Sharlto Copley

Monkey Man

07/04/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Dev Patel’s debut film as a director is an ultra-violent revenge thriller set in an Indian city called Yatana that looks very much like Mumbai. Patel plays Kid, a man entirely motivated by the need to find the corrupt Police Chief, Rana (Sikandar Kher), who is responsible for the brutal murder of Kid’s mother back when he actually was a, well, kid. Why it’s taken him so long to get around to this is never explained.

Kid currently earns a buck by taking part in a series of no-holds-barred fights, hosted by sleazy MC, Tiger (Sharlto Copley), and attended by baying crowds. He hides his identity behind a realistic monkey mask – inspired by the Indian god, Hanuman – but he doesn’t win his bouts, preferring instead to make easy money by taking dives. Meanwhile, he finds a way of procuring work as a barman at the swish city nightclub where he knows Rana likes to spend his spare time. His sole ambition is to get to Rana and kill him.

While Monkey Man has a distinctive look (largely thanks to cinematographer Sharon Weir) and occasionally hints at the more interesting film it could have been, it feels hampered by its reductive plot and an evident desire to be a kind of Asian John Wick. Those films are actually mentioned by one character early on and, in the final extended punch-up, where Kid fights his way from the basement of the hotel to the VIP room at the top, it’s hard not to think of Gareth Evans’ The Raid – though these films feel almost restrained compared to the levels of bone-snapping, blood-drenched violence on offer here. That 18 certificate is there for a reason.

Patel’s character dominates the film to the extent that none of the other actors gets much of a look in. An early attempt to introduce perky sidekick, Alphonso (Pitobash), is disappointingly abandoned, and Kid’s brief interplay with a sympathetic sex worker, Sita (Sobita Dhulipala), is never allowed to develop into anything more substantial.

Occasionally Patel – who co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Angunawela and John Collee – tries to usher in more original elements. There are references to Indian folklore, pastoral flashbacks to Kid’s rural childhood and there are some astute observations about bogus spiritual leaders, who exploit the poverty of their followers, but these themes are repeatedly punched and kicked into submission by a seemingly endless succession of extended fight scenes. The first one, set largely in a kitchen (with a varied supply of potential weapons), is brilliantly choreographed and has me flinching and gasping in all the right places. But it’s followed by another fight and then another one and the repetitiveness of them begins to work against the material.

Eventually, I start to feel bludgeoned and bored, which I’m pretty sure is not the effect Patel was looking for.

In the chaos of flying fists and breaking bones, I also find myself asking questions. If Kid simply wants revenge on a single man, why not wait until he’s alone, rather than surrounded by hundreds of bodyguards? What’s the point is maiming all those people who are simply carrying out their duties? (Mind you, I’d be the first to admit that wouldn’t make for a particularly memorable film, either.)

Action junkies will doubtless tell me that I’m wrong about Monkey Man, that it’s a kick-ass, adrenalin-fuelled marvel, but the occasional flashes of brilliance it does contain merely enforce my view that this film could so easily have been an absolute knockout, instead of the long and messy brawl that it is.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Beast

31/08/22

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Listen! Hear that? The swishing noise is the sound of thousands of tourists reaching for their pens and crossing ‘African Safari’ off their bucket lists.

In the rather generically titled Beast, American doctor Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) takes his two young daughters, Meredith (Liana Samuels) and Norah (Leah Jeffries), back to the remote part of Africa from where their late mother originated. Since his wife’s death from cancer, Nate has become somewhat distanced from the girls, so he’s arranged to hook up with his old pal, game warden, Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley), for a family holiday, that will be part safari, part tribute, part bonding experience.

What Nate and his companions don’t know is what’s happened in the film’s opening scenes, where a group of poachers have slaughtered an entire pride of lions but have failed to kill the dominant male, who is understandably miffed and looking for vengeance. This is a lion who appears to share genes with Michael Myers. He’s unstoppable – and it isn’t long before the safari has turned into a desperate attempt to survive…

Beast may essentially be a kind of landlocked Jaws, but it’s nonetheless effectively done. Screenwriters Ryan Engle and Jaime Primak Sullivan team with director Balthasar Kormákur to assemble a lean machine of a film, that alternates between Nate’s attempts to reconnect with his daughters and a series of nerve-shredding suspense sequences. I find myself flinching and gasping at every sound, as the Samuels are chased, cornered, clawed and battered, always in dire danger of becoming lion fodder. Those who dislike injury details will find themselves looking away from the screen at key points.

It’s surprisingly effective. The titular beast has been CGI generated, but is nevertheless very convincing – there’s none of the dead eyed, ‘uncanny valley’ look that affects so many computerised critters – and I find myself suitably terrorised throughout. There are some nicely integrated dream sequences too, one of which really throws me a googlie. Despite its ‘Man v Monster’ storyline, this isn’t any kind of retro macho piece: there’s nuance aplenty, and the two young girls are well-rounded, believable characters, who play an integral part in their own survival.

This isn’t going to change your life, but those who relish the idea of seeing Idris Elba punch a lion in the face will certainly get a kick out of Beast. The African tourist board, on the other hand, may not look quite so kindly upon it.

You’ll believe a lion can bear a grudge.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Free Fire

28/02/17

In a relatively short career, director Ben Wheatley has created some exciting and groundbreaking films. His most consistent piece, Sightseers, is a delightful comedy with a dark and twisted heart – and his last outing, an adaptation of JG Ballard’s High Rise, though not perfect, was one of the most challenging pieces of dystopian cinema in a long time.

So it gives me absolutely no pleasure at all to report that Free Fire is an unmitigated dud. I came out of this advance screening asking myself just exactly what Wheatley thought he was trying to do here. This is the kind of film that forged Tarantino’s early reputation – indeed, if Free Fire resembles any other movie, it’s Reservoir Dogs. Now, I’ve been quite cutting about Tarantino over the years, suggesting that the man’s slender talent has been repeatedly overpraised but, seriously, Free Fire makes him look like a genius film-maker. It really is that bad.

It’s Boston in 1978. Actually, it’s a warehouse in Brighton, but it hardly matters since the action never bothers to step outside of that single location. IRA men Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) are attempting to buy rifles for their cause; the deal has been arranged by South African popinjay, Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and his American friend Ord (Armie Hammer). Brie Larson plays Justine, a thankless token female role and, just in case that’s not enough, there’s also a token black man, Martin (Babou Ceesay, dressed like an extra from Shaft). In the opening stages of the film, there are admittedly a few witty lines thrown around. Enjoy them while you can, because this early promise is soon squandered.

Midway through the deal, an argument ensues between twitchy junkie, Stevo (Sam Riley) and one of Vernon’s goons, Bernie (Enzo Cilenti). It rapidly escalates and, inevitably, a gunfight ensues. You’d better like gunfights, by the way, because this one lasts for the rest of the movie, around eighty minutes of characters you don’t really know or care about hurling a mixture of bullets and F words at each other without pause or reason.

Perhaps Wheatley is trying to show the absurdity of violence. Perhaps he’s simply pushing the envelope of the genre, stripping it back to its basics. Whatever he is trying to do, it fails miserably. This is simply deadly boring. It also tests credulity to the limit as characters are shot again and again, but don’t have the decency to fall down and die. Quite how Wheatley convinced a troop of A list actors to appear in this nonsense remains the biggest mystery of all. (Christ, what did the screenplay look like?) Inevitably, there will be those who hail Free Fire as a work of genius, but that would be a re-run of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Unless the idea of an endless gunfight appeals to you – and I’ll admit that, in the right hands, it could conceivably have worked – this is one to file under D for disaster.

The screening is followed by a Q & A with Wheatley and actor Sam Riley – and it  speaks volumes when I admit that I bail out and head to a local bar for what feels like a well-earned drink. The only question I could have mustered would have been, ‘Why?’

A major disappointment.

1.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Chappie

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18/03/15

Few directors have made such a triumphant cinematic debut as South African,Neill Blomkamp. His first feature District 9 was an assured production, a canny blend of science fiction and social commentary, that blasted his career into the stratosphere. His next offering, Elysium was rather less successful but nonetheless, very watchable, even when it suggested that a human being could undergo drastic bodily surgery without bothering to remove his T-shirt. Chappie, however, is a real dog’s dinner of a film. Not only is it incredibly derivative (it comes across as an unwieldy amalgam of Robocop and Short Circuit) it features clumsy scripting and some pretty terrible performances in key roles.

In a futuristic Johannesburg, everyday policing is carried out by ‘Scouts,’ humanoid robots, capable of making their own decisions. They are the brainchild of Deon (Dev Patel) a nerdy worker in a giant corporation who dreams of one day creating a true AI – a robot capable of independent thought and the appreciation of art and music. This idea is pooh poohed by Deon’s workmanlike boss, Michelle (Sigourney Weaver, with very little to do but sit behind a desk and look stern.) Deon’s success is also envied  by his macho associate, Vincent (Hugh Jackman), who has his own law enforcement project waiting in the wings and doesn’t mind taking a few shortcuts. When Deon runs some unauthorised experiments on a damaged Scout, the result is Chappie, (voiced by Blomkamp regular, Sharlto Copley) but things become complicated when Deon and his creation are kidnapped by a couple of local hoodlums, Ninja and Yolandi, who want to use the robot for their own nefarious purposes. They set about teaching Chappie how to be bad…

As in his previous films, Blomkamp is great at achieving a credible look in his futuristic world and the motion capture work employed here is of the very highest quality, so it’s a shame that the same care and attention hasn’t been lavished upon a credible script. Events pile haphazardly one on top of the other, but seem to follow no discernible logic, while the aforementioned Ninja and Yolandi are portrayed by a couple of South African rappers (they haven’t even bothered to change their names) who between them display the acting skills of… well, a couple of South African rappers. Frankly, they stink up the screen, which drives a fatal nail through the heart of the film.

The word is out that Blomkamp’s next project will be part of the Alien franchise, but he’ll have to work very hard indeed to rise above the scrappy disappointment that is Chappie. What a shame.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney