Michael Caine

The Great Escaper

11/10/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

This poignant film, written by William Ivory and directed by Oliver Parker, relates the true story of pensioner Bernard Jordan (Michael Caine), who, when we first encounter him in 2014, is living a life of quiet desperation in a care home in Hove. He and his wife of many years, Rene (Glenda Jackson, in her final film role), have become used to the daily grind of meals and medication. Bernard is a veteran of World War 2 and like many others, he’s applied to go over to France to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of D Day, but is disappointed to be told that he’s left it too late.

Bernard and Rene have a heart-to-heart discussion about the situation. She’s not mobile enough to travel these days, but realises that Bernard has a long-held need to confront a particular ghost from his past. She advises him to go to France anyway, realising that this is something he really needs to do. He takes her at her word and slips away early one morning. When the care home staff finally start to notice his absence, Rene does an excellent job of stalling for time…

The Great Escaper is one of those stories that would seem ridiculously far-fetched if it weren’t true. Aboard the cross channel ferry, Bernard befriends Arthur, a former RAF officer (John Standing), who is haunted by his own tragic memories of the war; and he also encounters, Scott (Victor Oshin), a more recent veteran, who had the bad fortune to stand on a landmine in Helmand Province and is now struggling to adjust to his new life as an amputee.

These contemporary strands are punctuated by scenes of a young Bernard (Will Fletcher) and Irene (Laura Marcus), meeting during wartime and falling in love – and there are steadily unfolding sequences of the event that has haunted Bernard’s dreams for decades. The young actors who double for Caine and Jackson are perfectly cast in their roles.

This isn’t an epic film by any stretch of the imagination – it’s small and realistic and never afraid to show the darker side of ageing, the awful tragedy of it. Though the media interest in Bernard’s adventure actually happened, it’s never feels overblown; it’s measured and realistic. There’s also a refusal to glorify the bravery of the veterans.

The film’s strongest moment is the scene where a sobbing Bernard stands alone amidst a forest of white crosses in a military graveyard. ‘What a waste,’ he cries – and I’m pretty confident there’s not a soul in the audience that would disagree with him.

If eventually the film feels a little too sombre for its own good, there are still genuinely heartwarming performances from the two leads. Caine came out of retirement for the chance to work with Jackson again (they last appeared together in 1975’s The Romantic Englishwoman) and now, reunited for one final appearance, they make a winning team.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

King of Thieves

04/09/18

The Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of April 2015 was always destined to be a contender for big screen dramatisation. This intriguing story, about a bunch of crooked old age pensioners who somehow manage to pull off the biggest theft in history, sounds promising enough on paper and, just three short years after the event, here’s the film, directed by James ‘The Theory of Everything‘ Marsh and boasting a clutch of revered veteran actors in the leading roles. What could possibly go wrong? But what promises to be a cracking crime drama turns out to be more of a mystery movie – the biggest mystery of all being who ever thought this script was ready to go before the cameras. I hate to say it, but this is criminal in the worst sense of the word.

Michael Caine plays Brian Reader, former money launderer, now going straight mostly due to the influence of his wife, Lyn. Played by Francesca Annis, she is the only female to get any lines in this film. Make the most of them, because within minutes of the opening, she is brown bread, Brian is lonely and he’s suddenly open to interesting offers. When a mysterious young man named Basil approaches him proposing one last job, Brian decides to pull together a bunch of his old cronies and go along with the idea. Yes, they’re going to rob Hatton Garden, but guess what? Basil has a key to the building, which somebody lent him ages ago and then forgot about (I know – don’t ask).

Soon Brian has his crew in place. They are Terry Perkins (Jim Broadbent), ‘Kenny’ Collins (Tom Courtenay), Carl Wood (Paul Whitehouse) and Danny James (Ray Winstone). Kenny also brings in his regular fence, Billy ‘the Fish’ Lincoln (Michael Gambon), who he thinks will come in very handy when they’re trying to dispose of stolen diamonds. Getting into the building turns out to be deceptively easy, but of course, no heist ever goes exactly to plan…

You’d think the biggest obstacle in the crooks’ way would be the brick wall they have to drill through but, trust me, this is nothing when compared to the film’s plodding script. It tries to be a treatise on the indignities of ageing but, instead, seems happy enough to have the thieves sitting around complaining about their respective ailments, or how they can’t figure out how to use the internet. Seriously, if you’ve managed to pull together such a complement of respected actors, it might be a good idea to give them some witty dialogue to deliver, but there’s never any danger of that. It’s hard to describe the dismal feeling of watching the great Michael Gambon reduced to the role of an incontinent fish seller, whose few words of dialogue mostly begin with the letter F. Likewise, Jim Broadbent is generally a delight on screen, but who decided to ask him to play a hard man? Courtenay’s character is deaf, which is hilarious in itself, right? And as for Winstone… well, let’s not even go there. Suffice to say this isn’t up there with his work on  Nil By Mouth.

It’s only close to the film’s conclusion where we get a glimpse of what this could have been,  a brief sequence where footage of each character is intercut with glimpses of the actors in their heyday. But it’s too little, too late – and, sadly, by the end of King of Thieves, it’s not just the vault wall that’s been bored.

You have been warned.

2.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Interstellar

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9/11/14

Some films arrive in the cinema burdened by the weight of unreasonable expectation and Interstellar is one such film. Probably the most anticipated release since Prometheus (and look what happened with that!), if we are to believe what we’re told, this film is destined to save the film industry itself because what the world needs now is a major blockbuster and this just might be it. The film takes on weighty themes like the demise of mankind, the exploration of space and some fairly ‘out there’ theories about black holes and the fifth dimension. If much of it feels like a homage to Kubrick’s 2001, that’s no bad thing. The good news is, that though not perfect, Christopher Nolan’s three hour epic manages to hold a viewer’s attention throughout and in two key set pieces racks up levels of almost unbearable suspense.

The world is going to hell in a handcart, mostly because it’s turning into one great big dustbowl. Crops are dying out and ex space explorer Cooper, (Matthew McConaughey) now a corn farmer, sees his livelihood slipping away. When his young daughter Murphy tells him that the bookcase in her bedroom is trying to communicate with her (stay with me) Cooper identifies an anomaly, one that leads him to a remote location, where NASA scientist, Professor Brand (Michael Caine) is preparing a secret space mission, which he hopes will find a way to save the world. He’s prepared to send his own daughter, (Anne Hathaway) as a member of the team and he wants Cooper to pilot the spaceship. But it will mean being parted from his children for many years, with no guarantee of survival…

It’s to the film’s credit, that it makes some fairly unlikely events seem believable, but much of the ‘science’ here is so mind-blowingly complicated, that characters often have to resort to sketching diagrams to ensure that the audience understands it better – and there’s a final M. Night Shymalan-style twist that will either have you starry-eyed with wonder or shouting ‘no way!’ at the screen. Whether Interstellar can save the film industry is debatable. What is for sure is that Nolan hasn’t lost his Midas touch when it comes to creating awe-inspiring cinema. The father-daughter relationship at the heart of this tale is a powerful hook and the cinematography and special effects sequences are often breath-taking. A palpable hit, methinks.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney