Machine Gun Preacher Review

As you are probably and unfortunately aware, Machine Gun Preacher is not the tale of a man of god that takes to the mean streets of LA armed to the teeth to deliver some righteous justice and stick it to the man. Along with Hobo with a Shotgun, it’s one of the best exploitation titles you could hope for. In real life, however, Machine Gun Preacher is the true story of Sam Childers, former hell-raising bad-boy, who, after the kind of epiphany only brought on by stabbing a homeless person half to death, turns to Jesus. After seeing the light, Sam begins working in Sudan, caring for the orphans of the war zone.

The DVD release of Machine Gun Preacher is timely, given the recent internet outcry over Kony 2012. The backlash against that video (and to some extent the ‘panning’ Machine Gun Preacher received on its release) is somewhat aggravating; is it important how and why people are made aware of real world issues as long as they are made aware in the first place? The humanitarian disaster happening in Sudan right now is appalling and Machine Gun Preacher should at least be applauded for its largely unflinching and mature portrayal of the crisis.

It isn’t the point of a review to judge how worthy a film’s subject matter is though, and the narrative itself can be somewhat plodding. It also takes director Marc Forster over two hours to tell a story that is in real life on-going, meaning that it’s both overlong and inconclusive. And while Gerard Butler gives a generally rather mature and focused performance, his wild man act at the beginning of the film feels somewhat more like a caricature than a portrayal. Towards the end of the film however, things do get interesting as Sam begins to undertake his mission more aggressively, to the detriment of both his family and his new-found faith.

There’s also able support in the form of Michael Shannon and Michelle Monaghan and Madeline Carroll (whom sharp-eyed readers will recognise as creepy Ben’s childhood sweetheart Annie from Lost) is also rather good as Sam’s daughter.

Machine Gun Preacher is a much more challenging and occasionally more interesting film than perhaps its title and the presence of Butler would suggest. It’s no must-see, but as a competent and sober depiction of a continuing travesty, it more than does its job.

Touching Home Review

Touching Home is a true story written and directed by Logan and Noah Miller about their relationship with their late father. With no previous experience of working in film and a budget of $2million (small beer in movieland), they have created an interesting and sensitive, if workmanlike film. Touching Home sees the twin brothers striving to break into professional baseball whilst dealing with their homeless and alcoholic father Charlie, played by an excellent Ed Harris.

Whilst the film is an impressive achievement in and of itself, though it pains me to say it, Touching Home is simply a little dull. It tends to meander and dwell too much where succinctness and implication would serve the film better and feels rather baggy around the edges. There’s a very televisual feel to proceedings, which marred my enjoyment somewhat.

That said, the cast are excellent. Alongside Harris, Robert Forster (probably best known for his brilliant performance in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown and currently appearing inAlcatraz) does himself proud as the town’s fatherly cop and the boy’s former coach. Credit is also due to Brad Dourif, who gives a sensitive performance as Clyde, Charlie’s brother with learning difficulties. Logan and Noah Miller, who play fictionalised versions of themselves, are also good.

Baseball is seemingly the medium required to tell the stories of American sons struggling to come to terms with the lives of their fathers. See also Field of Dreams and The Open Road. I’m not really a fan of the former (sacrilege to many, apparently) and I doubt the latter will have set many people’s world alight. Perhaps being British and only really caring about one sport that isn’t baseball makes it difficult for me to engage properly with these films. Touching Home may not reverse the trend I’ve just strung together of slightly ropey father-son baseball dramas, but heck, it’s at least as good as those other two and is much more authentic in its affectionate, yet honest portrayal of a deeply flawed individual.

Albatross Review

Looking for a quirky, British, coming-of-age dramedy, that though far from rubbish, isn’t quite as good as it thinks it is? Then look no further than Albatross, the debut cinematic effort for both its director and its writer, Niall MacCormick and Tamzin Rafn.

The lives of a family on the Isle of Man are turned upside down and inside out when a new cleaner, Emelia, is hired to work at their hotel. Emelia is seventeen, precocious and belligerent. She befriends the family’s bookish elder daughter Beth and begins an affair with her father, one hit wonder novelist Jonathan and events inevitably spiral out of control.

The double act between Jessica Brown-Findlay (Emelia) and rising star Felicity Jones (Beth) is the film’s strongest asset. The scenes of friendship between these two capable young actors are well-crafted and believably performed. It’s pleasing to see a relationship between two female teenagers explored properly on screen – lord knows the ‘bromance’ genre is far from lacking in material, but it seems rare that we are treated to a mature take on the female equivalent. Brown-Findlay and Jones give excellent performances that promise great things to come for both of them.

Unfortunately, whilst the adolescent characters are satisfyingly created, the same cannot be said for the adults in the film. Sebastian Koch and Julia Ormond do the best they can with their roles, but their mum and dad characters are written with shockingly broad strokes. And for a film in which two characters discuss bad writing and weak metaphors, there are some terrible instances of both in Albatross. It also flirts dangerously with pretension.

Still, it’s possible to overlook the film’s inconsistencies and enjoy it as a fairly amusing and occasionally touching drama. Additionally, it deserves innumerable plaudits for its invention of the work ‘procasturbating’.

Take Review

Prior to hitting it big with The Hurt Locker and propelling himself into superstardom/back into obscurity with the enormous success/spectacular failure of Avengers Assemble, Jeremy Renner starred in this fairly low-key drama about a man on death row and the woman he wronged. Minnie driver plays Ana, a woman struggling to make ends meet and raise her son, who has additional support needs. Renner plays Saul, a man whose gambling debts have force him into a life of crime. These two people’s lives collide in a dramatic, tragic and highly predictable manner.

The problem with Take is that for all its worthiness and decent performances, it is unfortunately very dull. I finished watching it not three hours ago and I’m already struggling to remember much of it. The Big Important Climatic Crime Scene is pulled off pretty well, but why does it come so late on, towards the final third of the film? The narrative is constructed in a nonlinear manner and it seems to me that to have The Big Important Climatic Crime Scene happen much earlier would have ultimately made me care more about the characters’ fates. It’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen anyway, so they might as well have got it other with.

The most interesting thing about the film is the title card at its end which discusses Restorative Justice, a charity that seeks to make criminals and victims and the public at large more aware of the human damage of crime and seeks to create meetings between criminals and victims to discuss their crimes to much great affect, apparently. This is all well and good, but personally it was difficult to sympathise too heavily with this cause whilst the film maintains an apparently nonchalant position on the death penalty, the abolition of which, I feel, is a much higher priority.

Still, at least Saul was humanised and while there was a certain amount of catharsis, there was no cut and dry resolution for the pair at the film’s end. It’s nice to watch a film with some thought behind it, so it’s a shame that Take is delivered so weakly.

Reykjavík-Rotterdam Review

The funny thing about reviewing films not in the English language is that it can be all too easy to assume that just because you’re reading subtitles, you’re watching a work of major artistic quality. This can simply be because somewhere in your mind you make the equation ‘subtitles = clever’, or in slightly more complex terms, why would distributors bother releasing a film in a foreign territory if there wasn’t something special about it that will attract an audience?

Reykjavík-Rotterdam is an Icelandic thriller about a former smuggler who takes on ‘one last job’ when faced with considerable financial difficulties. The thing is, whilst it’s a fairly competent film in its own right, it’s not really clear what makes it stands out from your common or garden crime-heist movie (though in its home country, it won several awards at Iceland’s equivalent of the BAFTAs). The reason for this DVD release then, we can assume with some certainty, is to coincide with the soon to be released Mark Wahlberg film Contraband, which is a remake of this film, directed by its star, Baltasar Kormákur.

I had some problems with this film. For example, it was difficult to really root for Kormákur’s character. Kristopher isn’t particularly heroic and the trouble he causes his family is difficult to forgive. Not that films must have likable protagonists to be successful, not at all; however in this film, it’s somewhat alienating. I ended up rooting for the hired goon who terrorised Kristopher’s family – sure he was violent and horrible, but at least he was mildly amusing.

The plot is also overly complicated. What should be a fairly straight forward con-job plot is over egged unnecessary convolutions and layers of none-too intriguing intrigue. It’s also a fairly depressing watch, frankly, as misery upon misery is piled onto Kristopher’s family.

That said, there’s stuff to enjoy in the film for those curious enough to seek it out. Much of the film is set on a cargo ship which is an inherently interesting location. There’s a couple of exciting scenes, such as when the aforementioned ship is set on a collision course with the Rotterdam dock or the slightly random but well shot street shoot out. The ending is also pretty good, if a bit obvious.

If you find yourself loving Marky Mark’s latest and want to find out from whence it came, or perhaps you wish to discover what Icelandic cinema can offer (other than the otherworldly glory ofHeima by Sigur Rós), then by all means give Reykjavík-Rotterdam a go. Just don’t go expecting anything earth-shatteringly brilliant.

Go to Blazes Review

First released in 1962, Go to Blazes is a frothy British comedy in the classic mould. The film follows the escapades of a trio of hapless criminals. After their getaway from a jewellery shop robbery is foiled by a traffic jam caused by a fire engine, the gang decide to procure a fire engine of their own as the perfect getaway vehicle. With zany results!

For some reason it feels more difficult to criticise old movies than it does modern ones. I think there’s an innate instinct to revere that which has gone before, at least in terms of cinema. Of course, the language and culture of cinema today is vastly different from the early sixties, which makes it tricky, for me at least, to offer a fair critique. All that said, I didn’t really get a lot out of Go to Blazes. It’s not that funny and the sits from which the actors are expected to derive com are often pretty silly and not in a good way.

It did make me think what the film would be like if it were made today. Probably not much better. I expect you’d have Martin Freeman mugging his way through the thing with someone like Danny Dyer and/or the equally awful James Corden providing support. Freeman would also probably end up with the posh totty – in the real version played by a young Maggie Smith, in my fantasy modern version by, let’s say Gemma Arterton.

It’s not to say that Go to Blazes is total rubbish. It rattles along fairly well (especially the first half) and there are some nice shots of sixties London. It’s also a film that offers equal opportunity entertainment. Your granny is as likely to like it as your six year old cousin. Probably. I don’t know them personally.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a mildly distracting, but not that great sixties comedy featuring actors that would go on to work on Dad’s Army, Coronation Street, et al and fire engines, look no further. You’ll get on like a house on fire.

Cash Review

Part of the fun of being a deckhand for the good ship Blogomatic3000 is reviewing DVDs. More often than not, I never know exactly what’s going to arrive in the post and again more often than not, I think it’s fair to say, the DVD screeners are usually fairly obscure fare. As such, I might not know anything other than the film’s title when I push it into the DVD player, which was exactly the case with Cash. What would it be? A hard hitting documentary about capitalism? A rom-com set in a bank? That long-awaited biopic of Australia’s finest tennis player? I was just hoping it wasn’t another godawful 50 Cent gangsta flick.

Turns out, Cash is a fairly charming French heist film, first released in 2008. 2008? I hear you think (I really can hear you. And see you. Put some trousers on for godssakes). What on earth is it doing being released now? Well, Cashstars a certain Jean Dujardin, the now Oscar-nominated lead in The Artist. With near-worthless euros gleaming in their eyes, Metrodome have decided to release this in order to cash in on Dujardin’s sudden success.

There’s nothing wrong with that really. It is the movie business after all. Fortunately, Cash is actually pretty good. Dujardin is the titular rogue, the leader of gang of con-people, who enlist the help of a police detective in order to out-con a rival con-gang led by Jean Reno. A whole load of clever tricks, silly escapades and double-crossing and side-swapping ensues.

Dujardin is as droll and charismatic as he is in The Artist (turns out he can do acting in sound and colour too). He reminds me a lot of a French Hugh Jackman. Reno isn’t on screen much and more or less phones it in, but you can forgive that, because hey, it’s Jean Reno. The flick comes across rather a lot like a Gallic Ocean’s Eleven film (at least I think it does; I haven’t seen an Ocean’s film in about eight years). There are lots of snappy cuts of people zipping up zips and clicking open brief cases, a fair amount of wit and a superficially complex but not really if you pay attention plot.

Other than that, it’s a decently made, quite likable little film. It’s probably not going to wear out its welcome and you probably won’t give it a moment’s thought after you eject the disc, pop it back in its case and replace it alphabetically by title onto your DVD shelf. Still, it’s fun whilst it lasts and serves as a little curio from Dujardin’s past as he skyrockets surely to global superstardom.

Perfect Sense Review

Perfect Sense spent very little time in the cinema upon its release last year and I was very sorry to miss it. I was therefore glad to receive a test disc to review for its DVD release and pleased to report that it was well worth the wait. Set in present day Glasgow, the film introduces us to Susan (Green) and Michael (McGregor), a scientist and a chef. They meet, get together and fall in love against the backdrop of a global epidemic. An unknown disease afflicts the entire human race, which, over a fairly long period of time, robs people of their senses one by one.

First to go is smell, which the world’s population largely takes in their stride. Taste is next, which proves more troublesome. By the time hearing makes its exit, society is starts skating on thin ice. Superficially, you might compare this to Steven Soderbergh’sContagion, which released around about the same time. Whilst that film was interested in how organisations and governments reacted in the face of a crisis, Perfect Sense is much more interested in the response of everyday folk and their relationships. It is also, for my money, the better film.

Green and McGregor perform well and convince as a loving, modern couple – we see their relationship and devotion to each other develop, but we also see their complexities, desires and regrets as individuals too. Director David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Hallam Foe) tells the story well and, as you might expect, reflects the sensory deprivation of his protagonists on his audience. From a slightly geeky point of view, he also does some interesting things with locked off and roving cameras.

The emotional highpoint of the film is its ending, in which there is a moment of wonderful yet quiet catharsis, which is conveyed better than most such attempts in recent memory and manages to deliver a sense of both great joy and heartbreak in a truly stunning scene.

Some may criticise the film’s occasional penchant for the whimsical and there is one moment where the character’s actions don’t quite ring true, but that’s about the worst I can say about it.Perfect Sense was an engaging, inventive (the subplot regarding how Michael’s restaurant diversifies its menu in the face of the epidemic was very well done) and at its best, very affecting. Go buy it now. You know it makes sense.

Holy Rollers Review

Who doesn’t love a good old true-life story? In particular, who doesn’t love a true-life story that involves drugs? And who doesn’t love a true-life story that not only involves drugs but also involves Hasidic Jews? On paper then,Holy Rollers would seem to have all the right ingredients to be a fun-filled, watchable romp. Unfortunately, things don’t play out quite so successfully.

Everyone’s favourite Social Networker Jesse Eisenberg stars as Sam, a Hasidic Jew living in Brooklyn with his family and amongst other members of the Orthodox community. Money being tight, he takes his friend Yosef’s (Bartha) advice and begins smuggling what he believes at first to be medicine into New York from Amsterdam. Sam quickly finds out that the ‘medicines’ are in fact stashes of delicious disco biscuits. Sam becomes embroiled in the drug running and falls for his dealer’s girlfriend Rachel (Graynor), all the while keeping up the façade of being a good citizen and devout Jew. Eventually of course, things spiral out of control as events accelerate towards a near inevitable conclusion. Can Sam stop his family finding out the awful truth? Will Sam realise the error of his ways, but all too late to save a friend? And will there be titles prior to the closing credits that tell us what everyone got up to next? What do you think?

Director Kevin Asch’s main problem is a debilitating lack of plot. Whilst the central conceit – Orthodox Jews as drug mules – is undeniably beguiling, there really isn’t any mileage or indeed anywhere unexpected that it can take us. As such, Asch pads out his thin film with all too many montages of people dancing in clubs to 90s house music, which is unfortunate as the people on screen are clearly having more fun than those in the audience.

Whilst Eisenberg gives a decent performance, it isn’t enough to carry the film. It may have niche appeal as a curiosity, but Holy Rollers is ultimately quite flat, fairly dull and pretty predictable and is surely one of a very select number of films that would have been better if played as a broad comedy.

Senna Review

Senna was released in cinemas earlier this year to near universal acclaim and picked up a handful of Awards at a number of film festivals. Telling the life story of Ayrton Senna, the brilliant Brazilian Formula 1 driver, director Asif Kapadia compiled mountains of archive footage of to paint a compelling portrait of one of the sporting world’s most exciting characters.

It has been said before by a great number of reviewers in their glowing write-ups of the film, but it bears repeating: an interest in Formula 1 is by no means required to enjoy the film. You may even enjoy it more the less you know about its subject matter. Previously, I found Formula 1 tedious and dull and would be loath to even recognise it as a proper sport (sure, it takes a fair amount of physical prowess to handle one of the machines, but surely sports have to incorporate a certain amount of exercise?). Having watched the film, I have been made aware of the drama and politics that go hand in hand with Formula 1. It’s exciting stuff.

And Senna’s career was little short on drama. Like all the best documentaries (such as Touching the Void or Grizzly Man for example), there’s something so innately cinematic about Senna’s career that if it wasn’t already true, it would be necessary to invent it. You have the plucky hero whose swift rise to success is only threatened by his sneering, calculating (and French) partner-turned-rival (Alain Prost). There’s hubris and pathos, conflict and revenge, setback and success, triumph and tragedy. There’s even a rom-com subplot (okay, subplot is an exaggeration, but Senna does have one of the funniest ‘meet-cute’ scenes I’ve ever seen).

You could argue – correctly too – that we only ever see the Senna that Kapadia would have us see. So whilst his occasional ruthlessness and pig-headedness is sometimes demonstrated, Senna is most often portrayed as heroic and altruistic figure. One imagines a rather different depiction would be made of the man were the film about Prost.

Still, that criticism could be levelled at any documentary, so let’s not split hairs. Senna is one of the most exciting films of 2011 in any genre and its DVD release will serve as an excellent Christmas gift for the F1 enthusiast in your family – or just a cheeky gift to yourself.

Setup Review

It is a fine and sunny day in Los Angeles, just like every day in Los Angeles, a sprawling metropolis testament to human ambition and resolute failure. Somewhere downtown, a broad-shouldered rapper-cum-actor emerges from an SUV and approaches a non-descript building. He nods at the receptionist then takes the lift to the fourth floor. Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson strolls into his agent’s office, the world at his feet and creativity oozing from his every pore.

“Fiddy!” shrieks his agent, a small, balding and tanned white man. “How can I help my favourite client today?”

Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson sits in a chair opposite his agent’s desk and eyeballs the man for a few seconds before speaking in articulate and measured tones. “Lenny. I need to do another movie.”

Lenny sighs and draws hard on his cigarette. “Fiddy, I have nothing but respect for your work, for your art, for your vision; but, and I say this with love: the world does not need, want or could possibly even tolerate you appearing in another feature film.”

The pair stare at each other across the desk. The silence is unbearable. In the distance, a police siren sounds. Eventually Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson cocks his head to the side. Such is the understanding between these two long-time partners, Lenny understands this simple gesture to mean, ‘please Lenny, elaborate on that for me’.

Exhaling once again, Lenny continues. “Listen Fiddy, it’s not that the public didn’t like Get Rich or Die Tryin’, or Dead Man Running or, ahem, Gun, it’s just that they’re lousy movies and the longer you spend trying to convince people that you’re an actor, the more you look like a goddamn putz. Why don’tcha make a new album, or try something new like oil painting or something. Hell, make another videogame. Anything. You’re a lot of things Fiddy, but an actor you ain’t.”

Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson ponders this. “Lenny, I respect you too, but this is just something I’ve got to do.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I do, I’ve already signed a contract. I’m producing too.”

“Ah jeez. What’s this one gonna be like then?”

“It’s called Setup. I play a violent criminal, whom the audience is expected to sympathise with. My gang steals some diamonds but we’re betrayed by a member of the gang with whom I’ve been friends since childhood, played by Ryan Phillippe. I spend the rest of the film trying to track him down. There’s gonna be a whole mess of misguided religious undertones, which will feel weird and unnecessary. It’s gonna be a pretty bog-standard gangster flick, you know? That’s what I’m aiming for: inoffensive, but painfully average. There’s gonna be some vaguely screwball elements like something out of a Tarantino or Coen Brothers film, but with none of the class or panache of either. Also, Bruce Willis will feature as another horrible gangster and even though it will be nice to see him looking like he’s having a little bit of fun, it won’t be anywhere near enough to make the film worth watching.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

Lenny sits back and lights another cigarette. “I’m sorry Fiddy. I’m sure it won’t be as bad as all that.”

“It already is. It’s going straight to DVD.”

“Ah jeez.”

“It gets worse. I got five more films in various stages of production.”

“Ah jeez!”

“How did it come to this Lenny?”

“I don’t know man. I just don’t know.”

The two men are silent once more. A cool breeze blows through the streets of LA. The earth turns on its axis. And life goes on.
___

The above might be based on possible events that could have happened.

Cannibal Review

And the winner of the Jack Kirby Award for Utter Cinematic Masturbation 2011 goes to…Benjamin Viré’s Cannibal! Benjamin, get up here and tell us how you did it!

The plot of Cannibal is as follows: Max (Nicolas Gob) is a weirdo living by himself in the woods. Every day, he practices his golf swing. One day, a stray ball lands near the body of a woman (Helena Coppejans) lying prone and apparently dead in the woods. As opposed to calling the police or ambulance like a regular Joe, Max decides to scoop her up and take her home. Turns out, the woman isn’t dead. Instead she regains consciousness and begins flirting with Max. She claims to have no name so Max calls her Bianca. Bianca sneaks off and kills folks by eating bits of them. Max decides to cover for her. SHE IS A CANNIBAL. BAD DUDES are looking for Bianca. Drama ensues. A climax develops. The viewer awakes from their slumber intermittently.

If you read my reviews regularly, you may have correctly come to the conclusion that I don’t mind art-house cinema. I like it when filmmakers decide to do things a little differently, to mix things up, to try something new without the backing of Hollywood. Hell, I’ll even watch a film where they’re speaking some weird-ass, non-English language and you have to read the words at the bottom of the screen. Cannibal does try to do things differently. It fancies itself as an intellectual horror-film. It thinks because it does a lot of scenes in blurry slow-motion, or because it includes a crudely written monologue about the psychology behind cannibalism or because it RANDOMLY GOES INTO BLACK AND WHITE FOR NO GOOD REASON in the final act, that it’s some sort of clever film.

It is not.

Cannibal is a compendium of incoherent scenes, loosely related to each other. The action of the picture is often so blurrily represented, it’s genuinely guesswork to say what is happening. The characters are both annoying and under-developed, making it a total impossibility to give an actual shit what happens to them.

Plus points? Well, Cannibal has few well composed shots and in the brighter daylight scenes, there’s a kind of super-contrasted look to the film that looks like an old photograph from the 70s, which is nice, but other than that, the film is complete pony, a massive exercise in style over substance – though in reality displaying very little of either. Avoid at all costs.

Blitz Review

Jason Statham and Paddy Considine as the fuzz kicking arse and taking names on the trail of a cop-killer in South East London, this writer’s very own ends? I’ll take a slice of that pie, please. I had been meaning to catch Blitz at the cinema upon its release, but it didn’t stick around long enough. As such, I was delighted when the test disc dropped through the post for its DVD release.

Statham is, of course, the rogue cop and loose cannon, but by god, does he get results. He’s not afraid to break a few bones (though not his own) in pursuit of justice and is only tolerated on the police force as he’d be too dangerous operating on the other side of the law. He teams up with new boy Considine, who’s just been transferred over from poncey West London. Considine’s character is gay, and though he may get some stick from the lads on the force, he can still kick someone’s testicles in with the best of them. Aiden Gillen (seen lately in his Machiavellian role in Game of Thrones) plays the titular cop-killer in a role that is maniacal and unsettling and David Morrissey fills in as a tabloid journalist.

Blitz is a successful in that it is likely to exceed the expectations of most. You do get a fairly by-the-numbers cops and robbers action thriller, but it’s certainly from the upper echelons of the fairly by-the-numbers cops and robbers action thriller stable. Considine and Morrissey are obviously top class talents and Statham is clearly the best at what he does in the curious little niche he’s carved for himself – the slightly wry British hard-man niche. Elliot Lester’s direction is unfussy and decently done and Nathan Parker (who previously co-wrote the excellent Moon)’s script is similarly no-nonsense.

The only real misfire is the subplot involving a previously undercover cop’s battle with drugs (featuring Zawe Ashton, currently starring in Fresh Meat), which slows down the otherwise slick plotting. The film also has the misfortune of having its cinematic release just prior to and its DVD release just after the recent scandals involving the rozzers and hacks. Whilst Blitz depicts a far from harmonious relationship between these two factions, you’d imagine that had it been made twelve months later, there’d be another interesting theme to be explored.

That said Blitz is an above average, very solid cop movie. Whilst it isn’t exactly the most sedate film I’ve ever seen, I would perhaps have liked it to push its craziness/good taste boundaries a little further – it does threaten to go further over the top, but frequently reigns itself in. Other than that, it’s a very enjoyable film made all the more exciting as I tried and mostly failed to recognise the various fried chicken shops in the background.

The Round Up Review

If you’re looking for a summer feel-good film, look away now. Still with us? Good. The Round Up is a French language period drama, set in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942. The fragile peace of the Jewish communities is rocked as the Nazis tighten their grip on Jewish freedoms before arresting over 13,000 people and transporting them to the Vel’ d’Hiv velodrome. There they are cared for by a small number of tireless nurses and Jean Reno’s Jewish doctor, before being moved on to a work camp. We already know all too well what fate awaited them after that.

The film is painstakingly researched from eyewitness accounts and portrays one of the most disturbing and merciless chapters of history. Writer and director Rose Bosch captures the events of the film with a dignified and humane touch. The film is not exploitative and the terrifying subject matter is handled well. She can thank her cast for putting in excellent performances. There are several parts for very young actors who accredit themselves well. Mathieu Di Concerto is especially good – he plays a boy of about three, so he can’t be much older himself – in his portrayal of an orphan who has no idea what is happening. The same character is played by what is presumably the boy’s real life brother, Romain Di Concerto in the epilogue. Though he is still an infant, his innocence is irrecoverably lost.

There are some stunning scenes in the film. The ‘round up’ itself is particularly gripping and the revelation as to the extent of the arrest as the camera pulls out of the velodrome is quietening. The scenes in which French government makes deals with the Nazis over the fates of their own people is particularly horrible too. It’s isn’t all doom and gloom however – there are touching moments as firemen smuggle out secret notes from the captured Jews and Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds)’s protestant nurse is a source of constant human kindness.

The less well done parts? It’s difficult to criticise a film that attempts to put such a horrific tragedy on screen in such a well-made way. Perhaps the few scenes in which Hitler himself appears were unnecessary – they don’t move the plot forward in any way. It also may have interesting to study the Nazi guards – and French collaborators – more too. I badly wanted to know why and how ordinary people could be brainwashed into treating fellow ordinary humans in such despicable ways; unfortunately this isn’t something the film focuses on. Why didn’t any of them say no? Perhaps there are no simple explanations I guess. The film is first and foremost a historical drama and not a psychological study, after all.

If you’ve any interest at all in the history of the Second World War, or if the treatment of Jews by the Nazis is not something you know too much about, I would whole-heartedly recommend seeking out this film. It is, of course, an event that should never be forgotten and The Round Up is a welcome channel through which people should remember a tragedy.

Ghosted Review

Paul (Compston), is a young convict who is transferred to a new prison and begins to mix with the wrong crowd, led by the violent and unpredictable Clay (Parkinson). Watching over the young man with a personal concern is Jack (Lynch), a benevolent prisoner nearing the end of his sentence, who, having lost his own young son, takes a fatherly responsibility for Paul. Thus begins a tug of war for the well-being of Paul’s very soul.

Ghosted is not a great film. Actually it’s barely approaching half-decent. First and foremost in its litany of problems is the fact that it is relentlessly dull. Even the ‘exciting bits’ where ‘stuff happens’ are entirely predictable and thus boring. And even if it were not rigidly ticking off every prison drama cliché in the Big Book of Prison Drama Clichés (Penguin, £5.99), the events in the film are so clearly signposted as ‘about to happen’ (‘that guy’s gonna get stabbed. Just watch. Any second now… Boom! Told you’), that if you can’t see them coming, you’re probably not road-safe.

The film retains some dignity in the okay-ish performances its three leads give, but it’s hard to appreciate whether or not they really are that good given that everyone in the film mumbles so much it renders about half of the dialogue unintelligible. It could just be the sound mix on the film, but honestly, if I feel I have to draw attention to how bad the frigging sound mix is, that should surely be indicative enough of how unworthy this film is of your time.

The ending is what really lets the film down badly though. There’s a pretty obvious twist that turns the film from simply boring into actively stupid, which is a shame really, as my opinion similarly twisted from indifference to annoyance.

It doesn’t make me feel good to criticise a low-budget, independent film, made with what I’m sure were the right intentions, but I have to be honest: it would be wrong to recommend Ghosted to anyone without a fairly pathological obsession with seeing every prison drama ever made. There are of course many worse films you could be see, but that’s far from an endorsement. The blame must be attributed to writer-director Craig Viveiros (given neither the writing or the direction are any good) and I sincerely hope his upcoming film, Lost in Italy, is a vast improvement.

Dinoshark Review

Recently (very recently!), I reviewed The Devil’s Tomb. I didn’t like it. My main criticism was that it took its stupid concept seriously, without humour or irony and I concluded that it wasn’t even worthy of being deemed ‘so bad, it’s good’. I watched The Devil’s Tomb immediately before I watched Dinoshark – now this is how to do a bad film well. Dinoshark is an unaccountably terrible film. But it knows this and is utterly hilarious.

The film begins with a chunk dropping off an ice shelf, from which several tadpole-like things emerge. Cut to three years later and behold! The Dinoshark! (Which, if you hadn’t guessed, is essentially a big shark with a tyrannosaurus Rex’s head.) The abominable being swims to Mexico to terrorise attractive American tourists and only the quick wits of Trace (Skyline’s Eric Balfour) and water polo trainer/marine biologist Carol (Croatia’s Iva Hasperger) can stop the beast.

I watched Dinoshark with my flatmates and we laughed long, hard and frequently, usually, it must be said at Hasperger’s truly revelatory, convention-breaking interpretation of ‘acting’. For her, no facial expression is too simple to mess up and no dialogue is left unscathed by her bizarre diction. It’s a joy to watch. There’s also a moment when, after making a crucial discovery garnered from a search engine similar-to-but-in-no-way-resembling-Google-at-all-no-sir, Hasperger gasps and, for reasons unknown, casually pops her top off! We were rolling in the aisles. She also delivers a gloriously dumb final quip, which we also enjoyed very much indeed.

There are naff special effects galore, dodgy Mexican accents and plenty of apparently bikini-induced slaughter. The infamous Roger Corman produced the film, in what is an obvious cash-in on the recent Sharktopus, which gives an indication of the kind of thing you’ll be letting yourself in for, namely dumb, kitsch, schlocky giggles, a splash of tomato ketchup and a healthy dose of good clean fun. Enjoy with friends and booze.

The Devil's Tomb Review

“Together, we will dine on the afterbirth of her new becoming!”

Need I say more?

I probably ought to. The Devil’s Tomb stars Cuba Gooding Jr as the leader of a band of mercenaries who have been tasked with finding a scientist who is trapped in a secret underground laboratory in a desert in the Middle East. As the team explore the facility, they encounter various priests and scientists all of whom are looking somewhat worse for wear and have developed a strange predilection for quoting scripture and spewing nasty-looking corrosive black vomit on our fearless heroes. As they progress, the true nature of their mission is revealed and various members of the group are killed and/or possessed by the mysterious evil presence lurking in the lab.

The Devil’s Tomb is a seriously poor film. The concept – stupid as it is – wouldn’t be so much of an issue if there were any humour or a sense of irony about the proceedings. Additionally, all of the characters are jerks, idiots or bores; as such you won’t be rooting for any of them. More annoyingly, there are three actors in the film I would consider genuinely exciting screen presences – Ray Winstone, Ron Perlman and Henry Rollins – and none of them do anything with their roles anywhere near interesting enough to even count as the ‘good bit’ in an otherwise bad film. They simply add to the naffness. Winstone recently stated in an interview on BBC 5 Live regarding his upcoming remake of The Sweeney that, “if the script weren’t good enough, I wouldn’t be doing it.” Clearly he has not applied the same level of scrutiny to The Devil’s Tomb, or he turned a blind eye for the pay check, or he was lying out of his East End arse.

There’s a whole catalogue of problems with The Devil’s Tomb – highlights of which include some truly cringe-worthy flashbacks courtesy of Gooding Jr and a painfully misjudged buboes-licking, pus-guzzling, lesbian love/mutilation scene, the inclusion of which is for the benefit of god only knows who; certainly not the poor actresses involved. There is also pretty much nothing at all to recommend it. Boring, unintelligible, addled crap. And don’t be thinking it’s one for the ‘so bad it’s good’ section of your DVD collection – it’s not even worthy of that questionable accolade.