Winter’s Bone

(2010)

Dir: Debra Granik

John Hawkes and Jennifer Lawrence are pulled over by Garret Dillahunt’s sheriff. Finally at the end of his tether, Hawkes’ Teardrop reaches for his shotgun and lets the approaching lawman know that if he intends to take him in, it will be the last thing any of them do. It is a scene crackling with unspoken tension and intensity, not seen since Javier Bardem entered our nightmares with the infamous coin toss in the Coen’s No Country For Old Men.

Everything about Winter’s Bone is understated, yet it loses none of its visceral worth. It follows Lawrence’s Ree, a 17-year-old girl who, instead of going to school, looks after her younger siblings and invalid mother amidst the impoverished Ozarks. Informed that their absent father is wanted by the law and has put up their house up as his bond, Ree must find her wayward Pa before losing everything.

Visually, Winter’s Bone is a spectacular achievement. The landscape is both beautiful and harrowing, conjuring up images of John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic The Road, due to its bluish hue.

Lawrence is superb. Like some Western figure of old, trench coated, she tramps tirelessly across this American wasteland, facing beatings and murder amidst this warped patriarchal and criminal community. It’s one of the strongest female performances in years, stony faced and pure. It is accentuated by the support of John Hawkes as her uncle Teardrop. Hawkes does an incredible job of turning his slight, gaunt visage into a menacing presence of Travis Bickle proportions. It seems unlikely that these two will be overlooked by the Academy, and rightly so, but the film as a whole deserves the accolade, with independent director Debra Granik cementing her name as filmmaker with cinematic real vision.

Winter’s Bone is a startling achievement from both cast and crew; a though provoking, aesthetically arresting journey. Film of the year? It’s up there.

**** ¼ / *****

“Bites to the bone.”

The Killing Room

(2009)

Dir: Jonathan Liebesman

 

Do you accept the Dulux challenge?

It feels as though The Killing Room is trying to be a lot cleverer than it actually is. That’s not to say that Jonathan Liebesman’s intense psychological thriller is stupid; it is anything but. The film deserves a lot of credit for at least trying to provoke thought in its viewer. It’s just unfortunate that what we get isn’t actually that original.

Four strangers are brought into a room together, where they believe they are signing up for some kind of experiment. They’re right. They are. Unfortunately, they are the experiment. Peter Stormare’s dastardly scientist murders one of them, before locking the remaining survivors in, giving them a series of questions to answer or more will die. It’s essentially Saw if Jigsaw was actually working for the government. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh, as there is certainly no gore in The Killing Room, but there is very little in the original Saw either; it is only later than it was raped by the franchise machine.

But Liebesman’s film both feels less and more real than Saw. It isn’t the same visceral experience, but its governmental plot is a very prudent and pressing idea. The four unfortunate unknowns do a very good job in four very difficult roles, with Stormare and Chloe Sevigny providing sterling support as the cold and ruthless instigators of the heinous procedure. So while not the film it wants to be, The Killing Room joins Saw and David Fincher’s overlooked Panic Room as real modern peddlers s of the claustrophobic art.

It might not be Hitchcock, but it is intelligent cinema, and God only knows there isn’t enough of that around.

*** / *****

“The Editing Room.”

Lakeview Terrace

(2009)

Dir: Neil LaBute

 

“Get off my motherfucking lawn.”

 

The most obvious comparison to make with Lakeview Terrace is Gran Torino. Both films feature curmudgeonly old gits amidst a pressure cooker of racial prejudice and bigotry. Where Gran Torino had Clint Eastwood, Lakeview Terrace has Samuel L. Jackson. And while, overall, Eastwood’s 2008 drama is the superior work, the central performance from the director himself fails in comparison to Jackson’s.

It may not be a very popular opinion, but whilst Eastwood does his usual ‘growling man’ routine, playing the stereotypical wounded old dog who essentially comes good at the end, Jackson’s performance is a far more visceral experience.

Jackson is Abel Turner, an ageing Los Angeles cop living in a luxurious suburban home that he had to work long and hard in order to acquire, just so that he could keep his children away from the kind of upbringing he had. When Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington’s inter-racial couple, Chris and Lisa, move in next door, Abel’s brewing racial intolerances and archaic sensibilities are brought to a head.

This is some of Jackson’s best work in ages. Gone is the screaming, yelling and cussing; replaced instead by a sinister presence which dominates Neil LaBute’s film even more than the oncoming forest fire that threatens their suburban ‘Utopia’.

Where the film falls down, is in not giving Jackson anywhere near enough screen time. He gets a lot, but not as much as Wilson, who, while an engaging presence in his own right, simply cannot fill the void left every time the visceral Abe is off the screen. Consequently, Jackson’s rich and diverse character is left underdeveloped by the conclusion, leaving a rather unsatisfactory taste in the mouth.

But if Lakeview Terrace is an indication of anything, it’s that while Sammy L. is still willing to put his name on anything, there’s still plenty of talent left in the old motherfucker yet.

*** ¼ / *****

Shrek Forever After

(2010)

Dir: Mike Mitchell

I might be remembering my first viewings of Shrek and Shrek 2 through rose tinted spectacles, but Shrek Forever After just doesn’t have the grand appeal anymore.

The fourth (never!) instalment in the big green franchise, this time our titular ogre is faced by his biggest enemy of all: tedium. Shrek is bored. He longs for the days when he was free to be feared, free to be an ogre. So what does ol’ greeny do? He makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin of course, giving the shady midget one day of his past in exchange for one day as an ogre. Unfortunately, the day Rumpelstiltskin takes turns out to be the day Shrek was born, erasing Shrek and all his heroic and (rather importantly) sexual accolades from history.

First of all, kudos to the writers for realising that Shrek’s offspring are, like most cinema sprogs, bone-stewingly annoying. So with the brats jettisoned due to the lack of Shrek semen in this alternate universe, Forever After is already one pitch down, but star one up on its predecessor. Also in its favour are two very, very entertaining villains. Walt Dohm’s Rumpelstiltskin is deliciously ruthless and hilarious in a way not seen since John Lithgow’s Lord Farquad from the original. The Pied Piper is another inspired choice, turning the fabled child catcher into the literally musical assassin dispatched to hunt down the renegade ogre.

But Forever After is still simply not as good as its mummy and daddy. As a standalone it’s a fun yet forgettable romp, but one that would have served to a much better as a conclusion to the trilogy rather than a quadrilogy.

If only Rumpelstiltskin could do us a deal where Shrek The Third was gone forever…

*** / *****

“Ogre and out.”

Eastern Promises

(2007)

Dir; David Cronenberg

When Cronenberg hit the 1990s, he got serious. Now he’s getting really serious. Thankfully, he’s David Cronenberg.

With Eastern Promises, we get the tale of Naomi Watts’ midwife Anna, who, after finding the diary of a late patient, searches for the true family of the deceased’s offspring. Unfortunately, this quest leads Anna into the nefarious company of Russian gangsters Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent Cassel and Viggo Mortensen, collectively known as the vory v zakone ("thieves in law").

Cronenberg is the most visceral director ever. This is not Crash or The Fly, the grotesquery is not obvious. Nor is it Dead Ringers or Scanners, covert in its disturbance. Eastern Promises continues the same skin-biting thrill of the brilliant A History of Violence from 2005. The flesh is just as fragile; bodies are littered with tattoos and carved by scars in such a way that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The violence in the film highlights Cronenberg’s mastery of the blood. One scene in particular, as Mortensen’s de-clothed Nikolai battles two burly Chechens in a Turkish bath house. The scene feels like an insane merging of the Morpheus versus Smith showdown from The Matrix, The Bourne Ultimatum’s bathroom brawl, and the disturbing rape scene from Mysterious Skin. It is bitingly real, yet filled with intense passion. It is almost, dare I say, a sex scene.

Mortensen is the standout. The comparisons to De Niro are accurate. Not only is he starting to resemble Bob, but his quiet, intense presence pervades every inch. Like History’s Tom, Nikolai is at heart a peaceful man trying to repress his inner monster. And Mortensen conveys all this from behind shades.

One of the best films of 2007 and joins History as one of the triumphs of the decade; Eastern Promises shows that even at the ripe old age of 67, Cronenberg is still the freshest voice in cinema.

**** ¼ / *****

“Be amazed, be very amazed.”

The Boat That Rocked

(2009)

Dir: Richard Curtis

If anything, The Boat That Rocked will do some good business for iTunes.

With such a fantastic, foot-tapping soundtrack, it’s unsurprising that the film becomes almost like one huge 60s throwback music video with the plot and other pesky cinematic contrivances going into the North Sea. Director Richard Curtis tells the tale of 1960s Pirate Radio and, in particular, “Radio Rock”, a motley crew of dedicated disc jockeys broadcasting real music to the masses from, you guessed it, a boat in the North Sea. The uptight British government though, has other ideas.

There are aspects of The Boat That Rocked which work. It is a very, very warm and upbeat film. A ‘feel good’ film, you might say. There is plenty of chemistry between the leads on the rocking vessel, drawing you in like part of the gang. Where the film falls down is in the frankly pointless additions of the various plotlines revolving around Tom Sturridge’s Carl. As the young protagonist, Carl is our way onto the ship. And that should be enough. His wide-eyed approach to all the titillation and tomfoolery is all we need. So why Curtis felt the need to throw in a romantic sub-plot and paternal quest is beyond me. It probably isn’t helped by Sturridge’s wooden performance.

But despite all the sexual shenanigans on the bouncing boat, it’s Kenneth Branagh and Jack Davenport who provide the real humour, as the pompous and prudish representatives of Her Majesty’s Government, as they hatch increasingly desperate plots to sink Radio Rock … quite literally.

Being myself fairly young, I don’t know how accurate the plot is, though I suspect not very. But I don’t think it matters. With its outlandish and heart-warming approach, The Boat That Rocked works as a kind of wishful fantasy of the rock ‘n’ roll phenomenon.

Well, off to iTunes then…

*** / *****

“Groovy, baby.”

Centurion

(2010)

Dir: Neil Marshall

 

 

“Run away!”

 

You have to hand it to Neil Marshall. He really has breathed some new life into the essentially crap British landscape. The fact that this is what I came out of the theatre thinking after seeing the director’s latest effort, his crimson-masked exploration into the ill-fated Ninth Legion’s ventures into Caledonia, isn’t a good sign.

Despite Marshall’s obvious skill at handling blood, guts and lots of rolling heads, which both the excellent Dog Soldiers and terrifying The Descent showcase, Centurion suffers from the ‘Haven’t we seen this all before?’ syndrome. It feels about a decade too late. When Ridley Scott’s Gladiator opened up the box-office doors for the Historical Epic once again, the likes of Troy, King Arthur and even Scott’s own Kingdom of Heaven neatly pulled up their robes, removes their sandals, and sauntered through.

Whilst it is not a bad thing that Centurion avoided such a splurge, it does mean that all originality has been drained from the genre like the blood of deer (watch the film). It looks like the opening scenes of Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven. Okay so far. Also a bit of King Arthur. Uh, oh dear. With a plot that is trying so hard to capture the breathless nature of such chase films as Michael Mann’s brilliant Last of the Mohicans’ and Mad Mel’s Apocalypto. Sadly, Centurion falls short of reaching the wild heights of either of these masterpieces.

It obviously lacks the Hollywood budget, but Marshall has still managed to assemble a formidable cast, including The Wire’s Dominic West, the saucy Olga Kurylenko, and one of the hottest actors around right now in Michael Fassbender.

But it still falls into the trap of old Roman clichés, becoming a foul-mouthed, overlong and not very engaging episode of HBO’s Rome. With a villain right out of the Mohicans Magua playbook failing to match the chilly weather, and an oh so convenient romance, Centurion, whilst doing a stunning job as a tourist guide for Scotland, ends up stabbing itself in the foot.

** ¾ / *****

Salt

(2010)

Dir: Phillip Noyce

 

You want vinegar with that?

What to say about Salt? It is difficult to come up with anything fresh to say about a film so void of the stuff it could do with a Febreze-laced bomb as its central McGuffin. Directed by Phillip Noyce, the Aussie director who made his name with late eighties, early nineties adaptations of Tom Clancy spy thrillers Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. He should really have known better.

The plot follows Angelina Jolie’s titular heroine, who is fingered by a defector as a pesky Commie sleeper agent planning on assassinating the visiting Russian President. Does Salt hang around to try and clear her name? Of course she bloody doesn’t, because as we all know from virtually every espionage film ever made, whilst terrorists might be gits, the CIA are complete bastards.

Going for the female Bourne approach, Salt is far less effective than the superb Liman/Greengrass/Damon films, becoming what the forgetful trilogy was always in danger of if placed in the wrong hands: a film with someone running, like, really fast. His clunky Clancy adaptations never showcased Noyce as particularly adept at handling the spy genre, with his less bombastic works, such as the 1989 chiller Dead Calm and 2002’s acclaimed Rabbit Proof Fence, doing a far greater job of highlighting his ability.

Salt’s plot becomes more and more convoluted, spitting obvious twists out towards the end like a beaten boxer’s teeth. The set-pieces are fast, frenetic and slick, but aside from one freeway hopping sequence, there isn’t anything to match the visceral pleasures of Bourne.

But Columbia obviously think they have a potential franchise on their hands, suggested by the open-ended conclusion. Why wouldn’t they? With a marketable and perfectly capable superstar in the lead role, it could be huge. As it is, with the rehashed Cold War plot and Jolie’s sleepwalking performance, Salt ends up running itself into the ground.

** ¾ / *****

“Run Viewer Run!”

Despicable Me

(2010)

Dir: Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud

I suppose it was inevitable that the enormously popular Martians found their way into their own film? What, that’s not them you say? Oh.

Yes, yes, yes, the little minions from Despicable Me are clearly ‘influenced’ by the legendary Toy Story aliens, but that isn’t the only problem with Universal’s latest animated outing. It focuses on Gru, voiced by Steve Carell with a, like, really funny Eastern European accent! He is a Blofeld-like supervillain, and a bad one. His plan to steal the moon needs money and a shrink ray, so he adopts three little orphan girls to work as a distraction. Can you guess what happens? Will Gru’s heart like one great marshmallow when he sees just how great it is being a dad to these lovely little sprogs? Well, I won’t spoil anything.

Okay, it’s not quite that bad. It just feels like we’ve seen all this before. Gru feels like Shrek; his nemesis, Jason Segel’s nerdy Vector feels like Jason Lee’s Syndrome from The Incredibles, and the ‘cute’ little kids feel like every wise-cracking, strangely adult child we’re supposed to fall in love with every year.

The lack of originality is a serious problem, but that doesn’t mean Despicable Me is without charm. Like most animations, it looks lovely. The voice cast, which also includes Julie Andrews, Russell Brand and Kristen Wiig, is all perfectly fine, although the great and almighty Will Arnett is completely underused as the Bank of Evil President. And yes, the alie- sorry, minions are very entertaining. I’m sure every kid who sees this film will want one of those for Christmas.

I suppose I just have high standards for animation this year after seeing one of the greatest films ever made in Toy Story 3. Were there any grown men sobbing at the end of Despicable Me? I think not.

** ¾ / *****

“It’s bad to be… uh… bad.”

Burning Bright

(2010)

Dir: Carlos Brooks

 

What’s new pussycat? Woooooooooooh wooooooh wooooh woooh wooooh! So go and powder your cute little pussy cat nose.

The ‘Slasher’ part of the horror picture has been in need of something new for a while now. Who would have thought that replacing Michael Myers with a tiger would work so well?

In Burning Bright, Brianna Evigan, of Step Up 2 fame, is the dutiful sister caring for her autistic brother. Their scumbag stepdad, Garret Dillahunt, who also happens to run a zoo, unleashes a recently purchased tiger into the house where his step kids are sleeping, hoping to get all of his wife’s inheritance. Oh, and there’s a hurricane outside. So all the doors and windows are boarded up.

There’s no way out.

It’s a set up that, for all its faults, doesn’t feel contrived. Yes, there would be more effective ways to off the kids, but then we wouldn’t have a film would we? Plus, Evigan is rather pleasing on the eye in her underwear.

She is no Jamie Lee Curtis. Not because of her acting, but because she is no scream queen. For a woman being pursued by a psychotic Shere Khan, she is surprisingly stoic. Almost Jodie Foster like. And this tiger is creepy. Its eyes turn it into something other than a hungry predator. It becomes Jason Voorhees. Carlos Brooks does for tigers what Steve Spielberg did for velociraptors in the now classic kitchen stalk in Jurassic Park. If only Burning Bright wasn’t stretched out over 86 minutes, it would probably be just as memorable.

As it is, such a light plot is difficult to sustain. The overarching story isn’t engaging, and the chase is all that matters. What it does showcase, is a talented young director in Carlos Brooks, who displays a real eye for tension and, if given something fleshier to work with, could possibly produce something special.

Burning Bright succeeds in little more than making tigers scary, but we Jungle Book fans already knew that.

 

** ¾ / *****

“Where’s the maaaaaan cub?”

***********************************************************************************

What other animals are left out there waiting to break in your house and tear up your furniture?

You’ve seen snakes on a plane. Now witness tiger in a house. I’m still waiting for bear at a wedding. Or geese at a luncheon. Go check out Black Sheep for sheep at a farmer’s convention.  If only Sammy L could have turned up at some point during this film. The tiger wouldn’t have look so pleased if it had got a can of whupass opened on it. Ah well, c’est la vie. 

The premise of the film is rather daft. The difficultly of shooting a tiger in the face is something I think we can all appreciate and the lovely what’s her face from step up dance on the streets 2, comes to realise this all too well. When she’s face to face with Tigger she manages to miss him with such amazing regularity that she might as well be firing blanks. That the tiger doesn’t actually lose patience and rip her face off is I think amazing given the circumstances.

I’m not sure when the expression ‘hungry for fame’ was first coined but never before has is seemed more apt than in this film. It is often banded around like a terrible old cliché in Hollywood. Although not normally is it actually accompanied by genuine slathering and big sharp pointy teeth. The director must be applauded therefore for persuading Brianna Evigan to co-star alongside her man-eating tiger counterpart. The point in the process when they all had to sit down with the lawyers and sign up an insurance contract must have been very interesting indeed around about the line which read – ‘by the way, this is a real tiger not some crap CGI one’.

This explains I suppose why the tiger doesn’t feature all that prominently. It’s a shame of course that such a premise for a film can’t transpire to what comes up on screen. It really is because this film had future cult classic written all over it. I still liked it but more in a fun, late night, potentially drunken or at least drowsy capacity.

*** 1/2 / *****

The Horde

(2009)

Dir: Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher

Well, this is about as simple as it gets.

Talk about getting straight into the action.

The Horde, from directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher, begins with a crack team of heavily armed police officers conducting a raid on the headquarters of a local militia. Unfortunately for both sides, their little conflict must take a backseat tonight. Why you ask? Because the rest of France appears to have turned into zombies.

And that’s it.

That’s all we get.

From here it’s nothing but blood, guts and bullets, as our heavily emphasised ANTI-heroes try to battle their way through the swarm of undead and out of the tower block. And you know what? It’s rather fun.

It is as though they have taken Ving Rhames’ character from Zack Snyder’s 2005 Dawn of the Dead remake, cloned him several times, taught him French, and made sequel. So obviously there’s a lot of machismo here, a lot of puffing of chests and flexing of biceps and cocking of guns, but not much in way of witty dialogue. Still, it still does a better job of manliness than Stallone’s lecherous old geriatrics in The Expendables.

The one female character present comes out looking perhaps even more badass than any of her male counterparts, but she doesn’t do much for the female cause as a whole, becoming one of the coldest women I’ve seen in a film for a long time.

And though it is hard to make a zombie film that looks bad, The Horde’s choice of setting, overlooking the dark and burning spectacle of the French cityscape, is one of the more arresting Apocalyptic images in recent zombie cinema, similar to the fate of Manchester in Danny Boyle’s stunning 28 Days Later.

High praise indeed for what is essentially a bit of boy’s own fun. It just lacks that one great, memorable character to make it something special.

*** / *****

“J’adore des zombies.”

Piranha

(2010)

Dir: Alexandra Aia

What is so likeable about Piranha is its awareness. Alexandra Aja’s picture is a chance to see beautiful but annoying, scantily clad youngsters get torn to shreds as graphically as possible by hundreds of titular fish. And that’s all it proclaims to be. Any film in which a horny pornographer’s penis is bitten off and munched on before our very eyes is about as unpretentious as you can get.

The plot is simple and light: it’s Spring Break. There’s a lake. There’s piranhas. I wonder what could happen…

The violence is never disturbing, always tinged with comedy in the distant vain of the Romero horror flicks of old or even Joe Dante’s - who directed the 1978 original - Gremlins. Yes, it still deals in clichés. The young, romantically stunted boy is trying to impress the attractive local girl and winds up getting them both in trouble. There are ‘cute’, smartarse kids. And, of course, there’s Ving fucking Rhames being a badass motherfucker with a boat propeller. But it all just feels like one big joke that we’re all in on. The filmmakers are inviting us to a big, silly party where we don’t have to think, don’t have to pretend to be seeing something we’re not; just sit back and enjoy as a naked Kelly Brook swims by in one scene, and in another as a hang gliding teen is chewed in half.

The 3-D element feels like part of the gag, just something extra to make these cartoonish deaths even more so. It obviously isn’t great, or even as good as Dante’s original, but just feels so laidback and easy that it’s impossible not to enjoy. We can enjoy intellectual pieces of cinema fine and dandy, but what kind of boring bastards would we be if we couldn’t enjoy some blood, guts, fish, tits and Christopher Lloyd every so often?

*** ¼ / *****

“We’re gonna need a bigger penis.”

Splice

(2010)

Dir: Vincenzo Natali

There is a particular scene that lingers in the mind long after seeing Vincenzo Natali’s Splice. It is, to sound rather clichéd, Cronenbergian, which is no small praise. The only problem is, this dark, surreal, stomach-churning scene doesn’t quite fit with the rest.

This isn’t to say that Splice isn’t dark, or even disturbing. The story of scientist lovebirds Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley’s creation of a strange human-animal hybrid and the inevitable catastrophic outcome is littered with references to other greats of the Science-Fiction genre, from Cronenberg’s The Fly to Ridley Scott’s Alien. With much of its action taking place in a dark, dingy laboratory, Splice is most aesthetically similar to The Fly, although the actual creature that is created resembles, in various stages, H.R. Giger’s wonderful ‘facehugger’ and Pan, as portrayed by Doug Jones in Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. It is just never as sinister as it wants to be.

The gradual humanisation of ‘Dren’, as the scientists christen her, is extremely effective, transitioning from model into the heavily made-up Delphine Chanéac seamlessly. Chanéac is the most arresting thing about Natali’s semi-horror. She goes from adorable to terrifying with a simple bob of her head.

But Splice could be more. It feels like a film that should be darker. It is already naturally gloomy due to the serious subject matter of cloning, but it seems as though Natali is holding back. The scene mentioned at the beginning of this review is the one moment when he expresses himself, but, as a result, feels out of sync, especially in the case of Adrien Brody’s character.

Splice is still entertaining in its tributes to the enduring appeal of the dark, twisted Sc-Fi horrors of the 70s and 80s, but it never deals with the ethics as they did, and is left ultimately as an above average modern Hollywood Sc-Fi thriller.

*** ¼ / *****

“Be afraid, be sort of afraid.”