Chernobyl Diaries Review

Being a big fan of Paranormal Activity and having an interest in nuclear disasters, I was rather looking forward to Chernobyl Diaries, which is written and produced by Oren Peli, the man behind the horror franchise (for the record, I have yet to subject myself to the far less warmly received sequels).Chernobyl Diaries follows a group of twenty-somethings who, in the name of ‘extreme tourism’, sign up for a guided tour of Prypiat, the city which was home to the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and their families, which was abandoned in 1986 after the disaster. Unluckily, the group’s tour bus is damaged, leaving them stuck in the deserted city whereupon they are attacked by unknown entities. Who will survive and what will be left of them?

Let’s get the hard facts out of the way first: the damage done by the Chernobyl disaster is much less than you might think. Physicians and radiologists from the World Health Organisation estimate that the accident caused ‘just’ seventy-five deaths, rather than the tens of thousands reported by many news organisations. So not only is it highly unlikely but also pretty disrespectful to the people who lived in Prypiat to suggest that there remains a homicidal sect of gribblies looking to hunt and kill attractive American tourists. But that’s okay, this is a horror film; scientific accuracy and inoffensiveness are not necessarily prerequisites. Unfortunately, the film is disappointing on its own merits.

Firstly and most concerning, it’s really not scary enough. Sure, debutant director Bradley Parker conjures some moments of real tension, but that isn’t the same as a proper moment of pant-wetting terror. The jumps are telegraphed a mile off and anyone with more than a basic level of familiarity with the horror genre will probably not be too troubled by the film. Additionally, a lot of shaky cam, muffled screams and distorted noises aren’t scary, they’re just annoying.

Narratively the film is flawed too. It’s one thing to leave matters ambiguous, to show rather than tell, it’s another not to throw the audience the smallest bone as to why things are happening and why the characters have been motivated to behave in the ways that they do. As such, it’s difficult to care or empathise with them. Whereas the couple in Paranormal Activity had to go to bed every night and risk being terrorised by a mysterious force, this bunch of yahoos elect to get into to a bus with an ex-military type and surreptitiously visit an abandoned and contaminated city. The idiots.

There are things to like about the film. The use of location is great. It’s obvious to see why you’d want to stage a film in Prypiat (or a video game, as in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare); the eerie desolation, the starkness of the dilapidated buildings and that seemingly omnipresent Ferris wheel are unarguably cinematic and Parker captures these elements well. I also liked the way the film is shot, which is largely on roving handheld cameras, which looks like really well-shot found footage, but avoids having the narrative sticking point of why someone would choose to keep filming when all their friends are being eaten alive.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Chernobyl Diaries is a bad film; just a painfully average one. It’s disappointing that Peli has failed to produce something as engaging as his debut (though I’m still looking forward to seeing what his directorial follow-upArea 51 will be like), especially given the film’s fairly appealing set up and location. It’s something of a curio, then, which is probably going to struggle to find much of an audience as I don’t suppose the word of mouth on it will be particularly good. Perhaps the best it can hope for is to draw in Euro 2012 fans who want to see more of both the Ukraine and attacking forces ripping through puny defences.

Lay the Favourite Review

As a big Bruce Willis fan, I’m interested to see that he’s picking some slightly offbeat roles recently. Firstly in Wes Anderson’sMoonrise Kingdom (surely the equivalent to Arnold Schwarzenegger starring in a Coen Brothers film or Sylvester Stallone leading an Alexander Payne flick) and now in Stephen Frears’ Lay the Favourite, which shares its theme of the trials and tribulations of young woman maturing into adulthood with his previous feature, Tamara Drewe.

The film is led by an irrepressibly bubbly Rebecca Hall, who plays Beth Raymer, a vaguely idiot-savant character and private dancer who moves to Las Vegas to seek her fortune. There she falls under the wing of Willis’s charismatic bookmaker, Dink, who employs her based on her skills with numbers. They embark on a pseudo-romance that properly irks Dink’s emotionally fragile wife Tulip, boldly played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Despite Beth’s cool head and street smarts, things get out of hand for her when she becomes embroiled with Rosie (Vaughn), a slightly bananas fellow bookie operating illegally in New York.

The tale is based on the real Beth Raymer’s memoir. Given that the film seems to cram quite a lot into its relatively short runtime, I would guess that the book is probably quite an interesting read. I got the impression that quite a lot of stuff had happened to our hot panted-heroine prior to the beginning of the film and that more would follow after the credits rolled. It’s to Hall’s credit that her portrayal suggests this sense of history for her character. She gives a lovely, endearing performance; her Beth at first seems to be an adult that has never grown up past teen-hood. As the film progresses, her innate and shrewd intelligence reveals itself. I loved Hall in her supporting roles in the none-more-bleak Red Riding and in The Prestige, so it’s fantastic to see her given a leading role to show off her talents. Willis is also very good. On the strength of this performance, I’d hope he continues to plump for more dramatic roles, rather than phoning it in on the latest 50 Cent film or whatever.

For all its considerable charms though, Lay the Favourite is perhaps just that little bit too frothy and ultimately, somewhat forgettable. Though the world of gambling it portrays is ruthless, the film unfortunately lacks true grit. A more personal criticism would be that the film does little to explain the complex mechanics of professional gambling, which is one of the few arenas of life where my knowledge is considerably less than total (ahem). As such, I was often a bit lost as to what was actually happening; obviously I could tell when the stakes were high and when Good Things and Bad Things happened to the characters, but Frears could have done more to involve the audience in the mechanics of the action, that is if you can call lots of phone calls and digits changing on screens action. Though maybe I’m simply prejudiced against Frears, given how rude he was to me at the Tamara Drewe premiere.

Those criticisms aside though, Lay the Favourite is a wholly enjoyable film. Its main strength is its very decent cast. Even Vince Vaughn, who hasn’t been in a halfway decent film in at least five years, is pretty good. The characters are likable, the plot engaging enough and the script often impresses. Whilst it probably won’t set the multiplexes alight, Lay the Favourite is sure to find its audience on television or DVD in years to come. A light but likable film.

The Harsh Light of Day Review

If you’re making a movie should have at least one of the following: a) a decent script or b) decent actors. If you’ve got both, you’re laughing, if you’ve only got one of those two things, then if it’s good enough, it can make up for the failings of the other. If you have neither a well written script nor actors that can’t act, you’re in trouble.

Unfortunately, The Harsh Light of Day falls into this latter category. The film is a low-budget horror in which a writer is brutally attacked in his own home by video camera-wielding masked thugs. His wife is killed and he is left paralysed. A deal with a mysterious stranger, however, offers him the chance for revenge.

Another rule for filmmaking that I’m making up and applying to this film right now is that if you’re going to tackle a well-trodden genre, you should have at least have something interesting and/or vaguely original to show us. The Harsh Light of Day flagrantly disregards this long-standing rule I’ve just made up. It’s a film about a certain type of parasitic monster that popular culture has got itself all in a hot sweat about recently. It doesn’t explicitly name this monster, so neither have I, but believe you me, you’ve probably seen at least one film/read one book/watched one TV programme featuring the creature in the last couple of years and if you haven’t, I envy you. The Harsh Light of Day does nothing with this monster that we haven’t already seen seventeen times already.

Dan Richardson and Giles Alderson, who play the film’s lead roles are very wooden and spout some really weakly written lines, penned by director Oliver S Milburn. It may only be seventy-eight minutes long, but it felt like a drag. Clearly the filmmakers were struggling to stretch the plot over that brief a length of time, as there a more than couple of flashback/nightmare montages that add nothing more than a couple of minutes to the film’s duration. They are often laughably bad – at one point, our blurry, shaky camera zooms in dramatically… on a packet of bird feed! Shock, horror!

I believe that there’s always something to like in every film (there just has to be, right?). In The Harsh Light of Day, it’s a brief sequence towards the end seen through the video lens of one of the home invaders. Although the ‘found footage’ thing has been as done to undeath as the film’s monsters, this brief sequence was well constructed and even approached being a bit scary.

Apart from that, there is little to recommend the film. It doesn’t feel good to criticise a debutant director who clearly didn’t have a lot of money to splash around, but hopefully Milburn will return in the future to deliver on the glimmers of promise he shows in The Harsh Light of Day with something better written or with better actors and perhaps something original to say.

Prometheus Review

Those who remember their Ancient Greek legends will know that Prometheus was the name of the Titan that gave the gift of fire to humankind. This pissed off top-god Zeus, and for his troubles, Prometheus was chained up and an eagle ate out his liver, only for it to grow back ready to be eaten all over again every day forever. Those who like creation myths, stories about the relationship between strange beings and the human race and nasty things happening to people’s insides are probably going to thoroughly enjoy Ridley Scott’s long-awaited prequel to Alien.

As well as an unfortunate Titan and the film in question,Prometheus is also the name of the spaceship carrying Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron and others to a far distant planet, led by instructions left by the ancient civilisations of earth. On this desolate planet, they discover the ancient remnants of the ‘Space Jockey’ race that Sigourney Weaver discovered in the first Alien film. Then Very Bad Things start to happen.

If we accept that the first Alien film is strictly speaking of the horror genre, Aliens is an action movie, Alien³ a prison film andAlien: Resurrection is a bit of a mess, then Prometheus is perhaps the closest the series has gotten yet to proper science fiction. Alien’s familiar themes of body-horror and Freudian psycho-sexuality are recalibrated through Rapace’s scientist’s search for answers in a universe that may or may not be godless. Whilst less wonderfully ponderous, Prometheus at times evokes the existentialism of 2001 or Sunshine, but with added splatter. Other filmic nods include the excellent and curiously impressionist opening sequence which reminded me a little ofThe Seventh Seal and the standout scene of the film (which to avoid spoiling, I’ll refer simply to ‘Rapace taking matters into her own hands’) made me think of Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession.

The look of the thing is excellent; the production design being marvellous and Scott’s direction proving both understated and impressive. Rapace and Fassbender give as great central performances as their remarkable previous work would suggest. Marc Streitenfeld’s score was stirring and as a big Lost fan, I was glad to see Damon Lindelof credited as a writer and I felt the script was pretty strong.

As you’ve probably ascertained, I really liked Prometheus. Unfortunately, my only real criticisms concern the final half hour or so of the film, which makes it kind of difficult to outline them without spoiling it. Chiefly, the thing goes a bit Return of the King on us and manages to fit in about seven different endings, or rather, places where it should have ended. In doing so (and perhaps we can extend this to some of the larger themes of the film too), it seems to raise more questions than it answers and not in a good way. I realise that’s not an especially coherent sentence, but I hope if you see the film, you’ll get what I mean. The pudding does seem to get over-egged at the film’s conclusion and one wonders if Scott was under any pressure to make it a bit more action-packed and reminiscent of the films that came before it.

However, a slightly convoluted ending is far from enough to make Prometheus anything less than a top-notch sci-fi flick and one that I wholly recommend. It’s got creeping horror, scenes of utter bonkers-ness, a few smarts and a stark, brutal kind of beauty to the whole thing. And all this from the bloke that directed Robin Hood.

Top Cat The Movie Review

I hope I’m not going to negate any of my assiduously collated street credibility, but when I was little I used to really like Top Cat. Looking back, I believe I’m correct in saying that it was a reasonably witty and funny programme and it’s not simply nostalgia that’s influencing these fond memories. I remember my sister and I used to watch a Top Cat VHS that we won in a competition run by Little Chef pretty much on loop some days. So when I was invited to attend the preview screening of TC’s big screen debut, I was cautiously excited about it. Obviously, the film is aimed very much at youngsters, but surely there’d be plenty for older viewers to enjoy too.

Top Cat: The Movie is a Mexican production, the programme still being popular enough in that country to justify the creation of a feature film. It’s animated in what first appears to be a quite interesting style – characters are 2D whilst the environments they inhabit are rather crude CGI creations. Add in the poorly implemented forced 3D perspective and what initially seemed like visually interesting style quickly becomes distracting and annoying. The 3D is particularly bad; at times characters appear to be interacting with bits of scenery three feet behind them.

Unfortunately the naffness of the film’s technical aspects extends to its narrative qualities too. The plot revolves around Top Cat’s battle of wits with a new police chief whose love of ‘technology’ sees him implementing CCTV cameras throughout New York, introducing a draconian rule of law and replacing the police with robots. The inclusion of hi-tech twenty-first century reference clashes with the original programme’s old school appeal making it difficult to really enjoy. The plot is also stupidly convoluted and whilst I am sure the kids in the audience could follow it, I’d surprised if they weren’t bored for some stretches. Crucially however, there were very few laughs from the audience. Kids can be pretty easily pleased, especially when given free sweets and a carton of Um Bongo and whilst they were at least quiet and fairly attentive, if I were Vertigo Films I would have been hoping to hear considerably more giggles from the young audience.

Top Cat: The Movie feels like a missed opportunity. TC remains popular enough in this country as well as Mexico – it’s still regularly aired on Cartoon Network – so why more effort wasn’t made to produce a decent film is unknown. As it is, I can’t seeTop Cat doing particularly well and it frankly doesn’t deserve to. Still, at least it’s not as bad as last year’s Yogi Bear, but as those who saw that film will know, that’s about the faintest praise one can damn with.

Fast Girls Review

I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but apparently the Olympic Games are coming to London this summer. I know right! You’d think someone would have mentioned this. Apparently the producers of Adulthood and The Iron Lady knew as Fast Girls, a good-natured, feel good sports drama set in the world of athletics couldn’t coincide better with the Olympics if they convinced Danny Boyle to screen it at the opening ceremony.

Co-written by and co-starring Noel Clarke, Fast Girlsfollows the journey of Shania (Being Human’s Lenora Crichlow), a young woman from a poor background who runs a mean hundred metres. Her prowess gets her into the GB squad and she’s soon put onto Coach Clarke’s relay team too. There she comes to meet her rival, the privileged Lisa (Lily James), with whom her competitiveness threatens to disrupt both her and her team’s chances of success. Can the girls put their differences aside to both grow as people and bring home Gold medals for Blighty?

It’s often said that there is only one sports film and it goes something like this: an unlikely athlete or team get the chance to compete on a great stage in pursuit of sporting glory and/or personal redemption. Things will go well initially, often under the tutelage of an inspiring coach until something goes terribly wrong towards the end of the second act, often at the hands of an unpleasant rival. Things look bleak, but in the end, the underdog always wins (or is finally accepted by their peers, as in the case of the ultimate sports movie, Cool Runnings).

Fast Girls follows this formula doggedly. It’s also arguably trite, too clean cut and lacks depth in its handling of the difference in the socio-economic backgrounds of its characters and its happy-clappy ‘teamwork solves all problems’ philosophy wears a little thin. Having said all that, I really loved Fast Girls. Sure, it’s by no means particularly original (Bend it Like Beckham is an obvious reference point) and nor does it contain any great depths. It is however excellently shot and directed, perfectly orchestrates its emotional high and low points and is held together brilliantly by its fantastic cast. Crichlow and James’s characters are fairly archetypical but the young actors give life to their somewhat slightly written roles and are a joy to watch. The support cast (including Rupert Graves, Bradley James, Philip Davis) are also excellent, especially the relative unknowns and/or TV actors, Lorraine Burroughs, Lashana Lynch and Hannah Frankson who play Shania’s teammates.

Most of all though, it’s refreshing to watch a film in which women dominate the narrative (Fast Girls passes the Bechdel Testwith flying colours). In a world where the walls of multiplexes practically drip with testosterone and female presence is reduced to little more than a pair of leather-clad arse cheeks, Fast Girls will hopefully provide young women (and men) in the audience with characters they can relate to, be engaged and even inspired by. The other stand out part of the film was its superbly composed final race. If it doesn’t leave you with a tear in your eye, a stirring in your stomach or goose bumps on your arms, you need to ask your manufacturer to install an empathy and catharsis upgrade to your system, you emotionless man-droid.

In the face of millions of pounds splurged from the public purse, ridiculously ramped up security initiatives and a weight on London’s transport network like nothing ever seen before, Fast Girls could quite easily be the best thing the Olympic Games have brought about this summer.

Lucky Luke Review

First released in 2009, French spoof Western Lucky Luke is being re-released, presumably to capitalise on the newfound fame of Jean Dujardin, the Oscar-winning star of The Artist (the same trick was played with Cash). Lucky Luke is based on the popular Gallic comic strip of the same name (which once shared a writer with Asterix) and features Dujardin as the titular hero, a cowboy with outrageous shooting skills who is tasked by the President with purging his birthplace of Daisy Town of the various outlaws and bad guys that thrive there. Short of Blazing Saddles, the best-forgotten Wild Wild West and that episode ofRed Dwarf, the Western is a genre that seems poorly served by affectionate parody; Lucky Luke is a welcome addition to this slight canon.

Like another famous comic hero, Luke’s parents were shot in front of him as a child and he therefore has vowed never to take a life. This presents his enemies with a weakness to exploit – can Luke save the day without betraying his ideals? That’s a rather too in-depth dissection of the plot. Lucky Luke is bizarre, screwball comedy that wears its comic roots whole-heartedly on its sleeve.

I liked the surrealist humour of the film. Highlights included a scene in which Luke’s horse Jolly Jumper is revealed (apropos of nothing) to be able to talk, a romantic encounter curtailed due to a squashed snail on a forehead and a series of escalating card and gun tricks performed by Luke and antagonist Pat Poker.

The look of Lucky Luke is also very well constructed, with a pleasingly bright colour palette and some excellent costumes. The production design is very good indeed, particularly the giant one-armed bandit in which the climatic scenes take place, which, as far as I could tell, seems to have been constructed for real (though probably in small sections).

The film may prove a little too weird and a little too European in its humour for some tastes. It’s also a shame that some fruitier scenes and mild violence have earned it a restrictive rating (the BBFC has rated the film itself as 12 though the DVD is rated 15, presumably due to content in the extras) as it would make an excellent movie for any kids not put off by subtitles. As such,Lucky Luke is likely to find itself a rather niche audience, if any. Those that do seek it out will be treated to a charmingly wacky horse opera that will surely not fail to raise a smile along with an eyebrow.

How I Spent my Summer Vacation Review

Everybody’s favourite anti-Semite Mel Gibson returns to our screens in How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a back to basics action thriller set in a Mexican prison. The film was formerly known as Get the Gringo – is it too preposterous to presume that after the latest allegations involving Gibson’s intolerance ‘issues’, the film’s distributors decided to opt out of lumbering their film with a title that carries anything approaching baggage pertaining to race? Maybe. Whatever the reason, a pretty full-on actioner has been given the kind of title one would probably assume belongs to a weak Katherine Heigl rom com.

The film begins with Gibson driving a getaway car in a clown mask with a bag full of someone else’s money, hurtling along the US-Mexican border. After being apprehended, the officials decide to impound him south of the border in a prison which in fact operates more like a small, self-governing township (in reality the Ignacio Allende Prison). There he encounters a young boy (Kevin Hernandez) with a deeply personal connection to Carlos (Tenoch Huerta), the prison’s big fish. Gibson (who is credited as ‘Driver’; a decision likely to draw unfavourable comparisons to Drive), takes it upon himself to offer the boy his protection, whilst busting heads, blowing stuff up and generally being a nuisance.

I am of the opinion that a person’s personal life shouldn’t colour an opinion of their ability to do their job. As much as I am of the opinion that Roman Polanski is a child rapist, I equally feel he’s a very good filmmaker. This of course swings both ways; just because a person is famous or creatively brilliant doesn’t mean they should be treated sympathetically in a court of law. I attempted to adhere to this philosophy when watching Summer Vacation. It proved a little difficult; Gibson’s character is (intentionally) almost as distasteful as the man has revealed himself to be in real life. Credit to him, he’s certainly not gunning for a sympathy vote in this film; his performance is barbed, cocksure and nearly approaches charismatic.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation is also written and produced by Gibson (among others). Its director Adrian Grunberg mostly draws his CV from first assistant director roles, frequently on Gibson productions; so it’s not too far a stretch to suggest Gibson had input in the physical shooting of the film too.

Leading man aside, the film itself is fairly unremarkable (it is not receiving a theatrical release in the US). The action and the film’s depictions of violence are mostly unrestrained, which is welcome. Beyond that and Gibson’s surprisingly not awful screen presence, there seems little more to say for the film. The third act goes a somewhat off the rails – an extended sequence in which Gibson dupes bad guys by pretending to be an associate of Clint Eastwood is vaguely amusing but mostly serve to confuse and detracts from the tighter, prison-centric sections that make up the rest of the film. The ending scene is also categorically awful and feels like it’s been spliced in from another film.

Whilst far from a car crash, How I Spent My Summer Vacation is otherwise almost wholly unexceptional. To be honest, if you’re looking for an action-packed slugfest in which an aggrieved white bloke takes an ethnically different child under his wing, you’d probably be better off watching The Stathe in Safe; where the most ‘interesting’ thing about its star is that he used to be a national-level diver.

FDA’s Summer of Cinema Film Quiz Report

Last Thursday saw the UK Film Distributor’s Association reveal the line-up for this summer’s film releases through the medium of a film quiz and what seemed suspiciously like a rather large piss-up. As everyone knows, the film industry historically does inversely well in times of recession; well, we must really be screwed financially if the statistics in the FDA’s press release are to be believed: the UK box office is at the time of writing 4% ahead of its takings from this time last year and has passed the £300m barrier faster than ever.

After finding myself the only representative from B3K at the event and being disinclined to go solo on the quiz, I was readying myself to make my apologies and do one, however, a kindly attendee sought out an equally accommodating team from the excellent Find Any Film website who were willing to take on a Billy-no-mates straggler. Inside scoop: they want to make an app and are looking at their options. We made a good team and made a decent attempt at the quiz (hosted by Russell Brand tribute act, Alex Zane); however we made a stronger show of polishing off canapés and endeavouring to empty seemingly bottomless wine glasses.

The FDA – whose member companies are responsible for the distribution of 97% of the UK’s cinema releases – are promoting their summer line-up with a teaser trailer featuring fifty-one of the new releases, a series of vod and podcasts and this rather nice website.

Highlights of the coming months include superhero shindigs The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man, sci-fi shenanigans from Prometheus and Total Recall and Jason Segel-‘em ups Jeff Who Lives at Home and The Five Year Engagement. Other notable releases include Pixar’s latest, Brave, which features the wonderful Kelly Macdonald, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and Step Up 4: Miami Heat. Classic films such as Jaws, Beauty and the Beast and Chariots of Fireare all being rereleased.

So in short: FDA organise nice big party, cinema singlehandedly saving UK economy (maybe) and lots of exciting sounding films are being released. For me, it’s difficult to get beyond anything other than The Dark Knight Rises in terms of anticipation, but what are you looking forward to this summer? Voice your thoughts in the comments below.

You can check out pictures from the event on the official Facebook page.

Safe Review

In a break with tradition, Jason Statham plays a tough nut who has to fight his way to justice in an enjoyable action film. I jest of course. Statham has well and truly carved out a niche for himself as the go to guy for bald-headed action brutality now that Bruce Willis is just about past it (except for in the ‘too old for this shit’ sub-genre in the action – seeSurrogates, The Expendables, etc).

So long as The Stathe keeps churning out slightly by the numbers beat ‘em ups, I’ll be happy to keep watching them. The biggest draw in any Jason Statham film is the man’s undeniable charisma. It’s difficult to think of any other action hero who is so universally well-liked (around my office, he’s known simply as ‘Sir Jason’) and he does not disappoint in Safe.

In this film, Statham plays a former super NYPD cop, turned cage fighter, now a street bum, who decides, whilst teetering on the edge of a tube platform not to commit suicide, but instead to rescue a cute Chinese girl Mei from warring factions of Russian and Chinese mobsters. Mei has the combination to a safe full of millions of dollars memorised in her computer-like brain, which obviously makes her brain very popular with all manner of bad men with big guns.

The plot is actually somewhat more complex (convoluted?) than that, but it boils down to Statham punching lots of people in the face and then delivering a wry quip. Which works really well. Writer and director Boaz Yakin keeps things nice and simple and the frequent action set pieces crop up with pleasing regularity.

You could argue that Safe is somewhat unsophisticated, but that’s a bit like complaining that the nice big hammer you’ve just bought is only good for bashing nails into surfaces (and occasionally pulling them out again). Safe does what it sets out to do very effectively and for that it must be commended. Admittedly there is something approaching emotional complexity in Statham’s relationship with his young companion as he fulfils a surrogate father-figure role, but the film wisely doesn’t dwell too much on this aspect.

In summation, Safe is another typical Jason Statham film – and that is by no means a derogatory comment. The man knows how to pick his projects and Safe just as fundamentally enjoyable and easy to watch as the best of The Stathe’s respectable oeuvre. A friend of mine has argued that Sir Jason is the UK’s greatest living actor. Whilst that may not quite be the case, he certainly makes a decent case for the UK’s most reliable former diver in consistently entertaining action roles. Frankly, what more could you want?

Casa de mi Padre Review

This latest offering from the perennially amusing Will Ferrell stars the talented comic as Armando Alvarez, the second son of a ranch owner in Mexico. Armando’s life is turned upside down by the return of his beloved but drug-dealing brother Raul (Diego Luna), who brings with him not only his mysterious new fiancé Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez), but the wrath of rival drug lord The Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal). Thus the stage is set for a grand tale of love, rivalry, violence and redemption. Saturday Night Live alumni Matt Piedmont makes his feature film debut as director.

Did I mention it’s all in the Spanish language? Beyond the initial novelty of watching the talented Ferrell speak flawless Spanish, Casa de Mi Padre is a very funny, enjoyably silly spoof of Mexican Westerns and melodramatic telenovelas and mines a similar vein of comedy as Blaxploitation parody Black Dynamite.

Ferrell can be a divisive comedian and some would be largely justified in levelling accusations of self-indulgence at the prospect of a daft tongue in cheek film in another language. As a fan of Ferrell however, I thought the film boasted a lot of the charm of his best work (such as Elf or Megamind) and was more memorable than many of his seemingly endless sports comedies. It doesn’t have the phenomenally high laugh rate of an Anchorman or a Zoolander but it was certainly very entertaining and had the audience of which I was a part of chuckling loudly and frequently. It’s also reassuring to see Adam McKay, frequent Ferrell collaborator credited as a producer.

Those who enjoyed Y tu mamá también or Rudo y Cursi will be as delighted as I was to see Mexican acting duo Bernal and Luna reunite for a third time. They don’t share a great deal of screen time but the obvious enjoyment they are having on set is evident on screen. The inclusion of Genesis Rodriguez is another treat. The charismatic actress was more or less the best thing in the otherwise turgid non-thriller Man on a Ledge so it’s excellent to see her in an actually decent film. I predict she’s going to go on to bigger and brighter things very soon.

Other things to look out for in the film include some several rousingly entertaining musical numbers (Ferrell gives his not at all unimpressive vocal cords a mariachi work out in the film’s songs), some deliberate production goofs and low-tech special effects and the best ever fight scene involving a lion puppet (nod nod, wink wink).

Whilst perhaps not for everyone – it’s doubtful a mainstream audience will take it into their hearts, the genre of film being parodied being perhaps a little obscure on this side of the pond – Casa de Mi Padre will provide some big laughs and high entertainment for those who will take the trouble to seek it out. In short, la película es buena.

The Divide Review

I have an interest in nuclear war. Well, I have an interest in stories about nuclear war, to be more precise. I’m a big fan of films such as When the Wind Blows and television such asThreads. One of the books I’m currently reading is a biography of Robert Oppenheimer. So when I read the synopsis of The Divide, I was immediately interested. In the film, nuclear warheads are dropped on New York City and a handful of people manage to take shelter in the basement of a tower block, a sanctuary that becomes a prison and then a madhouse, as Very Bad Things unfold.

The nuclear war aspect is really just a hook on which to hang the real focus of interest of the film: the effects of enforced proximity and the destruction of social norms on a group of strangers, with a particular focus on gender roles. Does that sound a little dry? Fret not; it’s also a deeply disturbing psychological horror, with some genuinely strange and visually arresting moments as the film goes on. The initial nuclearly-bombed setup is quickly and cheekily relegated to MacGuffin status (the identity of the perpetrators of the nuclear strike is left deliberately ambiguous; the Arabs? The North Koreans? The Americans?) until the end of the film, which leaves the viewer with some genuinely haunting images.

The main crux of the film is the degeneration of the characters without society or an authority to keep them in check and looks specifically at how (some of) the male characters begin to treat the women (in short, abominably). We view the film through the eyes of Eva (Lauren German), who quickly comes to realise that her partner Sam (Iván González) is not going to be a top dog of a Lord of the Flies. The main power struggle is between misanthropic, weirdo building superintendent Mickey (Michael Biehn, who is excellent) and Josh, a genuinely terrifying Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes).

Some may find the film overly bleak and even mean-spirited. Personally, I would say ‘uncompromising’ and ‘challenging’ are more suitable adjectives with which to describe The Divide. In any case, a film that begins with the total destruction of one of the biggest cities on earth is unlikely to have a happy-clappy payoff. I enjoyed that it wasn’t afraid to be complex with its ideas and its characters. Director Xavier Gens, best known for the less than well-remembered Hitman adaptation, has artfully constructed The Divide. It is likely to satisfy horror fans (though its stock in trade is less soundtrack-punctuated scares, more the gradual realisation that somewhere along the line, something has gone deeply, irrecoverably and hideously wrong), sci-fi fans and any errant sociologists that care to view the film. A pessimistic view of humanity? Yes (personally I’d like to believe that the basic humanity of people would remain in situations such as this). One of the more interesting and engaging horror films of recent years? Most definitely.

Snowtown Live - Q&A

On Thursday night, Revolver Entertainment marked the release of Snowtown with a screening of the film, a live Tweet-along and a Q&A with its director Justin Kurzel. Snowtown is a depiction of the real life murders that happened in the nineties in the town close to Adelaide. The film is told from the point of view of Jamie (Lucas Pittaway), an abused teen that becomes embroiled into the world of John Bunting (Daniel Henshall), an outwardly personable man who also happens to be a sadistic murderer.

The film is relentlessly tense (aided by Jed Kurzel’s outstanding score) and oppressively bleak. It is at times almost impressionistic and its use of oversaturated imagery adds to the near-dreamlike quality of the film. Whilst much of the violence is left unseen, what we do witness is so gut-wrenchingly inhumane it’s physically difficult to watch. I had to duck out for a quick breather after a particularly nasty bit involving a toenail and some pliers.

The cast of Snowtown are universally excellent and Pittaway and Henshall particularly so. Pittaway doesn’t seem to really domuch, but it’s his character’s curious passivity from which we must decide how culpable he is in the crimes the film depicts. It’s a reasonably complex performance. Henshall is perfect as the monstrous Bunting, a man able to worm his way into the lives of those he abuses and of those he would have join him in abuse with his veneer of charm.

After the screening, we were given a few moments to recover before Justin Kurzel took our questions. You can listen to the recording of the Q&A at this location. Listen out for questions from Midnight Video’s (a podcast you really should be listening to) Phil Walsh and HeyUGuys’ Adam Lowes.

You can read a Storify of my tweets from the event here.

Headhunters Review

My only prior knowledge of Jo Nesbø was that posters for his books seemed to crop up on the underground with alarming rapidity a couple of years ago when The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series’ popularity peaked. Clearly, I thought with cynicism, some wily publisher is cashing in on the current interest in Scandinavian literature. Of course, that meant it was only a matter of time before Nesbø’s work started appearing on screen too. I hadn’t learnt any more about Nesbø between noticing those posters and prior to the screening ofHeadhunters (until writing this review, I had assumed Nesbø was a woman), other than that there is, apparently Nesbø-themed pornography urbanely entitled ‘Jo Lesbo’.

So I had little to no expectations going into Headhunters. The story follows an executive recruiter (or ‘headhunter’), the decidedly un-Norwegian sounding Roger Brown, a man with a Napoleon complex  who has blagged his way into a comfortable life, a big house and the arms of a woman he considers out of his league, his wife Diana (Lund). Unfortunately, in order to make ends meet, Brown has found it necessary to earn additional income through less than legal means and, along with his somewhat inane partner in crime Ove (Sander), has become an art thief. When he discovers that his latest mark, the impressive Clas Greve (Coster-Waldau), is apparently sleeping with Diana, Brown sabotages Greve’s chances of landing a top position at a GPS company. However, Greve is a former soldier and begins seeking revenge on Brown, starting a deadly game of cat and mouse. The Gordian plot only gets knottier from hereon in.

Headhunters was an absolute treat. Its black as night humour, clever plotting, strong characterisation and bouts of extreme violence were straight up my street. Headhunters is essentially a Scandinavian Coen Brothers film (think Fargo, Blood Simpleand Burn After Reading), which is, of course, a very good thing. Whilst the casual violence and sense of meaninglessness of the Coens are present in Headhunters, there’s also a level of sincerity and pathos underneath the ridiculousness of the events film.

Much of the film’s success is due to Aksel Hennie’s outstanding central performance as Brown. Hennie’s character has a bizarre mixture of resourcefulness and stupidity about him and scuttles about the film, looking like the strange lovechild of Steve Buscemi and Alan B’stard. The role requires an awful lot of him (not least a fantastic Trainspotting/Slumdog Millionaire WC moment) and Hennie does more than justice to it. Brown is something of a creep and frequently unpleasant; it’s indicative of Hennie’s quality that we root for his character nonetheless.

Arguably, the intricacies of the plot do not quite hang together – it may require multiple viewings to make sure, but other than that, Headhunters is an exceptionally good film. Cast any lingering associations with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo straight out of your mind, if indeed you had any. This is a completely different kettle of fish. Surprising, exciting and frequently hilarious, Headhunters is riotously entertaining and definitely worth seeking out. It also contains the best dog death in any film this year so far.

The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists Review

There are a few things in cinema that can be described as a safe bet. One is a Chris Nolan film is probably going to be pretty good. Another is Jeff Bridges being extremely watchable in anything he’s in. You can also add an Aardman production almost always being a good thing to that list.

The folks who brought you Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run have opened their plasticine kit once more to bring us a nautical but nice pirate adventure, with added scientists. Hugh Grant voices the logically named Pirate Captain, whose sole ambition is to at last win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award. After a chance encounter with Charles Darwin, he realises his best chance of plundering enough booty to impress the judges is to use his trusty pet dodo Polly to win the Royal Society’s similar Scientist of the Year prize money, whilst avoiding the infamously pirate-averse Queen Victoria.

Like Arthur Christmas before it, Aardman have assembled an excellent cast to voice their clay models. The on-form Grant heads up the talent, flanked by David Tennant, Imelda Staunton and Ashley Jensen, to name but four. There’s also Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven, Martin Freeman, Lenny Henry, Brendan Gleeson and Brian Blessed to name six more.

Similarly to the recent Muppets reboot (we’re being rather spoilt for decent family-fare at the moment it seems), the strengths of The Pirates! are in its audience-spanning appeal and its frighteningly consistent laugh rate. Gideon Defoe’s script, an adaptation of his own tongue-in-cheek novel, is responsible for a great deal of humour, but as we’ve come to expect from Aardman, there are also hundreds of sight gags littered throughout the film, meaning you’re never waiting more than several seconds between giggles. The humour is pitched perfectly to please both sprogs and grown-ups. Defoe’s series of Pirates!books are primarily aimed at adults in the first place and their deep sense of irony and wry humour has not been lost in transition to the screen. Thankfully though, kids are highly unlikely to be alienated or left out by the jokes and the film is without the air of smugness that pervades such ‘a bit of blue for the dads’ films like the Shrek franchise.

Credit has to be given to Aardman for how visually stunning the film is. The level detail in the models is astounding and watching the whole thing in motion is a feast for the eyes. I’m not normally one for re-watching films, but I’d make an exception for Pirates! firstly to try and catch the jokes I missed the first time around and secondly simply to marvel at the incredible attention to detail the film boasts.

This is the part of the review where I’d normally mention a few detracting aspects of the film, but for the first time in ages, I don’t think I can name a single thing I didn’t like about the film. Given the choice, I’d see it in 2D, but that’s just a personal preference. The Pirates! is a wonderful achievement that deserves every success. You timbers will be well and truly shivered.