Daniel Craig

Queer

19/12/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The writing of William Burroughs is notoriously hard to film. (David Cronenberg came closest with The Naked Lunch in 1991.) Now Luca Guadagnino chances his arm with this adaptation of Burroughs’ 1985 novella, a belated sequel to his most celebrated novel, Junky. Queer, as adapted by Justin Kuritzikes, deviates dramatically from its source material in its second half and heads off in a startling new direction.

Daniel Craig, who seems determined to move as far away from his Bond persona as is humanly possible, plays Lee, a writer (but we never actually see him practising his craft). Craig does give the role his best endeavour, though it must be said it’s hard to believe that anyone could maintain such a buff physique on Lee’s daily diet of mescal, heroin and endless Camel cigarettes. He wanders the streets of Mexico City – which for the purposes of this film has been recreated in Rome’s Cinecita studios – and occasionally hires whichever young man catches his eye for rough sex in a sleazy hotel. But when his gaze falls on handsome young American, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), he becomes hopelessly smitten and spends every waking hour attempting to get him into the sack.

Eventually, he succeeds in this mission but thereafter, Allerton treats him with such cool indifference that Lee becomes determined to learn more about him, so in the film’s second half, the duo set off to the jungles of Ecuador in search of a fabled drug called ayahuasca which is reputed to endow the user with telepathic powers…

Guadagnino is certainly an industrious filmmaker and I never know where he’ll go next. He’s already released the brilliant Challengers this year and I usually enjoy his work, but for me, he is prone to the occasional misstep. Suspiria felt puffed up with its own self-importance and Queer falls into that same category, a film that initially feels full of promise but ultimately delivers very little. Yes, it captures Burroughs’ seedy, nihilistic worldview, but like the source material, it’s strangely distancing and lacking in jeopardy and, frankly, none of the characters have qualities that an audience can root for – unless perhaps you count Jason Schwartzman’s fleeting appearance as Joe, Lee’s occasional drinking companion, who keeps being robbed by the young locals he sleeps with.

Lesley Manviile makes a late (almost unrecognisable) appearance as the feral, jungle-dwelling scientist, Dr Cotter, an expert in the aforementioned hallucinogen, and she helps Lee to achieve his goal of finding his inner self – but by this point I am already becoming uncomfortably aware of the film’s lengthy running time.

In its closing stages, Queer mostly feels uncomfortably reminiscent of Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Oddysey, which is not something I expected to say. And yes, it’s fine to refer to one of the more notorious episodes of Burroughs’ life, but to do so twice feels suspiciously like overkill. Kudos to Craig and Starkey who give this everything they have but, in the end, I just don’t care enough about what I’m watching to make this feel worth the effort.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

23/12/22

Netflix

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out garnered plenty of admirers on its release in 2019, though I felt at the time that it was a case of style over substance. Call me old fashioned, but I’m of the opinion that one of the basic requirements of a whodunnit is that it should be hard to crack and, in this case, it really wasn’t. The sequel (helpfully subtitled A Knives Out Mystery, just in case we’ve missed the connection) recently enjoyed a week in cinemas – at a time when we couldn’t see it. It now appears on Netflix, who financed it and they will also be funding several further instalments. The reviews haven’t been quite so ecstatic this time around, but perhaps ironically, I find this one an improvement on the original, mainly by virtue of the fact that I really can’t guess where it’s headed – though it should also be said that there is a glaring plot hole in there that should have been plugged. (See if you can spot it!)

Once again, this is very stylish, bright and kinetic. We’re offered a selection of – mostly repellent – characters who feel more like caricatures than real people. We learn more about ‘the world’s greatest detective’, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who apparently is fond of sitting in his bath whilst wearing a fez (as you do) and who appears to share his home with a very famous housemate. It all begins with a bunch of seemingly unconnected individuals receiving invitations to an exclusive party on billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton)’s private Greek island.

The invites come in the form of elaborate puzzle boxes, which must be deciphered. Soon enough, Blanc is standing on the dockside with the other guests, who include hapless socialite Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), muscle bound YouTuber, Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) and Bron’s former business partner, Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe). It soon becomes clear that Blanc hasn’t actually been invited to this bash, so his presence is only the first in a whole series of mysteries to be solved.The action is set in 2020, so hats off to Johnson for actually referencing the COVID pandemic, with the characters wearing masks and being all awkward about hugging and shaking hands, something that’s barely ever been referenced in the cinema so far.

