Review #1,409: 'R.I.P.D.' (2013)

Ryan Reynolds may have gone out of his way to try and obliterate the memories of some of the terrible movie choices he's made over the years during the post-credit scenes of Deadpool 2, but the sheer scale of the misfires he's been caught up in never ceases to amaze. One of the standouts in his filmography of horrors is R.I.P.D., an adaptation of Peter M. Lemkov's comic book of the same name which comes across as a misguided mash-up of Men in Black and Ghostbusters and whose biggest boast is that it's probably just a tiny notch better than how terrible you've no doubt heard it is. The Men in Black comparisons are unavoidable from the get-go, and while the comic was released just as the love for Barry Sonnenfeld's smash-hit was at its highest, Robert Schwentke's adaptation has no excuse for such lazy regurgitation. Seriously, if you replace Will Smith with Ryan Reynolds, Tommy Lee Jones with Jeff Bridges, and aliens for monsters, you have the same movie. Only this isn't good.

Crooked Boston detective Nick Walker (Reynolds) buries gold stolen during active duty in his back garden, hoping the loot will provide a nice rest egg for him and his wife Julia (Stephanie Szotak) in the future. After deciding he doesn't need the money or the guilt on his back, Nick decides to turn it over into evidence, but not before revealing his intentions to partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon). During a police raid, Bobby informs Nick that he cannot allow the gold to be handed in, and shoots his partner dead. But death is not the end, Nick learns, and on his journey into the afterlife he is hauled into the office of the Rest in Peace Department, a force designed to capture any souls who refuse to pass over and instead remain on Earth, known as 'deados'. His humourless boss Mildred Proctor (Mary-Louise Parker) partners Nick with rugged former United States Marshal and Civil War veteran Roychepus 'Roy' Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges), a gruff figure from the days of the Wild West who speaks like a cowboy with a mouth full of cotton balls.

As R.I.P.D. was the beginning of what the producers hoped would lead on to a fully-fledged franchise, there's a lot of explaining to do. Before the plot involving the Staff of Jericho, the end of the universe as we know it, and the obligatory sky beam even kicks in, there are characters to introduce, rules to set in place and a mythology to establish. When the film isn't busy reeling off exposition, it's a chaotic mish-mash of jarring tones and woefully-realised action, as Nick and Roy bicker their way through the city searching for their targets, employing seemingly random questions and, for some reason, curry, to expose the undead's true, monstrous form. Bouncing aimlessly between slapstick comedy, tedious drama, endless chase scenes, and some hideously rendered CGI action, R.I.P.D. is a cesspit of half-baked ideas. Such hideousness could even be forgiven if the film raised the odd chuckle, or threw in a surprise every now and then, or it's lead star wasn't sleepwalking through the entire thing. Bridges, who actually seems to be relishing the chance to flex his goofy chops, certainly tries his best to liven things up, but even a seasoned Oscar winner isn't enough to save this from the cinematic rubbish pile.


Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak
Country: USA

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,258: 'Heli' (2013)

Tongues quickly began flapping after the screening of Amat Escalante's Heli during the Cannes Film Festival, where it was in competition for the Palme d'Or. It's reputation as a brutal and unflinching look at the effects of the drug trade in Mexico even caught the attention of BBC News here in the UK, which is where I first heard of the film. Escalante went on to win Best Director at Cannes, and probably deservedly so. Heli is a beautifully directed film, and wonderfully shot by cinematographer Lorenzo Hagerman. Yet it's matter-of-fact approach and insistence on painting all of its characters with broad shades of grey also makes it difficult to fully engage with. Almost everybody here is flawed in one way or another, and we are locked in a place that saw society crumble long ago.

Essentially a film of two parts, the first half lends much of its focus to 12 year-old Estela (Andrea Vergara) and her relationship with the much older police cadet Beto (Juan Eduardo Palacios). When he isn't being put through brutal and frankly bizarre training routines (he is made to roll in his own sick), Beto promises Estela a better life. One stolen load of cocaine later, and the military (or the cartel - lines are deliberately blurred here) burst into Estela's family home, taking her and older brother Heli (Armando Espitia) off to God-knows-where. The destination is the home of low-ranking cartel members, who proceed to torture and mutilate Heli and Beto. The second half focuses on the aftermath, and the toll the experience takes on Heli. Widespread corruption and brutality leaves a lasting mark on everybody.

The majority of Heli's power comes from its sudden bursts of violence. Even animals and children aren't safe here, and the film sets the tone during its opening scene, a long-take journey on the back of the truck that ends with one of them hanged from a bridge. It's main talking point is the torture sequence, which is one of the grisliest scenes ever committed to film. Not only are genitals set ablaze in one long take, but children are in the room, slouching on sofas and barely batting an eyelid. It's strong and effective stuff, but there's comes a point when you start to wonder if the film has a point to make. The cartel trade has seemingly locked Mexico into a never-ending cycle of violence, but this is nothing new. Heli is best enjoyed from a purely technical point of view, with an uncomfortable, tense atmosphere throughout, even injecting certain scenes with Herzogian strangeness. Still, it's a lot to sit through only to feel the strange sense of emptiness I felt when the credits rolled.


Directed by: Amat Escalante
Starring: Armando Espitia, Andrea Vergara, Linda González, Juan Eduardo Palacios
Country: Mexico/Netherlands/Germany/France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,127: 'The Look of Love' (2013)

After collaborating on 24 Hour Party People (2002) and A Cock and Bull Story (2005), two equally unconventional and uncompromising approaches to the biopic and novel adaptation respectively, prolific writer/director Michael Winterbottom and star Steve Coogan coupled up once again to tell the story of Paul Raymond, the property and smut tycoon once honoured with the title of richest man in the UK. While hit-and-miss in the comedy department and narratively all over the place, the double-act's first two collaborations were certainly all the more interesting for it, tossing formulas out of the window as they tried to grasp the nature and energy of their subjects, 'Madchester' music producer Tony Wilson and Laurence Sterne's famously unfilmable novel The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman.

Perhaps the most disappoint thing about The Look of Love is just how formulaic it is, despite trying to convince us otherwise by peppering the narrative with clearly ad-libbed vignettes involving a small score of British comedians. Beginning in the 1950's, and in black-and-white, when Raymond was working as a sea-side impresario, the picture then does a good job capturing the glitz and glamour of the 1960's, as Raymond's interests evolve from owning every property he can lay his hands on to offering titillating entertainment the stuffy yet curious masses. He puts on an awful theatrical production that claims to be a romp with added boobies, which is panned critically but does little but stir up more interest. After the energetic, entertaining rise, the film plummets into a non-stop barrage of cocaine, orgies and excess for its second act.

Raymond's wife Jean (Anna Friel) seems happy with her comfortable life of luxury and even lets her husband have sex with other women, but she is soon abandoned after the beautiful starlet of his new show, Fiona (Tamsin Egerton), catches his eye. By the 1970s, his 'tasteful' shows have given way to pornographic (but hugely popular) magazine Men Only, with Fiona as one of its most popular attractions, and his hedonistic lifestyle spirals further and further out of control. While his riches grow, he increasingly isolates the people around him. Except that is, for his daughter Debbie (the lovely Imogen Poots), an entitled yet troubled girl who shares her father's fondness for excess, and who seems to be the only person Raymond actually cares about.

Just what attracted Winterbottom and Coogan to Paul Raymond is a mystery. Making a movie about such an unappealing arsehole can certainly be interesting done the right way, but The Love of Love doesn't seem keen on saying anything profound about the man, the business he was in, or the society he operated in. Coogan hardly stretches himself either, playing Raymond as Alan Partridge playing Raymond, randomly throwing in a Marlon Brando impression and pretentiously quoting artists more intelligent than him. After a lively first half, events quickly descend into scene after scene of naked flesh and terrible wigs; all style and very little substance at all. It pains me to say it, as Winterbottom is one of the best British directors around who never seems content with playing in one genre, and even his lesser works always have talking points. But The Look of Love is empty and long, albeit bolstered by an impressive Poots and a wonderfully smarmy Chris Addison in a smaller role.


Directed by: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Steve Coogan, Anna Friel, Imogen Poots, Tamsin Egerton, Chris Addison, James Lance
Country: UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,125: 'Frozen' (2013)

Disney cannot seem to do much wrong these days. With Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm now under their wing, and billions of dollars rolling in as a result of those franchises, it's easy to forget that they were built on beautiful, groundbreaking hand-drawn animation that had children and adults alike utterly bewitched. With Pixar taking the lead as the modern-day innovators of animation, it's been a while since Disney delivered a 'cartoon' that really resonated with audiences on the level of, say, Dumbo (1941), The Jungle Book (1967) or The Lion King (1994). That all changed with Frozen, with the film raking in over $1 billion at the box office and receiving an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, as well as triumphing in the merchandise department. It's also now near-impossible to avoid hearing 'Let It Go' at Christmas time.

In the land of Arandelle, sisters Elsa and Anna enjoy a close friendship, with Elsa possessing the powers to manipulate ice and turn the most miserable of rooms into a dream-like playground. They are also princesses living in a huge castle, with their much-loved parents ruling the land as they play. After Elsa accidentally injures her sister as they play in the snow, her parents take her to a group of trolls who heal her, but insist that her memories of Elsa's powers are wiped to protect her from future harm. Elsa agrees, and locks herself in her bedroom, shunning the confused and lonely Anna. Years later, the king and queen are lost at sea, so the town prepares for the Elsa's (voiced by Idina Menzel) coronation. With the soon-to-be-queen unable to control her powers, she flees Arandelle, leaving it frozen in her wake. With the Duke of Weselton (Alan Tudyk) hoping to seize power in her absence, Anna (Kristen Bell) goes in pursuit of her sister, with hunky ice trader Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his dopey reindeer for company.

I was somewhat perplexed for the first third of Frozen. Early versions of the script had a more formulaic good sister vs bad sister dynamic, with an evil Elsa hijacking her sisters wedding and deliberately trying to kill her. The changes implemented were undoubtedly for the better, making for a much more interesting central relationship in the process, but this may also be the reason that several aspects are left unexplained. The origin of Elsa's powers raises the biggest question mark, with the film expecting the audience to simply accept her abilities as one of the quirks of a magical, fairytale land. Do we need a full explanation of how the princess can conjure an ice palace a la Dr. Manhattan and give life to goofy snowman Olaf (Josh Gad)? Well, no, but a little perspective would not be quite as jarring. The memory-erasing of Anna also seems somewhat harsh, with the extent of her injury never quite explored.

Still, Frozen succeeds by taking a formula that has served Disney well for decades and tweaking it for a modern audience. Instead of a snarling bad guy, we get the conflicted Elsa, a young girl with unfathomable powers who plays the role of anti-hero on occasion. The central love story is not between a beautiful princess and a handsome hero, but between two sisters whose bond is stronger than any destructive power. While I'm sick to death of hearing Let It Go, the moment Menzel belts out the infectious tune during the film is a wonderful moment. The remainder of the songs aren't quite as catchy, but the lush animation proves to be a wonderful distraction, and the comic relief Olaf is a genuinely funny, incredibly weird creation. While it's no masterpiece or even a game-changer, Frozen has all the makings of a Disney classic (arguably it already is). While parents may say they don't make 'em quite like they used to, I remember hearing the same thing back in 1994 when I saw Simba earn his crown.


Directed by: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Voices; Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,103: 'The Conjuring' (2013)

I doubt anyone could foresee the success of James Wan's The Conjuring, which, on the surface at least, looks no more remarkable than any of the gore-soaked horror bilge than swills into our cinemas every year. Released in the summer - a season hardly known for horror smash-hits - it proved that audience's desire to be scared lasts the whole year round, raking in the cash on the back of a moderate $20 million budget. It also managed to attract admiration from many critics, who found it both well-made and genuinely scary, harking back to an era when top directors took an interest in the genre and did wonders with it.

The film focuses on the Perron family, consisting of loving mother Carolyn (Lili Taylor), hard-working father Roger (Ron Livingston), and their five daughters, who re-locate to a dilapidated rural home in Rhode Island. While they settle quickly, it soon becomes apparent that there are other forces at work, and this supernatural presence isn't at all happy at the Perrons being in its home. Following a series of inexplicable events, Carolyn calls in paranormal investigators Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and his clairvoyant wife Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) for help, who quickly make up their mind that this is the most pissed-off haunting they have ever witnessed.

Long before the likes of Most Haunted graced out TV screens, Ed and Lorraine Warren were the real celebrity ghost hunters, investigating almost every famous case of so-called demonic possession you can think of, from Amityville to the Enfield poltergeist. Many of their investigations took place in the 1970's, and Wan gives the film a very 70's aesthetic, complete with a calm, moving camera and slow zooms. 1979's The Amityville Horror is a definite influence, and there are certain moments which will bring the likes of Don't Look Now (1973) and The Omen (1976) to mind also. While The Conjuring doesn't bring anything new to the table for seasoned horror buffs, it's nice to be reminded of a time when frights were delivered by expert hands, and the genre was alive with innovation.

Yet while Wan's film certainly does have its moments - a camera swirl from underneath the bed to the dark corner of a bedroom is particularly memorable - it falls victim to many of the tropes that plague modern horror movies. There's the occasional reliance on a jump scare to try and keep the audience engaged, and a climax that quickly descends into CGI nonsense complete with the obligatory exorcism scene. It's rather sad, as there is a good a cast delivering strong performances and a director who certainly knows what he's doing at play here, taking the time to craft an old-fashioned spooky tale without the need for gore or sex before the ending washes away all the good work. Still, it's refreshingly old-school, which is surprising when you think that this is from the guy who kick-started the Saw franchise.


Directed by: James Wan
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Shanley Caswell, Joey King
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,094: 'Blue Ruin' (2013)

During Blue Ruin's festival run in 2013, I recall hearing whispers of a new visionary in the vein of the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino who was unafraid to shock and rattle the audience with sudden explosions of violence combined with jet-black humour. While Jeremy Saulnier's second feature, following 2007's Murder Party, certainly has elements of the Coen's claustrophobic neo-noir work, the Tarantino comparisons are completely misjudged. Blue Ruin is very much the work of a director sculpting his own vision, and one that will keep you glued to your seat as the film twists and turns, deliberately dodging nearly every trope of the revenge drama.

While most revenge flicks begin with an act of violence that will lead its scarred protagonist on their journey of righting a wrong, Blue Ruin's initial hook is that it opens slowly and ominously, with a dirty, bearded man breaking into a home to take a bath. When the family arrive home, he flees into the neighbourhood naked, stealing clothes from a nearby washing line. Ragged and apparently half-starved, the man stumbles back to his home - a hollowed-out blue car (the 'blue ruin' of the title) in the middle of a field. This, as it turns out, is Dwight, our great hero, played with astonishing subtlety by Macon Blair, and a visit from the police quickly sets him on a vastly different path. The man responsible for something horrific in Dwight's past has been released from prison, so he heads back to his hometown seeking revenge.

The revenge is not the final goal of the film, as this is carried out early on in particularly gruesome and realistic fashion. Instead, it is the repercussions that place Dwight and his estranged family in a situation they can either flee from or face head-on. The victim of Dwight's act has his own family, only they are all gun-wielding criminals, and the lack of news coverage of the incident can only mean one thing - they have decided to take matters into their own hands. Although they are rarely seen throughout the course of the film, you get the sense that they are never far behind, forcing Dwight to seek help from and old childhood friend, ex-Army good ol' boy Ben (Devin Ratray - who I only realised after the film had finished played the bullying Buzz in Home Alone (1990)), and his arsenal of firearms.

While it may sound like the film veers off into the realms of gun fantasy, it really doesn't. The relative ease in which Dwight acquires weaponry only gives the film an underlying anti-gun message, and the scenes of bloody violence are certainly anything but pornographic. They are ugly and revolting, as are many of the film's characters, even the ones we're on the side of. Non-preachy themes aside, the main pleasures to be had with Blue Ruin are during its smaller moments. This is a film where a burst tyre or an accidentally self-inflicted knife wound to the hand don't simply provide an excuse for a set-piece, but pose serious problems for its antagonist. Despite the film moving at a slow pace for the most part, it's entirely nerve-jangling and almost scary, as it's almost impossible to guess where the movie may be heading. While I feel Saulnier's next slice of terror Green Room is a better film, this is only a sign of a director perfecting his craft.


Directed by: Jeremy Saulnier
Starring: Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack
Country: USA/France

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,045: 'The Green Inferno' (2013)

Ever since writer/director/producer/actor Eli Roth made audiences squirm with unimpressive yet popular horror sequel Hostel: Part II and directed arguably the best of the three faux-trailers shown in between Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof in their failed experiment Grindhouse back in 2007, the once-horror prodigy has fallen under the radar. For his big comeback, he turned to a long-dead sub-genre for inspiration - the cannibal flick. These blood-spattered, animal-torturing movies churned out in Italy during the 1970's and early 80's are clearly movies Roth holds dearly, especially Cannibal Holocaust (1980). But the main issue with taking heavy inspiration from what are generally appalling movies - Ruggero Deodato's masterpiece aside - is that you're going to end up with another appalling movie.

Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a freshman at Columbia University, starts to involve herself with the on-campus social activism after her eye is caught by the group's hunky leader Alejandro (Ariel Levy). Soon enough, Justine, Alejandro and the rest of the bearded, bead-wearing hipster types that make up the group are heading to the Amazon rainforest to highlight and hopefully stop an evil corporation who are tearing down chunks of a United Nations-protected area and massacring the native tribes in the process. When their plane crashes and poisoned darts start to fly into their necks, the group discover that the local tribe would rather be feasting on their flesh or mutilating their genitals.

Visually, The Green Inferno looks rather splendid with cinematographer Antonio Quercia nicely capturing both the lushness and the natural brutality of the Amazon. There are also some very convincing effects work done during the scenes of dismemberment and eye-gouging, with plenty to satisfy gore-hounds. But aside from the technical aspects, there is little else positive to say about the film. Izzo is the only one who convinced me that she was a professional actor, with the rest a bunch of extremely annoying lambs for the slaughter, struggling with an awkward script. While I didn't care much for either Cabin Fever (2002) or the Hostel movies, there was enough there to established Roth as a film-maker of promise. Here, it seems he's lost his way, fumbling around from one scene of gore to the next and managing to defy all sense of logic at the same time. Where Cannibal Holocaust got under your skin, The Green Inferno just gets on your nerves.


Directed by: Eli Roth
Starring: Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Daryl Sabara, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Magda Apanowicz
Country: USA/Chile/Canada

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,032: 'Ain't Them Bodies Saints' (2013)

David Lowery's strangely-titled Ain't Them Bodies Saints doesn't just tip its hat to a bygone era of film-making, but attempts to completely recreate the heavily visual but emotionally complex work that swept through cinemas during the 1970's, especially in America. The early work of Terrence Malick is a particular inspiration here, as vast Texas fields and looming thunderclouds play as the backdrop to the doomed love-story at its centre. On top of being a love-letter to one of finest ever decades for cinema, it manages to tell a compelling, if often isolating, little story in its own right.

Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) are two reckless young lovers. We meet them in the midst of an argument that is quickly laughed off as Ruth announces she is with child, but it doesn't take long for their passionate romance to be cut short. When Bob drags Ruth into his world of petty crime, they find themselves locked in a shoot-out with the police that ends when Ruth wounds Deputy Wheeler (Ben Foster). Bob takes the blame and is incarcerated for 25 years to life, and the two attempt to maintain their relationship through written correspondence. A few years later, Ruth learns through the lonely Wheeler that Bob has escaped from prison and is no doubt coming for her.

The film moves into more predictable territory following Bob's escape, as we follow him on his slow-burning journey across state lines, employing the assistance of friend Sweetie (Nate Parker) to help him creep gradually closer to Ruth without being detected. As Ruth struggles between longing for her true love and the realisation that running off with a now-hardened criminal may not be the best thing for her daughter, Wheeler lets his affections known. A gentle, morally-upright man respected in the community, he offers her a safe passage and undoubtedly a better life, but Ruth still finds herself drawn to the dangerous outlaw lifestyle. Her father Skerritt (Keith Carradine), having watched over Bob as a child, has a somewhat resentful sympathy for their love, and warns Bob of a group of ne'er-do-wells who arrives in town in search of him.

The cast are excellent in their roles and compliment Lowery's desire to tell an emotionally complex story with fewer words than you would expect. Affleck is at his best when he is carefully treading the line between volatile and gentle, injecting Bob with a sympathy despite his characters occasional dark turn, and Mara perfectly captures Ruth's inward struggle between comfort and danger. Yet most impressive of all is Foster, toning down his usual wide-eyed shtick and showing a softer side perhaps not seen since Six Feet Under. For all its melancholic poetic narration and tormented gazes into the distance, the film tends to betray this approach when the dialogue comes, as the character spell out their predicaments when there's no call for it. More frustratingly, Lowery keeps the mysterious aspects of his movie a bit too close to the chest, as the reasons behind the appearance of the men hunting for Bob's head is teased but left infuriatingly unexplained. A bit like the title, it is alluring but seemingly hollow.


Directed by: David Lowery
Starring: Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Keith Carradine, Nate Parker
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #991: 'The Hangover Part III' (2013)

Some film-makers form a trilogy to tell a tale, finding it a unique way to fashion a story and give the beginning, middle and end enough time and breathing space to flesh out on their own, forming stand-alone pieces that work just as well on their own in the process. Others, like The Hangover helmer Todd Phillips, use it to squeeze every drop of money out of a proven formula and fool an audience into thinking that, given the success of a previous instalment, they're in for a guaranteed good time. Only The Hangover Part II was terrible, and Part III is even worse, to the point where the franchise is barely recognisable from the hilarious and charming surprise it was back in 2009.

Ditching the formula that saw our three bumbling heroes wake up from a particularly heavy night in a variety of terrible states to find that one of their part is missing and no memory of what went down, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) are instead roped into a plot involving an escaped-from-prison Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and the gangster looking for him, Marshall (John Goodman). But also ditched is any sense of humour or even any actual jokes, and in its place comes cruelty and distastefulness. Opening with Alan towing a giraffe home on the back of a trailer, events take an expected unfunny turn as the animal is decapitated and Alan is convinced that he needs help. It's on their way to rehab that they find themselves confronted by Marshall and Black Doug (Mike Epps), the latter returning from the first film.

Conveniently brushing Doug (Justin Bartha) out of the way again as Marshall holds him captive so the threesome can try and generate some laughs, The Hangover Part III becomes a pedestrian bore; a series of set-pieces that quickly run out of steam. In an attempt to make up for the clear lack of inspiration, Chow's role has been beefed up even more, but Jeong's hyperactive and excruciatingly annoying shtick gets old very quickly. A scene near the end sees Chow parachuting through Las Vegas screaming obscenities, and I was left scratching my head at just how the sleeper-hit of 2009 ended up at this point. When there's a rare chuckle to be had, it comes from Galifianakis and franchise-newcomer Melissa McCarthy, who at least manage to lend a little heart to what is quite frankly an unpleasant 100 minutes.


Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #958: 'Snowpiercer' (2013)

Studio interference is certainly nothing new in the movie business, but it's sickening to think that, with all the disastrous films that have been the result of suits sticking their noses into an artists vision, an experienced and extremely successful studio head like Harvey Weinstein can demand edits on a finished product that had already tested well with audiences. And so, Snowpiercer limped onto the big screen in selected cinemas and performed well with the small audiences that were actually able to see it, and is still unreleased in many countries, including here in the UK.

The English-language debut of genre director Joon Ho Bong, Snowpiercer mixes post-apocalyptic spectacle with social and political commentary with equally mixed success. Set on board of the eponymous, self-sufficient train that navigates the globe once every 365 days in a world thrown into a new ice age by our attempts to halt global warming, our scruffy hero Curtis (a steely-eyed Chris Evans) has spent the last 17 years cramped inside of the lower-class carriage. Fed nothing but 'protein bars', which consist of questionable ingredients, and occasionally having their young children taken from them by armed guards, Curtis, along with leader Gilliam (John Hurt), plan a revolt.

The revolt will hopefully lead them to the front carriage, where the upper classes live in luxury and with plenty of space. Backed by his loyal second-in-command Edgar (Jamie Bell), Curtis plans to release security expert Namgoong (Kang-Ho Song) to aid his path through the many carriages, eventually gaining control of the engine held sacred to most. However, their progression is met with resistance by Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), a Margaret Thatcher-type who demands social order with a small army of masked men with an assortment of nasty weapons, and who answers only to the train's creator, Wilford (Ed Harris).

Snowpiercer is at its best when at its most ferocious. A carriage fight involving Mason's terrifying guards and Curtis's beaten-down group of peasants, played out mostly in darkness, is a moment of nightmarish horror. Evans, having done little of note since he became Captain America, gives it his all throughout, showing us the darker side of his persona now so synonymous with the clean-cut and morally righteous Steve Rogers. However, these injections of ferocity switch to outright comedy within the blink of an eye. Ho Bong has always been good at mood shifts - the swings from comedy to tragedy in his Memories of Murder (2003) is what made the film a masterpiece in my humble opinion - but Snowpiercer struggles to blend these moments together.

Almost immediately after the bloody battle, Curtis finds himself in a classroom teaching 'train babies', where we learn the history of the train and how they are being taught to worship the 'sacred engine'. It is filmed with a Terry Gilliam-esque absurdity, all bizarre angles and close-ups of an over-the-top Alison Pill as the violence turns into slapstick, jarring with the brutality that came before. For the most part, this is grim stuff, and Ho Bong is keen to keep reminding you. Along with the heavy violence throughout, we also get a monologue about eating babies that is too ridiculous to be taken with a straight face. There are some interesting comments regarding the use of fear and chaos to control a populace at the end, but the film doesn't seem to know when and how to finish. A very hit-and-miss experience.


Directed by: Joon Ho Bong
Starring: Chris Evans, Kang-Ho Song, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell
Country: South Korea/Czech Republic/USA/France

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #929: 'Fruitvale Station' (2013)

For those unfamiliar with the shocking events that took place in Oakland, California on New Year's Day in 2009, black youth Oscar Grant was detained by police officers on his way back from celebrating the new year, handcuffed, and eventually shot in the back while face down on the floor by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. In the opening scene of Fruitvale Station, we see one of the few grainy mobile phone videos taken of the incident. The camera is shaky, the audio is muffled, but the incident itself is as clear as day. What happened was undoubtedly a strange event, and writer/director Ryan Coogler doesn't try to make any sense of it. Instead, he is interested in showing us the human being behind the headlines.

Starting 24 hours before the shooting, Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) is in bed with his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz), and the two have a young daughter who naturally interrupts them moments before getting their freak on. It's a relatively uneventful day - Oscar visits a grocery store in an attempt to regain the job he lost a couple of weeks earlier due to being frequently late, sits down for dinner with his family, takes care of a stray dog, and ponders a potential drug deal. He's no saint, but he is a man trying to turn his life around and winds up tossing the bag of weed in his closet into the ocean. A former convict, Oscar hopes for a fresh start with his girlfriend and daughter and prepares to see the new year in with Sophina and his friends.

While it was a wise move to avoid any social commentary and attempt to unravel the mystery of just what happened on that day, this is undoubtedly a one-sided view and subtly whitewashes it's lead character. While a dark past is certainly hinted at, Oscar is portrayed as an extremely nice guy, and a dramatic narrative is forsaken in favour of a relentlessly positive depiction of a man we actually know very little about. Technically, the film is crisp-looking and has a naturalistic flow to it, with the scenes of family bonding never feeling forced or ham-fisted. Jordan is excellent, highly charismatic and proving rather imposing when called upon, and he will no doubt grow into a star despite the recent failure of Fantastic Four (2015). Mehserle was not charged for the murder - there's a strong argument that he actually meant to pull a taser -  but we will probably never know what really happened on the platform of Fruitvale Station.


Directed by: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #914: 'Pain & Gain' (2013)

The last few years have been somewhat kind to the cinema meat-head. Channing Tatum has found his niche bringing sweetness and humanity to the square-jawed jock with roles in 21 Jump Street (2012) and Foxcatcher (2014), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon managing to find a heart beneath it's slick-haired, vest-wearing and gym-obsessed protagonist. Pain & Gain attempts to take a satirical swipe at the type of people who take pictures of themselves after a workout session and plaster their achievements all over social media, as three idiotic and steroid-pumped opportunists decide to take what they feel is owed to them in life. It claims to be based on a shocking true story, although the plot takes extreme liberties with the real-life events.

Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is sculptured to perfection. He works at the gym where he feels he can help give anybody the body they want, and has helped his boss John Mese (Rob Corddry) turn the place around with a few smart business decisions. But his efforts have not given him the lifestyle he wants - a grand mansion, a top-of-the-range sports car, babes hanging off his massive arms, and every other materialistic pleasure life has to offer. He begins to lust after the kind of life lived by Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), and so hatches a plan to extort the man for every penny he has after being inspired by motivational speaker Jonny Wu (Ken Jeong).

Along with the steroid-addled and impotency-stricken Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), Daniel recruits enormous ex-convict and cocaine addict Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) to assist him in kidnapping and torturing Kershaw until he signs over all of his assets to them. The plan works, but they fail to kill Kershaw after attempting to run him over numerous times. However, nobody believes his story of three imbeciles pulling off such a crime, choosing instead to believe it to be the result of dodgy dealings with criminal organisations. So Daniel, Paul and Adrian are allowed to live the lifestyle they have fantasised about, until they decide it isn't enough and plan to shake down smut peddler Frank Griga (Michael Rispoli), while Kershaw hires private investigator Ed DuBois (Ed Harris) to help him take back his property.

It's quite a change of genre for director Michael Bay, who has spent the last few years making billions at the box-office with huge explosions and CGI robots. While Pain & Gain does demonstrate a previously unseen knack for black comedy, Bay does not possess the necessary skills to tell a story of murder and greed with the required intelligence or satire. When we should be laughing at these preening narcissists, Bay films them with his usual sickly sheen as if to admire them, obscuring the point the film is, I think, trying to make. The decision to play the film mainly for laughs is also in somewhat bad taste. While watching a coked-up Johnson remove a victim's fingerprints by grilling their dismembered hands on a barbecue is the stuff of black comedy gold, you have to remember that there were real victims in this story, and it all happened quite recently.

The main positive is that the performances are all spot-on. Wahlberg is perfect as a man who values his self-worth by his possessions, and Johnson restrains himself enough in a role that could have spilled over into complete farce. A lot of the film is in fact farcical, and not in a good way. Bay insists of filling the screen with fancy wide-angled shots and outdated screen text, when a little dose of subtlety would have worked better. Yet despite its flaws and a bloated sub-plot involving Doorbal's relationship with the doctor who is injecting his penis with the necessary drugs to make it work properly (Rebel Wilson), Pain & Gain is pretty entertaining, and amusing enough to hope that Bay may think about taking a different direction to his usual blockbuster drivel (although he did make the appalling Transformers: Age of Extinction after this).


Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Bar Paly, Rebel Wilson
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #906: 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' (2013)

While 2012's The Hunger Games, based on the opener of Suzanne Collins' trilogy, was very much a collection of familiar genre tropes and felt like Battle Royale (2000) for the Harry Potter generation, its themes of class suppression by a ruling elite and the grumblings of a working-class revolution felt refreshing for a story primarily aimed at a younger audience, and also extremely relevant to our times when wealth is seemingly celebrated above all else. Following the first instalment is the awkward middle entry, always struggling to bridge the gap between a fresh new world and its inevitable final showdown. Catching Fire struggles where most other middle sections fail - it's essentially a re-hash of the first film, and fails to progress the story enough to warrant its 2 hour 20 minute running time.

The movie makes a few key mistakes. Above all, it makes the terrible assumption that you've already read the book, failing to explain various aspects of the story which, although it doesn't confuse the rather straightforward plot, it left certain questions niggling in my brain. If the ultimate goal is to kill everybody you're lumped with and be the lone survivor, then why are teams of 'allies' forged by the game maker? What's really going on in the slums that we only glimpse in scenes of dusty faced onlookers? And are The Hunger Games, an event in which young members of the poor are plucked at random to inevitably die, really the best way to control an increasingly disgruntled majority? These questions aside, Catching Fire is also plain boring.

Picking up shortly after the climax of the first film, where the bow-and-arrow-wielding Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) won the Hunger Games with her close friend Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) after choosing to die together rather than one surviving, the two champions are left pondering the aftermath. Finding herself a hero to the enslaved working class, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) insists that she play her role and help maintain social order. Following a few incidents of rebellion, Snow decides that Katniss is a threat and turns to new Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) for council. His idea is to throw all the past victors of the Hunger Games into the event together, bending the rules in his favour by introducing a natural disaster or event every hour, including poisonous mist and killer mandrills.

Despite Jennifer Lawrence's obvious star quality, Katniss comes across as one-dimensional and charisma-free, failing to justify her 'chosen one' status. Her budding romance with gruff district worker Gale (Liam Hemsworth), to whom she explains that her kiss with Peeta was merely a way to manipulate the audience into aiding her survival (although her feelings may be becoming real), feels like a discarded draft of Twilight. The characters are so robotic that I simply didn't care who lived and who died. Catching Fire ultimately feels like a way of stretching out a story that could have been told in two instalments, where, by the end, I felt like we were no further along than where we were at the start. The ending comes so abruptly that it's obvious the filmmakers are under the illusion that they're leaving us thirsty for more, but while that may be the case for its huge fanbase, it left me staring at the screen waiting for any kind of satisfaction that I knew would never come.


Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lenny Kravitz
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #875: 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2' (2013)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was a pleasant surprise back in 2009, with directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord - before they hit the big-time with 21 Jump Street (2012), it's sequel 22 Jump Street (2014) and The Lego Movie (2014) - taking a rather ridiculous premise based on a slim children's story and making it both hilarious and supremely inventive. It was a story that was wrapped up nicely as not to require a sequel, but with box-office success comes the inevitable follow-up. Miller and Lord lampooned the whole idea of sequels with 22 Jump Street, but decided against helming the next chapter in Flint Lockwood's eccentric world, which makes it all the more surprising that Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 is even more delightful than the first.

With the town of Swallow Falls engulfed by giant food as a result of the events from the first film, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), his girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), his father Tim (James Caan), and the rest of his fellow townsfolk are relocated to California by inventor and TV personality Chester V (Will Forte) while the place is cleaned up. Flint, Chester's biggest fan, is invited to work at Live Corp., where he will be allowed to work on his crazy inventions undisturbed in the hope of landing a permanent job. His 'celebrationator' creation falls flat, but Flint is still summoned by Chester to be informed that the search-parties back in Swallow Falls have gone missing, and the place is now overrun by giant cheeseburger spiders.

The cheespiders are just one of many delightful and bonkers 'foodimals' in the film, others of which include shrimpanzees, tacodiles and watermelophants. They're the type of physics-dodging nonsense a child would come up with while bashing plastic figures together, so no doubt children will love them. Adults too, will no doubt get a certain kick out of temporarily switching off the logical side of the brain and turning up the nostalgic side. It's also beautiful to look at, in a hyperactive, blink-or-you'll-miss-it sort of way, with the sheer volume of these bizarre creatures darting in and out of the picture providing a feast for the eyes, and the cheespiders proving to be somehow terrifying and cute at the same time.

Above all, it's laugh-out-loud funny and relentlessly chaotic, and there's probably a 'message' in there somewhere as well. Not that the film is too concerned with preaching morals and not that the audience will call for it; it's too busy being exhaustively entertaining for all that. The returning acting talent (although Terry Crews replaces Mr. T as super-ripped cop Earl Devereaux) is uniformly excellent, and newcomer Forte, along with some loopy character design, helps turn Chester V into a charismatic and ever-bending (literally) super-creep. Like a packet of sweets, it can be like a sugar overdose at times, but you'll most likely keep on eating and feel buzzed for a short time afterwards.


Directed by: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Voices: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Samberg, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, Terry Crews, Kristen Schaal
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #843: 'Under the Skin' (2013)

Director Jonathan Glazer's third film in 13 years, Under the Skin, begins with a collection of hauntingly beautiful but unfathomable images, while the soundtrack whispers a strange, alien voice that gradually evolves into broken English. Clearly taking 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) as its main inspiration, the film is a hark back to a time when sci-fi was a canvas for art, placing less importance on plot and narrative, and delving deep into the philosophical side of outer space and the great unknown. A dead girl is picked up from the side of the road by a man on a motorcycle (Jeremy McWilliams) and brought to a curious-looking female, Laura (Scarlett Johansson), who dons the girls clothes and is next seen on the streets of Glasgow.

We don't know who these people are, and know little about them by the time the final credits roll. Glazer shows us snippets at an extremely leisurely pace - this is a 'high art' film that will no doubt have as many people staring at the screen in wonder as it will people checking their watches. We get the sense that the motorcycle man is bad, and as Laura starts to pick up random men in a white van, taking them home and leading them, erections bulging, into a dark black substance, it would seem that she isn't too nice either. But when she picks up a man disfigured by neurofibromatosis, she begins to feel sympathy, letting the man go free and wandering off into the Scottish Highlands to explore our world, trying to make sense of her new emotions.

What is most fascinating about Under the Skin is the way it manages to juggle hyper-realism with genuinely eerie, provocative science fiction. What happens beneath the mysterious black liquid I won't reveal here, but it's a moment of unexpected horror that felt like a slap in the face. The sense of realism is no doubt thanks to Glazer's decision not to hire actors for the victims, and instead opted to use hidden cameras to capture their genuine reaction to being picked up by a beautiful woman and driven home for sex. It gives the film a slightly sleazy edge, and we only see Laura's transformation start to take shape when she picks up the deformed man - a quiet, possibly virginal man who has experienced much suffering.

Scarlett Johansson is a revelation. Hiding her glamorous Hollywood beauty behind a head of dark hair and cheap clothes, she is at first calculating and in control, luring victims with relative ease. But when she first experiences sympathy and flees her apparent mission, she experiences both ends of the spectrum of the human experience. A friendly man takes her in, providing food and a roof over her head, and Laura starts to appreciate her own body, curiously observing her own naked form in the mirror. Her next experience lands her in the clutches of a rapey construction worker. By the time the credits roll, many will be left feeling cold, confused and possibly bored, but I found Under the Skin to be an experience like no other, and it places Glazer at the top of the list of the many young, talented British directors to keep tabs on.


Directed by: Jonathan Glazer
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Adam Pearson
Country: UK/USA/Switzerland

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #832: 'Fast & Furious 6' (2013)

There was once a time when this franchise retained a shred of realism. At the climax of the first film, The Fast and the Furious (2001), there is a moment in which a character must make a life-or-death leap from a moving truck into a moving car, both travelling at super-high speed along a straight road. Following the series' and its characters transition from loveable rogue criminals who dabbled in robberies and drag racing, into a super-group of international ass-kicking Robin Hood types, such distractions as the laws of physics are no longer an issue. Yes, this is the daftest entry yet, but the series shows no signs of fatigue, and, judging by the ever-increasing box office receipts, it won't be throwing in the towel any time soon.

After reaping the rewards of their multi-million dollar heist in the previous film, Fast Five (2011), the Fast & Furious gang are scattered and enjoying living the high life. Dom (Vin Diesel) is shacked up with Elena (Elsa Pataky), and Brian (Paul Walker) has seen the birth of his son Jack with Mia (Jordana Brewster). Han (Sung Kang) is in Hong Kong with Gisele (Gal Gadot), and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Taj (Ludacris) are indulging in a life of private plans, expensive suits, and an entourage of babes. However, their retirement is interrupted by the arrival of D.S.S. agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), who brings Dom the shocking news that we were teased with in the post-credits scene of the fifth movie.

Dom's former girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), believed to have been murdered in the fourth movie, Fast & Furious (2009), is in fact alive and kicking, and working with international terrorist Shaw (Luke Evans), a Brit whose criminal philosophies come into direct contrast with that of Dom's. To Shaw, his team are little more than moveable pieces to be manipulated and sacrificed for his own gain, while Dom believes in the sanctity of 'family'. After a thrilling set-piece involving Shaw escaping in a custom-made racing car through the streets of London (clearly the film-makers have never seen the traffic in the capital), Dom comes across Letty for the first time, who in return shoots Dom without blinking. It appears amnesia is to blame.

You have to hand it to long-serving franchise helmer Justin Lin, who is given the task of increasing the ante with every film, and always having to involve cars. And what better road vehicle to employ to increase the carnage than a tank? We get that and a plane, in what feels like the longest runway take-off ever seen on screen. As long as the plane is still on the ground, it doesn't stand a chance against Dom and co. With their evolution from petty criminals into fully-fledged heroes comes an inexplicable ability for hand-to-hand fighting. We get Letty take on series newcomer Riley (Gina Carano from 2011's Haywire) with roundhouse kicks and wrestling moves, and a slow-motion leaping headbutt from Diesel in what proves the film's giddiest, must ludicrous moment. And with the series finally catching up to the events seen in Tokyo Drift (2006), we are offered a glimpse at the next film's antagonist, which, I'm rather ashamed to say, is an exciting moment indeed.


Directed by: Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Ludacris, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, Elsa Pataky
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #814: 'Nebraska' (2013)

After 2011's slow-moving but well-acted The Descendants, writer/director Alexander Payne (here only on directorial duties) returns to the road-movie formula that served him so well in his greatest film, 2004's Sideways. When we first meet Nebraska's grizzled and hunched hero, Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), he is plodding along a snow-laden road, wandering without any sense of direction. He is picked up by the police and taken back to his iron-fisted wife Kate (June Squibb), who longs to put this 80-plus year old man, teetering dangerously on the cusp of dementia, in a home.

His son, David (Will Forte), is a passive young man who is unhappy in his salesman job and has recently separated from his girlfriend. He learns from his mother that his father was on his way to Lincoln, Nebraska (Woody lives in Montana) to pick up a million dollars he believes he has won in a junk mail sales scam. Where most people would throw it away without thinking twice, this grey-haired old coot believes that they can't say it if it isn't true. In his stubbornness, Woody convinces David to drive him to Lincoln, and David, having lived most of his life in the shadow of his small-town news anchor brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk), sees a chance to spend some time with the father he doesn't really know.

Like most Payne efforts, Nebraska is low on plot but high on humanity. After a long career playing eccentrics and loons, Dern gives a highly understated performance, which is without a doubt the best work he has ever done. More than just a poor old man to feel sorry for, Dern brings a history to the eyes of his character, a man who has seen his life come and go without really realising it. In one extremely touching scene, David questions his father about why he and his mother got married. Woody says "I figured, what the hell," and when David asks him if he was ever sorry he married her, he replies "all the time." It's a desperately sad and honest portrayal of a man helpless in his regret.

Yet, like most of Payne's films, Nebraska is also very funny. As Woody becomes a local celebrity in Lincoln, his home town, when knowledge of his 'wealth' spreads, Woody finds old friends (such as Stacy Keach's Ed) and half-forgotten family coming out of the woodwork looking for a handout or what they believe is owed to them. This is when Kate turns up, a small but feisty woman, prone to telling her sons about how she was the subject of many a groping hand in her youth, much to David and Ross's disgust. Squibb is magnificent, and injects energy into the film when it starts to need it. Nebraska is Payne's most mature film to date, gorgeously filmed, expertly performed, and surely now one of the definitive films about reaching the end of your path.


Directed by: Alexander Payne
Starring: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie