Film

Green Room

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13/05/16

Jeremy Saulnier’s previous film, the low budget revenge drama Blue Ruin, ticked enough boxes to make him a director to watch. Green Room is a rock-horror vehicle that cranks everything up to eleven, and features the kind of visceral carnage that’s not for the faint-hearted or the weak-stomached.

Third division rock band the This Ain’t Rights are gigging their way around the Pacific North West of America, getting from place to place by siphoning petrol from other vehicles and playing the kind of dives that bring them around six dollars a piece. After a particularly bad night, an embarrassed promoter fixes them up with a gig at his cousin’s place and warns them that the audience will be ‘an unusual crowd’ – by which he means that they are a bunch of shave-headed, Neo Nazi supremacists led by Darcy (Patrick Stewart in an uncharacteristically nasty role, featuring an occasionally wonky American accent).

After an unpromising start, (the band kick off the gig with the Dead Kennedy’s classic – the one that dismisses Nazis in an fairly uncompromising manner) but after that, the band go down quite well and they are just congratulating themselves on being paid a decent fee for a change when they discover the body of a young woman with a knife. Unfortunately for her, it’s stuck in the side of her head. What’s more, the management seem very reluctant to let the band leave and before they know it, they find themselves holed up in the titular green room, wondering if they are going to escape with their lives.

In tone, the film is closer to some of the body shock films of the 70s – as individuals are hacked, bludgeoned and shotgunned to death, the tension begins to wrack up to almost unbearable levels. Anton Yelchin as bassist Pat is the nearest we get to a lead role here and Imogen Poots puts in a decent turn as Amber, a girl who is unlucky enough to have both the haircut from hell, and the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Saulnier’s muse, Macon Blair, has a small but interesting role as Darcy’s right hand man.

Everything builds to a ferocious crescendo, and it’s clear fairly early into the proceedings that  this isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of haemoglobin. As a former band member myself, it recalled some of the worst gigs I ever played at, but thankfully, things never got quite as bad as they do here.

Watch this only if you can tolerate scenes of excessive violence. Things get very bloody.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Jungle Book

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02/05/16

It’s a brave man who takes on a classic like The Jungle Book (John Favreau, in case you were wondering) and emerges from the experience without a generous portion of egg spread across his face. There are already two knockout screen adaptations. As a youngster, I remember being thrilled by the Alexander Korda-produced version, starring Sabu – and who doesn’t love Disney’s 1967 animation, the last film that Walt actually had a personal hand in making? So I admit, I expected this to be at best, so-so. But those expectations were kicked out of the ball park within moments of the film actually starting. Make no mistake, this is a magical production in the purest sense of the word. That creaking sound you’ll hear in the cinema? The sound of an audience’s jaws collectively dropping.

I’m not going into the plot, since it’s so well-known, but suffice to say that Favreau and his team have created a stunning CGI word where everything, from the biggest mammal to the tiniest insect is rendered in absolutely believable detail. The time was (not so very long ago) when you looked at a CGI tiger and thought, ‘hmm, not bad but you can tell it’s not the real thing.’ In The Jungle Book, however, the only element that tells you that Shere Kahn isn’t the real McCoy is that a real tiger wouldn’t tend to talk like Idris Elba. (Elba, by the way, manages to invest his animal character with absolute menace.)

As the only human actor onscreen, twelve year old newcomer Neel Sethi looks like Disney’s animated Mowgli come to life – (i.e. adorable) and though the likes of Bill Murray (Baloo) Scarlett Johansson (Kaa) and Ben Kingsley (Bagheera) merely provide voiceovers for their animal counterparts, somehow, their human characteristics shine through. It’s an extraordinary achievement and one can only wonder how Sethi managed to accomplish his role against nothing more inspirational than a blue screen.

Some caveats? Well, I do have a couple. After a while, you notice that the animals are rendered much bigger (150% bigger) than they actually are in real life. OK, we’re told that King Louie is a Gigantopithecus, but in this world, even a baby elephant towers over Mowgli. Favreau maintains that this was a deliberate move to show the animals ‘as they would appear to Mowgli’ but I can’t help wondering if it was really necessary. Also, he decided to incorporate a couple of the better known songs from the animation – this is a Disney studio picture, after all, so perhaps he felt obliged to honour the film’s progenitor. Mowgli and Baloo’s affectionate rendering of The Bear Necessities is fine, but the scene where King Louie (Christopher Walken) sings I Wanna Be Like You-Hoo-Hoo to Mowgli feels like the film’s one misstep and frankly it’s good enough to have skipped that detail (especially as we get a reprise of the song over the end credits).

But these are minor niggles. The mere fact that a packed audience of youngsters sat in absolute silence throughout the screening will give you some indication of just how appealing this film is. They absolutely loved it… and here was one sixty four year old who was in total agreement with them.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Special Correspondents

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01/05/16

Whatever happened to Ricky Gervais? The glory days of The Office and Extras are now long gone and his occasional forays into cinema have amounted to a few average cameos in other people’s movies and the woeful laughter-free zone that was The Invention of Lying. His new movie, Special Correspondents, is a Netflix original (though actually not original at all, as it’s a remake of 2009 French comedy, Envoyes Tres Speciaux). And, though it pains me to say it, it’s a disaster – a ‘comedy’ that fails to raise so much as a smirk.

Gervais plays Ian Finch, a hapless sound engineer working alongside charmless, bombastic reporter, Frank Bonneville (Eric Bana) who has alienated all his colleagues at 365 News and  is now residing at Last Chance Saloon. Ian’s other workmate, Claire Maddox (Kelly McDonald) is the closest thing to a sympathetic character you’ll find in this sorry tale and she isn’t really given all that much to do. Ian is also lumbered with a shrew of a wife, Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) who has all the inherent charm of a car crash and who gleefully cheats on Ian with Frank (though to be fair, Frankdoesn’t know at the time who she is married to).

When a civil war breaks out in Ecuador, Ian and Frank are despatched to cover the story, but Ian, upset by the fact that Eleanor has just walked out on him, accidentally throws their tickets and passports into a passing garbage lorry, leaving them stranded in the USA. Realising that this was his last chance to make good, Frank persuades Ian to help him fake a series of reports from war-torn South America. They are actually holed up in a restaurant across the road with a couple of friends, the almost terminally thick Brigida (America Ferrara) and her husband Domingo (Raul Castillo).

It’s a slight idea and one that is never really nailed – instead, what we get is a lazy, written-by-numbers story featuring embarrassing racial stereotyping, and a series of plot twists you can see coming from several blocks away. More damningly, there’s hardly anyone here you can root for, as McDonald’s character aside, they all appear to be venal, self-interested scumbags with an eye on advancing their own careers. Furthermore, a scene that emulates a faked hostage video is uncomfortably close to images we’ve seen in real life that are a million miles away from anything humorous. I can’t help but wonder if, in the past,  the sadly absent Stephen Merchant acted as some kind of quality control for Gervais. Left to his own devices, he seems incapable of creating anything with any depth.

With a new David Brent movie looming on the horizon, the only hope is that he’s put a bit more effort into that script, because this one is frankly dead in the water.

1 star

Philip Caveney

Victoria

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13/04/16

Victoria (Laia Costa) is a young Spanish woman, living and working in Berlin. We first encounter her dancing by herself at a nightclub and it’s there that she first meets Sonne (Frederick Lau) and falls for his boisterous chat-up lines. She’s supposed to go and open up the cafe where she works, but instead falls in with Sonne and his friends, Boxer, (Franz Rogowski), Blinker (Burat Yigit) and Fuss (Max Mauff) and agrees to go with them to visit a favourite hangout of theirs. As the night progresses, it’s clear that Victoria and Sonne are falling for each other – but when Boxer enlists Victoria’s help to drive a car for him, so he can do a friend ‘a favour’, the mood quickly switches into thriller mode and it becomes apparent that this is not going to end well for anyone involved…

As you may have heard, the ‘gimmick’ with writer/director Sebastian Schipper’s film is that it’s shot in one continuous take, which is of course, a monumental undertaking in itself. (Innarutu’s recent hit Birdman gave the impression of being shot in this way, but he managed to sneak in a few clever edits. This, however, is the real McCoy.) Schipper and his cast and crew manage to achieve their goal with such verve and brilliance, that you feel like applauding their ingenuity. (Apparently they could only afford three attempts to get everything right and the third take is the one they used).