Once on the island and inside Bron’s super luxurious home – the centrepiece of which resembles a huge er… glass onion – the host announces that they will all be playing an elaborate murder mystery game. At some point in the evening, he will be ‘killed’ and the guests will have to work out whodunnit…

So far, so Agatha Christie, but it should be said that nothing here goes according to anybody’s plan and, while I feel the early stretches of Glass Onion take some sticking with, once we’ve reached the midpoint, a huge revelation in the form of a series of flashbacks makes everything much more interesting. From here, the proceedings become ever more unhinged, ever more labyrinthine, as Johnson throws aside the conventions of the genre and begins to have fun with proceedings. It’s here too that his central tenet becomes clear. We’re continually reminded that nothing is hidden, nothing is opaque and that the answers to every puzzle are right there in front of us.

It’s clever but, once again, there’s a sense of distance. Because I don’t believe in any of these people, the result is like watching an expert game of chess, with the director manipulating the action like a grandmaster. I’m watching with a sense of detachment rather than being swept up in the proceedings.

Ultimately Glass Onion is an interesting exercise in legerdemain, and Netflix will doubtless do well with it. It will be interesting to see where the series of films goes from here but, for me at least, this feels like a step in the right direction.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

No Time to Die

06/10/21

Cineworld, Edinburgh

My first Bond film was everyone else’s first Bond film. Dr No.

It was 1962, I was eleven years old, sitting in a cinema in Singapore, and I remember being suitably dazzled by the experience. I’d honestly never seen anything quite like it before. I was probably a bit too young but, back then, nobody seemed to care too much about asking for your ID. After that, I considered myself a genuine Bond fan. From Russia With Love (still in my humble opinion the best in the series), Goldfinger, Thunderball… you know the rest. I think I saw every one of them, even after Sean Connery had jumped ship and the character went through more changes than Dr Who. I disliked Roger Moore in the role (too affable) but still watched the movies – and I reacted with various degrees of approval and bemusement as new incarnations appeared over the years.

I thoroughly approved when Daniel Craig delivered a great big kick up the franchise with 2006’s Casino Royale – even though the suspicion lingers that Eon Films had simply studied the Jason Bourne movies and borrowed some of its action tropes. Still, the series continued to have traction and 2012’s Skyfall ranks as one of the biggest earners of all time. So there’s no denying the Bond films’ longevity, nor the simple fact that, where Tenet failed to put bums back on seats, NTTD appears to be succeeding.

And now here we are, a full two years after its projected release, and No Time to Die marks Craig’s swan song as the world’s most successful secret agent. Little wonder so much hope has been pinned on 007’s return and little wonder too that the advertising preceding the film seems to go on for just about forever.

We (finally) begin in time-honoured fashion with a pre-credits sequence. A little girl is terrorised by a sinister masked villain in a snow-bound location. Years later, that little girl has grown up to be Madeleine Swan (Léa Seydoux) and she and Bond are enjoying a passionate love affair in a very picturesque part of Italy. But of course, we know, don’t we, that such happiness can’t go on for very long?

Visiting the grave of old flame, Vesper Lynde, Bond is lucky to survive an explosion – and then there’s a succession of breathless action sequences featuring cars and motorbikes and a leap from a bridge that would be ludicrous if some poor stuntman hadn’t actually had to do it for real. It’s perfectly timed, brilliantly executed, a joy to behold.

But then of course, comes that familiar theme music and the realisation that we’ve still got an entire film to sit through. Quite why that film has to be two hours and forty-three minutes long is a puzzle. Trim thirty minutes out of this sucker and you’d have a triumphant action flick, but hey, swan songs can’t be dismissed too lightly, and it has to be said that there’s still plenty here to enjoy. It’s clear from the get-go that a lot of holy cows are being slaughtered in the process. Long-running characters are summarily handed their termination notices, old preconceptions are briskly upturned and you can’t say that Eon haven’t done their level best to drag the old misogynist kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. A black female 007? That would never have happened under the old guard’s watch. There are also some wry observations about Bond’s age and the more keen-eyed viewer will spot references to classic moments in earlier films.

Some of the familiar problems still linger. Villain Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) may have sound reasons for wanting to inflict a deadly virus on his enemies but why does he feel the need to unleash the same punishment upon the entire world? And why is it still considered fair game to equate facial disfiguration with such evil?

But there are some surprises too. I have to admit that I really don’t see the final twist coming. And quite what happens from here is anybody’s guess. There are plenty of people saying that it should simply end, but given the potential earnings that a new Bond could generate, I’ll be very surprised if it does.

Maybe it will simply have to Die Another Day.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Knives Out

From left to right. Richard (Don Johnson), Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), Ransom (Chris Evans) Great Nana (K Callan), Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) Walt (Michael Shannon), Jacob (Jaeden Lieberher), Donna (Riki Lindholm), Joni (Toni Collette) and Meg (Katherine Langford) in “Knives Out.” (Claire Folger/Lionsgate)

25/11/19

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is an Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit for our times. Although reliant on the tropes and clichés of the murder-mystery, the delivery makes this a thoroughly modern thriller.

The cast is stellar. Christopher Plummer is Harlem Thrombey: a successful eighty-five-year-old novelist with a penchant for games and a vast fortune to bequeath. The morning after his birthday party, he is found dead, his throat cut in an apparent suicide. But just as the police (LaKeith Stanfield and Noah Began) are ready to finalise the cause of death, enigmatic private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) turns up, hired by an anonymous client to investigate further.

Thrombey’s children and grandchildren are all present, and it turns out each of them has a motive for his murder – although I won’t reveal the details here. His daughter, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), is a forbidding businesswoman, visiting with her husband, Richard (Don Johnson), and their feckless son, Ransom (Chris Evans). Thrombey’s son, Walt (Michael Shannon), is a gentle soul, but a hopeless case, incapable of making it on his own. He has a wife too (Riki Lindome), and an alt-right-leaning teenager (Jaeden Martell), who spends his time perusing questionable websites on his phone. And finally, there’s Thrombey’s yoga-and-crystal-loving daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collette), and her student daughter, Meg (Katherine Langford).

As you might expect of the genre, the setting is a remote country house, and so – of course – there are staff too: housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) and nurse Marta (Ana de Armas), both of whom prove central to the plot.

There’s an appealing playfulness here, with zingy dialogue and witty repartee, and the performances are as sprightly and assured as you’d expect from these marvellous actors. But the plot is a little predictable: there are no real surprises here, mainly because the various ‘twists’ are too heavily signalled. The middle third sags under the weight of a lengthy red herring, where the focus drifts from the larger-than-life characters and their shenanigans, following instead a more muted, less engaging thread.

Nonetheless, this is a lively and eminently watchable film – just not the masterpiece I hoped that it would be.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Logan Lucky

07/09/17

It’s four years since Steven Soderbergh made the shock announcement that he was retiring from filmmaking. Mind you, he hasn’t exactly been putting his feet up with a cup of cocoa. There’s the little matter of directing two seasons of medical TV show, The Knick (under an alias) and his involvement in the upcoming project Mosaic (of which I know very little, other than it’s a ‘branching narrative’) So there’s the distinct impression that he may have returned to the big screen with Logan Lucky for a quieter life.

In a way, he’s returning to familiar territory, as this is a heist movie, a path he’s already worn fairly smooth. But put aside all thoughts of the slick, ultra cool Oceans 11. As one character observes in Rebecca Blunt’s caustic script, this is more like Oceans 7/11 – a tattered, down-at-heel story set in West Virginia. (John Denver on the soundtrack? Naturally.)

Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, a down-on-his luck former sports star, who loses his job as a bulldozer driver because of an old injury which has left him with a permanent limp. Divorced from his wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes) and with a precocious young daughter to care for, he comes up with a desperate scheme to make money, one that he shares with his taciturn one-armed war veteran brother, Clyde (Adam Driver). The two of them will rob the Coca Cola 600 Race in Charlotte, Virginia, a massive sporting event that generates millions of dollars. Clyde decides that he’s ‘in’ but, to carry out the robbery, the brothers will need to enlist the services of infamous explosives expert, Joe Bang (Daniel Craig, as you have never seen him before). Only problem is, Joe is already doing time for other misdemeanours, so the brothers will need to break him out of jail, do the heist and get him back inside without his presence being missed. Complicated? You bet. Impossible? Well, it’s going to take some planning and, of course, this is exactly the kind of premise that Soderbergh loves to play with.

There’s plenty here to enjoy. Tatum and Driver work well together, even if they are the most unlikely film siblings since Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Riley Keough puts in an appealing performance  as Jimmy’s resourceful sister, Mellie, and both Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson are brilliant as Joe’s dumb-and-dumber brothers, Fish and Sam, who Joe insists must be brought on board to help expedite the robbery. And Craig really does have a whale of a time as the outlandish explosives expert, addicted to eating hard boiled eggs and able to create explosives from the most innocuous ingredients. Gummy Bears? Who knew?

But not everything in the mix is perfect. I could have done without Seth MacFarlane’s oafish Max Chilblane, sporting an English accent that’s almost as bad as the one employed by Don Cheadle in the Oceans movies. Hilary Swank is mostly wasted in the role of a ruthless investigator trying to nail the perpetrators of ‘the Hillbilly Heist’, given little to do but stand around and glower at people and, in my opinion – at just under two hours – the film is about thirty minutes too long. A leaner, meaner narrative would have helped no end here, but perhaps I’m quibbling. This is a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours in the cinema and there’s no doubt that Soderbergh has returned to the movie business with a palpable hit.

What next for him, I wonder? Another ‘retirement?’ More TV? And that branching narrative he keeps mentioning? We’ll just have to wait and see.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

SPECTRE

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08/11/15

The James Bond movies seem to have settled into a regular pattern – a decent outing alternating with a not so decent one. I’ve been following the films since Dr No and was initially delighted with Daniel Craig’s efforts. Casino Royale delivered a much needed kick up the franchise, even if most of its chops were nicked from The Bourne Identity. Craig seemed to cleave closer to Ian Fleming’s vision of his infamous antihero and the silly gimmicks were kept to a minimum. Quantum of Solace felt like a decidedly patchy follow-up, which never really built up a head of steam. Skyfall of course, kicked things clear out of the stadium, becoming the most successful Bond film of all time, which leaves returning director Sam Mendes only one direction in which to take things. Down.

In the latest outing, Bond is (once again) looking like he’s all washed up. He’s gone out on his own in search of the orchestrator of a sinister organisation and M (Ralph Fiennes) has no option but to order him to stand down. Not that it deters him at all. With the help of Q (Ben Wishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) he loads his gun and heads out after the bad guys. Before you can say implausible, he’s heading off to a variety of locations to hunt down whichever evil mastermind is behind the latest series of outrages. Meanwhile, the headquarters of MI6, bombed to destruction in Skyfall, have been replaced by a brand new super dooper high rise building, masterminded by C (Andrew Scott) who may as well have the word ‘dodgy’ tattooed on his forehead.

The film starts promisingly with a pre-credits sequence set amidst Mexico City’s El Dia De Muerte celebrations. There’s a Touch of Evil style tracking shot, some massive explosions and a helicopter-set punch up that redefines the word ‘thrilling.’ If the rest of the film was up to this standard, it would be a wonderful thing indeed. Instead, after Sam Smith’s forgettable theme song, (too shrill by half) we’re treated to some exposition, which, after that brilliant opening salvo, seems to move with all the urgency of molasses in winter. It takes quite a while for the film to recover – there’s a forgettable car chase, a punch up on a train that echoes Connery’s fight with Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love, a new love interest with Gallic moody monkey Lea Seydoux and a brief snogathon with Monica Bellucchi that looks like it’s crawled straight out of the sexist 60s. Things don’t really pick up much until chief villain Oberhauzer (Cristophe Waltz) puts in a belated appearance, whereupon we’re treated to a bit of torture, (always a great way to focus the attention), followed by what ought to be the finale.

Except that it’s not. There’s another finale, which though decently executed feels like a sequence too far (and judging by the legions of audience members paying a visit to the loo, we weren’t the only ones who felt this way). SPECTRE is decent entertainment and it’s savvy enough to reference many of the earlier movies, but it’s not strong enough to take its place with the best examples of the series. Some tightening up would have helped it hit all the right targets, but as it stands, this falls into the usual pattern. ‘Bond will return’ promises a credit, but will he be Daniel Craig? Watch this space.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney