Movie Review: The Old Guard (2020)

Genre: Superhero Action  

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood  
Starring: Charlize Theron, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor  

Running Time: 125 minutes  

Synopsis: Andy (Charlize Theron) leads a secretive small group of immortals including Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe, and Nick, as they travel the world attempting to do good. After escaping an ambush organized by ex-CIA operative Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the immortals sense the presence of a new member, US Marine Nile (KiKi Layne). Andy recruits her into the group as they pursue revenge on Copley, but he is part of a larger conspiracy involving pharmaceutical CEO Merrick (Harry Melling).

What Works Well: The adaptation of a comic book series boasts sparking globe-trotting production values, Charlize Theron in a fully committed kick-ass mode, and expertly choreographed combat scenes. The quiet interludes feature welcome attempts to humanize the characters with back-stories. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Superhero concepts eliminate jeopardy at the best of times, and here the immortals are bullet sponges (with wildly variable recovery times from bullet impacts), casting no doubt on the outcome of any battle. They can be captured (their worst nightmare) to suit the whims of the plot, but the reflections on loneliness across the centuries are samey across the group. The one key double-cross plot twist is inconsistent with the narrative fundamentals, and the pharmaceutical ultra-villain is unfortunately of the unhinged cartoonish variety.

Key Quote:

Booker (about Andy): That woman has forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn.

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Movie Review: The Command (2018)

A drama about the Kursk submarine disaster, The Command (also known as Kursk and Kursk: The Last Mission) is a well-constructed and multi-faceted recreation of a tragedy at sea.

In 2000, Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Averin (Matthias Schoenaerts) and his crew mates celebrate a colleague's wedding. They then depart on the submarine Kursk out of Vidyayevo port in Murmansk to participate in Russian Northern Fleet naval exercises in the Barents Sea. The crew members notice one of the torpedoes running hot, but their superiors ignore the warning. The faulty torpedo explodes, triggering a catastrophic secondary explosion of all other munitions. The Kursk sinks.

Mikhail leads a group of 23 survivors who take refuge in a sealed-off compartment. Admiral Andrey Grudzinsky (Peter Simonischek) leads the rescue efforts, but is hampered by inadequate and poorly maintained equipment. Back in Murmansk, Mikhail's pregnant wife Tanya (Léa Seydoux) and other relatives desperately seek information but are stonewalled by navy officials.

Commodore David Russell (Colin Firth) of the British Navy is monitoring the disaster and offers to help, but the Russian bureaucracy represented by Admiral Petrenko (Max von Sydow) refuses foreign assistance. Meanwhile the survivors face cold, wet and cramped conditions, and dwindling oxygen supplies.

Directed by Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg, The Command adapts the book A Time To Die by Robert Moore with grim realism. The Kursk tragedy resulted in 118 deaths, and the film approaches the drama with a clear-eyed objective to trace events and decisions above and below the waves. Once the calamity strikes the mood is almost uniformly grim, and the sense of impending doom only tightens as rescue efforts flounder.

The Robert Rodat screenplay invests plenty of time on-board the stricken vessel as the explosion survivors struggle to stay alive. These scenes explore the limits of human endurance, acts of heroism and camaraderie coming together to solve problems, momentarily raise spirits, and expand the survival window.

But events on the surface are not shortchanged. The perspective of the families is expressed through Tanya's ordeal, the inept response of the bumbling Russian command is painfully exposed, and the British Navy's readiness to assist represents the international community's willingness to set politics aside and attempt to save lives. 

The multiple viewpoints provide relief from on-board claustrophobia, and ensure the two hours of running time never drag. The cameras of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle capture the cramped and crumbled conditions on the stricken submarine, the grey aesthetic of Tanya's environment, and some impressive flotilla landscapes.

Matthias Schoenaerts leaves an impression as an even-tempered leader maintaining his wits to focus on the immediacy of the crisis. But while The Command salutes individual moments of courage, this is a story about the damage caused by the immense failure of big machinery.



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Movie Review: The Drop (2014)

A crime drama, The Drop is intense, character-rich and gracefully slow-burning.

Bob (Tom Hardy) is the quiet bartender at the Brooklyn bar owned by his cousin Marv (James Gandolfini). The bar is used as the occasional illegal cash drop point for pickup by local mobsters. Years prior Marv ran his own racket, but was outmuscled by a Chechen gang and now operates the bar on their behalf while quietly seething. The joint is also known as the last place Richie Whelan was spotted before he disappeared forever, ten years ago.

Bob rescues an abused dog from the front yard of the house where Nadia (Noomi Rapace) lives. He adopts the animal and names it Rocco, and she helps him look after it. But Bob's subdued life starts to unravel when the bar is held up, infuriating the Chechens and attracting the attention of Detective Torres (John Ortiz). Then local thug Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts) shows up, claiming Rocco is his dog, and also hinting he murdered Richie.

Directed by Michaël R. Roskam and written by Dennis Lehane adapting his own short story, The Drop is an engrossing experience. Focused tightly on people rather than events, this is a taut and dark detour into the land of crime in grimy Brooklyn neighbourhoods. Every character has something to hide and an angle on the next move, and it's always just a bit crooked. Each mess is planned to be mopped up without attracting undue police intervention, and anyway, in this world crooks tangle with crooks and the public could care less.

Roskam constructs the quadrangle of Bob, Marv, Nadia and Eric with deliberate care. The characters are provided the necessary time and depth to develop, and the bonds between them emerge in multiple and often unexpected dimensions. Lehane has many surprises in store, and first impressions about almost everything await inevitable challenges as layers of prior history, deceit and desperation are slowly revealed.

The film builds tension without any respite. The Drop has no room for interludes of humour, romance or distraction. Even when Cousin Marv's Bar is filled with Super Bowl revellers the pressure is building with stuffed envelopes discreetly changing hands, glares and glances across the room, and devious minds working overtime to outmanoeuvre each other.

The superlative cast is excellent, with Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini (in his final film, posthumously released) perfect as the reticent and gruff odd couple jointly navigating each night's new surprises. Noomi Rapace provides Nadia with a suitably moody and suspicious disposition, while Matthias Schoenaerts is shifty and unnerving as the vaguely unhinged Eric.

The Drop builds to a brilliantly subdued bang, criminal scores efficiently settled in a crime-controlled bar, everything cleaned up by the time the morning crowd filters in.

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Movie Review: Red Sparrow (2018)

An espionage thriller, Red Sparrow features a strong Jennifer Lawrence performance but is poorly executed.

In Russia, Dominika (Jennifer Lawrence) is a famed Russian ballerina who also looks after her sick mother. When Dominika suffers a seemingly accidental career-ending on-stage leg break, her uncle Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts) first uses her as bait in an assassination mission and then recruits her into the Red Sparrow spy school, where Russians are trained to be lethal agents with expertise in psychology and seduction.

Under the tutelage of the Matron (Charlotte Rampling), Dominika proves in training that she is as ruthless as her uncle, but resents his manipulation of her life. She is assigned to get close to CIA agent Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), now in Budapest after fleeing from Moscow. Dominika's mission is to get Nate to reveal the identity of a high ranking Russian mole. The two spies get close to each other, and both have to find a way to get what they need in a high stakes game.

Directed by Francis Lawrence and based on a book by Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow is overlong and from about its halfway point, almost incomprehensible. Despite the needlessly prolonged 140 minutes of running time, Lawrence and his screenwriter Justin Haythe spectacularly botch the pacing, tension and key plot points.

Which is a pity, because up until the end of Dominika's training scenes Red Sparrow is a decent enough spy story with a strong character at its core, an intriguing Russian perspective, and a suitably grey, cold aesthetic. Jennifer Lawrence is another plus, fully dedicated to the role, commanding the screen and injecting a steely spine into the role.

It all goes sideways once Dominika and Nate meet. Important facts, key characters and crucial events start to wade in and out of the story with a bewildering lack of cohesion. The plot gets distracted by US Senator's aid Stephanie Boucher (Mary-Louise Parker) being suddenly drop kicked into (and then out of) the story as a wannabe traitor. Dominika's roommate in Budapest Marta is also sketched in and out, contributing seemingly key information in undecipherable snippets.

The Russian station chief in Budapest alternates between doofus and menace, and numerous senior intelligence chiefs on both the American and Russian sides (including Jeremy Irons and Ciaran Hinds) contribute little of value except more shallow obfuscation. Motivations are lost, explanations are skipped, and the film totally loses its way.

Dominika and Nate share no chemistry, and nothing that either of them has to say rings true, because their core business is lying. Several torture ordeals follow, but the impact is absent because the characters are adrift in an emotional void. Somewhere in the scattered debris of the script Dominika is plotting an elaborate ruse that becomes clear in the final scene, and by then the dots are well and truly not worth connecting.

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The Movies Of Matthias Schoenaerts

All movies starring Matthias Schoenaerts and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Blood Ties (2013)

The Drop (2014)

Far From The Madding Crowd (2015)

A Bigger Splash (2015)

The Danish Girl (2015)

Our Souls At Night (2017)

Red Sparrow (2018)

The Command (2018)

The Laundromat (2019)

The Old Guard (2020)

Amsterdam (2022)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Far From The Madding Crowd (2015)

A luscious adaptation of the Thomas Hardy romantic classic, Far From The Madding Crowd looks dreamy but is constrained by the frustrations inherent in the story.

In rural Britain of the 1870s, Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) is a humble, strong-willed and unmarried young woman. Next-door sheep farmer Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) sets his eyes on Bathsheba and eventually proposes, but she turns him down, unwilling to become a man's property. Gabriel hits hard times and loses everything; Bathsheba unexpectedly inherits an estate and becomes a respected land owner. She hires Gabriel to tend to her sheep, he continues to care deeply for her from afar, but their relationship remains tense.

Two more suitors come forward to try and win Bathsheba's heart. William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) is a very wealthy but aging and lonely estate owner. Sergeant Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge) is a dashing soldier who lost his true love Fanny (Juno Temple) due to a wedding-day misunderstanding. Bathsheba finally makes her choice and marries a man, setting off a series of unexpected events.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, Far From The Madding Crowd is a pleasure for the eye. Plenty of outdoor scenes bring the British countryside to life, and Vinterberg and cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen use the magic hour to capture an idyllic landscape filled with lush greens and yellows, long shadows and beautiful skies. The music score by Craig Armstrong adds to the pensive mood.

The artistry is appreciated, because the story belongs in another century and carries suspect appeal. While Bathsheba is a fictional heroine ahead of her time, Hardy's story is bogged down in her love life, and for two hours the story starts and stops with Bathsheba agonizing over men. This smart and independent woman also suddenly displays atrocious instincts to pick the very worst of three possible choices, pushing deep into incredulous melodrama territory and prolonging the resolution.

The sturdy performances help to maintain interest. Carey Mulligan does the best she can with the central role, not necessarily giving Bathsheba new depth but displaying a convincing version of early prototype feminism. Matthias Schoenaerts looks as good as the scenery, although he does slip into mopey mode. Michael Sheen and Tom Sturridge stick closely to their characters' basic definitions of the lonely love struck rich man and conniving soldier respectively.

In Far From The Madding Crowd Bathsheba's judgment may be patchy, but at least the visuals are consistently absorbing.

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