But don’t go thinking that a gimmick is all that this film has to offer. There’s more. Much more. As the story progresses and Victoria and her new-found pals fall deeper and deeper into the brown stuff, Schipper expertly racks up the tension to an almost unbearable degree. This is gripping, nerve-shredding stuff that will keep you on the edge of your seat right up until the brilliant conclusion.

An unqualified triumph. Don’t miss it.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Midnight Special

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10/03/16

Writer/director Jeff Nichols has given us some fine movies over the last few years but one thing he’s not so good at is coming up with a decent title. Take Shelter? Not one of the best. Mud? A terrible title for an excellent film. And now, here’s Midnight Special, a title that for the life of me I can’t see the relevance of when applied to this absorbing story – but I suppose this is a minor niggle. The film this most reminds me of is ET… though I hasten to add, a much more sophisticated, grown up and gritty version of Speilberg’s sci fi tale.

Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher) is a very special boy. It has something to do with his eyes. He must be kept in darkness as much as possible and has to wear special goggles whenever he steps into the sunlight. When we first meet him, he’s been abducted by his biological father, Roy (Michael Shannon) and his friend,  cop Lucas (Joel Egerton) from the religious community that has looked after him for the past two years. Because of the boy’s habit of ‘speaking in tongues,’ the cult’s leader,  Calvin (Sam Shepard) believes that Alton may be some kind of messiah and he and his followers will do just about anything to get him back, even if it means picking up weapons to enforce their will.

Sam and Lucas hook up with Alton’s birth mother, Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) and the four of them set off on a perilous journey to bring Alton to the special destination where he repeatedly tells them he needs to be – but how can they get there when the combined forces of the FBI, the US military and a bunch of religious fruitcakes are intent on intercepting them?

Midnight Special is expertly told, releasing nuggets of information bit-by-bit, just enough to keep you hooked and to make you want to know more. When the solution is finally revealed it is, quite frankly mind-blowing and at this point, will divide audiences into ‘hell yes!’ or ‘no way!’ categories. I, happily, belong to the former. There are compelling performances from all concerned (Adam Driver is particularly good as a baffled boffin trying to work out what’s happening) and the pace never flags.

This is a riveting story about the power of belief and the lengths to which people will go to honour it. It also confirms Nichols as a film maker at the height of his powers.

It will be interesting to see what he does next.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Dheepan

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08/04/16

Director Jacques Audiard seems to revel in telling the stories of outsiders. Both Rust and Bone and A Prophet went down this route and Dheepan is no exception. The film opens in Sri Lanka, in 2009, at the end of the savage civil war that had lasted twenty five years and claimed more than 80,000 lives. A defeated Tamil Tiger soldier (Jesusthasan Antonythasan), has realised that the only way he can hope to stay alive is to flee the country. At the departure camp, he is hastily put together with a woman he has never met before (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and an orphaned girl (Claudine Vinasithamby), so they can use the passports of three dead people. Their new names are Dheepan, Yalini and Illayaal.

Yalini longs to go to England where her sister lives, but instead they end up in France, where Dheepan has been offered work as a caretaker – but this is a part of France that’s never going to feature in the tourist brochures, a broken down, lawless community where drug gangs rule and where the police never deign to show their faces. Dheepan goes doggedly about his business trying to make friends, while Yalini is offered work looking after an elderly man, whose son, Brahim (Vincent Rottier) is a drug kingpin, recently released from a spell in jail and using his father’s home as a base. Meanwhile, Illayaal is enrolled at a local school where she sets about trying to fit in with the other children, but she is seen as an outsider and struggles to make headway. But can three strangers thrown together in this way ever hope to function as a family?

Dheepan is a fascinating study of the lives of refugees, one that never makes the mistake of falling into cliche. The three lead protagonists feel like real people, with real hopes and real ambitions. Even when the story descends into violence – an inevitability you can feel looming over the story  like a terrible premonition – it avoids all the usual Hollywood action-movie tropes to offer something that feels horribly real. The film’s optimistic coda has been derided by some critics as being unrealistic but they’re surely missing the point – this is just another heartfelt dream that is never going to be achieved.

Dheepan is a brilliant and deeply affecting film. See it but don’t expect a chucklefest. This is a bleak tale by a master storyteller.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Eddie the Eagle

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Eddie The Eagle

07/04/16

The British public loves an underdog and nowhere was this trait better exemplified than in the case of ‘Eddie the Eagle’ (real name Michael Edwards), who, at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, caught the attention of press and public alike by competing in the ski jump. He always knew he would finish last (though it should be said that at the time, he did set a new British record) but his hapless, charming manner somehow managed to make him an overnight star.

Dexter Fletcher’s watchable biopic fashions an entertaining (albeit, as has been suggested, somewhat inaccurate) account of the events leading up to his ‘triumph.’ It begins with Eddie’s childhood and his obsession with one day representing his country at the Olympics – in one sport or another – much to the chagrin of his plasterer father, Terry (Keith Allen), who urges him to get a sensible job. Soon enough, young Eddie has grown up to be Taron Egerton, gamely trying to disguise his good looks behind a series of gurning facial expressions. Eddie fails to make the Olympic skiing team, largely because of the sneering disapproval of team leader, Dustin Target (Tim McInnery), who clearly thinks that the sport should not be open to the working classes. But then Eddie discovers that the British don’t actually have a ski jumping team, and this seems to offer him a golden opportunity to compete without any, um, competition – so he hotfoots it to Gstaad. Here he comes to the attention of former champion ski jumper, Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), now a washed up alcoholic. Eddie begs Bronson to coach him and eventually he succumbs…

This is a charming if unchallenging film, that galumphs along at breakneck pace, rarely pausing to draw breath. Fletcher’s challenge here was to create suspense in a story that we all know the ending to and he largely succeeds, taking us to vertiginous heights and sending us straight down the slope. The story is essentially a bromance, the chemistry between Egerton and Jackman is a winner and there’s a last minute cameo by Christopher Walken, which is always a bonus.

The film doesn’t go beyond Calgary, which is probably just as well, as the reality is that Edwards is now working as a plasterer, the very trade that his father always urged him to pursue. Fame is fleeting of course, but this may be Eddie the Eagle’s second moment in the spotlight and it’s well worth the price of admission.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

10 Cloverfield Lane

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25/03/16

You have to hand it to J.J. Abrams. The original Cloverfield was arguably one of the best shakey-cam horror films ever, a creature feature that starred a giant alien, venting its wrath on New York (with particular reference to the Statue of Liberty). Interestingly, Abrams managed to sneak the film out under the radar, meaning that nobody had an inkling about its existence until the first trailers appeared in cinemas. With 10 Cloverfield Lane, he’s somehow managed to repeat the trick, despite all the attention focused upon him because of a certain little Star Wars movie. So how does this film (produced by Abrams and directed by Dan Trachtenberg) relate to the first story? Well, interesting question…

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) falls out with her boyfriend, climbs into her car and drives off into the night. Then she’s involved in a sudden and quite shocking accident. When she wakes up, she’s being kept prisoner in the underground bunker of survivalist Howard (John Goodman) who tells her that there’s been an ‘attack’ above ground and that everybody up there is dead. She’s then introduced to Emmett (John Gallagher Jnr) a local guy with a broken arm, who has taken refuge with Howard and pretty much confirms his story. The three of them, it seems, could be stuck down there for years, but luckily Howard has laid in plenty of provisions… including a selection of jigsaw puzzles.

The film divides, more or less, into three distinct sections – the first third is a mystery (what really is going on above ground? Is Howard telling the truth or is he actually some kind of power-crazy nut job with a hidden agenda?) Part two slips effortlessly into psychological thriller territory, as Michelle  discovers some unpalatable truths about Howard and plans her escape. And part three… well, it would be criminal to give too much away, but suffice to say that the film, brilliantly scripted by John Campbell and Matthew Stuecken) expertly and repeatedly pulls the rug out from under you, until you barely know what to expect next. Despite its cross-genre nature, its a riveting ride from start to finish.

As good as the first film? Yes. It’s so different and yet, in its own way, it’s another absolute corker. Go see it and be prepared for surprises.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

High-Rise

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19/03/16

In a relatively short career, British director Ben Wheatley has produced an interesting selection of films, all quite different but all in their own way, intriguing. High-Rise, an adaptation of the novel by J.G. Ballard, represents the flowering of that talent. Here is a film so packed with interesting ideas, it sometimes threatens to explode in all directions, as Wheatley throws idea after idea into the mix and hits the ‘mix’ button. While the end result is far from perfect, it’s never less than riveting. I’ve read that David Cronenberg planned to film this back in the day and it’s easy to see the attraction – some of the scenes here put me in mind of his debut feature, Shiver; but having said that, this is Wheatley’s vision and for the most part it works beautifully.

Doctor Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) moves into a massive high rise apartment and attempts to make friends with the neighbours. They include the promiscuous Charlotte Melville (Sienna Miller), a belligerent TV documentary maker, Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) and his pregnant wife, Helen (Elizabeth Moss). It’s clear from the very start that Laing doesn’t quite fit in, but he clearly intends to give it his best shot. He is soon summoned up to the penthouse to meet the building’s architect, Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) who has created a lavish rooftop garden for his wife, Ann (Keeley Hawes) complete with flocks of sheep and a white horse for her to ride. At first, it all goes relatively smoothly, but when the tenants on the lower floors start to encounter electricity blackouts and food shortages, it’s not long before rebellion begins to spread irresistibly upwards, resulting in outbreaks of pillaging, looting and the weirdest Abba cover version you’ve ever heard.  The toffs in the top floors decide it’s time to take matters into their own hands and set about commandeering everything they can get their hands on. Laing (a typically amoral Ballard antihero), watches it all with a detached air but eventually finds himself drawn into the chaos as he tries to survive as best he can.

Ballard’s story is an obvious allegory about class and privilege and the ways in which society has to adapt to changing circumstances in order to continue. Wheatley, working as ever with his writer companion, Amy Jump, has cleverly opted to set the story in the 70s, just like the source novel, creating wonderful sets of brutalist architecture, together with some quite horrific fashion statements. The first forty minutes of this zips along with complete confidence and looks absolutely ravishing; the last third is perhaps a little less sure of itself, but having said that, there are more great ideas on offer here than you’ll see in most Hollywood movies and once again, the pace rarely falters.

The conclusion (which features the voice of Margaret Thatcher) will have you discussing the film’s message long after the final credits have rolled. Please don’t miss this one, it really is rather fabulous.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

 

 

The Witch: A New England Folktale

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17/03/16

New England, 1630. William (Ralph Ineson) is so pious he’s even managed to incur the wrath of the Puritan community in which he and his family reside and finds himself summarily banished. Undeterred, he packs up his wife and five children into a rickety wooden cart and heads off into the wilderness, eventually arriving at a remote plot of land bordering a forest where he sets up home. Before anyone can say, ‘bad idea,’ the family’s youngest son, a baby, disappears and since he was under the care of eldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), she is largely held responsible. The family assume a wolf has taken her but the audience has already witnessed the baby’s rather grisly demise, so we know that there’s something very unpleasant lurking in the undergrowth, something decidedly witch-shaped. There’s also ‘Black Philip,’ a he-goat, who definitely knows rather more than any ordinary goat should.

Writer/director Robert Eggar’s low-budget tale sets itself some awkward elements to overcome. For one thing, the dialogue is rendered in authentic Olde English, with lashings of thees and thous and while this is probably more accurate than having the characters speak in a more contemporary way (as Arthur Miller did, in The Crucible, the masterpiece to which this story will inevitably be compared) it does make for difficult viewing, as does the funereal pace at which much of the action unfolds. Though the film successfully creates an atmosphere of steadily mounting dread, it’s never in the least bit scary. Ultimately, this seems to be all about the perils of religion. Poor William is so intent on begging God’s forgiveness for every little misdemeanour, he rather overlooks the bigger picture, until of course it all goes horribly pear-shaped – the eldest son encounters something worrying in the forest, the remaining kids start having fits and their mother, Katherine (Kate Dickie) finds herself breast-feeding a crow. And the inevitable question remains; is Thomasin as innocent as she seems to believe she is?

The Witch has arrived garlanded with acclaim and to be fair, it’s a creditable full length debut by Eggars, but it is at its strongest when (like The Crucible) it is ambiguous. Scenes that confirm our worst fears rather seem to undermine the film’s creepy intentions. So while I would encourage anyone to go and see this, to judge for themselves, I have to confess to being a little disappointed with the end product.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney