01-01-2023

"This is the story of my older brother's strange criminal behaviour and disappearance. We who loved him no longer speak of Wade. It's as if he never existed."

The story is set in the ironically named Lawford, North Dakota. Population: very few. Few enough that everyone knows everyone and everyone's business. Anyone who could have left has run away ages ago and the town is now populated either by those who stay because they're too broke to leave or those who stay because they can exploit those too broke to leave.

One of the former is Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte), a hulking lump of masculine impotence. He's the town policeman but no one seems to pay him much heed. His duties include ploughing the snow that never seems to stop falling, directing traffic, and doing odd jobs for local businessman Gordon LaRiviere (Holmes Osborne) who seems to hold the whole town in the palm of his hand.

Wade at one point in the film describes himself as a dog and like a stray everyone seems to kick him about. His wife has left him and shacked up with a new lover and his daughter feels uneasy around him. When he goes to issue a parking ticket, the driver shuts the door right in his face. But like a whipped dog, he says, "some night I'm gonna bite back, I swear!"

His opportunity to bite back comes in the form of a hunting accident which takes the life of a big city hotshot who was scheduled to testify against the mob. Despite all the evidence saying that the man slipped and shot himself, Wade becomes certain that he was killed on the orders of LaRiviere. When he learns that his boss is planning to turn the whole town into a ski resort, he makes solving the death his personal mission.

But this is no "Chinatown", the whole property deal and the murder plot are nothing more than a symptom of Wade's affliction, a genetic disease which was passed down to him from his abusive father Glen (James Coburn). The best scenes of the movie are between the two men when the giant, broad-shouldered Wade shrinks into a little boy before his father, still reeling from the punches he received decades ago.

Wade has a solid opportunity to get out of the family tradition of violence and despair. He has a good job and a loving girlfriend in the form of his childhood sweetheart Margie (Sissy Spacek), a woman with a seemingly unlimited capacity for love, something Wade has no experience of. Sadly, as is clear from the opening scene, Wade is a weight in freefall and anyone who attaches themselves to him is doomed to fall.

What is then the affliction of the title that has destroyed the Whitehouse family and is threatening to turn Wade into a raving lunatic? Is it alcoholism, violence, small-town depression? A good case can be made for it being good old-fashioned masculine cruelty. A self-flagellating quest to live up to your childhood image of your father. Wade's father was a violent alcoholic and as violence does it eats its victims from the inside for the rest of their lives.

"Affliction" is a tough movie to watch. It's an uncompromisingly depressing harrowing into a broken man's life. It's torture porn where instead of blood and guts we are showered with psychological gore. I spent the last twenty minutes, the film's most torturous, with my head in my hands. I felt like I was watching two trains heading for a collision. You can shout all you want but you know it's too late for them to break.

This is quintessential Paul Schrader territory. He's a writer and director with a real interest in these masculine guys whose own inadequacies drive them to self-destruction. His films are often about people on the margin of society looking for their place in the world and, more often than not, they never find it. It's such perfect Schrader material that it is hard to believe it's not an original script. Instead, it's based on a novel by Russell Banks, one of the best chroniclers of small towns whose other snowbound novel was turned by Atom Egoyan into "The Sweet Hereafter".

Schrader shoots the film with a matter-of-fact simplicity which makes it even harder to watch. He trusts his material and his cast and he's right to do so. Nolte, an actor whom I don't always like, is absolutely perfect as Wade. His hulking stature is a striking contrast to the small child he is inside. Sissy Spacek, a masterfully subtle actress provides the film with a heart, a love which is slowly extinguished as Wade drifts deeper into insanity. Also perfectly cast are the locals led by a wonderfully quirky Holmes Osborne.

Still, it is James Coburn who runs away with the picture providing here as accurate a portrayal of vitriol and burning rage as I've ever seen. His Glen is rotting with disease, he's drunken, confused, angry, sad, and toxic to even the slightest touch. He seeds tragedy and chaos wherever he goes and every scene he's in ends in a fight or tears. It's a magnificent performance from a much-underrated actor.

4/4

01-01-2023

Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the dapper, Southern-accented great detective from Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" is back in "Glass Onion", a highly entertaining variation on the same theme. Johnson must be a huge mystery nerd since "Glass Onion" pays tribute not only to the obvious luminaries of the genre such as Agatha Christie and Angela Lansbury but also to its underrated masterpieces.

The plot is a clear homage to "The Last of Sheila", a sadly ignored wonder that I would go out on a limb to claim as the finest original cinematic mystery. And just in case you make the mistake of thinking the similarities are accidental, Johnson throws in a cameo from that film's co-writer, none other than Stephen Sondheim himself.

Both films begin with a gathering of old friends for a murder mystery weekend. In both films, throwing the party is a much hated and much kissed-up-to rich guy, this time round a tech billionaire named Miles Bron (Edward Norton). And, just as in most mysteries, in both films, the friends are revealed to be not so friendly, the game turns fatal, and there is far more to the story than meets the eye.

The suspects include left-wing political Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), noted scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), fashion icon Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her personal assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick), and finally, a gun-toting men's rights activist Duke (Dave Bautista) who shows up with his sexy much younger girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline). Yeah, Whisky!

Then arrives a less welcome guest. Like Jackie in "Death on the Nile", along for the ride is the cool and scheming Andi (Janelle Monáe), Miles' former business partner whom he cheated out of billions and who's been shunned by her former friends.

This rag-tag group of supposed friends is headed for Miles' private island in Greece where the dock has been designed by Banksy, the time is announced by an hourly gong composed by Phillip Glass, and the rich man's residence is shaped like a giant glass onion. "Something that seems densely layered, mysterious and inscrutable. But in fact, the centre is in plain sight."

As I said, Rian Johnson must be a massive mystery nerd because the joy with which he approaches this movie with all its homages, references, and twists on old tropes is absolutely infectious. I am also a huge mystery nerd and the grin on my face was a permanent fixture throughout the 140-minute runtime which passes by like a breeze.

Everyone else seems to be having a ball as well, especially Kate Hudson who chews the scenery with the delight of a venerable theatrical ham. John Gielgud would be envious of such a fun, energetic, over-the-top performance.

In fact, the whole cast is a joy to watch. Daniel Craig is again an absolute blast as Benoit Blanc doing a masterful job of balancing the goofiness and improbabilities of the character while remaining utterly convincing and in command of the screen.

But it must be said that this movie is utterly stolen by Janelle Monáe. To reveal the extent of her role in the film would be to spoil some of its delights but she is absolutely wonderful as the mysterious Andi. Monáe was great in "Hidden Figures" and "Moonlight" but it is here that I recognised her for the first time as a first-rate actress. Her charm, charisma, and talent for transformation carry the picture's second half.

The mystery itself is sadly not all that much to write home about. The perpetrator is very obvious, their plan disappointingly simple, the clues not all that hidden. Like in "Knives Out", Johnson relies a lot more on shocking narrative swerves to entertain the audience. Hey, it works but I do wish these movies had tighter, more demanding puzzles at their heart like "The Last of Sheila".

But it is a minor niggle in what is a delightful, entertaining, and very well-made film. Rian Johnson shows once again what an imaginative director he is and the film has his visual flair that I remember impressing me when I first saw his debut (and still unmatched) film "Brick". Couple that with some eye-catching production design by Rich Heinrichs and a lush, sweeping score by Nathan Johnson (which reminded me, aptly enough, of Nino Rota's work on "Death on the Nile") and "Glass Onion" is a real treat for a mystery lover such as myself.

3.5/4

04-01-2023

Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) is a dying man. Everyone around him knows it and, like vultures, his family crowds around him waiting to pick apart his considerable business empire. However, Henrik has no intention of dying before trying once more to put a particular mystery at rest. The 40-year-old disappearance of his favourite niece Harriet.

The film begins with a cold, dark shot of the aged Henrik carefully unwrapping a package containing a framed dried flower just like the ones lining the walls of his study. Just like the ones Harriet used to give him. He believes her killer has been sending them over the decades, taunting him, prodding at his grief.

In order to solve the mystery, the old man hires Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a journalist who has just left "Millennium", the left-wing magazine he used to write for in a cloud of controversy. Looking for a reason to get out of Stockholm for a while, he accepts Henrik's offer and moves out to his chilling, picturesque island where he begins to dig around for 40-year-old skeletons in the dusty Vagner family closets.

The mystery in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" more closely resembles a ghost story. It has that mournful, wintry atmosphere with its long shots of wintry Scandinavian landscapes courtesy of DP Eric Kress and a moody score by Jacob Groth. Most of Mikael's investigation consists of digging through old files, upsetting decades-old clouds of dust (both metaphorical and literal), and staring at grainy photographs of the beautiful, blonde Harriet whose wry smile implies more secrets than the Mona Lisa's.

It is a good story, worthy of the best of Scandinavian noir literature, so it is a shame that the film rushes through some of its complexities. It is a strange accusation to level against a 150-minute-long movie (180 minutes in the extended version) but it's true. Not only are some of the mechanics of the mystery (the family gathering, the closed bridge which made sure no one could leave the island at the time of the disappearance) given only a cursory explanation but none of the suspects are fleshed out or made particularly memorable. This, in particular, irks me since they're played by such fantastic Swedish actors as Peter Haber and Marika Lagercrantz. Unfortunately, they fade into the background of a movie that has a wholly different agenda.

What "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is much more interested in is examining is the burgeoning relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth Salander, the titular 24-year-old hacker who is the most fascinating mystery at the heart of this film and the novel trilogy by Stieg Larsson it is based on. As played by the excellent Noomi Rapace, Lisbeth is a cypher, a monosyllabic, uncomfortable presence who hides her deep distrust of everyone behind a tough exterior. She wears her black leather jacket, her piercings, and her tattoos like a suit of armour designed to keep all prying eyes away from her stormy emotions. What happened to her? What made her this way? Who hurt her? These are the driving questions behind the trilogy and ultimately prove a lot more rewarding than the disappearance of Harriet Vagner.

For those who find the 150-minute theatrical cut too short, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" also has a 180-minute extended version produced for Swedish television. The additional 30 minutes provide some nice character beats (Lisbeth eating some disgusting slush while watching a family having a Christmas dinner through her window, Mikael's relationship with his editor Erika which is shaken by the intrusion of Lisbeth into his life) but for the most part, the extra scenes add little to the story. Instead of focusing more on the Vanger family as I had hoped, the additional scenes delve more into the politics of the Millennium magazine and the possibility of a mole in their midst. All of these scenes probably serve to flesh out characters who will become important in the coming instalments but do little for this film.

Whichever cut of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" you watch you'll still find the film an elegant, fascinating, and atmospheric thriller which even with its 150-minute runtime still feels pacey and gripping. I do wish the Vanger family was fleshed out more but the focus on Mikael and Lisbeth proves to be a wise choice in the long run. Their relationship, predicated on Lisbeth's need for a trustworthy, reliable figure in her lonely life, is the high point of the series as a whole.

3.5/4

04-01-2023

Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the mysterious girl with the dragon tattoo hacker is back in "The Girl Who Played with Fire", yet another techno-thriller named after her. Based on the second novel of the Millennium trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson, it begins with the murder of an investigative journalist and his wife who were working together on uncovering the tangled web of human trafficking. Never a good idea in these kinds of movies!

Their bodies are discovered by Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), Lisbeth's journalist friend from the previous film who is shocked to learn that the murder weapon has her fingerprints on it. Continuing the gradual reveal of Lisbeth's backstory, we now learn that she spent time in a mental institution as a child and is considered potentially dangerous.

Armed with this information, the police begin their pursuit of the seemingly untraceable hacker. Determined to clear her name, Mikael follows the trail of the human traffickers which eventually leads him to a former KGB agent named Zala (Georgi Staykov) and his goon Niedermann (Micke Spreitz) who suffers from a rare genetic disorder that makes him impervious to pain. Those are some James Bond villains right there!

"The Girl Who Played with Fire" is a marked change in tone and pace from "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Whereas its lauded predecessor was a quiet, atmospheric detective story, here we have a moderately actionized sequel whose occasionally implausible plot would be better served with a lead like Jason Bourne. We get fight scenes, car chases, and dramatic escapes from burning buildings until we start to wonder if we are, in fact, watching an instalment in the same franchise.

There's a new director at the helm as well. Niels Arden Oplev has been replaced by Daniel Alfredson which may account for a faster pace and a significantly less atmospheric movie. Still, Alfredson does pretty well at keeping the film's unfocused plot together. His one weakness is action scenes which are laughably awkward and slow. Especially the punch-up in the barn which reminded me of the climactic fight scene in Godfrey Ho's "Undefeatable". It's not nearly as over-the-top but it's every bit as clunky.

The truth of the matter is that "The Girl Who Played with Fire" was never meant to be released cinematically. It was originally shot for Swedish television and its origins are most evident in its dull-looking visuals. A new cinematographer (Peter Mokrosinski) certainly accounts for this. Gone are the cold, moody shots of Scandinavian landscapes, replaced instead with flat-looking medium shots and an overabundance of close-ups.

But the big problems of the film lie at the heart of the story which sidelines Lisbeth, its most interesting and engaging character, for the first two-thirds. She spends most of the movie having arty flashbacks in her apartment and learning of plot developments through (frankly hilarious) newspaper headlines. "GANG LED BY LESBIAN SATANIST," reads my favourite accompanied by dramatic music.

The third act, where she finally joins the plot, brings further disappointments. Namely, far too much is revealed about her past far too quickly and the movie merely glazes over some truly disturbing content. The level of abuse and trauma mentioned offhandedly in this film would require a movie of its own to flesh out and deal with properly.

There is an extended version of the movie produced for Swedish television which ups the runtime to 180 minutes. Surprisingly, the additional hour does nothing to improve the story. Instead, most of it focuses on the police investigation and a rather annoying homophobic detective whose presence has thankfully been cut from the theatrical version. I say stick with the shorter cut.

I've ragged a lot on "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and indeed it is something of a disappointing left turn into action-movie territory for the franchise. Still, there are lots of positives here. Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist are still interesting, charismatic leads and the film gives them a lot of support in lieu of something fascinating new characters. I like the bedraggled Jewish detective (Johan Kylen), the old social worker who is the only person Lisbeth truly cares about (Per Oscarsson), Lisbeth's occasional girlfriend with her sassy attitude and an overbearing French mother (Yasmine Garbi), and the retired Swedish policeman who will do anything not to get dragged into the plot (Ralph Carlsson).

With all its flaws, "The Girl Who Played with Fire" is still an entertaining thriller whose charms kept my attention. Even though those charms are distinctly televisual and sometimes come across as a lot funnier than they were intended to be, I did like this movie enough to recommend it. Just, for the love of god, keep boxer Paolo Roberto away from acting. He does a stunningly poor job playing the one role you'd think he could pull off - himself.

2.5/4

05-01-2023

Who would have thought that after the spooky mystery in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and the rousing slasher-like shoot-'em-up climax of "The Girl Who Played with Fire", the Millennium trilogy would end with a talky courtroom showdown? I suppose, however, that's what happens when you base films on novels written by journalists. No matter how much shooting, killing, and plotting takes place during the plot, eventually, everything culminates with a properly worded summation.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" is another genre shift for the disjointed but consistently entertaining trilogy. Now we're fully into Robert Ludlum/John le Carre territory as it turns out that the Swedish Secret Service itself is plotting against our favourite antiauthoritarian hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). Sadly, she's once again relegated to the sidelines of the plot as it falls on her friend, the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to sort out the plot. Sure, the secrets of Lisbeth Salander's childhood are the key to its unravelling but don't the filmmakers know we don't want Lisbeth, the most interesting character of the whole franchise, to spend the whole film in jail? We want to see her investigate, hack, beat up bad guys, and generally look cool and vulnerable in her black leather jacket riding a motorcycle through gloomy Swedish landscapes.

None of that happens in "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" and yet the film is highly enjoyable if you like these kinds of jigsaw plots in which spies and politicians come up with increasingly more complex and ludicrous plots to outplay each other.

The plot is incredibly complicated which is not really a fault in spy thrillers. We expect it and even enjoy it in the genre whose main selling points are secrets, false identities, and double-crosses. Still, this film suffers very much from what could be called "the novel adaptation syndrome". You see, Stieg Larsson can, in 600 pages, throw up as many balls into the air as he wishes because he has more than enough time to catch them all. A movie, even if it is 150 minutes long requires a more streamlined, straightforward narrative.

Instead, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" offers us an abundance of protagonists (four journalists, a lawyer, two hackers, a likeable doctor, and two good spies), an abundance of antagonists (god knows how many evil spies, one pedophilic doctor, a homophobic cop, and a corrupt prosecutor), and two branches of the Swedish secret service working against each other for no reason that's ever explained in the film itself.

With so many plotlines (add to that several that carry over from the previous film) and characters to keep track of, additional runtime is quite welcome. Thankfully, there's the 180-minute-long extended version produced for Swedish television. Even though the additional 30 minutes don't tell us anything new (in fact, they answer many questions no one's asked) they allow for the complicated plot to breathe more and the slower pacing allows us to catch up with its many intricacies. For once, I think I'd recommend seeing the longer version.

But whatever version you do end up seeing, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" is a fun if a tad talky romp through some familiar spy cliches. It was, like its predecessor, originally produced for television and not intended for cinematic release which accounts for its bland visuals and sometimes clunky production values.

What is still first-rate, however, is the cast and this film offers some very memorable and imaginative characters. The evil spies especially are fun. They are led by two elderly men one of whom is dying of liver cancer while the other issues assassination orders while attached to a dialysis machine. Nevertheless, when they walk into their evil lair, everyone stands at attention. That's the level of respect they command and the actors playing them, Hans Alfredson and Lennart Hjulstrom, absolutely nail both the absurdity and the menace of these aged spymasters.

Also terrific are Anders Ahlbom Rosendahl as a leering psychiatrist, Ylva Loof as a no-nonsense judge, Annika Hallin as Lisbeth's defender, and Micke Spreitz as a hulking goon who is impervious to pain. But it is our two leads, Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, who have carried this trilogy so far with their chemistry and charisma. It is a huge shame that they've only shared three brief, almost wordless scenes in the last two movies. What a tremendous waste!

As directed by Daniel Alfredson, the 150-minute "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" is not exactly pacy nor particularly stylish but it kept my attention with its jigsaw plot and numerous twists. I like spy movies and even though this is not one of the very best, it is entertaining and occasionally quite wryly humorous. It's not exactly a rousing finale for the trilogy but it is a satisfying conclusion.

3/4

07-01-2023

Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) brings the same amount of blind enthusiasm to Christmas as he does to his vacations. He is so determined to achieve his perfect dream of an old-fashioned Griswold Family Christmas that failure is the only option. He cuts down the most enormous Christmas tree and yet it can't fit in his living room. He decorates the house with 2500 imported Italian Christmas lights, yet they don't seem to work. He invites his family over for Christmas and they all show up! You can see where this is going. The premise is extremely basic but the film is funny and the laughs buoy it despite its deficiencies.

The film was written by John Hughes and it seems to me that the success of his scripts is down to whether the director in charge can wrestle them into shape. Chris Columbus did it spectacularly well with "Home Alone", combining its several disparate plot lines into a sensible narrative without losing any of the script's humour. The director of "Christmas Vacation", Jeremiah Chechik is somewhat less successful and the film lacks a solid structure. There's no real story here, no plot to hold the jokes together. Instead, the film plays as a compilation of old-fashioned gags ranging from naughty pets tearing up the house to people stepping on pesky planks.

The characters gathered at the Griswold house are a motley, colourful bunch, memorably goofy and at times, frankly, bizarre. Randy Quaid is easily the funniest to me as Cousin Eddie, a grotesque comedic creation that has been deftly fleshed out from a one-note joke in the original "Vacation" into a genuinely entertaining character. Beside him, there's also the bickering in-laws, the senile aunt and uncle, and a yuppie couple next door who don't appreciate Clark's Christmas spirit. They are a lot more stereotypical than Cousin Eddie and a fair bit less memorable.

A bigger problem, however, is that in a script as undisciplined and lacking in structure as this, there are no truly likeable characters. They're all funny, for sure, but I didn't find anyone (including Clark) whom I would care and root for. No one here has a character arc or that one important goal to achieve for the holidays. When everyone's a comedic creation there's no one to identify with and it hurts the picture.

But "Christmas Vacation" is funny and strangely full of heart. It is also the quintessential easy viewing exactly because it lacks a plot. You can leave whenever you want and come back into the picture without having missed any important information. It works kind of like a sketch show where every few minutes we forget everything that came before and move on to the next set-up.

It is easy to see why "Christmas Vacation" is such a holiday classic. It's light, breezy, funny, and even heartwarming. I like it but I do wish its characters had more humanity and that it had a real point to make. It lacks a sharpness, a focus, or maybe a satirical edge. I would have been very interested to see, for instance, how the idealistic Clark Griswold would deal with the cynical commercialisation of Christmas. But then that would be "Jingle All the Way", wouldn't it?

3/4

09-01-2023

Written by the usually competent TV scribe Anthony Horowitz, the creator of the wonderful "Foyle's War" and "Murder in Mind", "The Gathering" is a dull horror movie that feebly combines two very different stories into a clunky, disjointed whole.

The first story follows Cassie (Christina Ricci), an American tourist visiting a quaint British village who is struck down by a car driven by a local woman named Marion (Kerry Fox). Even though Cassie is miraculously uninjured, Marion feels guilty and invites her to stay over at her house while she recuperates. Not only does Marion invite Cassie, a complete stranger, over she also lets her babysit her two young kids. Hasn't she heard of strange danger or at least seen "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"?

Following her accident, Cassie is suffering from short-term memory loss and can't remember why she has come to this small village but she keeps seeing locals whom she recognises and who seem to recognise her. She is also suffering from an acute case of the jump scare premonitions syndrome which was sadly common in hack 2000s horror movies. The main symptom of this potentially fatal disease is the sudden and seemingly pointless visions of people bleeding out of their mouths or with bullet holes in their chests accompanied by loud orchestral screeches.

This is a familiar horror set-up done here in a rather listless and unengaging fashion. Despite Cassie's premonitions and amnesia, there's no real mystery to solve and Cassie does little in the film besides looking scared and not telling her doctor that she's having hallucinations. She also meets a mysterious local man named Dan (Ioan Gruffudd) whom she falls in love with despite the two of them having no chemistry and very few scenes together.

Cassie is played by Christina Ricci in a lacklustre performance lacking in energy or charisma. She seems about as interested in the plot surrounding her as I was. This is a really lifeless performance. Her on-screen partner Ioan Gruffudd is no better giving one of those horror movie performances where a character's ambiguity is suggested through monotone delivery and frequent squinting.

The film's second story is more interesting but no more engagingly executed and is a kind of a Nigel Kneale throwback which begins when a pair of horny teenagers fall down a hole in the ground and discover a first-century church (as you do!). Marion's husband Simon (Stephen Dillane), a local restoration expert, is asked by the diocese to examine the church and the first thing he notices is that the crucifix is backward, with the figure of Jesus Christ with his back to us! This curious altar seems instead to be dedicated to the crowd surrounded around Jesus watching the crucifixion.

Simon and a local vicar (Simon Russell Beale) investigate and soon discover the same faces as depicted on the altarpiece in the photos of JFK's assassination, the Hiroshima bombing, and other familiar atrocities that are always brought up in these kinds of movies.

I like this idea of a group of immortal beings who gather to observe atrocities very much but nothing at all interesting is done with this premise which is explained so many times over the course of the film that I became quite tired of it by the end.

"The Gathering" is a listless film, dull and lacking in excitement or atmosphere and with the look and feel of a cheap television horror movie. The performances are bored and its notable cast seems irked at having to deliver the constant barrage of exposition. Who can blame them There are some intriguing ideas in Horowitz's script but the film never generates any sense of danger or mystery around them making the whole experience one of boredom rather than horror.

1.5/4

09-01-2023

I've become weary of films which place famous historical figures in genre contexts. We've now seen Sigmund Freud meet Sherlock Holmes, Abraham Lincoln hunt vampires, and the Brothers Grimm face a witch. Hell, Jesus was an alien in "Prometheus" and it seems that every famous person alive in 1888 has at one point been accused of being Jack the Ripper. It's hardly a new idea and the novelty has definitely worn off at the time when I am watching "The Pale Blue Eye", a second instalment in what I am now retroactively declaring the Edgar Allan Poe: Serial Killer Hunter franchise. The first was, of course, the intermittently entertaining but entirely unremarkable "The Raven" and I am happy to report that this film, based on a novel by Louis Bayard, is a fair bit better if not much more memorable than its predecessor.

The first big reason why it works is the thick gothic atmosphere that it is shrouded in thanks to some truly beautiful and dark cinematography by Masanobu Takayanagi. His impressive work gives the film a bone-chilling mood of lethargy, looming death, and mystery. As shot by Takayanagi, the foggy and picturesque landscapes, hills, and forests that surround West Point acquire an almost mythical and definitely poetic air. Even though the film wisely rarely directly quotes from Poe's works, its look perfectly captures the doom-laden feel of his poetry.

It is a shame then that so much of the film is set in underlit rooms where middle-aged men can debate the plot at great length. Scott Cooper's unimaginative, almost televisual direction is one of the film's biggest drawbacks as it lacks the dynamics and urgency needed to tell a good detective yarn. But more on that later.

Now let us address momentarily the second reason why the film works. That is Harry Melling, an actor I last remember seeing as Harry Potter's goofy cousin Dudley. His fantastic performance here, however, has completely changed my mental image of him as he seems to have grown into a first-class actor. He plays a young Edgar Allan Poe here and fits the role like a glove. Not only does he inhabit Poe's bizarre look and manners completely naturally, but he also manages to make this larger-than-life character feel utterly real, as if without pretence or caricature. He does not pose as Poe, he delivers a performance full of emotion, empathy, and humanity and is an absolute joy to see on screen.

The plot occurs in 1830 when Poe was a cadet at West Point and screenwriter/director Scott Cooper wastes no time introducing us into the thick of the plot. The film begins with a gorgeous shot of a corpse dangling off a tree in a fog-laden wood. It belongs to another cadet and it has been mutilated. More specifically, its heart has been removed.

The distressed commanding officers at West Point played very well by a sinister Simon McBurney and a haggard-looking Timothy Spall turn for help to a retired former police detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale). He is now a drunk (as all retired cops are according to the movies) living in a cold, rundown shack in the forests around West Point but he agrees to help.

Of course, there are more murders and, of course, Edgar Allan Poe becomes involved but the mechanics of the plot barely matter. I have not read Louis Bayard's novel but I was not particularly impressed with the mystery here. It deals with particularly tired cliches involving ancient satanic rituals, a serial killer, and the quest for immortality all of which is explained in a tiresome expository monologue by Robert Duvall in one of those one-scene-only roles that Donald Sutherland now specializes in.

I was also less than impressed by the story's climax. Not only is the mystery disappointingly easy to solve (there are very few suspects after all) but it all degenerates into a rather boring scene featuring a fire, lots of Latin chanting, and a physical confrontation where a good, sharp dialogue scene would have been preferable. Thankfully, there is a much, much better and more surprising scene that serves as the film's epilogue, but I shan't spoil that. It is, after all, the film's best.

No, what works here is the gorgeous photography, some nice but decidedly stock music by Howard Shore, and superb performances from an impressive cast. Besides Melling and Bale who develop a kind of mentor/mentee relationship, the smaller parts are filled by such luminaries as Toby Jones, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Gillian Anderson, and the aforementioned Spall and McBurney. They are minor parts, for sure, but their presence lends the film a kind of prestige. Furthermore, they all seem to be having quite a lot of fun parading around West Point and their amusement becomes contagious. Especially enjoyable is McBurney who chews through the stony scenery with great gusto and ease.

Overall, I enjoyed "The Pale Blue Eye" more often than not even if the story and the listless direction never match the energy and the atmosphere of its talented cast and cinematographer. Cooper's script and direction are too stagey and lacking in excitement and urgency for the film to work as a thriller but it does work as a character piece enveloped in a kind of existential gloom, especially when, like in the film's finest and final scene, Bale and Melling are allowed to bounce off each other without intrusion from Latin chanting and pesky serial killers.

2.5/4

10-01-2023

"Diamond Skulls" begins in a wood-panelled room of an upper-class London club where a reunion is taking place between the snide and conceited Hugo (Gabriel Byrne), the future Lord Crewne, and his three best friends from his army days. The three men are dressed in perfectly pressed, elegant, red uniforms. Hugo is in his finest tux as is Hugo's city friend and right-hand man Peter (Struan Rodger) who has been invited along for the party because "it might be interesting for him".

The five men stand solemnly for a toast to the Queen. The scene then cuts to them drunk as skunks riding on each other's backs and shouting incoherently. Much of the film's clever, biting, subtle humour relies on similar juxtapositions between solemn ceremony and drunken revelry.

After the party, Hugo demands to drive his friend's new car, a sleek black Jaguar. Of course, in their state they shouldn't be anywhere near a car but who would dare tell that to these men bred to lead the country? In a moment of absent-mindedness, Hugo drives the Jag into a lone woman crossing the street and promptly kills her. The men run out of the car if for no other reason than to ascertain the social status of the person they've just killed. "She's nobody," declares one of the soldiers when he sees her cheap clothes. Silently agreeing that their lives are more important than hers, they return to the car and continue on their merry way.

The very next day, the friends meet up again at the stately manor home of Hugo's senile father (Michael Hordern) and his snobbish, imperious mother (Judy Parfitt). One of the friends, Jamie (Douglas Hodge), who is regarded by the others as almost working class due to the mere fact that he does not possess a title, is having a crisis of consciousness. He confides his feelings to Hugo who, on the other hand, behaves like he's forgotten that anything's even happened. "I don't feel guilty," says Hugo in a clear, threatening manner.

Hugo has something else on his mind. He has a sneaking suspicion which grows into an obsession that his ex-model wife Ginny (Amanda Donohoe) is cheating on him with her Argentinian co-worker Raul (Matthew Marsh). Considering that the film begins with one of the soldiers saying "You've really missed something in the Falklands, Hugo", that's just adding insult to injury.

"Diamond Skulls" is an unusual movie in that it was advertised and indeed begins like an erotic thriller. Amanda Donohoe's breasts make an appearance before the opening credits and the hit-and-run murder generates some real tension between the friends. The film, however, quickly swerves into wholly different territory and becomes a wryly sardonic satire on the penniless aristocracy who continue to behave as though they rule the land.

The film was directed by brilliant documentarian Nick Broomfield who has a first-rate eye for the absurd. I love the scene in which Hugo's aristocratic mother goes around her stately mansion putting sellotape over considerable cracks in the walls. No, the aristocracy has clearly become irrelevant and all their existence is a kind of bizarre self-deception in which they exile themselves to their decaying country houses and playact the 1930s. It's all terribly incestuous and Broomfield squeezes a lot of laughs out of it. I particularly like the scene in which the aristocrats have to eat lunch in the servant's quarters because the house is open to the public that day. They still, however, retain their proper disdain for the great unwashed who have banished them from their own home. But, hey, you gotta earn a living somehow.

Hugo himself is supposedly a big city businessman but he's merely a mascot for the company which is actually run by his business partner Peter. Their relationship is one of the best in the film as Hugo treats Peter like a kind of a fixer, a special servant, when in fact it is Peter who treats Hugo like an idiot, merely patronizing him like a child because he thinks his title looks good on the letterhead.

Despite its surprisingly negative reputation nowadays, there is a lot that is excellent in "Diamond Skulls". The cast is especially wonderful. Gabriel Byrne is always an interesting lead as he possesses a mysterious moral ambiguity that lends every character he plays much-needed complexity. Amanda Donohoe is a first-rate screen partner for him as she oozes sexuality but also a kind of strange wholesomeness making us question Hugo's suspicions. The rest of the cast is made up of recognisable and reliable British actors including Douglas Hodge, Michael Hordern, Ralph Brown, Matthew Marsh, Judy Parfitt, Sadie Frost, and the always wonderful Ian Carmichael. However, it is Struan Rodger's sinister turn that really caught my eye as the city businessman who is lower in class than the lords and ladies he socializes with but is much more influential and relevant than they are as he very well knows.

The film's failing, however, is its pace which is so deliberate that it's downright glacial. It is clear that Broomfield wanted to achieve a kind of voyeuristic, observational tone but it comes at the price of much-needed urgency and excitement. The film has a lot of psychological tension in it but it never reaches the intensity of a thriller nor the right kind of climax. Emotions boil under its surface but the explosion never comes making "Diamond Skulls" a disappointingly subdued affair.

An excellent cast and some very well-observed satirical humour make "Diamond Skulls" more than a curio in Nick Broomfield's career. It is a film worth seeing but with tempered expectations. Even though it may quack and walk and look like a thriller, it never comes close to any easily definable cinematic form. Tim Rose Price's script is clever and engaging but it needed a rewrite to make it more focused and more exciting. As it stands this is an intriguing but decidedly frigid film.

2.5/4

11-01-2023

The rousing opening sequence that opens David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's bestselling novel "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" suggests that it might take a different approach to this techno-thriller than its Swedish counterpart directed by Niels Arden Oplev. The nightmarish animated titles feature a black oil-like goo seeping from computers and enveloping our leads to a fantastic cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song".

