Review #1,474: 'Amour' (2012)

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has been provoking - often outright antagonising - his audiences for decades, from the home invasion horror of Funny Games, to the ugly suburban murder of Benny's Video, to the bleak, post-apocalyptic vision of the future from Time of the Wolf. His 2012 effort, Amour, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is his most compassionate film to date, although Haneke's compassion still feels like a sledgehammer to the chest and a knife to the heart. The title, which translates as 'love' from French, is about precisely that, but this is not the syrupy, sentimental love we're used to from cinema, but the kind experienced by any couples lucky enough to have enjoyed a long-lasting relationship into old age.

The couple are retired music teachers Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), who both enjoy a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle in Paris. We are introduced to this grey-haired pair as they attend the concert of Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud), one of Anne's former star pupils, and their subsequent car journey home. This is the only glimpse we are allowed of their everyday life, as once they arrive home to discover that someone has attempted to break in, we never leave the building again. The next morning, as they sit down to breakfast, Anne becomes unresponsive, gazing blankly into space as Georges tries to snap her out of it. Before the old man can get help, she is back to normal, completely unaware of this momentary void. Anne has suffered a stroke, and after an operation on her blocked carotid artery goes wrong, she is left wheelchair-bound and paralysed down one side.

In anybody else's hands, this could be a story of overcoming hopelessness and helplessness, and of a couple undeterred in the face of looming death. But Haneke isn't interesting in sentiment, and opts instead to observe the loving couple as Anne deteriorates further, pleading for an end to the pain and humiliation after a second stroke, while Georges cares for her as best as he can. Anne makes her husband promise never to take her back to the hospital, so their apartment becomes a tomb where any visitor is an unwelcome intrusion. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) makes the occasional visit from London, where she lives with her British husband Geoff (William Shimell), to offer help, but she doesn't understand the emptiness of her offer. She isn't there for the diaper changes, the periods when Anne can do nothing but moan in pain, and Georges' struggle to move her whenever she needs to visit the bathroom.

It's tough, gruelling stuff, but it's heartbreaking in a way that anybody in a loving relationship can relate to. It's something we simultaneously hope to reach and ultimately dread, and there's a real unflinching honesty in the way Georges and Anne react to their new predicament. The idea that old age eventually catches up to everybody is hammered home by the casting of Trintignant and Riva, who have naturally grown into their 80s and are barely recognisable from their glamorous 60's heyday. However, Amour is not an exercise in misery. Haneke handles these characters with incredible delicacy, hinting at an unshakeable bond that, despite a few wobbles down the years, has only strengthened with time and has long since evolved into something greater than the word love can truly express. Amour certainly puts you through the ringer, but you'll likely emerge with a greater appreciation for your loved one.


Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell
Country: Austria/France/Germany

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,215: 'Maniac' (2012)

William Lustig's original Maniac, released in 1981, was both a personal project for lead character actor Joe Spinell, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and an exercise in exploitation scuzziness destined for grindhouse notoriety. For all the flaws that came with such a low-budget guerilla horror movie, it was an interesting portrayal of an unhinged killer bolstered by an impressive, underrated performance from the genuinely intimidating Spinell. As the trend goes these days, it was always destined for a remake, and this 2012 update from director Franck Khalfoun and producer Alexandre Aja at least attempts to be its own movie by making the risky decisions of shooting the entire thing POV style from the psychopath's perspective, and in casting baby-faced nice guy Elijah Wood as the titular maniac.

Frank Zito (Wood) is a mannequin restorer living a reclusive lifestyle in his dingy store. By day he obsessively fiddles with his antiques and talks to the voices in his head, but by night he stalks the streets for potential prey. He meets a pretty photographer named Anna (Nora Arnezeder) who is impressed with his collection and wants to utilise them for her art opening, and the two seem to hit it off. Frank becomes enamoured but doesn't want to kill her, so he scours dating sites for unwitting victims instead. He has a fondness for scalping his victims after they have been strangled, and decorates his mannequins with them as he tries to recreate the various women in his life, including his mother, who we learn from flashbacks was promiscuous to say the least. Alone in his room, Frank communicates with the figures, using insect repellent as the flies gather around the decomposing flesh. With Anna, he seems to have finally developed a normal, sustainable relationship, until he finds out she has a boyfriend.

A lot of positive things have been said about Maniac, from the ambitious technical approach to the against-type performance from Wood. While it gets tiresome rather quickly, the POV gimmick is at least interesting, forcing us to try empathise with a remorseless monster as he carries out his heinous crimes, and offering only glimpses of Wood's saucer-eyes in reflections. Yet Wood is merely okay in the role, and most of the plaudits seem to stem from the fact that film plays with our expectations in casting an actor of such small physical stature. Although, in his defence, he spends the majority of time off-screen. The remainder of Maniac consists of extreme, ugly violence towards women, sensationalised ever further by the visual gimmickry on show, and late night chases through inexplicably abandoned streets, where all roads lead to dark alleyways. This schlock approach could almost be forgiven if the film had the aesthetic and mood to get under your skin (something the original succeeded in doing), but it doesn't. It's certainly something gore-hounds will love, but I enjoy my horror served with more substance.


Directed by: Franck Khalfoun
Starring: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder, Genevieve Alexandra, Jan Broberg
Country: France/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,195: 'A Royal Affair' (2012)

A Royal Affair opens with a melancholy Princess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain narrating as she pens a letter to her unseen children. Flashing back in time, she is a young and beautiful teenager about to be shipped off to Denmark to marry her cousin, King Christian VII of Denmark, giggling and dreaming about what her new life will be like with a man who sounds like the ideal husband. It would seem that we are in very familiar costume-drama territory, and director Nikolaj Arcel's film makes sure to include all the factors that make the genre so appealing to some: the beautiful young bride; an unknown kingdom; handsome period costumes; a bastard child; and a love affair that is passionate but ultimately doomed. Yet a careful, character-driven approach ensures that A Royal Affair doesn't boil over into overwrought hysterics. What emerges is a tense tale of political intrigue and terrific performances, and a fascinating history lesson to boot.

As the Princess, played by Alicia Vikander, arrives in Denmark, she immediately encounters her husband not as the gallant artist she expected, but as a nervous man-child, giggling to himself while hiding behind a tree. The King (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard) is a puppet on a throne, and quite clearly mentally deranged. He doesn't take much of a liking to his new Queen, and prefers to spend his free time getting drunk in the company of big-breasted prostitutes. Her optimism is quickly turned into bitterness, and is pleased when her husband decides to take a year off his duties to tour Europe. Shortly after his return, German Johann Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen), a skilled yet humble doctor, is recruited as the King's personal physician. He instantly forges a strong bond with the mad King, who is pleased to have a man of stature and intelligence by his side amidst his stern, old-fashioned council. Struensee's influence in court grows, but he finds himself caught up in a dangerous love affair with the Queen that could mean both of their heads should they be discovered.

This being 18th century Denmark, the King is surrounded by a council of religious old men looking to keep the country firmly in the Dark Ages. Struensee is a believer in the Age of Enlightenment, a progressive philosophical movement spearheaded by the likes of Voltaire and Rousseau. The Queen also shares his liberal views, and their love story isn't so much about their own sexual impulses but a driven and united desire to illuminate their country. Realising just how great an influence he is on the King, the doctor quickly sets about abolishing oppressive laws such as capital punishment, the torturing of suspects, and censorship. This immediately puts him at odds with the ruling aristocracy, who view him as a foreigner destroying their fatherland, and they waste no time looking for a way to expel him from court. It's alarming just how familiar it all sounds with the general one-step forward, two-steps back nature of politics. The three leads are all strong, with Mikkelsen in particular convincing as the reserved man of Enlightenment. By avoiding dramatic melodrama, A Royal Affair succeeds as a simmering portrayal of social disintegration and an intimate, intellectual love story.


Directed by: Nikolaj Arcel
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Mads Mikkelsen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Trine Dyrholm, David Dencik
Country: Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,176: 'Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted' (2012)

A distinct lack of charm and originality have never been criticisms to inspire a studio to scrap a billion dollar franchise in favour of doing something a little more worthwhile, so Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) return four years after their detour to Africa for another continent-spanning adventure, this time in Europe. This third entry into the hugely successful franchise packs so much colour, noise and incident into its 90 minute running time that the issues with the first two films - which are still present here - are reduced to a mere afterthought. To my utter surprise, Europe's Most Wanted is actually quite fun.

Bored with Africa and longing for their home in New York, the anthropomorphic foursome take sail to Monte Carlo, where the penguins and primates have already made themselves at home. An incident in a casino leads to a vicious, game-hunting animal control worker named Chantal DuBois (Frances McDormand) chasing them across the city. As the authorities close in, the group make a break for it by hopping on a circus train, where they are met with resistance by a bitter, once-famous performer Vitaly the Siberian tiger (Bryan Cranston), but welcomed by the doe-eyed jaguar Gia (Jessica Chastain) and the optimistic sea lion Stefano (Martin Short). With the circus lacking inspiration with a tired act, Alex and co. come up with a plan to reinvigorate the show as they tour Europe, in the hope of making enough money to get them home.

Making up for the blocky, uninspired animation of the previous movies, Madagascar 3 is a feast for the eyes, really coming to life during the physics-defying, laser-filled circus shows. The script is slightly more sophisticated, which is possibly due to the involvement of Noah Baumbach, yet the characters still need to compensate for the lack of actual jokes by shouting nonsense or falling over. As for the newcomers, they are infinitely more engaging than the stock long-lost family members from part 2, with Cranston clearly revelling in the chance to do a ridiculous Russian accent, and Chastain purring it up as the love interest. However, the biggest impression is left by a character who doesn't speak at all; a giant female bear (the growls are performed by Frank Welker) who forms a weird romantic relationship with King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) in the movie's most endearing transgressive move. The narrative is packed with problems, but the whole thing whizzes by far too fast to care.


Directed by: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon
Voices: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frances McDormand, Jessica Chastain
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,083: 'The Bourne Legacy' (2012)

With Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass apparently done with the world of Jason Bourne (although they both returned this year), franchise screenwriter Tony Gilroy, also on directorial duty here, attempts to expand on the universe further with the fourth entry into the series, The Bourne Legacy. While the first three focused on Bourne's battle with the CIA's top-secret agencies' attempts to hunt him down to save themselves embarrassment and exposure, Legacy unravels the rippling effect the amnesiac's antics has on those at the top-level, as well as the other assassins who were usually a text message away from going toe-to-toe with him.

One of these assassins is Jeremy Renner's Aaron Cross, who we meet early on alone in the Alaskan wilderness on a training exercise that requires him to take dangerous leaps between snow-laden rocks, ensuring he doesn't become dinner for a pack of wolves, and other harsh survival activities. These early scenes are full of promise, as Cross drops the meds key to his super-humanness and draws out fellow operative (played by Oscar Isaac) in the hope of re-upping on his supplies. They are quick to realise something is wrong when their hut is obliterated by a tooled-up drone. The attack is one of many on operatives trained under the Treadstone, Blackbriar and Operation Outcome programs, as Eric Byer (Edward Norton), an ex-Air Force colonel, is hired to clean up the mess uncovered by Bourne and journalist Simon Ross (Paddy Considine).

Cross's escape and quest to find more magic pills puts him on the trail of biochemist Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), a good doctor who manufactures the drugs that enhance his skills and who he has encountered before in the past. A mass murder-suicide at the laboratory leaves her as the sole survivor, and Cross conveniently jumps in at just the right time as she is attacked at her home by agents posing as psychologists. Every occurrence in these films seem to be the handiwork of a tie-wearing, craggy-faced puppet-master at the top of the CIA, and one of the main joys of Jason Bourne's adventures was seeing him take revenge on the men and women working outside of the law, and those responsible for turning him into an emotionless terminator who carries out multiple killings. Legacy's main issue is that Cross's mission to find a fix removes the personal and redemptive elements in favour of a McGuffin that the film spends a lot of time trying to explain.

In the early scenes, Renner demonstrates precisely why he was hired to take over from Damon, delivering a chattier, more human protagonist with even a hint of maliciousness. Renner brings the same unpredictable physicality that won him Oscar nominations for The Hurt Locker (2008) and The Town (2010), and his dialogue with Isaac is by far the best moment of the film. Yet as the film goes on, his personality all but vanishes, choosing instead to have him play the one-dimensional action hero, leaping between buildings and occasionally beating someone to the ground. It's a terrible waste, and his character would have been served better if so much time wasn't invested in scientific gobbledegook explaining why he must get from A to B. There's a couple of reasonably entertaining action scenes here and there and Norton does slimy incredibly well, but the brute nature of Greengrass's aesthetic is sorely missing, and, despite the title, The Bourne Legacy fails to distinguish itself from any other film on the action movie conveyor belt.


Directed by: Tony Gilroy
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,059: 'End of Watch' (2012)

David Ayer has forged a pretty decent career examining the darker corners of Los Angeles and the cops and criminals that inhabit it. While the writer/director has pained officers of the law with heavy shades of grey in the likes of Training Day (2001), Dark Blue (2002) and Street Kings (2008), End of Watch is one big salute to the boys in blue. While the partners at the centre of the story occasionally enjoy a ruckus and bend the rules when the situation calls for it, they are undoubtedly the good guys worthy of every medal going. In order to place the audience right in the firing line, the film is shot documentary-style using miniature cameras.

Old friends and long-time partners Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are beat cops, patrolling the streets of South Central L.A. and answering calls for anything from domestic violence to come gruesome murders committed by the Sinaloa Cartel. For a 'project', Brian decides to record everything he and Mike experience while on patrol, fixing cameras to their bodies for a full POV perspective. Outside of the force, Brian and Mike are the best of friends, with Brian starting a relationship with the spunky Janet (Anna Kendrick) and the two double-dating with Mike and his wife. But unbeknown to them, the Cartel have placed a target on their heads after they expose a cell for human trafficking.

Your opinion of End of Watch will most likely depend on your stance on the 'found footage' genre. It's been done to death, especially in the past few years, and here it feels like its employment is a gimmick designed to make it stand out from the barrage of cop movies that are churned out of every year, although it does add a sense of reality to the action. Along with Brian and Mike's mini-cams, the gang of Surenos employed by the Cartel also film each other as they talk tough about killing cops and swear a lot. Ayer also uses an extra camera on occasion, even when there are no characters there to stand behind it. It's an uneven and almost redundant tactic, that it's a wonder why Ayer didn't simply stick to the film's main hook of having the actors film each other.

One of the most impressive things about End of Watch is the chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Pena. Both deliver terrific, believable performances, and their in-car banter provides most of the laughs. While their chest-puffing, overly-masculine chit-chat and behaviour does become somewhat exhausting, they are likeable, down-to-earth company. It also depicts a truly terrifying Los Angeles, with the streets brimming with danger and violent thugs ready to pounce. It almost feels like some war-torn country at the other side of the world rather than the city often portrayed as exciting and glamorous in cinema. It's very much a mixed bag overall - a silly action climax betrays the gritty realism that comes before - but there are many palm-wetting moments to be admired.


Directed by: David Ayer
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, David Harbour, Frank Grillo, America Ferrera
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,023: 'The Act of Killing' (2012)

The 1960's saw great political upheaval in Indonesia, with then-President Sukarno being overthrown by Suharto, and the Indonesian Communist Party finding themselves the subject of a widespread propaganda smear campaign. Death squads were created to systematically wipe out the Communist party and anyone suspecting of sympathising with the organisation. Between 1965 and 1966, it is estimated somewhere in between of 500,000 and 1 million Indonesians were murdered in a massacre widely ignored by Western countries. Shockingly, the heads of the death squads still hold power and influence in their country, with many now employed as high-ranking military officers.

A straight-forward documentary covering the topic would have no doubt been a powerful and upsetting experience, but director Joshua Oppenheimer, along with co-directors Christine Cynn and somebody listed as 'Anonymous', have rejected this approach and, with The Act of Killing, have subverted the genre entirely. Obviously appalled at the countries failure to highlight the atrocity and punish those responsible for the crimes committed, Oppenheimer has instead opted to give the killers the opportunity to tell their own story. Yet rather than talking-heads juxtaposed with archive footage, Oppenheimer gave them a film crew and the freedom to depict their acts in a movie of their own making. The results, quite frankly, are utterly astonishing.

Portraying their war crimes in a variety of genres that range from musical numbers and film noir to westerns and bizarre dream-like sequences, their cinematic vision is naturally cheesy and poorly handled, complete with bad acting and stodgy dialogue, with one gangster over-eager to dress in drag in an effort to lighten the tone (and succeeding in the process). However, Oppenheimer isn't interested in the final product (which we don't get to see), but how the film-making process affects those involved. At first, these killers, rapists and torturers are utterly loathsome, demonstrating absolutely no remorse whatsoever about their actions. One, Anwar Congo, gleefully displays his efficient method of murder, which involves strangulation by wire, while another boasts to his friends about the delights of raping a 14-year old girl.

Yet Congo, who is viewed as a sort of celebrity in his country, starts to reflects on the pain and suffering he has caused. In one scene, he plays a victim being interrogated while tied to a chair. When the wire is tied around his neck, the experience has a profound affect on him, sitting motionless in silence as his friends look concerned and baffled. He later watches it back, transfixed, and starts to break down. The Act of Killing is careful not to sympathise with its subjects (Oppenheimer quickly points out to Congo that his victims' experience would have been far worse), but at least tries to understand them. It's less about the atrocities Indonesia experienced than the act of killing itself, and what could possibly drive anybody to such cold-blooded barbarity. It's a powerful and moving experience like no other movie I've ever seen, and it is no overstatement to hail this as one of the greatest documentaries ever made.


Directed by: Joshua Oppenheimer
Starring: Anwar Congo, Herman Koto
Country: Denmark/Norway/UK

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #922: 'Seven Psychopaths' (2012)

Even though I wasn't blown away by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's directorial debut, In Bruges (2008), the film contained enough memorable one-liners and great performances to have me anticipating his next feature. In the four years that elapsed between In Bruges and his follow-up Seven Psychopaths, Martin's brother John Michael wrote and directed the offensively hilarious The Guard (2011), and in 2014 gave us Calvary, one of the truly great films of that year. Martin's limelight has been stolen somewhat, and Seven Psychopaths is a slight let-down. It's a movie about movies, or rather a movie within a movie, or even a movie without a movie - either way, it's a bit of a mess.

Script-writer Marty (Colin Farrell) has writer's block. He knows what his next movie is going to be called - Seven Psychopaths - but the title is all he has. Struggling with alcoholism, he tries to keep his girlfriend Kaya (Abbie Cornish) happy while his unhinged best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) tries to worm his way into a writing credit. Looking to avoid creating yet another movie glamorising violence, he wants his psychopaths to retain some humanity and have the message of his movie be about peace and love. Billy suggests he takes inspiration from the 'Jack of Diamonds' killer, who only kills high-ranking mobsters and is currently on a killing spree in Los Angeles, and they take an ad out in the local paper asking for real-life psychopaths to come and tell their story.

Billy also kidnaps dogs from rich folk for a living along with his partner-in-crime Hans (Christopher Walken), but they have just stolen a Shih Tzu from the wrong man - gangster and madman Charlie (Woody Harrelson) - a man we first meet trying to fix his gun so he can shoot the young girl who had the dog in her care in the face. Marty has the vaguest of ideas about his other psychopaths - one being a Vietnamese war veteran (Long Nguyen) dressed as a priest looking to avenge his family's murder during the war, and another a quaker (Harry Dean Stanton) who stalks his daughter's killer for decades - but no way of connecting them and one story possibly accidentally stolen. With Charlie on their tail, Marty, Billy and Hans flee to the desert to contemplate their fate and finish the script once and for all.

This is an odd film from start to finish. The opening scene depicts two gangster (Michael Stuhlbarg and Michael Pitt) discussing famous murders of people being shot through the eyeball, before being blown away themselves by the masked Jack of Diamonds killer, It's reminiscent of the Tarantino-inspired wave of self-aware crime flicks of the 1990's, where pop-culture references and quirky humour trumped anything dark and serious. The use of freeze-frames to introduce it's collection of psychopaths also reminded me of the 1990's, when Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996) opened the floodgates for countless inferior imitators in Britain to do the very same. Are these the kinds of movies McDonagh was offered in the wake of a successful debut and is now satirising them? Or did he just run out of ideas and resort to emulating a now-dated era?

I found this the main problem with Seven Psychopaths, and I felt like I could never be sure if McDonagh was being smart, lazy, or both in an ironic clever-clever way. At the half-way point, the film begins to drag and meander as if McDonagh had genuine writer's block (there's a reason the main character is Irish and called Marty) but kept writing in the hope that it would eventually work itself out. But Seven Psychopaths does have moments of inspiration. As Hans, Christopher Walken makes the welcome return to the large roles that seem to have evaded him of late, and delivers a performance of real humanity. The dialogue too, is as quotable and vicious as you would expect from the man who penned In Bruges, with the humour providing a welcome distraction from the barrage of exhaustive violence - and maybe that's the point. But whatever the point, this will more likely leave you scratching your head trying to figure it out.


Directed by: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits, Olga Kurylenko, Abbie Cornish, Harry Dean Stanton
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #880: 'Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God' (2012)

Never a film-maker to shy away from trying to make sense of a somewhat catastrophic event or subject matter, Academy Award winning documentary film-maker Alex Gibney tackles the subject of paedophilia in the Catholic church. From the bottom, where apparently celibate priests have free reign over their own church relatively unsupervised to take confessions inside a broom cupboard and prey on children while they sleep, to the very top, where cardinals cover-up or ignore the problem, and the Pope fails to acknowledge the many flaws in their beloved system. It's a film of two halves, each powerful and expertly crafted in their own right, but failing to come together into a cohesive narrative.

The first half is the most powerful and heart-breaking. Throughout the 1960's, priest Lawrence Murphy sexually molested in the region of 200 young boys. At the St. John School for the Deaf in Milwaukee, four men tell their own unique and frightening stories of the abuse they suffered and the lack of help available. Similar to many families in this period, their families could not sign and therefore could not understand their cries for help. Signing to the camera and narrated by actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery, the four men's disabilities become a metaphor for the years of silence endured by other victims of no handicap, who over the course of time have heard their cries fall on closed ears, especially when it came to calling out for justice or at least an explanation from the Vatican itself.

When the film shifts into its second phase, it becomes more conspirational and less human, throwing us facts and archive imagery as Gibney looks under every rock he can find. What he uncovers is hardly surprising - a huge Vatican cover-up and the relocation of many priests finding themselves under scrutiny from the locals were covered in somewhat less detail in Amy Berg's unsettling Deliver Us From Evil (2006) - but he is searching for some kind of explanation. Hearing of abuse cases dating back hundreds of years among the priesthood, it seems the Vatican see the problem more as an inevitability. It often feels like Gibney is clutching at straws, trying to find a link to every corner of the corridors of power, and the absence of any spokesperson from the Vatican is an admittedly unsurprising disappointment. But it avoids the pitch-fork waving approach, and tells us of a very real problem for which we have few answers for.


Directed by: Alex Gibney
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #869: 'Taken 2' (2012)

Pierre Morel's Taken (2008), a tough, disturbingly xenophobic thriller in which Liam Neeson's grizzled former CIA operative Bryan Mills took down a gang of sleazy criminals in Paris, was hilariously bad. But, in its defence, it was at least hilarious, etching Mills and his 'particular set of skills' into action lore. Taken was a surprise box-office success, igniting the recent wave of codgers-dealing-out-some-old-school-brutality films which the likes of Denzel Washington, Kevin Costner and Sean Penn have embraced to varying success, and proving that audiences still have a thirst for that kind of thing.

So inevitably came the sequel, and the producers cannot be blamed for trying to squeeze their new franchise for every penny it's worth before the genre naturally reverts back to straight-to-DVD. What they, as well as the writers and director (franchise-newcomer Olivier Megaton - no, not the infamous Decepticon, though he may have done a better job), can be blamed for, is for putting the audience through the same exact experience again, only without the originality (I use that term loosely) or a coherent action scene. There's plenty of running, punching, kicking, shooting, stabbing etc., but Megaton is so busy waving his camera around and cutting every second that we are left relatively clueless about what is going on, or who anybody is.

Not that this matters - unless it's Mills, his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) or his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) - then they're toast, especially if they have thick stubble and are wearing a leather jacket. A gang of Turkish mobsters led by Murad (go-to Eurosleaze Rade Serbedzija) vow vengeance for their brothers and sons who died at the hands of Mills during the events of the first film. After completing a routine security operation in Istanbul, Mills is joined by his ex-wife and daughter for some family time. Only, Mills and Lenore are 'taken', leaving Kim alone to locate her father so he can do what he does best and unleash his special skills on the scumbags.

Simply recycling what came before is unforgivable in itself, but going about it in such bland, formulaic and increasingly ridiculous ways make the experience even more torturous. The movie has one simple message - America good, the rest of the world bad. L.A. is shot in glorious sunshine amongst the safety of middle-to-upper class suburbia, while Istanbul consists of dingy alleyways and overweight men puffing cigarettes in cockroach-infested rooms. This casual xenophobia may have waved somewhat if the film delivered any thrills at all, but it doesn't, and fizzles out with a weak climax. Neeson somehow manages to come away from it all unscathed again (and with his wallet no doubt heavier), but his ability to make lines such as "when a dog has a bone, the last thing you want to do is try and take it from him," sound like Oscar-bait does not save Taken 2 from complete disaster.


Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Rade Serbedzija, Luke Grimes
Country: France

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #828: 'Magic Mike' (2012)

Magic Mike opens in a bright but subtly sleazy nightclub, with Matthew McConaughey's (following his dark turn in 2011's Killer Joe and continuing his recent career renaissance) strip-club owner Dallas, dressed in leather and a cowboy hat, stroking his private area and asking the ladies in the audience "can you touch this? No, no, no, no." But Magic Mike, loosely based on lead actor Channing Tatum's experiences as a stripper aged 18, shows that the ladies certainly can touch it, giving us a fascinating and slightly intoxicating insight into a male fantasy life, warts and all, and the lack of substance that comes with it.

Dallas's main attraction at his Xquisite Strip Club is 'Magic' Mike Lane (Tatum), who when he is not packing the club with screaming ladies, has threesome's with his kind-of girlfriend Joanna (Olivia Munn) and takes construction work to help fund his entrepreneurial aspirations. He meets college drop-out Adam (Alex Pettyfer) and calls in a favour after he helps Adam into a club one night, promising him paid work if he helps backstage while the men perform on it. Mike and Dallas eventually throw him on stage, and the ladies love him. But Adam has his demons, and his sister Brooke (Cody Horn), makes Mike promise to look out for him.

Although the film is primarily about Mike, the first third of the film mainly focuses on Adam, giving us a wide-eyed view-point into this seductive world of admiring women, endless parties, and all the uppers you could pray for. Mike seems custom made for this world and he embraces the g-strings, body oil, and all the superficialities that come with the job. But as he witnesses Adam's head-first plunge into self-destruction, he begins to wonder if the benefits of the job outweigh the ultimate cost. Director Steven Soderbergh manages to capture these moments with a sickly sordidness.

It also has a brighter side, with Tatum once again bringing a likeability to the all-American jock type. It's the first male stripper film since The Full Monty (1997) of any note, and the strip scenes are infused with an energy and a playfulness that is funny without mocking the industry. The dance routines are increasingly ridiculous, one in which has 'Big Dick' Richie (True Blood's Joe Manganiello) end his routine with the unveiling of his not-so-secret weapon, and Tatum busting some genuinely impressive moves. The romance that develops between Mike and Brooke is predictable but sweet, mainly thanks to Horn's performance, and it's about 20 minutes too long, but ultimately Magic Mike is an engaging and sometimes unconventional experience.


Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Matthew McConaughey, Olivia Munn, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #791: 'Spring Breakers' (2012)

Anyone unfamiliar with the unconventional work of former film-making brat Harmony Korine may mistake some early scenes of Spring Breakers - seemingly his first venture into 'mainstream' directing - for the youth and skin-worshipping work of MTV, or even a pop video. The camera pans across and lingers on an endless array of bikini-clad, big-breasted babes, toned, air-punching jocks, and all kinds of behaviour you wouldn't want to see your adolescent child participating in. But there's something vacant and lifeless in their expressions, and the film captures them with a mundaneness despite the thumping beats and gorgeous cinematography. It would seem Harmony Korine doesn't like the youth of today one bit.

He voiced his distaste (or at least wrote it) with his screenplay for Larry Clark's Kids (1995), as it's various characters spread HIV throughout the youth of New York and generally waste their days smoking pot, drinking alcohol, skating in the park, and committing petty crime, all with a disturbing lack of responsibility. Spring Breakers is less realistic and less confrontational, but taps into a youth culture more people can recognise and even relate to. The film often feels like a banal Facebook status brought to life for 90 minutes. And this can often be as tedious as it sounds. Our young and gorgeous heroes spout bull-shit teenage poetry and do hand-stands in corridors and car parks, and these scenes often repeat themselves to nauseous effect.

The film follows four college girls - Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson), and Cotty (Rachel Korine - Harmony's wife) - on their spring break. They're short of cash, so they rob a diner armed with water pistols and a hammer, and set off to St. Petersburg, Florida to indulge in sun, sex and alcohol. All is going well until they are busted and thrown in jail for taking cocaine while partying with some older, less-friendly types. Unable to pay their bail, the girls find themselves facing spending their spring break behind bars, and missing out on the life-changing event they have been so looking forward to. Things look up, however, when a rapper named Alien (James Franco) bails them out.

He seems to be in everything these days, popping up in soap operas, TV shows and movies alike as well as finding time to dabble in poetry, short stories and directing. It would be easy to be sick of the sight of James Franco, but his appearance in Spring Breakers takes the film out of the realms of the dreary into something all the more invigorating. It may even take you a while to recognise him, with his cornrows, gold teeth, tattoo's and gangster swagger. He makes Alien, for all his cartoonish behaviour, scarily believable. He brags to the awe-struck girls, "look at my shit!", while he shows them his collection of guns, tanning oil, shorts, and piles of money. Two of the girls lap it up - the other two are wise enough to bail - and are more than willing to participate in his gang activities.

Sadly, Franco's best efforts aren't enough to rescue Spring Breakers from humdrum. While the film intermittently comes to life, scenes drag and linger while monotonous narration plays over the soundtrack and the camera ogles breasts and crotches. There's certainly a message here, and Korine's viewpoint is crystal clear, but perhaps it's too clever for it's own good, becoming just as dreary as the world it is satirising. It will be certainly interesting to see where Korine goes from here, and hopefully his shift into more conventional film-making doesn't mean the peculiar quirks and off-the-wall tone that made Gummo (1997) so utterly brilliant is gone forever.


Directed by: Harmony Korine
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez, Rachel Korine, James Franco
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #750: 'The Central Park Five' (2012)

Social injustice and the failure of the justice system has long been a favourite topic for documentary film-makers. It's been done to death, sometimes raising enough attention for the case that it leads directly or indirectly to releasing the incarcerated (The Thin Blue Line (1988), the Paradise Lost trilogy (1996-2011)), or exposes enough holes in the story to make you doubt the effectiveness of police interrogation and/or the legal system as a whole (Brother's Keeper (1992), Capturing the Friedmans (2003)). It's estimated that 10,000 innocent people go to jail every year, so naturally, this kind of thing keeps rearing it's ugly head, and it makes for riveting and gob-smacking viewing.

The 'Central Park Five' are Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, youths aged between 13-15 in 1989, who found themselves in the wrong place, in the wrong city, at the wrong time. Trisha Meili, a young jogger running through Central Park, New York, was viciously beaten, raped, and left for dead by Matias Reyes, a notorious rapist who confessed to the crime years later. The five boys were in a group of 30 or so others, some causing havoc and attacking people, when the police descended on them. Through long and intense interrogations, the five made false confessions to witnessing the crime, incriminating one another with the promise of being allowed to go home.

The first hour of The Central Park Five is its finest. Ken Burns, directing here with his daughter Sarah and her husband David McMahon, is a historian at heart, digging out terrific archive footage of a city consumed by crime and racial tension, in the midst of the AIDS outbreak and the savage crack wars. The young boys, all black or Latino, were nothing but scapegoats for the NYPD, who were looking for a quick and tidy conviction. The brutal witch-hunt they suffered following their arrest, and the lazy role of the press - labelling the boys actions before the assault as 'wildings' and failing to do any real investigating of their own - is representative of the social and racial divide. This was a time when the city averaged six homicides a day.

There is also a wealth of footage showing the boys' 'confessions', which are fascinating to see unravel. There is a special moment when Korey Wise is shown a picture of the victim's bruised and battered head, and the sound that leaves his mouth leaves you in doubt of his incapability of committing such an act. The second half of the film left me frustrated. There are no big, satisfying moments of anyone getting their just deserts, and the Five, now released from prison and cleared of guilt, shows a startling lack of bitterness to the ordeal they experienced. There's certainly a lack of anger to the film, both by those involved and the directors, and it leaves things a little cold. But perhaps that's the point, that reality really is that harsh, and closure is hard to come by.


Directed by: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
Starring: Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #695: 'Silver Linings Playbook' (2012)

This is the kind of film that the Academy love and regularly shower with awards come Oscar season. Silver Linings Playbook is a story of love triumphing over mental illness that sees excellent performances across the board, but, as is the norm with these types of films, the 'serious' subject matter glosses over the cracks in the story's believability, and the happy ending rather waters down the seriousness of bipolar disorder, resulting in a somewhat insulting message that love can somehow cure mental illness. But David O. Russell, the former indie pioneer who's now a regular Oscar-botherer, is a good director, and with it's many flaws aside, Silver Linings is a funny, quite moving picture.

After being released early from a mental institution, Pat (Bradley Cooper), a man brimming with anger and who has bipolar disorder, tries to win back the wife that has taken a restraining order out on him. He has a new positive outlook on life, but is still quick to anger, throwing a book through a window because he doesn't like the ending. His parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro) try to support him but find it difficult to cope. He meets the equally unstable Tiffany (the beautiful Jennifer Lawrence), and the two make a deal. She will get a letter to his wife as long as he becomes her dance partner in an upcoming contest.

Russell's back catalogue shows his unique eye for comedy. I Heart Huckabees (2004) was a bizarre existential comedy full of oddball characters that really worked, and Three Kings (1999), his breakthrough, managed to squeeze many laughs out of a war-torn setting. Silver Linings Playbook is more comedy than drama, but the laughs are few and far between. De Niro is the real comic relief in the movie, but his OCD, Philadelphia Eagles-obsessed father isn't believable. In fact, the whole family setting asks a lot of the audience. For a film so seemingly grounded in reality (it takes the washed-out, shaky camera approach), the supporting characters just aren't real.

It works best when its two leads are together. The movie really depends on the chemistry between Pat and Tiffany, and they do sparkle in their scenes. It's rare that a movie makes me want characters to get together, but in the moments when they dance, you can feel the connection, and you want Pat to forget his estranged wife and open his eyes to what's in front of him. Cooper brings a likeability to a occasionally despicable character, but Lawrence steals the film. Tiffany is a force of nature, damaged by the death of her husband and now finds herself labelled a slut after many a one-night stand. With Lawrence at the helm, it's impossible not to fall in love with her.

The rom-com clichés are followed very much to the T, with eccentric minor characters that somehow all end up in the same place at the end, the will-they-or-won't-they climax, but it does them well. It also avoids any real upsets in Pat and Tiffany's journey, instead opting for a much more light-hearted, easy-going approach. But, like Pat says, isn't their enough fucking misery in the world already? Maybe he's right, but I feel the movie took an easy path opposed to a more serious study of the effects of mental illness.


Directed by: David O. Russell
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #678: 'The Hunt' (2012)

After garnering attention and acclaim from critics and art-house fans alike with his debut Festen (1998), things didn't pan out for Danish director Thomas Vinterberg as most people expected. He had a number of flops that passed by without anyone taking notice, and it seemed like the co-founder of the Dogme 95 movement was destined to be a one hit wonder. However, he hit back in 2012 with Jagten, or The Hunt, a powerful study of hysteria in a small town that was nominated for the Palme d'Or and took home Best Actor for lead Mads Mikkelsen.

It tells the story of teacher-by-trade Lucas (Mikkelsen) who is working for a local kindergarten school after the closure of his school. He is a quiet, lonely man living in the house he once lived in with his wife and son. He has his close friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen), the father of Klara (Annika Wedderkopp) who is in Lucas's kindergarten group, and the two regularly go on hunting expeditions with a circle of heavy-drinking friends. Things are looking good for Lucas when he begins to date co-worker Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), until the confused Klara tells another teacher that Lucas exposed himself to her and possibly molested her.

To avoid falling into the did-he-or-didn't-he category, Vinterberg wisely cements Lucas's innocence from the off, making The Hunt less a thriller and more of a serious study of small-town mentality and the rapid spread of mass hysteria. People whom Lucas once shared drinks with as friends quickly turn a simple, albeit dangerous, lie, into paranoid and sheer panic. Pamphlets are handed out to parents detailing signs of sexual abuse - nightmares, crying - things you would generally expect children to do anyway, but when faced with leading questions, the children are understandably confused about the facts and are willing to go with what their parents obviously believe.

