to teach French to, among others, a fat loner called Bill. At a point inbetween he is strapped to a chair and slapped with a pair of headphones from which only the screeching cries of a baby can be heard. It is supposed to be a method of torture aimed at finding out something or other which I am not quite sure of. If they wanted him to sing like a bird they should have just sat him down and made him watch the rest of this monstrous, excuse for a spy thriller.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy never comes close to thrilling. It excelled at confusing, but only due to the fact that the utter banality of the thing had forced me to stop listening to what was being said and start focusing instead on what I might want from the chippy on the way home. It lacks any kind of suspense or tension and the end, while a mild surprise, is hardly likely to have you leaving the cinema with a feeling of 'well I never'. More like 'well I wish I never'. And while we are at it can Colin Firth get any more smug? Every time he appears on screen not only in this debacle but throughout his career I have been overwhelmed with the urge to bash him over the head with a garden spade.
This review may not be of any higher standard than the film that is it's subject. I'm sorry about that but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy really is quite the most mesmerising rot and it has had a profoundly negative effect on me.
Some of you may recognise the above. It is a direct quote from General Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth. Irked as I am by prefacing sit-com episodes with the words 'the one where', I should explain that it is 'the one where' there is a spy among the troops and Blackadder is given the unenviable task of rooting him out.
Such is the task handed to Gary Oldman's George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, an adaptation of John Le Carre's apparently page-turning novel of the same name which was also turned into a successful television series starring Alec Guiness in 1979. Where Melchett fits in to all this is that frankly, I felt as utterly bewildered and clueless throughout the whole of this drab affair as Stephen Fry's brilliantly portrayed General is throughout much of the Great War. The Oscar talk has already begun regarding Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, so it is likely that I have got it all wrong and it is the masterpiece that all of the billboards tell you it is. However, I have to report that I lost interest well before the half way mark and by the end, well it is no exaggeration to suggest that I was on the verge of sticking a pencil up each nostril and sticking a pair of pants on my head, such was my delerium amid the tedium.
This film is apallingly, chillingly slow. The basic premise is that there is a mole (and he lives in a hole) among MI6. Oldman is charged with uncovering the wretched traitor before the audience wakes up. In doing this, he has a series of hopefully mysterious and tense conversations with the main players. One of whom is Mark Strong's Jim Prideux, sent to Budapest by 'Control' (John Hurt) to meet Polyakov, who is Russian not Hungarian and has something to do with spying somewhere along the line. Jim makes the schoolboy error of getting himself shot but instead of suffering the altogether more favourable fate of dying there and then, he is sent back to England to teach French to, among others, a fat loner called Bill. At a point inbetween he is strapped to a chair and slapped with a pair of headphones from which only the screeching cries of a baby can be heard. It is supposed to be a method of torture aimed at finding out something or other which I am not quite sure of. If they wanted him to sing like a bird they should have just sat him down and made him watch the rest of this monstrous, excuse for a spy thriller.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy never comes close to thrilling. It excelled at confusing, but only due to the fact that the utter banality of the thing had forced me to stop listening to what was being said and start focusing instead on what I might want from the chippy on the way home. It lacks any kind of suspense or tension and the end, while a mild surprise, is hardly likely to have you leaving the cinema with a feeling of 'well I never'. More like 'well I wish I never'. And while we are at it can Colin Firth get any more smug? Every time he appears on screen not only in this debacle but throughout his career I have been overwhelmed with the urge to bash him over the head with a garden spade.
This review may not be of any higher standard than the film that is it's subject. I'm sorry about that but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy really is quite the most mesmerising rot and it has had a profoundly negative effect on me.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 2
Will Harry find the remaining horcruxes and/or slay the revolting Voldemort?
Will he get Hermione, or will Ron confound the lazy stereotyping of ginger-haired people by making off with the goods?
And will Emma Watson get any easier on the eye? Could she?
These were the questions I was left to ask at the end of the first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in J K Rowling's celebrated child-wizard saga.
To be quite honest if I were to answer those questions on these pages some people might get quite cross. People don't like spoilers and the film is still in cinemas after all. I should know, I've just been. Oh go on then, I'll answer one question now, maybe another later. No, Emma Watson does not and could not get any easier on the eye. There, feel better now?
If like me you are a bit of a casual, Johnny-Come-Lateley Harry Potter observer you might find yourself a little confused at the start of Part 2. We're in a poky little room with a goblin named Griphook, whom Emma reliably informs me has not just been plucked from nowhere but who actually appears in the first film. Maybe some others, she's not so sure. Anyway, we then move from Griphook to John Hurt looking older than it is possible for him to ever be. There's a confusing conversation about something or other but mercifully it is not long until we are back into more comfortable Potter surroundings.
Specifically that means Harry, Ron and Hermione doing what they are reknowned for, trying to get into places they have no rights to be in and magically morphing into completely different entities. It took me more time than I'm comfortable with to realise that Emma Watson is not Helena Bonham-Carter. Regardless, a veritable gala of special effects ensues, sparking a chain of similarly exciting if a little overblown episodes as our heroes make their way to the real endgame.