Following such a powerful opening, I expected a more intense take on the story that would focus more on the cyber technology that hacker Lisbeth Salander is the master of. Instead, Fincher's film is surprisingly close to Oplev's both in tone (sombre, dark, gothic) and pace (slow, detailed, atmospheric). Both movies also take a lot of pleasure in having their leads thumb through mounds of 40-year-old documents and photographs disturbing ancient clouds of dust (both literally and metaphorically).

I can't say I'm exactly disappointed that Fincher didn't take a radically different course in telling the same story. This is a typically superbly executed film in which Fincher once again proves his complete mastery of the thriller genre. However, having seen (and liked) the Swedish film and having read the novel, this movie doesn't offer up nearly enough innovation on the source material to make it a worthwhile watch for me.

The story is the same. Once again, investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by dying industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the disappearance of his favourite niece which has haunted him for over 40 years. He believes the girl was killed by someone in his reclusive, feuding family marred by its Nazi past. However, someone has been sending Henrik framed flowers, his niece's hobby, ever since her disappearance.

Mikael takes up the monumental task but soon finds himself coming up against a number of obstacles, the first being opposition from the kooky Vanger clan who, with their black suits and pale faces, resemble a cabal of vampires. The biggest obstacle, however, is the sheer amount of material and the confusing family tree that Mikael has to make sense of.

To help take the load off, he hires a private detective as a research assistant. The detective is one Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), the titular 24-year-old who wears her black leather jacket, tattoos, and piercings as a kind of suit of armour designed to keep everyone out. More interesting than solving the murder, is the mystery of its two detectives. The world-weary journalist and the mysterious, vulnerable goth hacker.

As can be expected Fincher's film is the more stylish one. This is a more subdued film than Fincher's usual. There are very few fancy camera moves and no shots of cameras going through keyholes. However, the gloomy cinematography courtesy of Jeff Cronenweth and some very clever visual tricks that are Fincher's trademark build up a terrifically engrossing atmosphere of shivering cold and ghosts of times long gone by.

Unexpectedly, however, the Swedish film is the one that tells the story better. Fincher's film, written by Steven Zaillian, tries its best to wrestle with Larsson's doorstopper novel but doesn't quite manage to convey all the plot points with the clarity of its predecessor. I wish there was more of a focus on the other murders that Mikel and Lisbeth uncover in the course of their inquiry. I wish it was made clearer exactly what Lisbeth uncovered in the Vanger company archives. Zaillian's script comes across as a little muddled in trying to fit in as much of the book as it can. Maybe it would have been smarter, in hindsight, to cut the surrounding material revolving around Mikael's journalistic career and all the foreshadowing of the sequels that never came and instead focus solely on the mystery at hand.

What Zaillian's script does do better is flesh out the side characters which the Swedish film sadly ignored. Now we get a much better and clearer handle on our suspects played by such terrific actors as Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Steven Berkoff, Martin Jarvis, Inga Landgre, Geraldine James, and Joely Richardson. Also nicely rounded is the character of Mikael's editor/lover played by Robin Wright. I preferred this version of her character because we finally get to meet her cuckold husband and actually see something of her life outside of her relationship with Mikael.

I also very much liked the central performances of Craig and Mara though maybe not quite as much as those by Mikael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace. Nyqvist and Rapace felt more real, less polished and movie-like. Still, Craig is a terrifically likeable presence on screen and Mara's complex performance as the vulnerable, aggressive, unapproachable, and deeply hurt Lisbeth is her career best. They are worthy successors to the originals if not quite authentic enough to replace them in my mind.

Speaking of authenticity, I have to add a quick sidenote on how much I hate it when films set entirely in foreign countries feel the necessity to make their actors speak English in cod accents. The Swedish accents here are not quite as distracting as they could have been but they are entirely unnecessary. I get it that we're in Sweden and everyone's Swedish. No need for the film to constantly remind me. I hope this practice dies a quick death.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a slick, stylish, exciting thriller but one that is not necessary viewing for those who've seen the Swedish original or read the novel. It has some terrific performances, a great director at its helm, beautiful visuals and a wonderfully atmospheric score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, but it doesn't do anything new with the story that had already been successfully adapted mere two years before.

3/4

12-01-2023

It's a shame that David Fincher never got his chance to film the entirety of the Millennium trilogy. While I wasn't completely wowed by his take on "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I would have been fascinated to see what he would do with that novel's subsequent, more problematic sequels. But, due to what only Hollywood would consider a disappointing box-office return of the first film, the sequels were cancelled.

Of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, no property is safe until all attempts have been made to squeeze every last nickel from it. So, Sony Pictures decided to axe Fincher, Daniel Craig, and Rooney Mara and reboot the franchise. This time around, they skipped the original three novels written by Stieg Larsson and went straight for the legacy sequels penned after Larsson's death by David Lagercrantz.

It's a bizarre move and one obviously doomed to failure. Why? Well, for one, the plot relies quite heavily on events from the subsequent books and while they were filmed in Sweden in 2009, I'm sure that only the biggest of fans remember all the twists and turns and shocking revelations. The other problem is that this film, "The Girl in the Spider's Web", doesn't really bother to reintroduce its characters assuming that we, the audience, are already familiar with them. Except, we're not. And not because we don't remember the Fincher film. We do. But because the characters have been recast and changed to such a degree that we do not recognise them as the characters we had grown to care for.

So, watching this film is a strange experience. It feels sort of like a sequel to three films that were never made or an episode from the middle of a TV series you've never seen. It seems to follow a pre-existing style that has never been established and to have been built according to a formula that I'm not entirely familiar with. Putting together the names of the characters in this film with the faces of actors from the previous film, however, at least kept me engaged for the first half.

Thus we have Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander, the titular goth hacker who hides her vulnerability behind a tough exterior. Except this Lisbeth Salander has been sanitized. Her appearance is no longer intimidating and distancing. She now looks like a regular action hero, cleaned and prettied up. Her piercings have been related to only her ear. Her trademark tattoo is much smaller now. Her leather jacket is trendy and brand new. Foy gives a decent performance but she is just not the Lisbeth Salander we know. She lacks the spikiness, the anger, the pain, the social awkwardness. She has lost her edge and now resembles a regular superhero. You could tell me she was Batwoman and I'd believe it.

Also Hollywoodized is her friend Mikael Blomkvist. Once a pudgy veteran journalist who has now transformed into a youthful, sexy action hero. He is played by Sverrir Gudnasson whose weepy, doe-eyed performance makes the cynical socialist Mikael look like a wet-behind-the-ears student madly in love.

The plot is too complicated and preposterous to explain in detail but what it boils down to is this. A group of terrorists known as The Spiders have stolen a dangerous computer programme designed to control all the world's nuclear power. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander is protecting the only person who knows how to activate it. That person is a young child genius (Christopher Convery) who is just as annoying as he sounds. Also after the programme is an American NSA agent Needham (LaKeith Stanfield) who keeps to the fringes of the plot and is utterly useless in the broader scheme of things.

This is not a plot-driven film, however. It is wall-to-wall action with very few character beats in between. It goes from one set piece to the next including a scene in which Lisbeth drives her motorcycle over cracking ice, a shootout on a draw bridge, and a climactic free-for-all at a snowbound mountain cabin. If you expect at least some subtlety and political depth from a Millennium movie, this one is not for you. This is a pretty straightforward action movie in the mould of lesser James Bond instalments just without the humour.

This is the kind of movie in which our hero, having been poisoned by a bad guy, calmly prepares an antidote by crushing up Aspirin. It's the kind of film in which an entire apartment building burns down but exactly those parts of documents our hero needs to read remain untouched by flames. It's the kind of film where every plot progression is met by bafflement, no one's motivations quite make sense, and you have more questions than fun. Why, for example, did Lisbeth not kill the bad guys when they were knocked out before her? Or why is one of our bad guys surprised when they are betrayed by a group of ruthless mercenaries? Or how come the NSA only sends one man to track down what is potentially the most dangerous McGuffin in all of human existence?

Nothing hangs together in this bizarre movie. A sequel to unmade films.

As directed by Fede Alvarez, the film is at least moderately entertaining. There are some neat stunts, good action scenes, and enough insanity to keep your attention. But I'm not sure the film ever works the way it was intended to. I was more fascinated by the production decisions than its thin plot and more entertained by its preposterousness than its shootouts. Ultimately, there are far better action movies out there and at least one excellent Lisbeth Salander film you could be watching instead.

2/4

13-01-2023

Critics have always championed contemporary films about contemporary issues. Films that deal with the world we live in in a frank and honest manner. The funny thing about that stance is that nowadays I find myself on the opposite end of the argument when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. I don't want to see any movies about it. I've lived through it and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hearing about it, seeing the masks, fretting at coughs, and monitoring symptoms. After 3 years of living in a COVID-19 world, I really don't want to watch movies about it.

Contrary to that knee-jerk reaction, I still decided to watch "Sick", a slasher movie about three teenagers quarantining in a remote cabin, because I'm a huge fan of the genre and because it's the first movie written by Kevin Williamson in quite some time. Williamson, the scribe behind "Scream", has always been hit-and-miss with me but he has a good ear for teenage dialogue and his films usually at least have some kind of an interesting twist on the predictable formula.

"Sick" does have a neat twist, but you have to wait almost a full hour before it comes at which point this 83-minute movie is almost over. It's a shame because once the killer's identity and motivation are revealed, it is far more interesting and compelling than anything that came before it. I really felt like I wanted to watch the movie from the killer's perspective which surprised me because it's the first time I've felt any interest in a story so intrinsically tied to the pandemic.

The first hour, however, is not that interesting. It's very well made and often effective, but it's resolutely paint-by-the-numbers. "Sick" is a very familiar runaround type slasher in which the three teenagers run, hide, and fight the intruder wearing a black face mask that makes him look like he's auditioning for "Ninja III: Domination". All the old tropes come to play and we get to see the killer sneak around the house while the oblivious teenagers chat, we get the obligatory fake-out jump scares, and the shot in which one of the teenagers is walking past a window when the killer's arm breaks through it and grabs her by the hoodie. I haven't seen that one in a while!

Directed by John Hyams, the film does generate a kind of kinetic intensity and a nice but manageable dose of suspense. I like the way he shoots the introductory scenes with long, unbroken shots, wandering through the palatial cabin. Hyams has obviously studied "Halloween" and lifted a fair few tricks from John Carpenter which he applies here studiously.

But this slasher is not special in any way until its twist ending. It's not particularly brutal, not particularly gory, not particularly scary, nor is it in any way original. It is occasionally quite funny, such as when the ninja becomes an amphibious threat, but I'm not altogether sure those laughs were intended. It's such a familiar treatment of a predictable formula that I would have believed this script was written in the early 80s were it not for the COVID-19 references.

Most of all, I liked the game cast of Gideon Adlon, Bethlehem Million, and Dylan Sprayberry. Williamson writes their dialogue in a way that's not necessarily realistic but it is also never annoying which is a big plus for a slasher flick about teenagers. Adlon, in particular, is a charismatic and unusual lead and I hope to see her playing a more sharply written part in the future.

Sadly, the cast is not enough to make the whole of "Sick" work. With its skilful direction and a quirky score by Nima Fakhrara, the film is relatively entertaining - relative, of course, to how much you enjoy these kinds of slashers. After a while, I must admit, I found that its predictability and endless running around the house wore out its welcome. Maybe, after seeing dozens upon dozens of similar films, my standards have finally gone up.

2/4

17-01-2023

Based on a classic mystery novel by Siecho Matsumoto, "Points and Lines" is a procedural thriller in the literal sense of the word. It is the kind of thriller in which train schedules and ticket stubs replace bloody footprints and the culprit is caught through meticulous checking and rechecking of facts and tedious footwork on behalf of dedicated detectives rather than a climactic car chase. It's deliberately not an exciting movie. Instead, it builds up an almost hypnotic concentration on facts and details.

The title evokes memories of geometry homework and, at times, watching the film feels like watching a pair of students wrestle through challenging maths problems. The story begins with the discovery of a pair of bodies on a cliff, victims of what appears to be a double suicide. However, one of the detectives, the shabby, inconspicuous, but obviously highly observant Toriumi (Yoshi Kato) is not convinced. He is puzzled by the choice of such a cold, rocky place for a romantic suicide. He is also puzzled to find a lunch car receipt in the man's pocket indicating that he ate alone on the train from Tokyo. Why didn't the woman eat with him? Did they even arrive together?

"Points and Lines" is not a whodunnit. The killer's identity is revealed halfway through. I won't say who they are except to say that they have an air-tight alibi. The rest of the film then shifts focus from Toriumi to a young, hotshot Tokyo detective named Mihara (Hiroshi Minami) who takes on the job of breaking the killer's alibi. To do this, he pours over pages and pages of train timetables, passenger lists, and ticket stubs testing out every possible theory. The investigation goes on for so long that his boss complains that he's started dreaming numbers.

Much like the detectives in the film, director Tsuneo Kobayashi is fascinated by details and trains his camera on them. For example, in a scene in which the now obsessed Mihara has to convince his boss not to take him off the case, he slams his hand on the older man's desk and the camera lingers on the broken cigarette he's holding. Kobayashi also fills the backgrounds of his scenes with interesting occurrences. While Mihara and Toriumi go over their theories in a seaside restaurant, a drunken businessman dances with a geisha behind them. In another scene, you can see through the window of the Tokyo police station a uniformed policeman getting it on with a cleaning lady. None of these details is remotely important to the plot but they add fascinating layers of texture to the film which has an air of authenticity about it rarely found in these kinds of thrillers.

Kobayashi also has a keen eye for interesting, dreamlike visuals which combined with a jazzy score from Chuji Kinoshita give the film a real noir atmosphere. I especially like the opening shots of the pair of corpses with crabs walking over their faces.

The plot itself is well thought out if not exactly captivating. The interesting part of the film is not so much how the murders were committed as it is how the police will catch the killer. If there is a major problem with the film, however, it is that it's far too dense. There are so many characters, events, train stations, and motives packed in this 85-minute movie that I had real trouble following the complicated plot. At times, I felt compelled to grab a pencil and a pad just so I could keep track of what was going on. I have not read Matsumoto's novel but I have read plenty of Japanese mysteries and they do love an intricate plot with many side characters. While this works on the page where you can take your time to remember who was who, in a movie, especially one as fast-moving as this, such complexity can become difficult to untangle.

"Points and Lines" is a very unusual thriller in that it is more interested in the minutiae of police work than in the twists and turns of its plot. The intricate story should have been given more time to breathe and the characters certainly could have been more fleshed out but the film works due to its unusual structure and Tsuneo Kobayashi's stylish yet realistic direction. It's not necessarily a great thriller but it is delightfully off-beat and memorable, especially for thriller fans like myself who often feel like they've seen it all before. Well, I've never seen anything quite like "Points and Lines" before.

3/4

17-01-2023

Three businessmen from Tokyo go on a weekend mountaineering trip. Only two return alive. The first half of the film (almost to the minute) charts their doomed trip up the mountain in flashback. The small group is led by Eda (Hisaya Ito), an experienced climber whose quiet determination inspires his two friends, especially the cocksure Iwase (Kiyoshi Kodama) who insists on continuing even in the face of worsening weather. Along for the trip is the inexperienced Urahashi (Takashi Wada) and the other two men, who have climbed together before, are afraid he will be the weak link on this challenging climb.

Instead, it is Iwase who gets in trouble. He becomes unusually sluggish on the first day. Seemingly unable to sleep, he grows more and more tired and withdrawn as the climb continues. Eventually, he is almost unable to stand but insists that they keep going. A mistake that takes the trio off course proves fatal and Iwase dies on top of the mountain.

Several months later, Masako (Kyoko Kagawa), Iwase's beloved sister, approaches Eda with an unusual suggestion. She begs him to take her cousin the experienced climber Jiro (Yoshio Tsuchiya) up to the place where Iwase died so he can place flowers there in his honour. The second half of the film, charts this, second trip, undertaken during snowy weather, during which it becomes clear that Eda knows more about Iwase's mysterious fatigue than he is letting on and that Jiro has ulterior motives for undertaking this dangerous trip.

Based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto, "Death on the Mountain" is an engaging little suspense picture which builds up a lot of mystery by slowly revealing the underlying causes behind events we saw and disregarded in its exciting first half. It is a lot like one of those American B-movie thrillers from the 1940s. Yes, the characters are underwritten and the direction is flat and practical, but the story is a deviously twisty one and the pace is quick enough for the film to be an enjoyable romp.

A major advantage "Death on the Mountain" has over those charming B-movies is its production value. Shot on location without any studio sets or cheats, the film has genuinely beautiful and stunningly exciting footage of snowy mountains landscapes as the tiny figures of men climb them. "Human life is so insignificant," says one of the climbers when first faced with these gorgeous vistas and the film does little to undermine his point.

I am surprised this film isn't better known. In fact, it has all the qualities to be a minor classic for people like me who enjoy these exciting little suspense thrillers. Besides the fantastic location work, the film also boasts a very capable cast who make the tension between their characters palpable. Especially effective is the second half of the film where director Toshio Sugie allows the suspense to slowly build. The revelation is extremely well handled. It's delivered in small doses, over time, as the two men climb higher and higher up the mountain where no one can hear you scream. The twist, once revealed, is terrific and worthy of some of the best plots ever featured on "Columbo". It's a really devious masterplan.

3/4

18-01-2023

Teiichiro Ishino (Keiju Kobayashi) is your run-of-the-mill salaryman in 1960s Japan. He is employed in a mid-level management position working in one of those white, faceless offices where well-trained drones mill about like boxes on an assembly line. Ishino is referred to by his co-workers as "The Boss" and he clearly likes this moniker even though it isn't strictly true. Whenever the interphone on Ishino's desk rings, he runs like a good boy to the office of the actual boss who has an identical interphone on his desk etc. etc.

After work, Ishino goes for a drink or two. He plays a little pachinko at a parlour, maybe a little too much. Buzzed with excitement and drink, he stops by the apartment where his mistress, the young and clearly out of his league Chieko (Chiasko Hara) lives. There he spends a few hours before returning to his family home where he continually lies to his loving wife and two adorable children.

Yes, Ishino leads a carefully regimented life, perfectly banal and ordered according to the guide to the married man. Such bliss continues until a chance meeting on the street. When leaving his mistress' apartment, Ishino bumps into his neighbour. No big deal, Ishino thinks, especially since the neighbour didn't see Chieko. But, as fate would have it, the neighbour is arrested the next day for a murder committed across town at the same time they saw each other and Ishino becomes his sole alibi. What is he to do? Keep quiet and save his perfect adulterous life or speak up and trade his life for the life of a neighbour he barely knows? The choice seems obvious at first.

But as it always happens in movies, Ishino's conscience doesn't let him rest easy, especially after a dramatic scene in which the neighbour's wife comes to beg him to say he saw her husband. When it becomes clear that unless Ishino speaks up the man will be executed, the choice becomes a lot less simple than it seemed at first.

Based on a short story by Seicho Matsumoto, "The Lost Alibi" is an interesting twist on the wrong man formula that Alfred Hitchcock loved so much. On that level, it works as a small and simple morality tale. But a curious kind of coldness keeps this film from reaching its full potential. Despite a superb performance from Keiju Kobayashi, bravely unlikeable and brooding, director Hiromichi Horikawa constantly keeps us at arm's length from the leading character. We know so little about him. Why is he having an affair? Is he depressed? What is his relationship with his wife like?

Similarly underdeveloped are the rest of the characters who orbit around Ishino. Especially lacking is the characterization of his wife who is little more than set dressing in Horikawa's film. Also thin is the character of the mistress, the vibrant and beautiful Chieko who has somehow gotten herself saddled with a pudgy salaryman she seems to genuinely like. Why? How?

Since we don't particularly like Ishino (which is fine as we shouldn't) and don't really know anyone around him whose lives are in danger of crumbling, the stakes are rather low in this film and its central dilemma remains purely academic. This is a shame since the story is a good one and the moral dilemma is meaty enough to hang a lot more character onto it. I like, for instance, the change made in a recent TV remake that turned Chieko into Ishino's gay lover. Now, the story gains a lot more urgency, danger, and relatability than it has in this interesting but rather stolid movie.

3/4

22-01-2023

If you're anything like me at all and seeing the names of John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, or Gena Rowlands in the cast makes you giddy with excitement then "Machine Gun McCain" is an easy sell. In fact, seeing how it is the only film to feature all three acting in the same movie, it is a wonder I haven't gotten 'round to it sooner. Now that I have, I doubt I'll see it again but I'm glad I've given it a shot. It's an uneven movie but a fascinating curio nonetheless.

Falk plays Charlie Adamo, a kind of middle-management mobster who gets a little too carried away with his dreams of bigger things. He has been granted control of the entire west coast but he's itching to expand his business into Las Vegas. "You know what they say. Vegas money grows fat." He has his eye on a particular casino named The Royal. An independently owned, elegant place run by a jumpy chap named Abe. Adamo tries to strongarm Abe into selling him 20% of the place but Abe won't budge. With his threats not working, Charlie sets down a different path altogether.

Enter Cassavetes playing the titular Hank McCain, a robber just released from a 15-year stretch in Alcatraz. At the prison gate, he is met by his son Jack (Pierluigi Apra), a 20-year-old hustler who much like Adamo is tired of being small change. He proposes a plan to his dad to rob The Royal and split the money 50/50. What the audience knows and McCain suspects is that Jack is actually working for Adamo who is hoping to bankrupt the casino owners and thus force them to sell.

But, seeing how this is an Italian movie, the plot gets even more complicated! The Royal is actually owned by the mafia who are keeping its provenance quiet. When they learn of Adamo's attempts to buy the place, he is visited by Don Francesco (Gabriele Ferzetti) who makes it clear that The Royal is not to be messed with. "Do you really think we'd want to go into business with an ape like you," he asks the downhearted Adamo who rushes to cancel the heist. However, the problem is that McCain rather likes the idea and decides to go through with it on his own.

The film bears McCain's name but it is Charlie Adamo who is actually the interesting character. Peter Falk is an actor who doesn't know how to be boring on screen and his portrayal of the downtrodden middle management mafioso is absolutely compelling. You can feel the seething rage of unrealised ambition eating him away from the inside. Especially telling is the scene in which he is given a subtle talking-to by his boss in front of his beautiful wife (Florinda Bolkan) who is quite clearly disappointed by the little her husband has accomplished. He clings on to his credentials as the boss of the west coast, he threatens his employees, and pretends to be a big man in his luxurious office but shrinks down to the size of a pea when the real tough guys come down from New York.

I like how the mafia is portrayed in this movie. There's no unnecessary brutality, no playacted toughness, no nostalgic glorification. They're a corporation like any other which holds meetings in wood-panelled boardrooms and whose executives meet for drinks with their wives in swanky nightclubs. The opening scene of the movie illustrates this beautifully as a group of middle-aged men in dull suits vote emotionlessly on whether to kill a disobedient employee.

As for Cassavetes, he's my absolute favourite director but I've always felt he was somewhat lacking as an actor. He can be quite effective when he's playing toady guys. He was terrific as the sleazy, manipulative out-of-work actor in "Rosemary's Baby", or as a lowly gangster way out of his depth in "Mikey and Nicky". He's also very adept at playing pretentious, self-aggrandizing snobs as he did in "Etude in Black". Indeed, he might have made an interesting alternate casting for Charlie Adamo, but he didn't quite convince me as the tough-as-nails Hank McCain.

He's a nervous, fidgety, unpredictable, and unstable actor whereas McCain is meant to be a cool cat, sinister, threatening, and competent. Cassavetes is no Lee Marvin and I just couldn't believe he could keep his hands still enough to land a shot with his machine gun.

Indeed, Cassavetes' best scenes come at the end of the film when he's on the run from the mob. Cornered, paranoid, and with nowhere to run, he goes to ask for help from his former girlfriend and partner in crime played by Gena Rowlands. Sitting in her tiny apartment, he looks at a picture of the two of them on the wall and begins to cry hysterically. This is the kind of material Cassavetes excels at. Sadly, most of the film requires him to be a cool anti-hero.

"Machine Gun McCain", directed by Giuliano Montaldo, is an Italian production and as such features some very unusual plot points and casting choices. It establishes an interesting world with its corporate view of the mafia and some very compelling characters but then runs them through a completely routine and dull story without realizing that its best scenes have nothing to do with heists, shootouts, or mafia tough guys.

Where "Machine Gun McCain" works best are its quieter scenes. The aforementioned moments with Adamo and his boss (effectively played by a cool and business-like Gabriele Ferzetti) and McCain and his former flame that hasn't been entirely extinguished yet. Another great scene is the one between Rowlands and McCain's new girlfriend, the fetching and much younger Irene (Britt Ekland). The look of betrayal on Rowlands' face when she realizes she's been replaced by a younger version of herself is more exciting than any of the action in this picture.

But Montaldo doesn't seem to know what he has on his hands. Most of the film is disappointingly rote and would be utterly meritless without its notable, talented, unusual cast.

2/4

22-01-2023

Tonally, "Brass Target" is a difficult film to pin down. It's hard to know just how much of it is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and how much of its satire is actually just ineptitude. It's a film that constantly walks the line between self-parody and seriousness and feels like a group of talented actors took a ludicrous script and had some fun with it. Director John Hough certainly isn't convinced by its plot nor does he take its historical fantasies seriously for a moment. He treats it sort of like a James Bond picture and frequently disregards its real-life background. That proves a smart move and the film's saving grace because one thing I can say for certain is that this preposterous, melodramatic, over-the-top thriller greatly entertained me. Perhaps not in the manner that its makers intended but I was engaged from start to finish.

The film begins with some self-important titles describing the film's historical setting which are quickly forgotten once a train full of Nazi gold is stolen by a pair of mincing gay stereotypes. They do so by injecting lethal gas into a tunnel the train is going through thus killing all the US soldiers guarding it. It's immediately clear that "Brass Target" is not based on any historical book, at least not one taken seriously by normal people.

What follows is one of the clunkiest, silliest, and most overblown patriotic scenes ever put to film. It's so dumb and poorly written, I can't help but think it must be a parody. But like with everything else in "Brass Target", I just can't say for sure. It involves a meeting between General Patton (George Kennedy) and a Russian General Ostranov (Reinhold Olszewski) in which Patton goes on a tirade against commy Ruskies pretty much from the second they shake hands. Ostranov retaliates by accusing Patton and the US army of stealing the Nazi gold. Patton takes a shot of whiskey, makes a toast to the United States of America, and promises to find the gold and shove it piece by piece up the Russian general's behind. Cue patriotic music as Patton goose-steps out of the room.

Now the reason I suspect the parody is intentional, at least on behalf of the director and the actors if not the script, is because throughout the film Patton is portrayed as a jingoistic blustering buffoon. Consider his very next scene in which he is shown marching towards the tunnel where the robbery took place with his entire cabinet following him in perfect lockstep. He is giving some kind of a faux motivational speech and doesn't notice when one of his men turns around and begins marching the other way. He goes into some bushes to have a clandestine meeting with the pair of gay stereotypes who executed the heist while Patton is mere meters away continuing his nonsensical speech. It's a scene straight out of a Zucker brothers film.

There's a cynical, satirical streak running throughout the film, especially towards the US army. Officers are shown as pretentious snobs living it up in newly liberated Europe by commandeering castles and taking advantage of impoverished women. When they're not sleeping with some frightened German woman they're sleeping with each other! Meanwhile, the secret service is led by a 20-something-year-old boy who doesn't seem to know his O from his SS. Patton is a die-hard American patriot who is cavorting with former Nazis while pretty much all of his highest-ranking officers are engaging in a nefarious scheme to steal German gold.

The only straight man (though not, apparently, in the sexual sense) is Major Joe De Luca (John Cassavetes), a hero of the secret service assigned to investigate the theft of the Nazi gold. I quite like Cassavetes' performance in this film, mainly because he doesn't play De Luca as some kind of a tough action hero. He plays him instead as a world-weary romantic full of disappointment and desperate to get home.

The film takes a right turn fairly quickly when the conspirators decide that Patton is becoming too nosey and has to be killed. They hire a suave German hitman codenamed Shelley (Max Von Sydow) for the job. De Luca stumbles on the plot and has to find out Shelley's true identity before he gets to the general.

Curiously, there is no mystery whatsoever in "Brass Target". We know from the get-go the identities of all the conspirators. We also know pretty much immediately that Shelley is actually De Luca's old friend Martin Webber. With the plot laid out clearly from the very beginning, the film turns into a series of suspenseful set pieces which surprisingly often work. Director John Hough displays some interesting visual stylings and the film moves at a quick, exciting pace. None of it is terribly original or memorable but it works as diverting entertainment.

It is also terribly amusing to spend two hours in the presence of such an estimable cast. Besides the aforementioned luminaries, we also get to see Robert Vaughn and Edward Herrmann as the chief conspirators hamming it up and hilariously resembling Dick Dastardly and Muttley from "Wacky Races". British character actor Lee Montague also shows up in a brief but witty scene as none other than Lucky Luciano himself. His countryman Bernard Horsfall who will be recognisable to all "Doctor Who" fans out there also turns up for an unexpected cameo. Finally, there's Patrick McGoohan doing a bizarre accent playing a fay army officer who is De Luca's "old friend". Homoeroticism is implied.

The one character I didn't particularly enjoy is Sophia Loren's Mara who serves as De Luca's love interest but is utterly useless in the plot and often grounds the film to a dull halt. It doesn't help that all of her scenes are punctuated by gloriously cheesy music from Laurence Rosenthal. I also found that George Kennedy's one-note performance as Patton wore on me but thankfully he's not in the film all that much. The rest of the cast ham it up beautifully and are a lot of fun to watch.

So where does that leave us? Who knows. "Brass Target" is one of those films you'll either hate or embrace for its goofiness, melodrama, and apparent self-awareness. I had a lot of fun watching it and often found myself engrossed in its dumb plot. It has a kind of curious charm and an undoubted entertainment value. Cassavetes is an interesting lead, Von Sydow is a genuinely menacing villain and John Hough's pacing and moody visuals (good cinematography by Tony Imi) make the set pieces thrilling. This is not a good movie but it is a lot of fun which I think counts for a lot in this genre. When it comes to thrillers, I will always choose goofy melodrama over self-serious coldness.

2.5/4

23-01-2023

Well, here's an unexpected film from director William Friedkin. A light, breezy slapstick comedy about a group of guys who steal one and a half million dollars essentially for kicks. Sure, most of the guys live off thievery and petty crime but the film, "The Brink's Job", implies that they do so mainly because it gives them a rush. Consequently, this is no "Ocean's Eleven". Instead, it resembles what Quentin Tarantino would call a "hangout movie". You hang out with this group of looney robbers as they wisecrack, prank each other, and generally fall about while executing the job of the century along the way.

The guys initially include the quick-witted planman Tony (Peter Falk), his dumb and clumsy brother-in-law Vinnie (Allen Garfield), their friend Sandy (Gerard Murphy), and the debonair bookie Jazz Maffie (Paul Sorvino), the only one in the group who's actually rich. As they explain it, "he steps out 'cause he likes the excitement".

Along the way, they pick up three more colourful characters: two edgy war veterans Stanley (Kevin O'Connor) and his buddy Specs (Warren Oates) who proposes they blow the safe open with a bazooka and a fence named McGinnis (Peter Boyle) whom no one likes or trusts but hey, they need someone to launder the money.

The target is the safe at Brink's, a security company where millions reside. The papers tout it as an impregnable fortress with concrete walls, armed guards, and an armoury that the US military would envy. The only problem is, they don't bother to lock the doors. "It might discourage thievery," says Tony.

The funniest and most original gag in the movie is that the security company actually protects the money with good publicity. The truth is there's only one guard who spends most of the night on the can reading the newspapers. There are no alarms, the doors aren't locked, and no one's there to use the guns. Brink's makes its money by cutting corners. This is where the film differs from most heist movies - the guys simply walk in and the joint is theirs.

Even though the film is based on a true story (and the subsequent non-fiction book by Noel Behn), its plot is immediately familiar to anyone who's ever seen a gangster flick. Everything from the scenes of the guys staking out Brink's to the obstacles that happen on the job to the third act in which the Feds start closing in and the adrenaline kicks are no longer all that entertaining has been done everywhere from "Payroll" to "Goodfellas".

Unusually, Friedkin does nothing new with this material. The film is rather devoid of his usual dark touches and the script by Walon Green is a lightweight rummage through the old tropes. And yet the film works. It works because it's fun. Friedkin keeps it moving at a pretty pace with banter and gags coming in thick. The production design by Dean Tavoluaris and the cinematography by Norman Leigh make the most out of its period settings and are a joy to look at. The score by Richard Rodney Bennett is hummable and witty.

Mostly, however, the film relies on its excellent cast to fill out the thinly drawn characters and these guys bring the goods. Falk is his usual charming, wisecracking self. He's an actor who's never been uninteresting on screen and this film is no exception. I love the banter between him and Garfield who does a terrific job of playing the guy who is the butt of all jokes but is not nearly as cartoonish as we might expect. Also well played is the almost Three Stooges-like chemistry between them and Sorvino. Falk is the smart, angry one. Garfield is the stupid, clumsy one. As the two of them fight, Sorvino watches and comments sarcastically. It's a formula that's worked since vaudeville and it works here as well.

The best performance, nevertheless, comes from the vastly underrated Warren Oates who is absolutely convincing as the loony war veteran. He's the kind of guy with whom you're never sure if he's gonna laugh or pull a gun. There's a scene towards the end which is essentially a close-up of a minute-long monologue that Oates delivers with the weight and seriousness you'd never expect to find in a film like "The Brink's Job". He was a great talent and here's another film that proves it.

"The Brink's Job" is set in 1950 but it plays out like a movie from the 1930s. It's light, fast-paced, entertaining, and well-put-together. There's no weight to this picture, no moral dilemmas or considerations, no complex characters, and no noirish atmosphere. It's a loveable comedy with which you enjoy spending time and then it breezes out of your head after a few days.

A quick note at the end just to say that they should never have put Gena Rowlands in supporting roles. Here she plays the small part of Tony's wife. It's a nothing character, with few lines and even fewer scenes but whenever she's on screen your eyes can't help but dart towards her. She plays every moment truthfully and fully and whenever I see her playing such a small role I regret that she's not the lead.

3/4

24-01-2023

You know you're in trouble when even the love of your life describes you as obnoxious. That's exactly what happens to Harry Berlin (Jack Lemmon) who is, I suppose, the protagonist of this film. He is indeed obnoxious and unlikeable. A caricature of a human being, a hopeless neurotic with paranoid tendencies, a profound conviction that all dogs hate him, and an inability to eat without a paper hat on his hat.

We first meet him as he stands on the edge of a bridge, ready to meet his maker through the medium of the ice-cold water below. He is just about to jump when he's recognised by an old friend. The friend, a rascally schemer named Milt (Peter Falk), rambles on and on, seemingly unaware of the situation he's found his old friend in. He wants Harry to come to his house for dinner and he won't take no for an answer. Eventually, the suicidal man decides it would be easier to just indulge Milt and accept.

At Milt's home, Harry realizes that his pal has a diabolical scheme in mind. You see, Milt is in love. In fact, he hasn't been so in love since the day he was married. The woman he's in love with, however, is an aerobics instructor named Linda (Nina Wayne) who is demonstrably not his wife. He wants to marry her, but Mrs Milt won't concede to a divorce. This is where Harry comes in. Milt figures that if his shrewish wife Ellen (Elaine May) were to meet a man and fall in love with him, she'd want a divorce. And who better than the suicidal, neurotic, obnoxious Harry?

Based on a play by Murray Schisgal, "Luv" aims to be a kind of Richard Lester-esque comedy, surreal, absurdist, and irreverent. However, Clive Donner's direction and Elliott Baker's adaptation can never break free of the restraints of the material's theatrical origins. The stage is essentially an imaginary space in which the audience enters fully accepting of the fact that what they're seeing is not strictly reality. Film, on the other hand, is the kind of medium that grounds everything and gives it a sheen of realism. Lester's comedies work on the surreal plane because his direction breaks that illusion of reality. Donner's direction of "Luv", however, is leaden, stilted, and hopelessly set in the real world.

Consider, for instance, the scene in which Harry and Milt break into an impromptu musical number remembering their youthful days in an all-girls band. On the bare stage, this scene works without question. Because we accept that what we're seeing is not reality but a kind of allegory, an artistic interpretation of reality, we can go along with a musical number in what has not been so far nor will it be afterwards a musical. In Donner's film, however, the scene is set in a diner. Shot on location in New York, this is unmistakably a real diner. We see the grease on the walls, the coffee stains on the tables, the grimy visitors and the tired night shift workers. When Milt and Harry start singing and doing a choreographed dance in this real, tangible place, the result is not a funny scene but an utterly unconvincing one.

This feeling continues throughout the film. You can see how every scene in this film would play on the stage. You can hear the lines as they would be spoken in a theatre. And this play in your mind is far better than Donner's meandering, awkward, and tonally confused film. He continually places these absurdist dialogues and these caricatured people into a real-world setting where they don't belong. "Luv" is clearly meant to take place on the stage, in a heightened setting where rules of reality don't apply. It takes a much lighter touch to break those rules in a movie and Donner just doesn't have it.

It doesn't help, I suppose, that the script just isn't any good anyway. I've never seen or read Schisgal's original play but the story as presented in this film is painfully predictable and mostly devoid of any kind of insight or dramatic tension. It seems to think it's a satire of marital relations but it never tells us anything. It always shoots for obvious, cheap gags or the kinds of general marital problems you could see in a sitcom. "Luv" doesn't give us any kind of truthful, thoughtful, original musings on these subjects, just cartoonish variations on old themes.

The wonderful cast is wasted on such material and seems aimless and confused under Donner's clumsy direction. Jack Lemmon badly overplays Harry pushing his quirks and neuroses to the extreme. Unlike his wonderful performance as Felix Unger in which he managed to make a cartoonish character feel real, here he turns Harry into a kind of crude caricature utterly lacking in humanity. I never believed for a second that Harry existed and thus I could never care for his predicaments. I also never grew to like him because Lemmon's mannered over-the-top performance is intrinsically unlikeable.

Conversely, Elaine May is very good occasionally when she is given something clever to say. She's very funny when her character is supposed to be sharp, cynical, and honest. She delivers some superb barbed remarks directed at her husband. Sadly, for the most part, the script requires her to babble on endlessly and pointlessly. Her character is equally as unbelievable and cartoonish as Lemmon's and the only difference between them is that May never overacts.

The only person who gets out of "Luv" unscathed is Peter Falk, an actor who seems to be unable to give a false performance. Even in a film as stagy as this, he manages to seem real. He gives an energetic, wily, witty performance and displays a keen feel for physical comedy. He's a delight to watch and when May and he are on screen alone, the film almost begins to work despite the script. Unfortunately, Falk can't help it that the lines he is given and the actions he is supposed to perform are inane, unoriginal, and profoundly unfunny. In spite of the script, he manages to be charming and give the film some much-needed energy.

"Luv" is never boring on account of it being so bizarre but it is certainly never funny. It's not funny when it tries way too hard to be surreal. It's not funny when it tries to be clever about marriage. It's not funny when Lemmon, Falk, and May, for some reason, do a terrible version of the Four Yorkshiremen routine and it's definitely not funny when it makes rape jokes that were surely outdated even in 1967. "Luv" flopped when it was originally released, it has been rarely seen since and if there's any justice in the world, it'll remain that way. Besides a good Peter Falk performance, there's nothing here of value to be seen here, but considering he's given more than a hundred of them, I'd say you've got a lot more watching to do before you reach this disaster.

1/4

25-01-2023

What a marvel Dick Van Dyke is! One of the finest comedians of his generation capable not only of hilarious and precise feats of physical comedy but also of projecting an incredible warmth on screen, the kind of instant appeal you can't fake which has made him the favourite not only of television viewers but also of children across the decades. Besides being an accomplished comedian, however, Van Dyke is very adept (if criminally underrated) at dramatic acting. Look, for example, at his superb performance as the devoted family man whose life is ruined by alcoholism in "The Morning After" or his sinister, chilling turn as a callous murderer on "Columbo". The latter, in particular, is a great example of Van Dyke's ability to completely transform his charming, energetic, loveable screen presence which we all know into something altogether different.

In 1969, Dick Van Dyke starred in "The Comic", a biographical movie directed and written by Carl Reiner charting the rise and fall of Billy Bright, a fictional silent movie star based in part on Buster Keaton. Such a part could have been the role of a lifetime for him seeing how it combined drama with Van Dyke's prodigious talent for physical comedy. The film features a number of scenes recreating those famous slapstick shorts of the 1920s and Van Dyke is simply superb in them. Unfortunately, his excellent performance is trapped in what is a truly lousy picture.

The problem with "The Comic" is that Reiner can't seem to make up his mind if he's making a comedy or a drama. The silent short recreations are terrific both for their accuracy and for their humour but why do the scenes showing Billy Bright's life off the screen have to be funny as well? Throughout the film, Reiner gives us seemingly serious, introspective moments only to then undercut them with entirely inappropriate comedic stylings.

For example, one early scene has Billy fall in love with Mary Gibson (Michele Lee), his co-star and the mistress of a tyrannical director played by Cornel Wilde. One day, the director catches them in bed together. Instead of playing the scene for drama and giving an early hint of Billy's promiscuous and treacherous nature, Reiner turns the scene into a kind of slapsticky runaround the bedroom which would be perfectly suited for one of Billy's comedy shorts but which rings hollow and false in the "real world".

Another similar scene takes place several years later. Billy and Mary are now married but Billy is cheating on her. She finds out and throws him out of their house. Drunk and looking for a fight, Billy drives his car through the locked front door and begins throwing Mary's clothes through the window. What could have been a serious scene, a kind of take on the famous room destruction from "Citizen Kane" is then undercut by the arrival of Billy's friend and sidekick Cockeye (Mickey Rooney) who stands under the window and informs Billy that he's in the wrong house. "It's your neighbour's home," shouts Cockeye in a tonally jarring and utterly ruinous gag.

Throughout the film, Reiner avoids any kind of serious exploration of either the leading character or the world he inhabits. There are no insights or criticisms of 1920s Hollywood, no hints of what a dark and exploitative place it was. Meanwhile, Billy Bright is a totally underwritten character, a drunk and an unlikeable louse whose demons are never explained or dealt with.

Instead, Reiner uses his story to indulge in silent-movie nostalgia. Much more attention seems to have been paid to the recreations of Billy's short films than the scenes showing his life outside work. One gets the impression that what Van Dyke and Reiner really wanted to do was to make a silent slapstick comedy. Maybe nobody wanted to let them and that's why they had to spin this thin, rushed, shallow biopic around it hiding the film they really wanted to make like a cuckoo's egg inside an insipid melodrama.

The film sort of comes together in its last third when it fast forwards forty years and shows us Billy Bright in the 1960s, forgotten, aged, and bitter. He spends his days in the park with his equally decrepit friend Cockeye and cleaning chewing gum from his star on Sunset Blvd. But since the first hour was so poorly written and so shallow, we know next to nothing about Billy and we find it hard to truly empathize with him. The final thirty minutes are interesting but they are never as emotional or as affecting as they should be.

The best scene in the film is the last one in which Billy, alone in his tiny apartment, wakes up at four-thirty in the morning to watch one of his old movies on TV. He sits there broken and dejected watching his younger self on screen being happy, virile, and funny. Van Dyke is superb in this scene both as the bitter old man and the young comedian. It is a wonderful showcase of his talents. But it is only five minutes out of a 95-minute movie which is a total disappointment. A tonally confused, shallow, dull nostalgia piece which sheds no light on a fascinating and morally ambiguous time in movie-making history.

1.5/4

27-01-2023

Unemployment is probably the most emasculating and quietly devastating thing that can happen to an average working man. We are taught that our purpose in life is to be useful and provide for our families. Once that is taken away from us, however, what do we become? What remains of the men we once were? At first, the unemployed are confident. They apply for jobs and wait patiently certain in the fact that their expertise and professionalism will be recognised. But as time passes, their confidence wavers, their relationships suffer, and an existential fear sets in as the phone remains silent.

Costa-Gavras, a most interesting filmmaker who always finds a way to take on the most urgent political issues in ways that are equally biting and entertaining, paints a typically engrossing portrait of unemployment in "The Axe". The man who got the titular axe is Bruno Davert (Jose Garcia), once a successful executive in a paper company, now a shadow of his former self. Unemployed for two years, he continues to apply for jobs but has little faith in ever getting them. A bitterness has grown in him and he has become convinced that the odds are stacked against him. It's hard to argue he's wrong, however, especially after a very funny scene in which he is interviewed for a job by an executive who tries to play all the old tricks on Bruno. But he has become numb to them. He knows that one leg of his chair will be shorter so he stuffs a piece of paper underneath it. He knows all the clever answers to all the tricky questions. Of course, he doesn't get the job.

He is still living in his old house, a swanky two-story mansion in the suburbs with his family he can no longer support. His wife, Marlene (Karin Viard) tries to keep his spirits up but overplays the part. Her forced enthusiasm only serves to further undermine Bruno's confidence. She can't stand his defeatism and his cold demeanour so she has an affair. Bruno probably knows but can't bring himself to care.

Costa-Gavras sets this story in a buzzing, angry, edgy world. Whenever Bruno is driving someone behind him is beeping on their horn, whenever he goes into a phone booth there's someone outside knocking on the glass, when he goes to the store the cashier makes sure to show him there's a gun under the counter, just in case... Everyone around Bruno seems to be angry about their lives and terrified that someone is going to take them away. All around him are protests and barricades. "There is no God," he says at one point, "it's every man for himself".

But what is he to do? There's no one who can help him. The executives are unreachable, his colleagues are in the same boat as he is, and his wife can't help him as much as she tries. No, there's only one way for Bruno to return to the way he used to be. He has to become just as angry, just as edgy, and just as dangerous as the world around him. He has to join the rat race and make sure he is the first to the finish line.

So, he decides to get rid of his competition. Quite literally. He identifies the six other unemployed paper executives who are more likely to get a job than he is and sets out to murder them. Bruno is not a good killer. He's nervous, he's armed with his father's WWII Luger, and he's never handled a gun before. Unexpectedly, however, the first murder he commits goes very smoothly. With only five to go it's gonna be a piece of cake... right? After all, he's doing it for his family... isn't he?

"The Axe" reminded me immediately of a 1990 comedy "A Shock to the System" but this movie is smarter, wittier, and a whole lot more sympathetic. Whereas the older film was a satire on the competitiveness of the corporate world, Costa-Gavras' take on the story is a surprisingly heartfelt portrait of the way unemployment and the capitalist mindset can drive a man to extremes. Bruno is superbly played by Jose Garcia, a kind of French Jack Lemmon, a likeable neurotic who smartly doesn't push for sentimentality. Instead, he injects some light humour into his performance which capably carries the picture.

The film is based on a novella by Donald E. Westlake whose quirky thrillers make for unusual, twisty films. As written by Gavras and Jean-Claude Grumberg, "The Axe" does a great job of smartly tackling a serious subject without ever becoming overly sincere or preachy. This is not a Ken Loach film. It's an entertaining, consistently funny thriller but one which has a sharp satirical edge and which makes you care for the predicament its sad, misguided characters find themselves in.

Some of the film's best scenes involve Bruno's run-ins with his victims. Even though he considers them the enemy, the competition, they are actually facing the same issues as he is. German actor Ulrich Tukur plays one of them, a striped-suited former executive now working in a men's clothing store. Trying to maintain a hopeful exterior, he puts on his ridiculous toupee and goes to job interview after job interview but, as he confides to Bruno, "they can tell when you're a has-been".

The scene between the two of them is an example of what makes "The Axe" work as more than just an exciting thriller. It is also a profoundly humane picture, one which sympathizes with all its characters - the killer and his targets - and recognises that they are all actually victims of a certain kind of capitalist thinking which has become a fact of life and something we rarely ever question anymore. Costa-Gavras questions it and just like every great filmmaker manages to turn his questions into a smart, daring, and wickedly entertaining movie.

3.5/4

28-01-2023

Based on a Richard Stark novel, "The Split" follows the three-phase structure of a heist thriller with surgical precision.

Phase one sees the heist crew assemble. Leading the job is McClain (Jim Brown), a no-nonsense, no-first-name professional. The strong, silent type. A principled thief based on Stark's mysterious Parker, the protagonist of 24 novels and the basis for the monosyllabic tough guy played by Lee Marvin in the fascinating "Point Blank" which was released just a year before "The Split".

In this opening phase, McClain assembles an all-star group of thieves, lowlives, and other professionals. Ernest Borgnine plays the amiable bruiser, Jack Klugman is the debt-ridden getaway driver, Warren Oates is the racist safecracker, and Donald Sutherland is the psychopathic hitman. Each is introduced with their own clever and entertaining little vignette as McClain puts their abilities to the test. He engages in a judo exhibition with Borgnine, a car chase with Klugman, a shootout with Sutherland, and he locks Oates in a vault. None of them takes kindly to McClain's games but they noticeably soften once they hear the plan.

Phase two follows the heist. The plan is straightforward but anything except easy. It was conceived by a sadly underused planwoman played by Julie Harris. I wish we got to know her backstory. Anyway, the target is the LA Coliseum box office where over half a million dollars will reside during a football game.

"The Split" is a good adaptation of a Richard Stark novel. It has the grittiness, the meticulous attention to detail, and the excitement of the heist. Just like a good heist movie should, this phase shows us step by step how this daring group of criminals pull off the job.

Phase three is the titular split and this is where things get unusual. The money is stored in the apartment of McClain's girlfriend Ellie (Diahann Carroll). However, the day after the robbery, Ellie turns up dead and the money is gone. This could have been a great set-up for a mystery and really the film should have started from here but seeing how each of the phases is almost exactly 30 minutes long, there is no time for "The Split" to really build up any sense of intrigue or suspense around the missing money, especially since we know who took it and why immediately. Instead, it is only an excuse for a climactic showdown between the criminals who suspect McClain of stealing the dough.

"The Split" is a very straightforward, no-frills heist thriller that ticks off the tropes and plot points with clockwork precision. It has nothing new to say or do but it is well-executed and decently entertaining. As directed by Gordon Flemyng, a director not known for stylishness or inventiveness, the film has a TV movie quality to it. Competent but nothing more than that.

It is interesting to reflect on the year 1968, however, and note that the casting of a black man in the lead role of a cool, clever bank robber was actually quite unusual. Coming only a year after "In the Heat of the Night" and a full three years before "Shaft", just the casting of Jim Brown must have made "The Split" notable and unusual. Sadly, Brown is merely OK in the part. He has neither the pathos of Poitier nor the charisma of Richard Roundtree and since "The Split" is more interested in its heist mechanics than race relations, the casting proves little more than a curio and something we don't think twice about in 2023.

No, seen today "The Split" is nothing much to look at. Sure, it delivers its heist movie thrills quite efficiently but there's little depth in Robar Sabaroff's script and Flemyng's direction is workmanlike at best. When compared to the artful and imaginative "Point Blank" or even the brutal "The Outfit", both based on Richard Stark novels as well, "The Split" comes out looking like an ABC Movie of the Week. I enjoyed it while it lasted but I doubt I'll remember much about it in the morning.

2.5/4

28-01-2023

Donald E. Westlake is the master of the caper thriller. For those who don't know, Westlake, one of the most prolific novelists I'm aware of, is the author of two legendary series centred around heist crews. The funny thing is that both of these series, one centred around a character named Parker and the other around a character named Dortmunder, ran pretty much concurrently throughout the 60s and the 70s. So, why were there two of them? The simple answer is tone. The Parker novels are cool, serious, clever, and brutal. The Dortmunder novels are funny, twisty, and downright farcical. Their plots are essentially interchangeable but the directions Westlake takes those plots are wildly different.

The Dortmunder series of novels has spawned several film adaptations only one of which has been any good. That's "The Hot Rock", the Robert Redford vehicle that works because it gets the tone right. You see, the joke in the Dortmunder novels is not that the heist crew is made up of goofy cartoon characters. No, the joke is that Dortmunder is a serious guy trying very hard to get the job done except that everything around him goes spectacularly wrong. He is not aware he's in a comedy novel. He thinks he's Parker. He's the straight guy who tries his best as his perfect plan falls apart around him.

"What's the Worst That Can Happen" gets the tone spectacularly wrong. It casts Martin Lawrence as Dortmunder (here renamed Caffery) and turns him into a goofy, wacky comedian. Lawrence spends the entire film mugging for the camera, putting on funny voices, wearing silly disguises, and doing some kind of strange grinding dance move whenever a scene threatens to turn towards seriousness for even a second.

The novel, one of Westlake's best, was a self-parody of a typical Parker novel in which Parker gets cheated out of his cut from a heist job and then goes on a rampage of revenge to get his money. In "What's the Worst That Can Happen", a similar thing happens to Dortmunder. While robbing the house of a filthy rich businessman, he gets the tables turned on him when it turns out the millionaire is actually at home and is armed to his teeth. To add insult to injury, the rich guy steals Dortmunder's lucky ring before handing him over to the cops. The unlucky robber manages to escape and vows to get his ring back whatever it takes.

The film copies the plot but misses the point. Instead of having Dortmunder be a typical action movie hero, strong, silent and determined, and then having him get into increasingly more ridiculous situations, the film turns him into a goofball. Then, when goofy things do happen to him, there's no comedic contrast. Lawrence feels totally at home in the mess his character finds himself in and seems to be having a whale of a time hamming it up. It doesn't seem like he wants the ring back. It just seems like he's having fun which robs the film of all suspense, urgency, and drama.

It's a truism to say that all comedy needs a straight man. Someone to react disapprovingly to all the nonsense going on. "What's the Worst That Can Happen" doesn't have that.

The rich guy is played by Danny DeVito who gives the closest this film has to a funny performance. He's a dab hand at playing these kinds of characters - mean, nasty, self-indulgent bad guys who delight in the mischief they create. He's very good in the film even if he's not given anything really funny to do. The performance is reminiscent of his work in the brilliant "Ruthless People" which had a terrific straight man in the form of Judge Reinhold as a hapless kidnapper caught in an impossible situation.

This film has a very good supporting cast as well but they're ill-treated by a very bad script. John Leguizamo is great as Lawrence's sidekick. He's good even when he has to play along with Lawrence's schtick and put on goofy accents and disguises. Also in the film are Glenne Headly, Bernie Mac, Larry Miller, and Richard Schiff, all terrific, funny actors who barely make a mark since they're given nothing to do. Unfortunately, William Fichtner, another good actor in this mess, is given a character to play. That character is a broad homosexual stereotype who is never funny, only offensive and annoying.

"What's the Worst That Can Happen" takes a terrific premise and a first-rate novel and brings them down to the level of a bad spoof. It's the kind of comedy that thinks giant afros, farting dogs, and offensive racial stereotypes are funny. But this film is never funny, not even slightly amusing. Not only is Lawrence's schtick grating but the direction from Sam Weisman is leaden, slow-paced, and dull. The film drags on and on from one unfunny set piece to the next without energy, lightness, or humour. It sinks because we never believe in its characters, we never believe in their motivations, and we never laugh at the situations they find themselves in. The result is a movie that alternates between being annoying and boring.

My suggestion: read the novel. The first chapter alone has more laughs than this entire movie.

1/4