Nobody seems to confront the fact that sometimes children lie, and even when Lucas's case is dismissed by police due to an overwhelming lack of evidence, he is still a predatory paedophile in other people's eyes and is isolated by the townsfolk. Mikkelsen, who will be familiar to most English-speaking audiences as the bad guy from Casino Royale (2006) and as Hannibal Lecter in the TV series Hannibal, gives an excellent, nuanced performance, who is at first confused and outraged, and later full of anger and contempt. This is very much an actor's film, with Vinterberg using a calm, hand-held camera to avoid intruding on the story. This film will leave you uncomfortable and frustrated, no doubt, but this is an important and powerful film about the dangers of witch-hunt mentality and condemning people as guilty until proven innocent.


Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Annika Wedderkopp, Lasse Fogelstrøm, Alexandra Rapaport
Country: Denmark

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #672: 'Beware of Mr. Baker' (2012)

Ginger Baker, that fire-haired, heroin-addicted, mentally unstable drummer of Cream and Blind Faith fame, is given a much deserved documentary here at the hands of Rolling Stone journalist Jay Bulger. For all his notorious genius - the guy single-handedly invented the drum solo and heavy metal owes a significant debt - the man is repulsively anti-social and, well, mad. We learn this from the opening scene, as Baker yells at Bulger, who is off-camera, that he doesn't want his friends and colleagues interviewed for the film, while Bulger protests. Cue a pause, then Baker stabs at Bulger with his cane, leaving the film-maker with a bloodied nose.

For the rest of the film, Baker is somewhat subdued, slumped in his reclining chair, never without a cigarette and his sunglasses, giving a reluctant commentary on his life and his career. It is Baker's discomfort at being an interviewee that slightly damages the film, as we never really get beneath those red locks and mad eyes of his to the soul (or lack of) beneath. So, Beware of Mr. Baker (the title comes from a warning sign outside Baker's South African ranch), becomes a mere birth-to-present biography of his career. It's still fascinating stuff, and Bulger has unearthed some excellent archive footage and photographs.

His colleague and family provide the more personal information on Baker, such as his estranged son, who recollects that he was briefly happy with his father, even drumming alongside him on-stage, before Baker verbally attacked him and sent him on his way. Baker, in simple terms, is a horrible man, but (as the annoying sell-out Johnny Rotten tells us), he is the type of man that true genius often produces. His affection for polo and heroin are not explored enough, and the real focus here is the music. The footage shown is outstanding, ranging from his superstar-creating time with Cream through to some mind-bending footage of drumming 'battles' with his peers and heroes. Yet Baker himself still remains a mystery, and perhaps it should stay that way.


Directed by: Jay Bulger
Starring: Ginger Baker
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #661: 'Mud' (2012)

Similar to his excellent 2011 feature Take Shelter, writer/director Jeff Nichols delivers another exceptional slice of small-town Americana. Mud's story is small, and its characters hail from some backwood town in rural Arkansas, living on makeshift boathouses on the Mississippi River. Yet although the focus is on these small people and their ordinary existence, there seems to be something larger and grander in its execution. Take Shelter showed a man's (possible) mental deterioration as he envisioned the apocalypse. In Mud, a very grown-up tale is seen through the eyes of two 14 year old boys, and theme that runs throughout is love. Yet there's always the feeling that the fate of the eponymous Mud (Matthew McConaughey) and Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) could somehow have global consequences, and that if they are doomed then so are we all.

After hearing about a boat that lies at the top of a tree as the result of a flood, two teenage boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), travel to an island on the Mississippi River in a speed boat. They find the boat, but they also find Mud, a rugged drifter with a gun, who asks the boys to get him food in exchange for the boat. It becomes evident that Mud is an outlaw, but the boys stay true to their word and deliver the food. Mud tells them the story of Juniper, the woman he loves, and hands them a note to deliver to her. As the boys seek her out in her motel room, they find her being abused by a man who is the brother of a man that Mud murdered. Despite the dangers, Ellis stays loyal to Mud and carries out the tasks he is asked to do.

There is more than just a hint of Mark Twain to the story, but Mud is successful in combining a number of genres - Southern gothic, coming-of-age drama, and sometimes even your standard man-on-the-run thriller. Cinematographer Adam Stone, who worked with Nichols on Take Shelter and his debut Shotgun Stories (2007), captures the Mississippi River immaculately, portraying its mythic qualities so lyrically that you may think it was capable of washing Mud up on the shore of its empty island. The world seems both peaceful and violent, two themes so contrasting that we can only be seeing this world from the viewpoint of Ellis' naive and innocent mind.

The cast is stellar. McConaughey seems well on his way to redeeming himself for his years of service to terrible rom-coms with an impressive performance, harking back to his early appearance in the magnificent Lone Star (1996). Small roles for Sam Shepard and Michael Shannon round off an impressive cast, and Ray McKinnon and Sarah Paulson (both former Deadwood actors) inject raw emotion into their roles as Ellis' separating parents. But it was Tye Sheridan that stole the show for me, giving a performance way beyond his years as the honest and headstrong Ellis. The scene in which he is humiliated by the girl he thought was his girlfriend, the expression etched across Sheridan's face becomes something more profound than simple confusion. Although it dips into a slightly disappointing and generic shoot-out climax, Mud is a fine film, and one that reminds us what it is like to love, as ugly and unpredictable as it can be.


Directed by: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon, Jacob Lofland, Sam Shepard, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie