Sam Troughton

Mank

04/12/20

Netflix

It seems I’ve been waiting for this film for just about forever. Director David Fincher first mentioned it as a possible follow up to Alien3 way back in 1992. With a screenplay by his father, Jack, it would focus on the creation of Citizen Kane. It would provide an answer to how much involvement Orson Welles actually had in the writing of that Oscar-winning screenplay and it would, of course, look into the allegations that the film was besmirched by the machinations of powerful newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst.

Was I up for this? Yes, big time, because this is a story that has fascinated me since my youth. But, as it turned out, I was going to have to be patient…

And now, in one of the bleakest years in human history, it finally turns up, virtually unannounced on Netflix. Needless to say, I don’t allow a great deal of time to elapse before I tune in.

And it’s worth the wait. This is absolutely sumptuous, oozing class from every beautiful monochromatic frame, courtesy of cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt. Here is a faultless recreation of an era, right down to the visible scene descriptions, written clickety-clackety on a manual typewriter. From the opening credits onwards, Mank puts the viewer slap-bang in the early 1940s and keeps them immersed in that turbulent era right up until the final credits.

Washed-up screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) finds himself installed in a remote desert location, shortly after suffering serious injuries in a car crash. Sternly monitored by John Houseman (Sam Troughton) and ably assisted by English secretary, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), he has been given the daunting task of writing the debut motion picture for Mercury Theatre’s Wunderkind, Orson Welles (Tom Burke). And he has just sixty days in which to do it.

It doesn’t help that Mank (as he is known to his friends) is an alcoholic. But he sets about the task with as much vigour as he can muster and, as he writes, his mind skips back and forth (rather like the screenplay he’s working on) over his changing fortunes in the Hollywood film industry.

We encounter Mank’s hostile relationship with muck-raking press baron, Hearst (Charles Dance), his platonic friendship with Hearst’s wife, Marion Davies (an almost luminous Amanda Seyfried), and his pugilistic dealings with the extremely unlikable Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard). There’s more – much more – in a packed two hours and eleven minutes; indeed, it’s probably fair to say that this is a story as rich and multi-layered as Kane itself. It’s also surprisingly prescient. The realisation that a super-rich newspaper proprietor can exert a powerful influence over the politics of a country, even going so far as to film fake news items to help steal an election, seems like a decidedly contemporary notion… but clearly that kind of thing has been going on for decades.

The film isn’t quite perfect. A scene where Mank goes on a (very long) drunken diatribe at one of Hearst’s lavish parties stretches credulity, and there are a few leaden missteps around the middle section, but these are minor blips in something that’s a giant step up from much of the so-so fodder that gets made. Fincher has created a warm, and moving testimonial to his late father’s memory, one that deserves to stand alongside the infamous movie it commemorates. Of course, it helps if you’re a fan of Kane in the first place, but it’s by no means essential.

If you’ve a couple of hours to spare, why not spoil yourselves? This is a superb piece of cinema.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Ritual

07/04/19

We missed this at the cinema – not difficult to do, since it had a blink-and-miss-it release – but we saw the trailer and thought it looked promising. But The Ritual, directed by David Bruckner and based on a novel by Joe Barton and Adam Neville, is now happily located on Netflix. It starts well enough, exerting a steadily mounting Blair Witch-style sense of dread, but eventually loses its way.

At the film’s opening, Luke (Rafe Spall) is out with his mates on the town. They are Phil (Arsher Ali), Hutch (Robert James-Collier), Dom (Sam Troughton) and Robert (Paul Reid). Luke’s mates are all showing troubling signs of growing up. They don’t want to stay out on the lash and are discussing plans for their upcoming holiday together, which – instead of the usual booze up in a hot climate – is shaping up to be a hiking trip in a remote part of Sweden. Luke persuades Robert to go into a off-licence with him to purchase a bottle of vodka and the two of them chance upon an armed robbery in progress. Luke ducks behind some shelves and Robert winds up bloodily murdered.

Six months later, Luke and the rest of the band find themselves embarking on the long hike that Robert was so keen to do – but Luke is haunted by the fact that he failed to help his friend and is also aware that the others think less of him for not stepping up when push came to shove. The group soon become lost in dense forests and, when a violent rain storm hits them, they take refuge in an old shack for the night, where things turn decidedly scary.

Now they have to continue their trek, horribly aware that they are being pursued by something unseen, something that has a nasty habit of leaving dead animals hanging in trees…

The first two thirds of the film are really rather effective. The edgy interplay between the characters is convincingly written and the terrifying foe is a powerful concept as long as it remains pretty much unseen, which it does for about an hour. But the final section squanders all of that hard-earned suspense by offering a convoluted explanation that feels distinctly risible. It’s not helped that the effect sequences that finally show the marauding beast are rather less than convincing.

Also, there’s something strangely skewed about the logic of this tale. Luke badly needs some redemption but, as it stands, he doesn’t really get any; he just finds himself plunged into a desperate struggle for survival. And I’m desperately struggling to care.

A shame, because this could be a decent little chiller. Instead it feels more like a great big missed opportunity.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney