Highlander

(1986)

Dir: Russell Mulcahy

 

Highlander is elegant in its simplicity. A group of sword wielding lunatics have been gifted with immortality, or cursed with it. It depends on your point of view, I suppose.

The reason for all this immortality business is wisely never revealed to us. It could be any number of things really. Perhaps it is God’s doing. Or maybe they’re fallen angels, or exiled aliens. The whole thing might be because they’re magic. Or I don’t know because they’re ubermensh.

Highlander 2 settled on the whole exiled alien story. Making it a bit like Scientology really. Highlander by contrast is kept uncluttered of such concerns. The immortal life is shown to be a bit of a curse for Connor and Ramirez but at least the Kurgan seems to get a kick out of it.

Anyway, the immortals are all inexorably drawn, or so we are told by Sean Connery, towards lobbing each other’s heads off the first chance they get and that’s about as much of a plot as we’re ever given. The admittedly now clunky looking sword fights are to gain something enigmatically named ‘the prize’; a power that is so extraordinary that if in the wrong hands could spell DOOM in big capital letters for all mankind.

‘The prize’ throughout is inferred to be something otherworldly and so this big reveal will be something mind-bustlingly awesome right?. Well no, not really. To be honest it might as well be called ‘the MacGuffin’, because as it happens ‘the prize’ is that he can draw on the shared thoughts of all mankind (God-like power – pretty good) and then also his balls start functioning and so he can have children at last. The mortal life is lived and then of course he can finally die. (Did he have a choice in any of this though? Like maybe he could pick and mix his prizes out of the supernatural goody bag? I guess we’ll never know).

Anyway, it’s not exactly the sanest ending ever. Though what do you expect from the film that casts Sean Connery as the chief metallurgist to the king of Spain? You’ve got the greatest living Scotsman and you do this to him:

 

Come on!

 

Yet somehow, despite all this, Highlander still works. It’s one of those quintessential 80s movies. In this case coming complete with a classic kick ass Queen soundtrack. 

*** 3/4 / *****

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.”