Which, of course, is killing the once unspeakable Lord Voldemort. It doesn't matter if you say his name, we are told at one point by the wonderful Maggie Smith, he's going to kill you all anyway. Fine, all that you-know-who stuff was becoming a little tedious. You may remember from Part 1 that the only way to kill Voldemort is to find and destroy the horcruxes, or parts of his soul that he has left lying around in some place or other. 'We don't know what we are looking for or where it is?' admits Harry at one point. Sounds like you're screwed, mate.
Without giving away the many twists and turns and the film's very own Empire Strikes Back moment, Harry really should be screwed. That he may not be is thanks mostly to Nevile Longbottom, a man who sounds like he opened the batting for England some time in the 1930's, and more surprisingly good old Draco Malfoy who to my mind last made a significant contribution to this story when he was comically punched in the face by Hermione about four films ago.
If you can get past the argument you will have with yourself over the whole logic of the set-up, the climactic face off between Harry and Voldemort is the stuff of which cinema was made for. Huge bolts of lightning which don't do very much harm to either party abound, while Hogwarts falls to pieces around their very ears. Assuming Voldemort has ears. He only has around a quarter of a nose, so who knows. Nose. Get it? Whatever.
There's a little nose-to-nose between Ron and Hermione somewhere in the midst of all this. Either Rowling or the screenplay writers obviously felt that it was a bad idea to follow up on the possibility of pairing Hermione with Harry. Ron's sister is a reasonable consolation prize and anyway, that means two ginger-haired people win. What do you think of that, lazy stereotypers? A big up yours to you.
Loose ends tied in a mostly satisfactory way, the ending feels unecessary in a film which is already well over two hours long. It seems to be the trend among film-makers these days to steadfastly refuse to give up on a project until they have squeezed every last possible drop of storyline out of it. I remember cringing at and complaining on these very pages about a similar botch job in True Grit, to mention just one.
Deathly Hallows Part 2, for all my cynicism, wet-wit and general air of sneering-ness, is a fine conclusion to this exhaustively long, till-ringing, child-star making series of films.
Will he get Hermione, or will Ron confound the lazy stereotyping of ginger-haired people by making off with the goods?
And will Emma Watson get any easier on the eye? Could she?
These were the questions I was left to ask at the end of the first installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in J K Rowling's celebrated child-wizard saga.
To be quite honest if I were to answer those questions on these pages some people might get quite cross. People don't like spoilers and the film is still in cinemas after all. I should know, I've just been. Oh go on then, I'll answer one question now, maybe another later. No, Emma Watson does not and could not get any easier on the eye. There, feel better now?
If like me you are a bit of a casual, Johnny-Come-Lateley Harry Potter observer you might find yourself a little confused at the start of Part 2. We're in a poky little room with a goblin named Griphook, whom Emma reliably informs me has not just been plucked from nowhere but who actually appears in the first film. Maybe some others, she's not so sure. Anyway, we then move from Griphook to John Hurt looking older than it is possible for him to ever be. There's a confusing conversation about something or other but mercifully it is not long until we are back into more comfortable Potter surroundings.
Specifically that means Harry, Ron and Hermione doing what they are reknowned for, trying to get into places they have no rights to be in and magically morphing into completely different entities. It took me more time than I'm comfortable with to realise that Emma Watson is not Helena Bonham-Carter. Regardless, a veritable gala of special effects ensues, sparking a chain of similarly exciting if a little overblown episodes as our heroes make their way to the real endgame.
Which, of course, is killing the once unspeakable Lord Voldemort. It doesn't matter if you say his name, we are told at one point by the wonderful Maggie Smith, he's going to kill you all anyway. Fine, all that you-know-who stuff was becoming a little tedious. You may remember from Part 1 that the only way to kill Voldemort is to find and destroy the horcruxes, or parts of his soul that he has left lying around in some place or other. 'We don't know what we are looking for or where it is?' admits Harry at one point. Sounds like you're screwed, mate.
Without giving away the many twists and turns and the film's very own Empire Strikes Back moment, Harry really should be screwed. That he may not be is thanks mostly to Nevile Longbottom, a man who sounds like he opened the batting for England some time in the 1930's, and more surprisingly good old Draco Malfoy who to my mind last made a significant contribution to this story when he was comically punched in the face by Hermione about four films ago.
If you can get past the argument you will have with yourself over the whole logic of the set-up, the climactic face off between Harry and Voldemort is the stuff of which cinema was made for. Huge bolts of lightning which don't do very much harm to either party abound, while Hogwarts falls to pieces around their very ears. Assuming Voldemort has ears. He only has around a quarter of a nose, so who knows. Nose. Get it? Whatever.
There's a little nose-to-nose between Ron and Hermione somewhere in the midst of all this. Either Rowling or the screenplay writers obviously felt that it was a bad idea to follow up on the possibility of pairing Hermione with Harry. Ron's sister is a reasonable consolation prize and anyway, that means two ginger-haired people win. What do you think of that, lazy stereotypers? A big up yours to you.
Loose ends tied in a mostly satisfactory way, the ending feels unecessary in a film which is already well over two hours long. It seems to be the trend among film-makers these days to steadfastly refuse to give up on a project until they have squeezed every last possible drop of storyline out of it. I remember cringing at and complaining on these very pages about a similar botch job in True Grit, to mention just one.
Deathly Hallows Part 2, for all my cynicism, wet-wit and general air of sneering-ness, is a fine conclusion to this exhaustively long, till-ringing, child-star making series of films.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
The Lincoln Lawyer
I have read almost all of John Grisham's novels and seen almost all of the film adaptations that have followed. If you have too, you might be tricked into thinking that you have seen The Lincoln Lawyer before.
And yet it is not even adapted from a Grisham novel. The original text, which I haven't read but have made a mental note to do, is by Michael Connelly. Apparently a lot of it doesn't make the cut here, but that doesn't stop this from being an engaging, entertaining legal thriller.
It stars Matthew McConaughey, seen here on top 'A Time To Kill' form, but this time as smart-arsed legal whizz-kid Michael Haller. Michael gets bad people off, if you'll pardon that kind of expressionism, meaning that he gets people out of jail terms that they really should have to serve. In that sense he's a sort of anti-hero, but trust me by the end you'll be rooting for him in the courtroom.
The film is so titled because Haller works mostly from the back seat of his Lincoln. That's a car for the uninitiated (like me before I knew of this film) and in all honesty, not enough is made of it's use for legal chicanery to justify naming the entire shebang after it. The best use of the vehicle comes when Haller is negotiating with a group of very hairy bikers. It's all set up to project an image of devil-may-care, maverick law practise. You're not supposed to like Haller, yet.
Not that is until he starts the defense of Louis Roulet (like the wheel, he announces wrongly), played by Ryan Phillipe. He's a rich kid accused of the brutal assault and rape of an expensive prostitute. Why does a rich kid need to be using prostitutes? Those with money tend not to need it, don't they? Anyhow, it doesn't take long before we realise that Roulet is guilty, and we start demanding that our man Haller do something about it. At this point I began wondering about Haller. He can't tell anyone that Roulet has confessed to the crime, and a much worse one to boot, because of lawyer-client confidentiality. Yet rather than walk away and let Roulet find himself another defender he carries on, performing brilliantly considering the amount of alcohol he has consumed.
All of which leads to a mildly surprising and slightly less than mildly satisfactory ending. This film is not a classic but there is much to enjoy in McConaughey's return to form, from the all-too-short involvement of William H Macy as the investigator who sniffs out the details of Roulet's involvement in the grisly crime, to the woefully under-used but permanently smiling Marisa Tomei as Haller's ex-wife and mother of his young daughter.
They're still friends. Well, you'd want to stay in Marisa Tomei's good books.
And yet it is not even adapted from a Grisham novel. The original text, which I haven't read but have made a mental note to do, is by Michael Connelly. Apparently a lot of it doesn't make the cut here, but that doesn't stop this from being an engaging, entertaining legal thriller.
It stars Matthew McConaughey, seen here on top 'A Time To Kill' form, but this time as smart-arsed legal whizz-kid Michael Haller. Michael gets bad people off, if you'll pardon that kind of expressionism, meaning that he gets people out of jail terms that they really should have to serve. In that sense he's a sort of anti-hero, but trust me by the end you'll be rooting for him in the courtroom.
The film is so titled because Haller works mostly from the back seat of his Lincoln. That's a car for the uninitiated (like me before I knew of this film) and in all honesty, not enough is made of it's use for legal chicanery to justify naming the entire shebang after it. The best use of the vehicle comes when Haller is negotiating with a group of very hairy bikers. It's all set up to project an image of devil-may-care, maverick law practise. You're not supposed to like Haller, yet.
Not that is until he starts the defense of Louis Roulet (like the wheel, he announces wrongly), played by Ryan Phillipe. He's a rich kid accused of the brutal assault and rape of an expensive prostitute. Why does a rich kid need to be using prostitutes? Those with money tend not to need it, don't they? Anyhow, it doesn't take long before we realise that Roulet is guilty, and we start demanding that our man Haller do something about it. At this point I began wondering about Haller. He can't tell anyone that Roulet has confessed to the crime, and a much worse one to boot, because of lawyer-client confidentiality. Yet rather than walk away and let Roulet find himself another defender he carries on, performing brilliantly considering the amount of alcohol he has consumed.
All of which leads to a mildly surprising and slightly less than mildly satisfactory ending. This film is not a classic but there is much to enjoy in McConaughey's return to form, from the all-too-short involvement of William H Macy as the investigator who sniffs out the details of Roulet's involvement in the grisly crime, to the woefully under-used but permanently smiling Marisa Tomei as Haller's ex-wife and mother of his young daughter.
They're still friends. Well, you'd want to stay in Marisa Tomei's good books.
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