Thursday 31 October 2013

Movie Review: Captain Phillips (2013)


Drama on the high seas based on a true tale of modern-day piracy, Captain Phillips offers unyielding tension and a noble Tom Hanks performance.

It's 2009, and American Captain Richard Phillips (Hanks) leaves his New England home and wife Andrea (Catherine Keener) and journeys to the Middle East to takes command of the Maresk Alabama, a container ship traveling from Oman to Mombassa. Wary of pirate activity off the coast of Somalia, Phillips attempts to increase on-board security and readies his crew for a possible attack. But he is already too late. A band of desperate Somali pirates give chase in two speedboats. The fearless Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi) is a wiry pirate, urging his men to maintain the chase, but Phillips is able to fend off the first attack by pushing his ship to full speed and creating a large wake.

Undeterred, Abduwali returns within hours, with a faster boat. This time, and despite the best efforts of Phillips and his crew, Abduwali and three cohorts all wielding assault rifles make it on board, take control of the Alabama and demand a ransom. In the face of the agitated pirates, Phillips has to try to keep his men and his cargo safe while awaiting rescue. When the crew unexpectedly overpower the isolated Abduwali, Phillips has a chance to free the ship but at the cost of his own liberty.

While there is debate about Phillips' version of actual events as recounted in his book A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea (2010), the film adaptation is a well-executed story of survival and perseverance, with both Phillips and Abduwali pushing events to the limit. Phillips never stops trying to undermine the pirates, and Abduwali never loses sight of his ultimate objective: a large ransom in exchange for either an American ship or an American man.

Once the premise is set and the pirate attack starts, director Paul Greengrass grasps a large wrench, latches on to the tension dial and does not stop twisting. For the final 90 minutes Greengrass provides no respite, as Phillips lurches from one crisis to the next, the hand-held, jerky camera work amplifying the fears of a man thrust into an out of control situation with no definable end.

As the drama moves from the large container ship to the claustrophobic enclosed lifeboat, with navy destroyers armed to the teeth menacingly closing in, global imperatives of no negotiations, no success for the pirates, and no chance of Phillips being allowed to reach the Somali shore as a hostage, crush what started out as a local act of piracy. Both Phillips and Abduwali become subject to much greater global forces, their fate tossed around just as their lifeboat bobbles in the ocean.

Tom Hanks is comfortably within his element as Phillips, a common man catapulted into uncommon circumstances and having to think his way out of a dangerous situation. Hanks does convey some unresolved tension between Phillips and his crew, the relationship never pretending to be anything more that professional. Barkhad Abdi's performance is more edgy, Abdi finding the seam where a fisherman becomes a pirate and does the dirty work demanded by warlords. If Hanks provides the soul of the movie, then Abdi provides most of the electricity, capturing a man having to constantly back away from the brink in order to save his life, feed his family, not lose the respect of his men and hang on to a chance of a payday.

Both Greengrass and Hanks save the best to the end. Greengrass delivers a climax dominated by extreme yet controlled tension, the Navy SEALs moving in to try and do their thing under unforgiving conditions and with no room for error. Hanks gets the final glory, Phillips finally not knowing what to do or what to say, letting go of his emotions, allowing the shock to take over in a postscript that summarizes the hijacking of a large ship into the human trauma of one ordinary man. Captain Phillips may have knowingly sailed into pirate infested waters, but the movie charts a mostly enthralling course.





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Wednesday 30 October 2013

Movie Review: 360 (2011)


A series of related sketches revolving around the unifying theme of dysfunctional relationships, 360 is a rewarding romp through the credible carnage of broken dreams.

In Vienna, Mirka (Lucia Siposova) sells herself to the world of prostitution through an on-line service, despite the quiet protests of her younger sister Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova). Mirka's first client is supposed to be English businessman Michael, but the encounter does not proceed as planned. In Paris, a Muslim dentist (Jamel Debbouze) is obsessed with a woman, and spies on her as she catches a flight. The dentist seeks the advice of his therapist and the Imam at his mosque. In London, fashion editor Rose (Rachel Weisz) is trying to terminate an affair with Brazilian photographer Rui (Juliano Cazarré), but the physical attraction is too strong. Rui's girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) dumps him and starts the long trip back to Brazil. Meanwhile, Michael returns home to his wife Rose, and they attend the school play of their young daughter.

On a connecting flight, Laura meets the elderly John (Anthony Hopkins), and they strike up a friendship, John admitting that he has cheated on his wife and that his daughter is missing, presumed dead. Both are stranded at Denver airport due to a storm. Convicted sex offender Tyler (Ben Foster) is gradually being reintegrated back into society, and he also ends up at the airport. Laura is desperate to have a sexual liaison of her own, and attempts to seduce Tyler after meeting him at the airport restaurant, not aware how dangerous he may be.

At an AA meeting, John reveals how the encounter with Laura has changed him. Another meeting attendee, Valentina (Dinara Drukarova) expresses her deep disappointment with her husband Sergei (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), a gofer for a Russian mobster, and confesses that she is interested in another man, her boss the dentist. As the small degrees of separation that connect the world play out, two of these unknowingly linked characters will meet on the streets of Vienna under the unlikeliest of circumstances, disoriented souls oblivious to the grand forces that brought them together.

While undoubtedly episodic by definition, the beauty of 360 lies in embracing life's unexpected quirkiness. Almost everything that can be expected to happen in a standard plot does not happen in 360; instead, other things happen to ping the characters in unexpected directions. Most of the encounters find off-tangent, often messy endings, obvious doors closing and hidden windows opening, never in any anticipated manner.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles with plenty of style sometimes bordering on excessively showy, 360 finds the intriguing parallels in the lives of seemingly unconnected strangers. The most common thread is that of disintegrating bonds, with not one of the characters enjoying an emotionally satisfying relationship. The disappointments do not stop them from seeking the dream of a better future, but the Peter Morgan script is stark: simple happiness is often frustratingly elusive.

Another theme running through the movie is loss, and this extends beyond the emotional loss between couples. John has lost a daughter, Tyler is gaining his freedom but ironically losing his comfortable prison environment. Mirka loses her client, Michael loses control of his deal, then his daughter loses her lines. Sergei loses sleep, then loses the respect of his boss. Most of the losses are never recovered, and Morgan's characters have to shake off the disappointments and carry on, seeking solace elsewhere.

Within the confines of a multi-faceted human-based drama, Meirelles looks for technical artistry at every opportunity, melding scenes together, splashing through the gentle rain and achieving a modern oil painting look dominated by blues and gray. The screen is often loosely divided into strips showing different characters interacting in their own environment, adding a level of dynamism to the simple act of living.

In an ensemble production none of the actors get too much screen time. Hopkins and Flor emerge as the most prominent performers, and their scenes together carry the most fulfilling mix of serendipity and realism. The closing episode in Vienna mercifully does not try to tie up all the loose ends, but manages to finally conjure up something resembling fulfilment for two otherwise despondent people. Happiness is always welcome, and the right relationship may emerge when least expected to add a dash of new vigour to life.






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Monday 28 October 2013

Movie Review: Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967)


A train wreck of weird characters behaving badly, Reflections In A Golden Eye goes off the rails early and never recovers. The story of suppressed homosexuality on an army base teaming with lust and madness spirals into self-imposed chaos.

Major Weldon Penderton (Marlon Brando) commands a US army base in the south. He is stiff, unhappy, suppressed and not interested in sleeping with his wife Leonora (Elizabeth Taylor). She enjoys riding her horse Firebird, and finds sexual satisfaction with willing neighbour Lieutenant Colonel Morris Langdon (Brian Keith). Langdon's wife Alison (Julie Harris) is deeply depressed following the death three years earlier of her newborn child. Alison is only happy in the company of the effeminate and extroverted Filipino houseboy Anacleto (Zorro David).

Also on the base, Private Williams (Robert Forster) looks after cleaning the horses and stables, and has the habit of riding horses in the nude. Penderton starts to get attracted to Williams, who in turn starts stalking the the Penderton household, and invading Leonora's room while she sleeps. With Alison's condition worsening, Penderton growing ever more enamoured with Williams, and Williams developing the unhealthy habit of sniffing Leonora's underwear, the boiling emotions finally erupt.

Based on a 1941 novel by Carson McCullers, Reflections In A Golden Eye is just too close to an unintended comedy. Five of the main characters belong in a mental asylum, rather than a military base, and without a sensible core to hold the film together, it resembles more of a farce than a drama.

Penderton is dour, preens at himself in the mirror, mumbles his incomprehensible military teachings to the bewilderment of his students, gets into a fight with a horse, and stalks his men around the base. Leonora is wild-eyed, over-sexed, and happy to humiliate her man, including whipping him across the face at a swanky party. Alison is deep into depression, operating at the edge of reason, while Williams is a voyeur, an intruder, a lingerie-sniffer, and rides horses while naked. And finally there is Anacleto, floating, dancing, singing and smiling for his own entertainment in an astonishing display of flightiness.

The performances match the characters in a theatrical display of exaggeration. Brando mutters, rambles and stares, while Taylor sticks either her rear end or her cleavage in Brando's face at every opportunity. Harris mostly just looks into the non-existent distance, and Forster, in his debut, wears a single fixed look of anguish and hardly says anything. Zorro David, in his first and mercifully last movie appearance, is in a world on his own, doing something that on a bad day may resemble acting, but even that is debatable. Brian Keith is left with the only semi-rational character, and he is naturally overwhelmed.

It is all supposed to represent suppression and lust, but director John Huston never finds the fine line where normal behaviour is strained by unresolved internal conflict, and settles instead for a large serving of outright battiness. Huston adds to the air of melodrama-run-amok by tinting the movie with a golden hue, creating a gold-and-black film with just the odd object per frame maintaining its colour. According to the peerless Anacleto, it's all supposed to represent the reflection of what a golden peacock's eye can see, but the effect is that of basic nausea. After the film bombed, normal colour was restored to later prints, but the film's awfulness is most appreciated with the original pee-coloured vision.

Forget the military base: Reflections In A Golden Eye is a certifiable cuckoo's nest.






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Sunday 27 October 2013

Movie Review: Murder At 1600 (1997)


A routine thriller with a single new idea, Murder At 1600 cannot overcome an unfortunate regression to the most basic and predictable elements of the genre.

With the United States embroiled in a tense stand-off over US servicemen held hostage by North Korea, young secretary Carla Town is found murdered in a White House bathroom (address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). Detective Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes) is assigned to the case, and although Secret Service Director Nick Spikings (Daniel Benzali) wants no outside investigation, National Security Advisor Alvin Jordan (Alan Alda) is interested in what Regis may come up with. Secret Service agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane) is assigned to ostensibly help Regis, although her role is really to spy on him on behalf of Spikings.

When Regis and Nina uncover proof that Spikings is framing a lowly White House janitor for the murder in order to sweep the whole affair under the carpet and protect President Jack Neil (Ronny Cox), they team up to chase after the truth. They discover a sordid link between Carla and the President's son Kyle Neil (Tate Donovan), and the more they investigate, the more they become targets of harassment, threats and finally hit squads.

While the premise of a dead body stuffed into a White House toilet cubicle carries a punch, and television director Dwight H. Little infuses a decent amount of style particularly early on,  Murder At 1600 quickly runs out of ideas. All too predictably, the rudimentary script defaults to a series of chase-and-hide-and flee-and-shoot scenes, as Regis and Nina become targets of assassins running roughshod over Washington DC.

The movie suffers from the common cheap thriller disease where the original murder is followed by several more brazen crimes, none of which attract any attention from the media or the appropriate authorities. Here there is a wild shoot-out in a tony residential neighbourhood that ends with a senior member of the White House team very dead, but that incident is somehow missed as an investigation-worthy event.

The resolution of Murder At 1600 is also limp, a contrived blackmail plot that only works at the juvenile level, and an interminable White House infiltration through underground tunnels that all too conveniently ends in the hallway where the President just happens to be walking through.

The exterior DC locations are attractive, although the interiors were shot in replica rooms built in Toronto. Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane do the best that they can with the material, both leaning heavily on their charisma to overcome the inherent outlandishness surrounding them. Snipes puts on his streetwise persona and gets to deliver a few cool lines, while Lane improves once she lets her hair down and decides to join the action, plausibility be damned. Daniel Benzali is too obviously crotchety, while Alan Alda provides a welcome level of quality to the supporting cast. Funnyman Dennis Miller is unconvincing as Snipes' fellow cop.

Murder At 1600 has a prestigious address, but a botched delivery.






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Friday 25 October 2013

Movie Review: Trouble With The Curve (2012)


An affecting father - daughter drama set within the world of baseball scouting, Trouble With The Curve has plenty of spirit and wisdom, although the edges of the story are a bit too tidy.

Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) is a legendary old-school scout, working for the Atlanta Braves. With age catching up to him and his eyesight beginning to fail, Lobel nevertheless insists on scouting the old way, eschewing computers and spreadsheets in favour of hours spent in minor league ball parks to get a true sense of what a player is capable of. Gus has a strained relationship with his daughter Mickey (Amy Adams), a lawyer striving to make Partner at her firm. Pete Klein (John Goodman) is the Braves' head of scouting and appreciates Gus' instincts, but even he starts to consider not renewing the contract of the veteran scout.

With the entry draft fast approaching, Gus is assigned to scout top prospect Bo Gentry, an obnoxious power hitter. Pete asks Mickey to accompany Gus for a few days, to make sure that the old man's failing health does not get him into trouble. Reluctantly, Mickey agrees and joins her dad on the road trip. Among the troop of scouts also keeping tabs on Bo is Johnny Flanagan (Justin Timberlake), a former pitcher whose career ended early due to injury. Johnny and Mickey hit it off, but Gus resents Mickey's presence. As they travel between the small ball parks of the Carolinas, Mickey tries to get her father to open up and address the issues that ruined their relationship, but Gus is not the type who can easily communicate. As the trip winds down, both Gus and Mickey find their careers hanging in the balance, and their futures may hinge on properly assessing Bo's true potential.

Trouble With The Curve concludes with all loose ends tied-up into pretty little bows, all the conflicts and future uncertainty settled into happy packages. The more mean characters get what they deserve, Gus and Mickey define their destiny, and a silent, humble pitching prospect suddenly emerges as the real thing, as discovered by the genuine talent spotters. The Randy Brown script (surrounded by a bitter controversy related to its true origins) turns sharply towards the land of fairy tales, and forgoes any attempt at a more mature denouement.

But what precedes the final 20 minutes is much better. The tale of an old school father and his modern daughter provides plenty of material for a rich examination of generational gaps and parental responsibility. Gus' unwillingness to talk about the past or get with the future leaves him vulnerable to be left behind by work and family. With failing health, all he has to rely on are his skills and instincts, irreplaceably assembled from years of hands-on life experience. Eastwood, at the remarkable age of 82, creates in Gus Lobel a lovable curmudgeon, abrasive, impatient and set in his ways. He is also funny, convinced of his ability, and confident that he still has what it takes to assess young talent.

Well paced by producer-turned-director Robert Lorenz, Trouble With The Curve inhales deeply from the essence of minor league baseball. Intimate ball parks, back country roads, crammed bus trips, expectant parents, small, never-renovated motels, and roadside diners make up Gus' world, and it's where he is most comfortable.

Surprisingly at first, Mickey also fits easily into this milieu, temporarily but effortlessly trading in the shiny corporate glitz for garish bed sheets and smoke-filled beer joints, much to her Dad's disgust. A chip of the old block despite his protestations, America's most precious pastime will provide the final opportunity for father and daughter to reconnect. Amy Adams as Mickey has the feistiness to take on Eastwood's Gus, and doggedly pursue relationship repairs in the face of all his dismissive grunting. The truth, once revealed, recasts the heroes and villains of her life, and Mickey's short road trip to keep an eye on Gus turns into a major fork in the road of life.

Trouble With The Curve has a bit of trouble with the ending, but is an otherwise smooth pitch.






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Tuesday 22 October 2013

Movie Review: The Big Lebowski (1998)


A piece of classic modern nonsense, The Big Lebowski thrives on an mood of utter pacifist irreverence. The Coen brothers Ethan and Joel create a Chandleresque mystery in modern Los Angeles, through the cracked mirror of a skewed society where the peculiar is normal.

Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is unemployed, penniless, and extremely mellow in his attitude to life. In contrast, his best friend Walter (John Goodman) is a strung out Vietnam veteran still fighting the war - any war. They spend most of their time bowling with mutual friend Donny (Steve Buscemi). Two thugs break into The Dude's apartment, demanding money owed by Lebowski's wife. Except that The Dude has no wife. Realizing that they have the wrong Jeff Lebowski, the thugs depart, but not before urinating on The Dude's carpet.

Spurred on by Walter, The Dude visits the mansion of the very rich other Jeff Lebowski (David Huddleston), seeking a new carpet. Before long, the rich Lebowski and his personal assistant Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman) hire The Dude to help secure the release of trophy wife Mrs. Bunny Lebowski (Tara Reid), who has been kidnapped and is being held for a $1 million ransom. Walter ensures that the planned exchange is a total botch, landing The Dude in a lot of trouble, especially when Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), the rich Lebowski's estranged daughter and an eccentric artist, gets involved, along with pornographer Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara).

The Dude is one of the most indelible slackers created for the movies. Larger than life and utterly comfortable with doing nothing, he never lifts a finger in anger, and actually hardly ever gets angry. As his life gets ever more insane, he maintains an inner calmness and just gets on with extricating himself from each successive mess. Perpetually dressed in a jumble of a house robe, old shorts and ratty t-shirt, his face haggard yet still optimistic, The Dude is a one of a kind. Jeff Bridges embodies the role and delivers a memorable performance, dominating with tranquillity.

The Big Lebowski plot is maybe not as original as the main character, but it's close. The Coens draw inspiration from Raymond Chandler's overcomplicated detective mysteries as well as real-life Los Angeles characters to create a convoluted narrative that always threaten to break out of control, but is just held in check. Some distractions, such as the detective in the Volkswagen, do seem like needless clutter, but overall there are a lot more hits than misses. The juxtaposition of 1940s classic elements, like the old rich man in the mansion, his oily assistant, the vixen, the potentially more dangerous sister, and the pornography sub-plot are all easily modernized. Seen through the eyes of The Dude, who just wants a clean rug to bring together his room, they become often priceless fodder for humour.

Counterbalancing The Dude is Walter, a man strung out and unwilling to view life as anything other than a battlefield. In one his more prominent big screen roles John Goodman matches Bridges' coolness with delightfully unhealthy intensity and a misplaced sense of self-confidence. Walter's ideas rarely help the situation, but he is never short on ideas, which makes him a valuable friend to the passive Dude.

The Dude and Walter spend all their spare time (which is all their time) at the bowling centre, where the submissive Donny receives a constant stream of disrespect from Walter. Against the constant crash of balls striking pins, life's little problems are blown into full fledged crises, as The Dude and Walter manage to make every bad situation worse by talking it through.

The other characters are more linear but play their role in adding to the prevailing quirkiness. The rich Jeffrey Lebowski is the spiritual descendant of General Sternwood from The Big Sleep, and his wife Bunny is not far from Carmen, Sternwood's wild daughter. Julianne Moore is Maude Lebowski, the (relatively) more rational family member, echoing Carmen's sister Vivian. Only Maude has the iciness to compete with The Dude's nonchalance, and she is the only one to get what she wants out of him.

The main cast members are surrounded by hoods, nihilists, pornographers, and really strange bowlers. John Turturro as Jesus Quintana goes way over the top as The Dude's next opponent, but even he seems to fittingly belong in a Los Angeles brimming with wackos.

Filled with attitude and a unique brand of laid back energy, The Big Lebowski throws a perfect game.






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Monday 21 October 2013

Movie Review: Prime (2005)


A romantic comedy with a psychology twist, Prime benefits from an unconventional complication and strong performances by Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman.

In New York, 37 year old Rafaella "Rafi" Gardet (Thurman) has just finalized her divorce, and turns to her therapist Lisa (Streep) to get back on her feet. Lisa's son David (Bryan Greenberg), a 23 year old struggling artist, meets Rafi through mutual friends and soon they are in a serious relationship. The sex is great, but Rafi is fully aware that David is too young to start a family with her, which is what she now wants most in the prime of her life.

With Lisa professionally using her maiden name, Rafi has no idea that David is Lisa's daughter, and proceeds to reveal all the intimate details of the relationship during the therapy sessions. Lisa eventually realizes that her patient is dating her son, and has to decide whether she can continue seeing Rafi and what advice to give to David. Not only does Lisa believe that Rafi is too old for David, she also wants her son to marry a Jewish woman. Lisa has to find a way to reconcile the advice she gives to her patients with the realities of her personal expectations and biases, while David and Rafi begin to struggle with the emerging gaps between their maturity levels.

A romantic comedy that does not telegraph its ending, Prime creates an unusual triangle, affording Thurman and Streep the opportunity to work on the story's strongest bond. The romance between Rafi and David is interesting, but the most engaging relationship in the movie is that between Rafi and Lisa, initially patient and therapist, and then something a lot more complicated. The scenes between Thurman and Streep are delightful, two actresses in fine form feeding off each other.

As Rafi, Thurman is emerging from the wreckage of a divorce and looking to make up for lost time, and in David she finds a toy boy who may be more. She is naturally eager to share all the details of her emotional journey and physical needs during the therapy sessions. Once Lisa connects the dots and concludes that Rafi's lover is her son, Streep starts to shine, often hilariously capturing the nervous mannerisms of a woman trying to professionally hold it together while freaking out on the inside.

The premise allows director and screenwriter Ben Younger to introduce a level of depth rarely broached by the genre. Lisa suddenly has to confront a clash between her personal feelings and the advice she glibly delivers to strangers. Encouraging Rafi to have a fling with a younger man doesn't sound like such a good idea when the younger man is her own son. And Lisa has to re-examine her rigid ideas about religious compatibility when her son is dating a non-Jewish woman that she greatly admires. The dilemmas are of course dealt with lightly and with humour, and but are nevertheless welcome wrinkles in a genre that routinely thrives on either formula or the lowest common denominator.

Bryan Greenberg as David is pleasant enough but obviously trampled by the superior talent surrounding him. Rather than a full-fledged person, David remains just a notch or two above a plot device. The attempt to humanize him with superior art skills is handled superficially, while a pie-throwing sidekick is unfortunately juvenile.

But in Prime it doesn't matter much. What the guy lacks in spark and charisma, his mother more than makes up for.






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Sunday 20 October 2013

Movie Review: Marathon Man (1976)


A dark action thriller with an old Nazi unleashing new evil, Marathon Man unspools a tale of conspiracy laced with torture, brought to life by a phenomenal cast in top form.

A fatal traffic accident forces the notorious Nazi Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) to come out of his hiding place in a South American jungle. In New York, Thomas "Babe" Levy (Dustin Hoffman) is a university graduate student of history, and also a long-distance runner training for the marathon. His brother Henry "Doc" Levy (Roy Scheider) pretends to be an oil company businessman but actually works for a secretive government "Division" headed by Peter Janeway (William Devane), responsible for collaborating with surviving Nazis. The father of Babe and Doc, a distinguished historian, killed himself when his sons were children after being hounded by Senator McCarthy's communist witch hunt.

Szell travels to New York to try and retrieve a fortune in diamonds. Meanwhile, Babe starts a relationship with foreign student Elsa (Marthe Keller), while Doc runs into a series of strange murders and finds himself the target of assassination. Szell is paranoid about his safety, and attempts to eliminate everyone who may threaten him and his hidden treasure. This sets him on a collision course with Doc, and ultimately Szell kidnaps Babe to try and uncover Doc's intentions. Thrust into a world he knows nothing about, Babe can only rely on himself, and unexpectedly calls on his running skills to survive a one-man wave of Nazi terror in the heart of New York City.

While on close examination the plot of Marathon Man is full of some rather large holes, director John Schlesinger assembles a bleak film filled with a growing sense of purely corrupted villainy. The William Goldman script, based on his own book, maintains a strong focus on the characters of Babe, Doc and Szell. The scenes of violence and confrontation, when they arrive, carry a high potency factor due to the elevated blood and gore quotient, but also thanks to the hard investment in character development.

Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman elevate Marathon Man from a potentially hokey thriller to a superior, engrossing experience. Olivier is eerie as Dr. Szell, a surviving Nazi with expertise in dental torture. Olivier's performance is cold, emotionless and mechanical in its intensity, an old man incongruously conveying single-minded determination to get his hands on his treasure. Everything that made the holocaust a terrifying travesty is packed into his eyes, including the callous disregard for any amount of human suffering.

Hoffman, in his last performance as a student-type, is all about the fragility that resides in a scarred soul. Babe (the nickname an obvious reference to a man-child) has never really moved past his father's suicide, and Hoffman's performance is a complex condensation of a growing up process that now has to catch up with history. Hoffman tentatively unleashes Babe to chase his first romance, and he will soon have to deal with learning the true identity of his brother and just how much evil lurks out in the real, non-academic world.

Roy Scheider rounds out the principal cast, and he gets a James Bond-type role, an agent in the shadowy world of obscure government departments but here toiling on unglamourous and distasteful files. Doc has dealt with his father's death by embroiling himself into a world of subterfuge, and Scheider exudes a world weariness emanating from a life of too much lying to himself. William Devane is perfect as the distastefully oily head of the "Division", Janeway thoroughly committed to his job, having long since lost the edge between right and wrong.

Marathon Man is most famous for elevating the dentists chair to a full-on torture experience, Dr. Szell repeatedly asking the cabalistic question "Is it safe?" as he readies his dainty dentist tools to inflict unimaginable pain. The unspoken horror is that no city with a rampaging and tenacious Dr. Szell can possibly be safe.






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Saturday 19 October 2013

Movie Review: Against All Odds (1984)


An overcomplicated romantic drama with neo-noir elements, Against All Odds packs way too much plot around an unconvincing love triangle, but also manages to sprinkle some excellent moments that hint at what could have been a better movie.

Veteran Los Angeles Outlaws footballer Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) is reaching the end of his career. Injury prone and considered too old, he is cut from the team, despite having the sympathy of coach Hank Sully (Alex Karras). Deep in debt, Brogan gets no help from his lawyer friend Steve Kirsch (Saul Rubinek) and so accepts an assignment from slimy gambling czar and nightclub owner Jake Wise (James Woods). Wise wants Brogan to find his lover Jessie Wyler (Rachel Ward), who took off on him and stole $50,000 in the process.

Jessie is the daughter of Grace (Jane Greer), the owner of the Outlaws. Grace is married to political fixer Ben Caxton (Richard Widmark), who is working behind the scenes with Kirsch to grease the gears and secure approval for Grace's coveted mountainside development project. Brogan tracks down Jessie in Mexico, and they become lovers, hiding out in the jungle and ignoring Jake's ever more frantic phone messages. Jake finally dispatches Sully to find both Brogan and Jessie, triggering unexpected bloodshed and a return to Los Angeles, as the sordid worlds of football gambling and political corruption collide in a frenzy of blackmail, back-stabbing and violence.

Against All Odds contains several memorable highlights that belong in a better movie. Terry and Jessie make steamy love in a Mayan temple, causing the walls to sweat. Kid Creole and the Coconuts perform the smoothly corrupt My Male Curiosity in Jake's nightclub. Terry and Jake engage in a hair raising, high speed Porsche versus Ferrari duel on the road, weaving in and out of traffic in an old fashioned, dim-witted mano-a-mano confrontation, among the best crazy car chases put to film.

And the closing shot strikes gold. Director Taylor Hackford sustains a long hold on Jessie as she stands on her future and stares longingly as her past leaves her behind, enhanced by Phil Collins' legendary Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), one of the finest tragic tunes from the films of the 1980s.

But a lot also goes wrong in this movie, a loose updating of 1947's Out Of The Past. There are too many plot threads blowing in the wind and competing for attention. Jake, Kirsch, Grace, Sully and Caxon from a dense nexus of evil-doers, engaged in political corruption, illegal gambling, match fixing, and greedy developers outmanoeuvring environmental activists. With too much going on, the love and lust elements take a back seat and the second half of the film, back in Los Angeles, spirals out of control. Terry gets involved in ridiculous situations to create artificial thriller elements, Jessie's actions are irrational, seemingly manufactured to needlessly prolong a damaged love triangle.

The film finally begins to teeter on the edge of a parody rather than an homage to the film noir genre. Bloodied dead bodies are stashed in bathrooms, guard dogs growl, a minor corporate secretary (Swoosie Kurtz) suddenly reemerges to help Terry break into a safe, guns are waved all over the place, and James Woods as Jake Wise descends into manic intensity mode, blood vessels about to pop as both his love life and corrupt business empire are threatened.

James Bridges and Rachel Ward do generate sustained heat, although Ward's acting is simply not up to par. Her delivery is wooden, almost amateurish, and except for that final shot, she struggles to generate any genuine emotion. Bridges is better, frequently shirtless and more believable as a slightly dim football player with the rug of his life suddenly pulled out from below him. The Eric Hughes script simply forgets to demonstrate any source of attraction between Jessie and Jake, leaving part of the romantic conflict woefully vacant, and reducing James Woods' role to that of slimeball extraordinaire. Richard Widmark and Jane Greer (who starred in Out Of The Past) add welcome veteran sophistication to the supporting cast.

While not exactly a car wreck, Against All Odds is more a lingering curiosity than a good film. There are moments that deserve standing and staring, but also a lot of nondescript debris cluttering the scene.






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Friday 18 October 2013

Movie Review: The Stone Killer (1973)


A police versus mafia action thriller, The Stone Killer mashes a Dirty Harry derivative attitude with discarded extras from The Godfather and comes up with a messy little film.

New York police detective Lou Torrey (Charles Bronson) uses violent methods to stop criminals. His superiors finally get tired of the bloodshed, and terminate his employment. He accepts a new position in Los Angeles. Some mafia-related bodies start to pile up, while some ex-military types start to create some mayhem. Torrey's investigation takes him back to New York as he suspects that a major inter-family mobster confrontation is about to erupt, but his superiors are unimpressed.

Mafioso Al Vescari (Martin Balsam) is indeed planning a major cull of his rivals, in revenge for mass killings that took place all the way back in 1931. Vescari is planning to use Vietnam veterans to carry out the assassinations, and sets up a desert camp to train and equip the hit teams. After shaking down various low-lifes, Torrey finally locks in on the plot and sets out to disrupt it, but Vescari will not be easily discouraged.

One of six collaborations between Bronson and director Michael Winner, The Stone Killer carries all the typical fingerprints of a Dino De Laurentiis "presentation": ideas ripped off from other recently successful sources, lower-level talent, and cheap production values. The attempts to mimic Dirty Harry are just too obvious, and the under-developed mafia angle is reduced to old mobsters walking through a cemetery commiserating about long-lost colleagues, and other old mobsters being mowed down in a hail of bullets.

The details of the John Gardner script, based on a Gerald Wilson book, are pretty much incomprehensible. Most of the movie has Torrey reacting to, chasing down, or shaking up minor criminal characters intent on killing each other. Somehow from the growing clump of dead bodies Torrey concludes that an army of veterans is being trained in the desert and that many mafiosi are about to die.

None of it really makes sense or actually matters. The Stone Killer methodically builds up to a couple of everyone shooting at everyone climaxes, the first in the desert training compound and the second in a parkade, with police cars always piling into the action sirens wailing. Here, with no need for acting or plot, at last Winner builds up a head of steam and delivers some good mindless action. Bronson moves smoothly through these scenes of carnage, with his relatively small gun somewhat incongruous amidst all the machine gunnery, but he never misses with any of his shots, so at least he has that advantage.

Martin Balsam's role is small and cryptic, while the rest of the cast is filled with television-level luminaries such as Norman Fell, John Ritter and Paul Koslo.

Filmed with little style and even less wit, The Stone Killer fires mostly blanks.






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Thursday 17 October 2013

Movie Review: On The Waterfront (1954)


A masterpiece delving into union corruption and the power of the individual, On The Waterfront is a potent drama with a peerless Marlon Brando performance and an outstanding supporting cast.

Union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules his waterfront district by intimidation, lining his pockets by running rackets and relying on the working men adhering to the "D and D" (deaf and dumb) code of conduct. Terry Malloy (Brando) hovers on the outer edge of Friendly's circle of corruption, and unwittingly finds himself used to lure informant Joey Doyle to his death. Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) demands that the perpetrators be identified and brought to justice, and she shames Father Barry (Karl Malden) into action: he tries to encourage the men into testifying, but Friendly's goons are quick to beat-up anyone who breaks the code of silence.

Terry makes advances towards Edie, and gradually they become close, although she does not know Terry had a role Joey's death. As more men are violently silenced, Terry is influenced by Edie and Father Barry, and starts to consider testifying against Friendly. But his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is one of Friendly's closest associates, and turning against the union boss and his henchmen will carry a high personal cost.

On The Waterfront carries the ominous tones of director Elia Kazan's own struggles. In 1952 he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, naming names and identifying communist sympathizers from years past. In the movie, Terry Malloy is caught between doing what he is being told is the right thing to do, and loyalty to his "group", the organization of Johnny Friendly. Testifying against Friendly means betraying his friends and family, but remaining silent means letting down Edie and Father Barry, and allowing a rotten situation to get worse.

Alternating between an emerging unlikely love and the power of the fist down at the docks, On The Waterfront is full of energy. Friendly and his goons run a tight ship, controlling who gets to work and who does not, who gets the cushy job and who gets to toil, all determined according to favours afforded and gained. The men chafe under a regime imposed by violence and facilitated by their own acquiescence.

The Budd Schulberg script allows plenty of time for the romance between Edie and Terry to develop, and the measured pace contributes to the air of authenticity. Edie initially appears too good and too smart for Terry, and time is needed for her to find the charm and humanity within the self-described "bum". Once they start to care for each other, Edie offers a moral compass and a road to salvation, and Terry starts to understand that he may have something to gain by standing up for what is right. The film's beating heart is found in Terry's transformational journey from dim witted hanger-on to an inspirational leader of men.

Brando is surrounded by the triangle of Cobb (loyalty), Steiger (family) and Malden (conscience), and the four actors create an electric dynamic. Brando is brutally brilliant as a man suddenly being pulled in three different directions at once, the bum-like tendencies of a boxer who long-since sold-out now overburdened by unfamiliar responsibilities and demands.

Terry Malloy, speaking with his brother Charley: You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Cobb is all fiery rule-by-fear, while once awakened, Malden is a tentative force for pure good. It is left to Steiger to provide the most textured supporting performance, Charley smart enough to see the writing on the wall, but hoping his brother would fully enter Friendly's fold before he can be convinced to testify. As much as Terry has a dilemma, Charley has a real problem, since he is all-in with Friendly and subject to potentially humiliating punishment should his brother talk.

All four men were nominated for Academy Awards, with Brando receiving his first statue at the fourth attempt. Eva Marie Saint, in her film debut at age 30, also won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Her turn as Edie is tenacious in the pursuit of justice and enlightened enough to explore a relationship with Terry.

Filled with heart, sweat, agony, blood and triumph, On The Waterfront rocks the docks.






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Movie Review: Le Mans (1971)


A motor racing mockumentary, Le Mans indulges the fantasies of star Steve McQueen, but still manages to deliver terrific, high intensity racing action.

There is not much plot in the movie, and very little dialogue. Michael Delaney (McQueen) arrives at the Le Mans circuit to participate in the legendary annual 24-hour endurance race, driving for the Gulf Porsche team. The previous year, Delaney was involved in a crash that took the life of his rival Piero Belgetti. This year, his main competition is Ferrari driver Erich Stahler (Siegfried Rauch), while veteran Johann Ritter (Fred Haltiner) drives one of the other Porsches. To Delaney's surprise, Belgetti's widow Lisa (Elga Andersen) is again in attendance.

After an intense build-up, the race starts, and the multi-car Porsche and Ferrari teams are in close combat for the lead. During breaks when co-drivers take over, Delaney has a stiff conversation with Stahler, and finds himself strangely attracted to Lisa. Meanwhile, Ritter lets his wife Anna (Louise Edlind) know that this will be his final race before retirement. As crashes and unexpected mechanical problems take their toll, team manager David Townsend (Ronald Leigh-Hunt) tries to engineer a Porsche victory.

McQueen yearned to be taken seriously as a racing driver, and here, at the peak of his commercial success, he created his perfect illusion. Le Mans was a deeply troubled production, lacking any sort of a script, with director John Sturges bailing on the dysfunctionality, and the leading lady hired deep into the process. Over budget and late, Le Mans is driven forward only by McQueen's vision that the race is the story, and not much else matters. Filming took place during the actual 1970 race, and actual drivers participated in the production, McQueen getting his wish of rubbing shoulders with the greatest drivers of his era, and pretending to be one of them.

Most of the film consists of capturing the on-track racing action, and director Lee H. Katzin, hurriedly recruited from the world of television to replace Sturges, elevates the roaring machinery to fine art. The sights and sounds of the iconic Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s, racing side by side at top speed through the French countryside, are indisputably thrilling.

In the pre-special effects era, everything on the screen is real, including some jarring crashes. The sense of speed, danger and pure exhilaration is at the heart of Le Mans, and McQueen achieves his objective of placing the pounding quest for racers to overcome each other and the track at the core of the viewing experience.

When the cameras are not aimed at the circuit they are immersed in the surrounding experience of the fans, the mechanics, the wives and girlfriends, and the circus atmosphere that descends on any major sporting event when hundreds of thousands of fans congregate.

There are maybe twenty meaningful lines of dialogue in the entire film, with the track's public announcer getting by far the lions share of the spoken lines. Even when two characters do meet, there are pregnant pauses aplenty, either due to the attempted Europeanization of the film, or more probably, due to a script consisting mostly of empty pages.

After getting his racing movie out of his system, McQueen would eventually recapture his audience with The Getaway in 1972. Driving around in circles proved to be a necessary pause before forward momentum could be regained.






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Tuesday 15 October 2013

Movie Review: Gravity (2013)


A lost-in-space two-person epic, Gravity is a spellbinding exploration of survival at the most primordial level.

The crew of the space shuttle Explorer is orbiting Earth while repairing the Hubble telescope. Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a mission specialist, a scientist on her first space flight. She is grappling with the repair work along with fellow space walker Sharif (Paul Sharma) while veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) zooms around them wearing a thruster pack. Mission Control (voice of Ed Harris) informs the Explorer crew that the Russians have just destroyed a nearby malfunctioning satellite, creating debris. This eventually triggers an unintentional catastrophic chain reaction of satellite explosions, and a large and destructive debris field heads straight to Explorer.

The warning is received too late. Sharif and the on-board crew are killed and the vehicle is destroyed. Stone and Kowalski are the only survivors, drifting in space and running out of oxygen, cut off from all communication back to Earth. Kowalski uses his thruster pack to rescue Stone from an uncontrollable spin, and tethered together they try to make their way to the International Space Station, hoping to use a Soyuz module to return to Earth. On the way to the ISS Kowalski calms down the frantic Stone by getting her to talk about her life, and she reveals that her four year old daughter died in a playground accident. They close in on the ISS only to find it partially destroyed, and despite her best efforts Stone is soon detached from Kowalski and left on her own, deep in space, with no rescue in sight.

Alfonso Cuaron directs Gravity from a story co-written with his son Jonas, and it is 90 minutes of cinematic bliss. In glorious 3D, the vastness of space comes alive, the emptiness overwhelming, the loneliness crushing. The fragility of humanity's deceptively routine space excursions comes into sharp focus when everything goes wrong, and equipment worth millions of dollars is reduced to space dust in seconds. Stone and Kowalski are alone together, and later, Stone is just alone. Really alone. Her fight for survival is a test of individual will to stay alive in the most harrowing of circumstances, and Cuaron creates an ethereal journey for Stone to navigate.

Despite all the bulky equipment, the film quickly humanizes Stone. As soon as we meet her she is feeling nauseous, her space rookie status all too obvious as she struggles with the repair assignment, her demeanour fluctuating between assertive scientist and fish out of water. Later Kowalski coaxes out of her the personal tragedy of a dead young daughter, Stone now a woman burying herself in her work in a failed attempt to bury her grief. As her space journey goes all wrong, Stone has every reason to give up hope, give in to the catastrophic circumstances, and get ready to reunite with her daughter, but that is not how the human spirit has triumphed against existential threats over the millennia.

Sandra Bullock owns Gravity, her performance filled with vulnerability, determination, uncertainty, self-doubt, and resourcefulness. Acting through space suits, helmets, with hardly any dialogue, and against a backdrop of destroyed technology and a majestic floating Earth, Bullock cuts through all the distractions, and finds the simplicity of a woman in big trouble who needs to stop hyperventilating long enough to gather herself and improvise a course to safety.

George Clooney reliably plays his usual cocky and confident persona, but Matt Kowalski is the secondary character, providing essential support but ultimately moving aside and allowing Stone the scientist and mother to determine her fate.

While creating his own aesthetic, Cuaron salutes previous space classics, with strong nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and Apollo 13. Gravity plays on the same theme of human endurance and ingenuity pushed to new magnificence when confronted by calamity. As astronaut Ryan Stone finds new ways to surprise herself on her quest for survival, Gravity's mystical pull is irresistible.






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Thursday 10 October 2013

Movie Review: The Outsiders (1983)


The adaptation of S.E. Hinton's youth-in-peril novel, The Outsiders is a sombre affair. Francis Ford Coppola finds the drama amongst the scrappy youth caught between childhood and adulthood, but cannot locate the soul of their anguish.

It's 1965 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Greasers are a gang of tough kids from broken homes on the wrong side of the tracks. Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) is quiet and sensitive but still a Greaser, while his eldest brother Darrel (Patrick Swayze) is violent and struggling to cope with head-of-the-family responsibilities now that their parents are dead. Middle brother Sodapop (Rob Lowe) is often caught between Ponyboy and Darrel. Ponyboy's best friend is the knife-wielding, baby-faced Johnny (Ralph Macchio), and the other Greasers include Two Bit (Emilio Estevez), Steve (Tom Cruise) and Tim (Glenn Withrow). The unofficial leader of the Greasers is Dallas (Matt Dillon), who has only recently been released from jail.

While walking home, Ponyboy is attacked by members of the Socs, a rival gang of wealthier kids. Later, after Ponyboy and Johnny spend some time with middle-class girls Cherry (Diane Lane) and Marcia (Michelle Meyrink), the Socs show up to settle scores. With Ponyboy outnumbered and almost being drowned by the Socs, Johnny springs into action and uses his knife to kill one Soc and scare away the others. Dallas helps Ponyboy and Johnny to escape and hide-out in an abandoned church. But the Socs want revenge in the form of an all-out brawl between the gangs, while Ponyboy, Dallas and Johnny encounter an unexpected opportunity for heroism that takes a tragic turn.

Coppola assembled what proved to be quite the spectacular cast of young talent for The Outsiders. Rarely has a film brought together so many young actors who would go on to have long and successful careers. Ironically, Howell and Macchio, the two most prominent Greasers, would eventually have relatively lower profile adult success compared to Cruise, Swayze, Dillon, Lowe, Estevez and Lane. The talent on display enhances The Outsiders, as even small roles like Two Bit, Sodapop and Cherry are well worth watching.

In terms of the drama, The Outsiders recounts a sad story but without finding a spark to elevate it onto any sort of emotional plain. The Greasers are deserving of empathy, kids cast adrift with not a capable parent in sight, but not enough is ever revealed about them to make them anything other than kids who are likely to get into trouble. There are some touching and quiet moments as Ponyboy and Johnny hide out in an isolated church for several days, reading Gone With The Wind and sharing their innermost thoughts, but the serenity is delivered at some cost in plausibility: street-tough 14 year old kids suddenly behaving like rational adults requires quite the mental leap.

And the film cannot do much to overcome the weaknesses and derivatives in the original narrative. There are some strong whiffs of Romeo And Juliet without the romance and West Side Story without the music, while the brawl appears to mostly serve as an artificial kinetic jolt to enliven an otherwise downbeat final 60 minutes.

The 2005 "Complete Novel" re-release, a director's cut by another name, reinserts deleted scenes and adds 22 minutes to the running time. Most of the additions occur at the front end to better establish Ponyboy, the Greasers, and the context of the gang rivalry, creating a more cohesive experience. However, the complete abandonment of Carmine Coppola's evocative orchestral score, replaced by contemporary high-tempo mid-1960s hits, is a change with debatable merits.

The Outsiders has talent behind and in front of the camera that surpasses the material. The Greasers are worth a look, but the experience is not all that slick.






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