Film

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

24/12/23

Netflix

The trend for films being financed by (and galloping with indecent haste to) Netflix continues. Aardman Animations’ tardy sequel to Chicken Run is just the latest example of something that would have looked so much more impressive on a giant screen than it does on the average telly.

Dawn of the Nugget follows on from the first film with the escapee chickens living their best lives on a small island, where they grow their own food and work together as a team. Rocky (Zachery Levi, replacing Mel Gibson) and Ginger (Thandiwe Newton, replacing Julia Sawalha for less obvious reasons), are now the proud parents of an egg. This quickly hatches into Molly (Bella Ramsey), who has clearly inherited all her mother’s fearless qualities.

When workmen begin to clear some land on the other side of the water and new factory buildings are set up, Molly is eager to go across and investigate what’s going on, but Ginger urges her to be cautious. Of course she sets off on her own and, once on the far side, she bumps into Frizzle (Josie Sedgwick-Davies), a Scouse chicken who has heard great things about the new factory.

At first  it seems the twosome have discovered a place of refuge. But sinister happenings ensue before an old enemy reappears…

Dawn of the Nugget offers all the familiar tropes that the first film featured to such winning effect. No pun is left unspoken and several favourite characters make a welcome reappearance, including Jane Horrocks as the delightfully dim Babs and David Bradley as addled old rooster, Fowler.

The animation is beautifully handled and there are chases and spills aplenty, while the humour is innocuous enough to appeal to all age groups. But be warned, some viewers may find it hard to sit down to enjoy a chicken dinner after spending time in the company of this team of feathered lovelies. 

And if it seems a little late in the day to follow up that first film – twenty-three years to be precise – it matters not. This is great fun.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Priscilla

22/12/23

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

Priscilla

If Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was a dazzling celebration of the singer’s career, Priscilla offers the polar opposite of that film – a true story with a dark underbelly that, viewed with the gift of hindsight, feels almost shockingly transparent. Presley emerges as a toxic human being, a man who manipulated and exploited a naive fourteen year old girl for his own purposes. 

And before you say, “Well that’s just director Sofia Coppola’s interpretation of what happened,” let me add that her screenplay is closely based on Priscilla Presley’s autobiography, Elvis and Me – and that she was one of the executive producers on the film.

We first meet her as a bored teenager on an Army base in Germany. Cailee Spaaeny submits an impressive performance in the title role, managing to convincingly portray her subject from her early teens to her late twenties. When a young officer approaches Priscilla and casually asks her if she’d like to meet Elvis Presley, of course she says yes! Like most other kids in the late 1950s, she is a big fan. And he is arguably the most famous person on the planet.

So, to the understandable consternation of her parents, Priscilla heads off to Elvis’s house and is soon chatting to the man himself, as played by Jacob Elordi, last seen being quintessentially English in Saltburn, but managing to inhabit Presley’s mumbling, brooding persona with considerable skill. The pair hit it off, big time.

When Elvis is posted back to America, a lengthy interval suggests that he may have forgotten about her but, out of the blue (and again, much to her parent’s understandable concern), she’s summoned to his new home, Graceland, where she’s invited to become a permanent fixture. No sex yet, not until she’s of age, but plenty of smooching and much manipulation from Presley, who coaxes her to change her hair, her makeup and her fashions – to become, in effect, his dream girl.

As Presley grooms Priscilla (and there really isn’t a more appropriate term for what he’s doing), so her own identity becomes increasingly erased – and who knows where it’s all going to end?

Coppola’s accomplished film is handsomely mounted, the period detail convincingly evoked over the changing decades and it’s interesting to note how cinematographer Phillippe Le Sourd keeps everything murky and claustrophobic in the film’s early stretches, mirroring young Priscilla’s view of the world she’s obliged to exist in. Le Sourd returns to the gloom in the film’s later scenes, as Presley slips inexorably into addiction to prescription drugs. In between, the screen sizzles and pops as the odd twosome actually begin to enjoy the advantages of being a couple.

Weirdly, I knew about their story from my own childhood. My sister was a member of Presley’s fan club and received a monthly magazine. In the early sixties, I read repeatedly about the man’s developing relationship with Priscilla. Of course, back then, I wasn’t mature enough to fully appreciate how profoundly creepy the whole arrangement was. Priscilla’s age was an open secret to the world but, blinded by Presley’s fame, we just kind of accepted it. Shame on us.

This is a fascinating film, one that digs a lot deeper than Lurhman’s (admittedly very enjoyable) biopic, exposing the ugly bumps and warts that lay beneath the shimmering surface of stardom. To say that it’s an eye-opener would be something of an understatement. 

4.3 stars

Philip Caveney

The Boy and the Heron

20/12/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

At eighty-two years of age, Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, has had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra. He’s been talking about retirement ever since Princess Mononoke way back in 1997, but has managed three major releases since then, not to mention a whole bunch of shorts. And now here he is once again, director and writer of The Boy and the Heron, still reaching for those impossible heights on the big screen – and mostly achieving them.

It’s evident at a glance that Ghibli continues to exert a powerful hold on lovers of quality animation. This advance IMAX screening (the film will officially be released in the UK on Boxing Day) is completely sold out, despite being in Japanese with subtitles. (We don’t mind, we prefer it that way but apparently it puts a lot of viewers off.) We’ve managed to secure a couple of seats in the very front row, the giant screen looming above us, making the whole experience incredibly immersive.

The story is loosely autobiographical, but I can only assume that this applies to the film’s almost hallucinatory opening scenes in World War 2 – otherwise I’m left to conjecture that Mizayaki had a very strange childhood! Tokyo teenager Mahito (Soma Santoni) awakes one night to the sound of an explosion and is told that the local hospital has been firebombed. He’s horrified, because he knows his mother is working there and, in a breathtaking action sequence, he dresses himself and runs frantically through the blazing city, in the desperate hope of rescuing her. But he’s too late.

A few years later, Mahito accompanies his father, Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), an aeroplane designer, out to the calm of the countryside. Shoichi is now married to his late wife’s sister, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura), who is pregnant with what will be Mahito’s little brother or sister. Mahito soon discovers that his stepmother’s country house is a place of mystery and intrigue, serviced by a team of comical-looking… erm… grannies. But things take a darker turn when a sinister grey heron that hangs around the grounds starts talking, telling Mahito that his presence is required elsewhere…

All the hallmarks of Studio Ghibli are present and correct and they’ve arguably never looked more ravishing. There are beautiful shimmering landscapes, ancient mouldering buildings and a succession of weird, dreamlike environments that seem to virtually erupt from the screen. And there’s that brilliant technique they always employ of illustrating food so perfectly, you can actually taste it. (One scene features fish entrails, so this isn’t always a pleasure!)

Aside from the fact that this particular tale focuses on a teenage boy (Ghibli’s lead protagonists are nearly always female), it feels like classic Ghibli dialled up to 11.

If there are some shortcomings, they are in the plot. It’s not that Miyazaki’s screenplay lacks interesting ideas. On the contrary, it’s stuffed with them, so many that they virtually do battle with each other to establish authority. While it’s perfectly fine for a storyline to be complex, it shouldn’t feel over-complicated and, since some of the fantastical goings-on are opaque to say the least, I too often find myself bewildered by what Miyazaki is trying to say. The inevitable questions that arise are left unanswered and, eventually, I decide that this is deliberate.

Perhaps it’s simply a case of an elderly man with a lifetime’s experience trying to cram all of it into a couple of hours. It’s hard not to see the mysterious wizard-like figure, obsessed with balancing various pieces of polished stone on top of each other in order to ‘make the world work’, as a version of the great director himself, trying to puzzle out the enormity of his own astonishing career.

As the credits roll, I find myself wondering if I might manage to slot this film in for a second viewing – maybe even the upcoming dubbed version with a host of Hollywood talent providing the voices. The Boy and the Heron is that kind of movie, the sort that has you pondering its various possibilities long after you’ve left the cinema. See it on the big screen, in IMAX if you can. You may be puzzled, but you won’t be disappointed.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Godzilla Minus One

15/12/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Believe it or not, Godzilla is fast approaching his 70th birthday. His first screen outing was in 1954 in Ishirō Honda’s titular film, which featured a man in a rubber suit, clumsily demolishing a miniature cardboard city. Over the years, Japanese company Toho Films has produced more than thirty motion pictures starring the giant reptile, but has never managed to equal the excitement of that first venture.

More recently, American studios have tried to get in on the act, expending billions of dollars in attempts to come up with a decent version of the tale, but it has to be said that, while they’ve usually managed to get the visuals up to snuff, the human elements – even when played by bankable talent – have been found wanting. So when I start hearing rumours that Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One is well worth seeing, I’m initially doubtful. Honestly? Hasn’t this idea been done to death?

I’m delighted to report that my doubt was misplaced. This is surely the best version of the story since it came into existence.

It’s 1945 and Japan is rapidly losing the war. Would-be kamikaze pilot Koichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) bottles out of going through his final mission; instead, he touches down on the remote island of Odo, claiming a fault with his plane. But the crew of engineers based there can find nothing wrong with it. And then the island comes under attack from the big G, and Koichi fails to protect the resident engineers, who are all chomped to bits except for their officer, Sosaku (Munetaka Aoki), who brands Koichi a coward.

Later, in the bombed-out ruins of Tokyo, Koichi meets a young woman called Noriko (Minami Hamabe), who is looking after Akiko, a little orphan girl she has found abandoned in the devastation, and the three of them set up as a kind of impromptu family. Koichi thinks his luck has finally changed when he lands a paid job with a crew of men aboard a little wooden boat. Their mission is to detect and detonate some of the hundreds of Japanese and American mines that still litter the waters around Tokyo. At least, that’s what they’re told.

But of course it’s only a matter of time before that pesky reptile rears its ugly head again and decides to head ashore on the rampage…

The strength of writer/director Yamazaki’s film is that he’s provided us with human characters who we actually care about, before launching headlong into all that destruction. Make no mistake, the big action sequences are there, and they are suitably impressive – but they don’t dominate the proceedings. The balance between the two different strands is masterfully done and everything builds to a climax that has me holding my breath.

Be warned, despite a 12A certificate, this film isn’t really suitable for youngsters and I note a couple of families leaving early, their kids unable to handle the subtitles and the visceral action sequences. But big kids like me, who have despaired for years of ever seeing new life breathed into this franchise, should take the opportunity to check this one out on the big screen.

It may have taken seventy years but we finally have a Godzilla worth watching.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Wonka

08/12/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The omens were always good for Wonka. Director Paul King and writer Simon Farnaby have already delivered two brilliant (5 star) Paddington films, but were willing to assign the upcoming Paddington in Peru to other hands in order to focus on this origin tale based around Roald Dahl’s most celebrated character. What’s more, Timothée Chalamet – who seems to have the uncanny ability to choose box office winners with ease – was signed up for the title role right from the very beginning.

And sure enough, Wonka turns out to be as sure-footed as you might reasonably hope, powered by a deliciously silly story and some sparky songs by Neil Hannon, plus a couple of bangers salvaged from the much-loved 1971 film starring Gene Wilder. Laughter, music and magic: they’re all here in abundance.

In this version of the tale, the young Willy Wonka arrives in a city that looks suspiciously Parisian (but is actually Oxford). His masterplan is to pursue an ambition he’s had since childhood: to create the world’s most delicious chocolate.

Armed with an original recipe from his late mother (a barely glimpsed Sally Hawkins) and augmented by some magical tricks he’s picked up along the way, Wonka has mastered the chocolatier’s arts to the final degree, but has somehow neglected to learn how to read. Which explains why he soon ends up as a prisoner, working in a hellish laundry run by Mrs Scrubbit (Olivia Colman, for once playing a convincingly loathsome character) and Mr Bleacher (an equally odious Tom Davis). It’s here that Wonka acquires a small army of workmates, including Noodle (Calah Lane), a teenage orphan who has mysterious origins of her own and who soon proves to be Wonka’s most valuable ally.

When he’s eventually able to sneak out and pursue his main goal, he quickly discovers that the local chocolate industry is dominated by three powerful and devious men, Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas) and Fickelgruber (Matthew Baynton), who are willing to go to any lengths to protect the stranglehold they currently enjoy. They see Wonka as a potential threat and will stop at nothing to eliminate him…

Mostly, this works a treat. Chalamet is an astute choice for the lead role, capturing the man-child quality of young WW, whilst still managing to hint at the darker elements that lurk deep within him. Lane is suitably adorable and, if the triumvirate of evil chocolate barons never really exude as much malice as you’d like, it’s no big deal. The only real misstep is the fate of the local police chief (played by Keegan Michael-Key), who takes bribes in the form of chocolate and who steadily puts on more and more weight, until he’s almost too big to fit in his car. While this fat-shaming device may be true to the ethos of Mr Dahl, it feels somewhat out of place in a contemporary story.

And of course this being a Wonka tale there must be Oompa-Loompas, played here by an orange-skinned, green-haired Hugh Grant, who is wonderfully pompous and self-possessed, yet somehow manages to be quite adorable at the same time. As you might guess, Mr Grant is obliged to dance (again), something he allegedly hates doing. He’s used sparingly through the film but still nearly manages to steal it from under Chalamet’s nimble feet.

All-in-all, Wonka is an enjoyable family film, as bright, glittering and irresistible as a bumper hamper packed with tasty treats. It’s interesting to note, however, that I didn’t come out of this feeling like tucking into some. On the contrary, a scene where Willy and Noodle find themselves drowning in a big vat of molten chocolate actually has me feeling faintly queasy.

Nonetheless, those seeking an enjoyable couple of hours at the cinema, could do a lot worse than buying a ticket for this delightful offering, which will appeal to viewers of all ages.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Nightmare Before Christmas (30th Anniversary Edition)

03/12/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Let’s talk Christmas movies. There are many cinema fans out there who will tell you that It’s a Wonderful Life provides the perfect festive viewing. Others will argue that Love Actually is the real deal. There are even a few diehards who will doggedly insist that the ideal place to spend a couple of seasonal hours is Nakatomi Plaza.

But listen up. The Nightmare Before Christmas is (improbably) thirty years old and has been rereleased in a new digital print. What’s more, it’s currently showing in cinemas across the UK in 4DX. Those looking for a cinematic treat in the run up to the festivities should take the chance to revisit its charms.

The twisted brainchild of Tim Burton, this animated fantasy adventure is more of a team effort than much of his later output. Henry Selick takes up the directorial reins, Michael McDowell and Caroline Thompson handle the screenplay and Danny Elfman composes the score – even handling the vocals for lead character, Jack Skellington (elsewhere voiced by Chris Sarandon).

Jack is the unofficial King of Halloween Town, expending all his efforts on the annual task of providing its creepy inhabitants with all the grisly delights the big night demands. But he’s become jaded with the predictability of it all and longs for something a wee bit different. When he chances upon the festive preparations happening in neighbouring Christmas Town, he spots an opportunity to make a dramatic change for the better. Why can’t his followers get in on the act? They may be a collection of undead horrors but don’t they deserve a little fun?

But of course, even the best of intentions can go awry.

Meanwhile, Jack is unaware that Sally (Catherine O’ Hara), an assembled creature put together by the villainous Doctor Finklestein (William Hickey), worships him from afar and is having terrible premonitions about this new change of direction. She wants – more than anything else – to help Jack but he seems totally focused on his new direction…

Deceptively simple yet virtually bursting at the seams with visual invention, TNBC‘s stop-frame animation provides a constant source of delight and achieves the near-impossible, managing to be simultaneously both deliciously creepy and suitably heartwarming. Indeed, the two different ingredients are juxtaposed with such panache, it’s a constant thrill to see what will happen next. One minute I’m wincing as a child pulls a horrendously unsuitable ‘gift’ from its wrapping, the next I’m sighing with relief as Santa Claus (voiced by Edward Ivory) steps up to the plate to ensure that Christmas comes in as planned. Elfman’s score is memorable and the new 3D print looks absolutely gorgeous.

The 4DX experience, normally reserved for big action blockbusters and violent punch ups, works a treat here, as we are swirled and jolted back and forth along with the frantic onscreen antics. Not sure I’m mad about the sudden stench of ‘Frog’s Breath’ that assails us at one point, but hey, it all contributes to making this a Christmas treat we’re unlikely to forget in a hurry.

Glancing around at this afternoon’s audience, I’m surprised to see that it’s entirely composed of grown-ups, which seems a shame, because kids will adore this quirky alternative to the latest anodyne Disney animation. Big kids like me will surely love it too. Win win.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Napoleon

25/11/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Over his long career, Ridley Scott has taken on all manner of subjects, in pretty much every genre you can name. It’s interesting to note that his very first feature film, The Duelists, was set during the Napoleonic era, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before he returned to the period and took on the story of the little Corsican – a subject that has brought many other directors to their personal Waterloo. In this particular case, it’s taken forty-six years to get there.

Some cinephiles will tell you that the ultimate Napoleon movie has already been realised way back in 1927, when Abel Gance produced a staggering version of the great man’s life under the same title. It was certainly remarkable and I speak as someone who sat through one of Kevin Brownlow’s restorations of the film in the early 80s – all five and a half hours of it (complete with a live symphony orchestra and several judicious toilet breaks). Compared to that, Scott’s two hours and thirty-eight minutes seems relatively jaunty.

Those who have complained that this version is historically inaccurate may be missing the point. Scott is clearly far more interested in the legend than the reality. It’s a matter of record, for instance, that Napoleon probably owes his defeat at Waterloo to the fact that he suffered from bleeding haemorrhoids and couldn’t sit on his horse – but that’s a film that nobody wants to see.

And yes, Joaquin Phoenix may be too old for this role, and surely needed some de-ageing for those early scenes, but he makes a great job of it, mining the man’s hubris and determination to the core, even descending into brattishness when taunted with the spectre of England’s superior navy. Vanessa Kirby offers up a more opaque Josephine, playing everything so close to her bosom that we’re never entirely sure if she actually loves her husband or merely sees him as her personal plaything. Their complex relationship is at the beating heart of this film and perhaps it would have been more fairly titled Napoleon and Josephine.

The inevitable result is that pretty much everybody else in the film is reduced to cameo roles, including Rupert Everett as the Duke of Wellington and an unusually hirsute Mark Bonnar as Napolean’s early confidante, Junot. David Scarpa’s screenplay makes a determined attempt to find some humour amidst all the pomp and misery.

But of course, Scott is the king of spectacle and if it’s battle scenes you’re looking for, there are plenty of them here, so thrillingly recreated that I find myself wincing at every explosion, every visceral thrust of a sabre. Each of the major confrontations is depicted in a different way and I particularly relish the scenes set in the Russian winter, where Napoleon is left bewildered by the fact that his adversaries refuse to meet him on the battlefield, even choosing to torch Moscow rather that surrender it to him. This is stirring stuff, the awful choreography of destruction played with absolute conviction and I cannot think of a director who could have made a better job of it.

Producers Apple Films have already announced that a four hour plus director’s cut of Napoleon is waiting somewhere down the line, and while this has worked for Scott before with Kingdom of Heaven, I’m not convinced that a longer film can hope to add much to the exhilarating theatrical release, which has me gripped pretty much from start to finish.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Saltburn

22/11/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Emerald Fennell’s second film shares some DNA with her debut: they’re both stories of revenge writ large, of simmering grievance metamorphosing into violence. But, while Promising Young Woman was an out-and-out success, Saltburn is more of a mixed bag.

Oliver (Barry Keoghan) is a fish out of water at his Oxford college. Not only has he made the terrible faux pas of devouring every book on the summer reading list, he’s also got a Scouse accent and his tuxedo is rented. “The sleeves are too long,” sneers his tutorial-mate, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe). “Still, you almost pass.” Frustrated by his outsider status and bored rigid by Jake (Will Gibson), apparently the only other non-posh person in the city, Oliver becomes obsessed with Felix (Jacob Elordi), insinuating himself into the young aristocrat’s circle. Felix warms to Oliver, taking him under his wing and inviting him to spend the summer at his family home. Oliver is delighted: the titular Saltburn is a bastion of excess and he is more than ready to indulge himself. But, as the weeks slip by and real life looms, things begin to take a darker turn…

The first third of this film is anachronistic. It’s supposed to be set in 2006, but the Oxford we see here feels like a throwback to the 1920s. Although there’s no denying that the university is still disproportionately posh, by the time the movie’s events occur, about 50% of Oxford undergraduates came from state schools (the figure is 68% now) – and, even among those who were privately educated, only a tiny number were as privileged as Felix and his friends. I find myself rolling my eyes at the idea that Oliver and Jake might stand out amongst their peers, or that anyone would notice them enough to bellow “scholarship boy” as they pass by. It’s unnecessary too: Oliver’s desire to move in Felix’s orbit doesn’t need to be dependent on the absence of any other working or middle-class people.

When the action moves to Saltburn, things improve dramatically – although the sense of stepping back in time might be heightened if Fennell were more effective in capturing the early noughties in the opening stretch. Here we meet Felix’s parents, Sir James (Richard E Grant, on top form) and Elspeth (played with obvious glee by Rosamund Pike). “Mummy” is the best thing about the whole movie, delightfully lacking in self-awareness, blithely callous in every word and deed. She gets the funniest lines too, and Pike delivers them with deadly precision: when Elspeth hears of her erstwhile friend’s death, for example, she responds with a scathing, “She’ll do anything to get attention.”

If the revenge, when it comes, is faintly ridiculous, then it’s found a suitable home in Saltburn, where everything is magnified, where there’s too much space, too many artefacts, too many people and too much money. The house and grounds provide a perfect backdrop for this illustration of careless privilege, and Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is almost hallucinogenic, reinforcing the sense of dislocation from the outside world.

Of course, there are many ways to read this sly, allusive story, with its Brideshead references and satirical tone. The most generous interpretation is that the joke is on the upper classes, depicted here as shallow and vacuous, playing games with other people’s lives to relieve their louche ennui. But it also comes across as a warning to the toffs to beware the pesky proles. Give us an inch and we’ll take a mile; we just don’t know our place. Fennell (whose own rarefied life is far closer to the Cattans’ than to Oliver’s) reveals an unfortunate blind spot when it comes to class. Elspeth references Pulp’s Common People early on, refuting the idea that the lyrics refer to her. “No, it wasn’t based on me. She had a thirst for knowledge. I’ve never wanted to know anything.” But there are a few lines later in the song that are perhaps more relevant: “Like a dog lying in a corner, they will bite you and never warn you. Look out! They’ll tear your insides out.” There appears to be an underlying (perhaps unconscious) snobbery at play.

Despite its dodgy subtext, Saltburn is a curate’s egg of a movie, with some very good parts indeed, and the final sequence – set to Murder on the Dancefloor – is utterly glorious. I look forward to what Fennell does next, albeit with some trepidation.

3.3 stars

Susan SIngfield

Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose

19/11/23

Amazon Prime

There are are some so-called ‘true’ stories that, if presented as fiction, would simply be dismissed as sheer nonsense. And then there’s ‘Gef,’ the talking mongoose, alleged to have haunted the Irving family on the Isle of Man in the 1930s, a situation deemed credible enough to prompt esteemed investigators into travelling to the Irvings’ remote farmhouse in order to establish whether or not Gef is actually real. Even the BBC produced a film about him and, for a while his fame was widespread. My main reaction to the story is one of bewilderment: why did anyone take this blatant baloney seriously?

I’ve heard about the story previously, thanks to an episode of the podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish, so my interest is sparked when I hear about writer/director Adam Sigal’s feature film. However, the fact that it hasn’t troubled the cinemas but has been unceremoniously dumped onto Amazon Prime suggests that there can’t be much here to shout about and, sadly, this proves to be the case.

Respected psychological researcher, Doctor Nandor Fodor (Simon Pegg), receives a letter from the Irving family telling him all about their resident mongoose and, after consulting esteemed colleague, Harry Price (Chistopher Lloyd), who has also investigated the case without reaching a satisfying conclusion, Fodor is intrigued enough to travel to the Isle of Man, accompanied by his assistant, Anne (Minnie Driver), to whom he may or may not be attracted. (It speaks volumes about the storytelling when I have to report that I’m still not sure sure about that element.)

Once there, they meet the affable Mr Irving (Tim Downie) and the other members of his household, including his teenage daughter, Voirrey (Jessica Balmer), who makes no secret of the fact that she is an accomplished ventriloquist. (I know: suspicious, right?)

But Fodor’s subsequent attempts to get to the truth of the matter are met with a whole series of bewildering obfuscations. Is Gef real? (No.) Or is he a cunningly contrived hoax, designed to bring people to the Irvings’ remote farm for reasons that can only be guessed at? Normally in cases of deception, the idea is to generate money, but that certainly isn’t what’s happening here. While the Irvings are far from being destitute, they live a frugal existence.

Sigal’s film is certainly enigmatic and it’s also handsomely filmed, the era convincingly evoked thanks to Sara Deane’s assured cinematography – but the screenplay spends far too much time telling us about events that have happened off screen, whilst offering us only the barest glimpses of Gef (voiced by Neil Gaiman). Both Pegg and Driver do their best with their respective characters, despite being given so little to work with. In the end though, the biggest mystery of all is how this unremarkable little project managed to pull in such a strong cast.

By the time we reach the underwhelming conclusion, I’ve pretty much given up on the film, and that’s a shame. There’s something so off-the-wall captivating about its central premise, that I’m left with the powerful conviction that there’s surely a great film to be made about Gef and his escapades.

Sadly, this isn’t it.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Killer

13/11/23

Netflix

The arrival of a new film by David Fincher is always of interest, but apart from limited screenings at a few independent cinemas, The Killer has quietly dropped onto Netflix without much trumpeting. Based on Alexis Nolent’s graphic novel of the same name, this sees Michael Fassbender as the titular assassin, who, when we first encounter him, is stalking his latest target, whilst simultaneously providing a running commentary. This comes across as a self-help manual for would-be professional murderers and would perhaps be more impressive if the projected hit didn’t go spectacularly awry.

But it does and, shortly afterwards, a revenge attack is carried out on our psychopathic hero’s nearest and dearest, whereupon (cliché alert!) he is obliged to travel around the world ensuring that those who were hired to clean up after his errors are brought to book in the severest manner possible.

Fincher is an accomplished director and the long opening sequence is beautifully handled, the tension and suspense steadily mounting as the seconds tick by. Likewise, an extended fight sequence in an apartment somewhere in Florida is brutally and viscerally captured in bone-crunching detail. The assassin’s preoccupation with listening to The Smiths as he works provides a wonderfully quirky detail and Erik Messerschmidt’s sleek cinematography is a delight.

But there’s an inherent problem here and it’s one of empathy. It’s hard for a viewer to care about a sociopath and even harder to sympathise with him when he’s given the kind of rough treatment he generally doles out to his victims. We never really learn anything about them – or him for that matter – and the only other person we meet in any detail, The Expert (Tilda Swinton), isn’t on screen long enough to make her presence felt.

Ultimately, this is an exercise in style that needs more content to back it up. Yes, the various components are masterfully assembled, and yes, it’s an example of skilfully-constructed images, but I’m left chasing shadows for the best part of two hours and, no matter how artfully that’s depicted, it’s really not enough to make this a satisfying piece of cinema.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney